Dr. Harold Delaney
1919-1994
A message from the Contributors
"I first met Harold in 1971 when he served as a member of a Middle States Association evaluation team at the University of Baltimore. He was then with the SUNY System in Albany. As an evaluator, he was (like he was virtually in all relationships) sympathetic to and understanding of what it was like to be in someone else's situation, full of wisdom about challenges in higher education and about how they might be addressed—a careful, caring listener and sage adviser. Over the next two decades I saw him intermittently for shorter or longer periods of time in different settings, and he was always the same warm and wonderful person—a mentor and role model for everyone fortunate enough to know and work with him. More recently, our paths crossed again—more intimately than before—when he counseled me through the transition from my previous position as provost at the University of Baltimore to my current position as president of Frostburg State University. His role had been that of interim president for the preceding seven months in 1991, and he had prepared the way for the transition, guiding the institution through several difficult decisions, healing wounds, bringing the campus community together with a new spirit of gentility and cooperation. And in those brief seven months he brightened the lives of everyone who came in contact with him.
Harold's service to Frostburg State University took many forms. He was appointed to the President's Advisory Committee by my predecessor, Dr. Herb. Reinhard, and he served as a close personal advisor to both Dr. Reinhard and former President Nelson Guild before taking me under his wing as a new president. He received an Honorary Doctorate of Human Letters from FSU in 1991, and in 1994 he served on the selection committee for our new Vice President for University Advancement. Those are the recorded facts about his association with our university, but those facts do not begin to tell the story of his impact on the university community."
By Dr. Catherine Gira
FSU President Emerita