Delaware Valley College is located in central Bucks County, Pennsylvania, about 30 miles north of Philadelphia and 70 miles south of New York City. Bucks County is rich in historic tradition, having been settled under grants initially made by William Penn. Nearby New Hope and environs remain popular tourist attractions with their unique blend of historic and artistic attractions.

The college lies immediately outside of Doylestown, the county seat. Doylestown, too, is rich in historic attractions and its history-minded people have taken great pains to preserve those values in the community while at the same time successfully accommodating one of the fastest population growth rates in the country.

The campus is served by SEPTA R5 Rail Line (offering excellent commuter connections with Philadelphia, including a stop on campus) as well as bus service in Doylestown. Most of the campus proper lies on the 80 acres situated between the rail line and U.S. Route 202. The campus buildings, featuring an attractive neo-Georgian architectural theme, are arranged around a central green. Administrative offices are housed in the Admissions Center and in Lasker Hall on the east side of the campus. There, too, are the major classroom, laboratory, and faculty office facilities, housed in Allman Building, Mandell Science Building, and Feldman Agricultural Building. On the opposite side of the green are several residence halls (Ulman Hall, Cooke Hall, Barness Hall, and Work Hall), Segal Hall (houses the college’s Academic Services) and the college’s two gymnasiums. Along the south side of the campus are the Feldstein Horticulture Building, the newly constructed Arthur Poley Greenhouse Complex, the Krauskopf Memorial Library, the Levin Dining Hall, Eisner Hall (the Media Center), and additional residence halls (South Hall, Goldman Hall, Samuel Hall, and Berkowitz Hall). Finally, along the west side of the campus is the James Work Stadium, and the Student Center.

The teaching facilities are modern and well-equipped. The Samuel P. Mandell Science Building was constructed in 1966 and enlarged by over one-third in 1997. It houses biology and chemistry laboratories and instrument rooms, a physics laboratory, a food science laboratory and a food processing pilot plant as well as classrooms and faculty offices. A large addition to the Samuel P. Mandell Science Building has recently been completed. The Feldman Agriculture Building, built in 1972, houses the college’s Computer Center, plant science and animal science laboratories, freshman biology and chemistry laboratories, and numerous classrooms and faculty offices.

The greenhouse-laboratory complex, initially constructed in 1974, is located behind the Library. The complex includes five individually climatized greenhouses connected by a common headhouse, a floral design laboratory (complete with student-operated florist shop), landscape design studio, faculty offices and the Poley Greenhouse addition. The horticultural programs of the college are also supported by the Henry Schmieder Arboretum, which is a member of the American Public Gardens Association.

Central to the educational program of the college is the Joseph Krauskopf Memorial Library with a collection of more than 72,000 volumes of books and bound periodicals. Current subscriptions are held for over 700 periodicals, scholarly journals, and newspapers. The Library has an extensive collection of reference materials, which includes numerous electronic databases, which are linked to the library webpage. Reference librarians are available to give instruction in the use of resources needed to complete class assignments, to help locate information, and to plan research.

Special collections include the college archives; a historical collection of books related to agriculture; seed, nursery, and equipment catalogs; a file of annual reports of businesses; and the personal library of the founder of the college. A vertical file contains pamphlets from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, state Agriculture Experiment Stations, and other sources. Computers are available for on-line searches. As a member of the Tri-State College Library Cooperative, the Library has flexible borrowing arrangements with the libraries of over thirty small local colleges.

The Media Center is located in Eisner Hall and provides students and faculty with the necessary resources and equipment to support their classroom needs. Students are assisted in producing their own videocassettes, slides, overhead transparencies and graphic materials for classroom presentations.

Beyond the campus property lies the college’s aggregate of farmlands and open space. Included here are some 225 acres in field crops grown mostly in support of our dairy and livestock operations. The Dairy Science and Biotechnology Center, constructed in 1989, features about 60 milking cows, with special focus on Holstein, Ayrshire, and Brown Swiss breeds. The Kenneth W. and Helen H. Gemmill Center for Animal Husbandry was constructed in 1980 and offers a complete facility for the management of livestock. At the livestock farm will typically be found about 40 beef cattle (both Herefords and Angus), 50 Suffolk and Dorset sheep, and 50 Yorkshire swine. The Sidney J. Markovitz horse facilities house a breeding herd of about 15 standardbred horses. The Equestrian Center houses approximately 40 horses also used in the college’s Equine programs and features a large indoor arena. Finally, the agricultural operations also include about 60 acres of horticultural plantings, including production orchards of apples and peaches, demonstration orchards of other fruits and nuts, extensive small fruit plantings, and vegetable fields. The college also maintains a working apiary to support the beekeeping programs.

Students have opportunities to participate in the management and operation of all of these agricultural facilities. There are opportunities for students to participate in applied research projects utilizing these facilities as well. Current sponsored research projects being conducted by faculty members with student assistants include evaluation of a new pasture rotation strategy, effectiveness of various plant fertilizer and growth stimulant formulations, application of liquefied manure on agricultural lands, waste water reuse, and the impact of feed supplements and growth regulators on feed conversion in cattle, development of micropropagation methods of exotic tree fruits, tomato breeding trials, and the evaluation of chromatographic resins employed in biotechnical research.