Campuses

I was very pleased to read the article about the Community College of Baltimore County's decision to ban tobacco use on its campuses ("CCBC to ban tobacco products on its campuses," June 25). Wouldn't it be nice if smoking was banned all over Maryland! Nick Delambo, Baltimore

Last year, Maryland Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller proposed merging the University of Maryland's College Park and Baltimore campuses. A panel was convened and ultimately came to the conclusion that the merger did not make sense. That process cost a great deal of money, but the costly futility of massaging Mr. Miller's ego was evidently not enough to keep him from bringing forth another proposal to link the two campuses ("Miller tries again to join UM campuses," Jan. 6). Especially repugnant is the manner in which he has announced his latest proposal - as a threat, "... to force the issue through legislation if necessary.

State Higher Education Secretary Shaila Aery may well have cast the gauntlet with a plan to shut down one of the University of Maryland system's 11 campuses and merge academic programs at the four Baltimore area UM campuses.In a bid to gain control over costs and programs, Aery has proposed eliminating University College, which is the College Park evening and weekend campus for continuing education, and merge its programs into the school's standard curriculum. The two schools already share the same physical facilities, but have separate administration and staff, and thus are counted as separate "campuses."

IN MARYLAND'S colleges, things are up and down.Overall, the number of students on Maryland's campuses changed little between last fall and this fall, but there is some shifting around among campuses.In a tight economy, and with hefty tuition hikes at four-year campuses, community college enrollment was up 3.4 percent. For the second year in a row, the community colleges enrolled more students than the four-year public colleges, where enrollment dropped 1.7 percent.Historically, community college enrollment goes up in a soft economy.

Pennsylvania@Drexel 10 a.m. [ESPN] I look at it this way: If these two teams are going to play basketball in the middle of the morning, the least you can do is watch. Plus, given that their campuses are next to each other, maybe parking spaces are on the line.

Over the past 18 months, the state's universities and colleges have lost 20 percent of their state funds -- $174 million in budget cuts. Some $20 million more in cuts are already being planned for this year.A Maryland Higher Education Commission study, released last week, projects a $540 million gap by fiscal 1998 between available state resources and the amount of money it will take to run state colleges as they have been run.So far, only the University of Maryland College Park among the state's public campuses has undertaken the difficult job of reviewing its programs and closing some.

As society has grown more violent, so too have colleg campuses.That sad fact was reinforced by the fatal stabbing Thursday night of a 22-year-old Morgan State University student.On campuses nationwide, 17 slayings were reported in 1992, the most recent year for which figures are available, according to a survey of crime statistics compiled by the Chronicle of Higher Education. And while that number was down from 18 the year before, other crimes such as assaults and armed robberies increased.

John Carrier Weaver, 79, a university administrator instrumental in the formation of the University of Wisconsin System with 27 campuses when he was its president from 1971 to 1977, died Friday at his home in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. He was president of the University of Missouri, with four campuses, from 1966 to 1970 and president of the University of Wisconsin, with a single campus in Madison, in 1971 before he oversaw its merger with the Wisconsin State University System.Herbert Fromm, 90, a composer and writer who fled Nazi Germany before World War II, died Friday of heart disease in Brookline, Mass.

Erickson Retirement Communities, based in Catonsville, received the National Association of Home Builders' 2001 "Icons of the Industry Award" for its leadership in developing communities for senior citizens. The NAHB award was presented to Erickson on Friday at the Seniors Housing Symposium in Phoenix. Erickson was cited for its "exemplary development of service-enriched seniors housing," according to a company statement. Erickson manages three retirement campuses for moderate-income senior citizens in Maryland: Charlestown, Oak Crest Village and Riderwood Village.

The Maryland Higher Education Commission turned down a bid yesterday by Columbia Union College to receive a state subsidy given to other private Maryland campuses under a 25-year-old program.The administrative appeal was filed at the behest of a federal judge who is hearing the college's lawsuit, which claims religious discrimination. The college sued the state in June. The commission ruled in a special meeting at St. Michaels.The commission ruled the school, affiliated with the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, was not eligible to receive the roughly $1,070 given for each Maryland student at private campuses because of the pervasively religious nature of its instruction.