Campus Living

WHEN THE Johns Hopkins University holds its annual spring fair this weekend, at least one couple won't have to walk very far to get home.Newly inaugurated university President William R. Brody and his wife, Wendy, recently moved into Nichols House, a stately Georgian residence near the Hopkins Club on the Homewood campus.The two-story dwelling is adjacent to the area where Hopkins students usually set up the beer garden during the fair, and this year will be no different."It's going to be there as usual," Hopkins spokesman Dennis O'Shea said of the beer garden.

Chuck Thompson wasn't just a Hall of Fame sports announcer. He also was a husband, the kind who parked himself on a shopping mall bench while his wife roamed the stores. So his final resting place - in the courtyard of a revamped shopping mall - could not be more fitting. Six months after Thompson's death, his ashes have just been interred inside a giant outdoor fireplace at Hunt Valley Towne Centre. Betty Thompson says her late husband had wanted his remains sprinkled over the Loch Raven Reservoir, but turns out that's not allowed.

Ed Kilcullen has been awakened countless times to the sound of college students hollering at 2 a.m. Corinne Becker routinely finds beer bottles and other trash in her neighborhood when students gather for parties at a nearby apartment complex. And Don Gerding says he and his neighbors sometimes see students vomiting and urinating on lawns and in the street. They and other Towson community leaders say such annoyances are why they're so eager to hear how Towson University plans to deal with disruptive students off-campus.

New positionsGreen Spring Health names Wider executive VPGreen Spring Health Services Inc. named John J. Wider Jr. executive vice president and chief operating officer.Prior to joining the Columbia-based company, which manages mental health and substance abuse benefits for more than 16 million clients, Wider served as president and general manager for Cigna Healthcare Corp.'s Mid-Atlantic region.His health care and insurance experience also includes more than 20 years with Blue Cross/Blue Shield of New Jersey, where he held a variety of marketing and operations positions.

YES, THAT $25,000 gold medal they draped around the neck of Towson University President Mark L. Perkins at his inauguration was an example of wretched excess, even if taxpayers didn't pay for it. But the $850,000 mansion in Guilford, with its $600,000 in renovations? In the garden of college and university presidential residences, it's a common marigold. Million-dollar, even multimillion-dollar homes for university presidents are common across the country. They're usually supplied, along with cars, country club memberships, lucrative corporate board positions (paying well into five figures)

Feeding the growing demand for decent, affordable housing for the elderly, work has begun on an 88-unit apartment house on Walker Avenue, straddling the city-county line east of York Road.With at least 10 months until completion of the building, 50 people have registered with the nonprofit developer as prospective tenants."When we did studies last year on housing, we found there were 2,500 people on the waiting list," said Charles L. Fisher Jr., director of the Baltimore County Department of Aging.

PRINCESS ANNE -- Four Somerset County teen-agers have been charged in a home invasion in which two University of Maryland Eastern Shore students were dragged from their beds at gunpoint, terrorized and sexually assaulted at their off-campus apartment early Monday.The teen-agers, from Princess Anne, are being held on $500,000 bond each at Somerset County Detention Center. Charges include first-degree sexual assault and burglary.The charges could bring prison terms of 20 years to life. Deandre Cotton, 16, Timothy Holbrook and Tremaine Waters, both 17, and DeShawn Burke, 18, await a preliminary hearing Dec. 28. All four -- including the three minors -- will be tried as adults.

Carolyn S. "Cally" Cochran, a civic activist who embraced liberal causes and was an outspoken advocate of educating the public on population growth, died Thursday of complications from Alzheimer's disease at the Broadmead retirement community in Cockeysville, where she had been a founding board member. She was 89. Born Carolyn Sizer in Boston and raised in New Haven, Conn., she attended Bennington College and met her future husband, Alexander S.

COLLEGE PARK -- Roll out of bed five minutes before that 8 a.m. class, but still get there on time. MTV, CNN and local phone service at no extra charge. Need to do some research for that term paper? The library is just steps away. For legions of college students, campus living is a wonderful mix of independence and convenience. A feeling of security, a sense of community and relatively low rent for an on-campus dormitory room are all incentives that students at the University of Maryland, College Park say keep them signing up for dorm space, even for their senior year.

The "temp," once the anonymous fill-in secretary, has moved across the factory floor and up the corporate ladder.Thanks to continuing layoffs and corporate cost-cutting, temps may include the mill worker who helps make your kitchen cabinets, the attorney who reviews your company's health insurance policy, the doctor who tests your blood, or even the executive who runs your company.Temporary jobs are the fastest-growing kind of job in the nation. And nonsecretarial, nontraditional jobs are the fastest growing kind of temporary jobs, says Linda Kaestner, managing director for the Baltimore area offices of the Snelling and Snelling Inc. temporary agency.