The estate of former Elon history professor Robert W. Delp has provided a $200,000 endowment for scholarships at the university.
Delp came to Elon in 1968 and was a favorite teacher for many students. He served as chair of the social sciences and history departments and was a respected senior member of the faculty. He retired from full-time teaching in 1986 and continued to teach part-time until 1994. Delp receiving the Daniels-Danieley Award for excellence in teaching in 1984 and the Elon Medallion for meritorious service in 1994. He died in 2004.
Delp’s bequest has established the Myrtle Patterson Delp and Robert Worley Delp Scholarship Fund. Myrtle Delp was Robert Delp’s mother.
One $3,000 scholarship will be awarded annually to an outstanding student who has been selected as an Elon College Fellow, with top priority given to students majoring in history. The scholarships are renewable each year.
“It is appropriate that Professor Delp’s scholarship will support the Elon College Fellows Program,” said Steven House, dean of Elon College, the College of Arts and Sciences. “The program’s mission is to transform the curiosity of high-potential students into deliberate focus, their passion into thoughtful investment and their sense of responsibility into educated wisdom. Those are the very goals that he so intensely pursued during his distinguished career at Elon.”
Delp was an outstanding teacher and noted scholar. His literary works were published in the Journal of American History, The New England Quarterly, The New York Historical Society Quarterly, The Dictionary of North Carolina Biography and The Journal of American Culture. Delp was also an ordained minister and had degrees from Davidson College, Lancaster Theological Seminary and George Washington University.