Colleges And Universities

Nathaniel M. Pigman Jr., a retired statistician and teacher, died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and congestive heart failure Oct. 15 at the Gilchrist Hospice Care in Columbia. He was 92 and had lived in Columbia and Edgewater. Born in Bremerton, Wash., he moved with his father, who served in the Navy, throughout the Pacific area as a child. He earned a bachelor of arts at the University of Virginia, where he also attended law school and was admitted to the Virginia Bar. Family members said he never practiced.

For many Marylanders, Gov. Martin O'Malley's proposed fiscal year 2014 budget includes plenty to celebrate. The governor's "balanced approach" to budgeting translates into increased employment, health care benefits for additional families and continued investment in programs that directly support primary education. The governor's budget also includes encouraging signs that Maryland's recovery from the Great Recession is gathering steam. But despite those successes, the budget fails to fully invest in some of our state's brightest minds.

NOW THAT REGENTS have agreed to limit tuition increases to 4 percent a year at the University System of Maryland's 13 institutions, it is up to Gov. Parris N.Glendening to boost government support of higher education in Maryland. It would be the best possible investment in this state's future growth.The governor, as well as legislative leaders, protested higher tuition increases they felt might make a college education unaffordable for some students. That protest persuaded the regents to pledge to hold future down increases.

My alma mater made it official this past Friday: Towson University has made the despicable choice to drop the mens' soccer and baseball programs. The decision-makers had the audacity to inform the student ballplayers, their parents, and the community it was due to Title IX mandates (which basically calls for equity among the genders in our NCAA colleges and universities). Being in its off-season, the mens' soccer program was cut immediately. The baseball team will play out the remainder of its season, but many players on the team now have to make contingency plans about where to further their college baseball passion.

When Adam Gross moved to Baltimore in 1984 to help revive an old-guard architectural firm, he was eager to take on a wide range of commissions. Today, as design principal of the company, he is turning down many of the assignments he might have accepted 16 years ago. Yet his firm, now called Ayers Saint Gross, is as busy as ever. Billings are up. The staff is expanding. The company is increasingly becoming known as a "national" firm, with more work outside Maryland than in. All this growth is fueled by Ayers Saint Gross' decision to specialize in one area: design work for colleges and universities.

It's crunch time at many college campuses.The coffee is percolating. Almost-new textbooks are cracked open. Fingers click away at computer keyboards from morning until night. The stress level is high as college students across the state prepare for end-of-the-year exams.Too many all-nighters? Got the caffeine jitters?To help students calm their wracked nerves, many colleges are offering some relief. Whether it's free massages or color therapy at Towson University, yoga at the University of Michigan or free Ben & Jerry's ice cream bars at the University of Iowa, colleges around the country are getting into the game.

Has Maryland reneged on its promise to desegregate the state's public institutions of higher learning? Has the state, in defiance of the law, continued to operate a dual system of separate and unequal schools based on race? The answer to such questions will decide the outcome of a potentially historic case that opened last week pitting the state's four historically black colleges and universities against the Maryland Higher Education Commission. At issue is whether the state has truly succeeded in overcoming the shameful legacy of its segregated past, or whether it has simply extended the policies and practices of that era into the present under a different guise.

B y now the dangers of smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke are so well established that hardly anyone disputes the risks they pose to public health and well-being. Every year some 390,000 Americans die from smoking-related illnesses, and tobacco contributes to 1 out of every 6 deaths annually in this country. That's why we applaud Towson University's decision last week to ban smoking everywhere on its campus. We only wonder why it took the university this long to take a step that so obviously benefits its students and the entire school community.

THE POWERS that be (and a few that were) in Maryland higher education and business held a first-ever "summit" yesterday and looked south, across the Potomac, for advice and inspiration.Filling an auditorium at the new University of Maryland Baltimore County Technology Center, leaders of the state's colleges and universities heard "the Virginia experience" from a former commonwealth governor and from a current chairman of the Virginia Business Higher Education Council.Maryland has an inferiority complex about Virginia colleges and universities.

The Sept. 25 Education Beat incorrectly reported that Barron's charges for entries in its college guidebook. We regret the error.SEPTEMBER is the Month of College Guidebooks. Time and Newsweek this month have joined Money and U.S. News & World Report in offering cover-story ratings and advice on the habits and habitats of the nation's colleges and universities.If we add the traditional guides -- Barron's, Peterson's, Lovejoy's and the like -- we have what has become a major industry. Why?

As someone who has struggled with mental illness for over 20 years, I could closely relate to Kevin Rector's article about students having difficulty finding and getting mental health services at their colleges and universities ("Students struggle for mental health services," March 8). I applaud this article, as it brings to light the real need for mental health services for college students. I was in the same boat, but I struggled alone. I relate to what many of the students in the article mentioned - a lack of information on mental health, the limited education of the professionals involved, trouble getting an appointment.

Hundreds of students and supporters of Maryland's historically black colleges and universities rallied Monday in Annapolis to press for increased state funding to make up for decades of discrimination. The presidents of Morgan State University, Coppin State University, Bowie State University and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore joined civil rights leaders and several politicians in front of the State House to call on Gov. Martin O'Malley to settle a lawsuit alleging the schools have been underfunded at least since the 1930s.

Change has swept through the University of Baltimore — and the surrounding neighborhood — over the past decade. Striking new academic buildings, an apartment building and the university's first dormitory have appeared among the brownstones of the Midtown neighborhood. New shops and restaurants brighten once-dingy blocks. Streets that were deserted after dark now buzz with students. "It seems more like a university environment now," said Earl Spain, 59, who completed his bachelor's degree at UB in 2002 and is working on a master's in criminal justice.

Nathaniel M. Pigman Jr., a retired statistician and teacher, died of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and congestive heart failure Oct. 15 at the Gilchrist Hospice Care in Columbia. He was 92 and had lived in Columbia and Edgewater. Born in Bremerton, Wash., he moved with his father, who served in the Navy, throughout the Pacific area as a child. He earned a bachelor of arts at the University of Virginia, where he also attended law school and was admitted to the Virginia Bar. Family members said he never practiced.

Maryland's Dream Act, which allows some illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition at public colleges and universities, has drawn attention far out of proportion to its actual impact. Only a few hundred students are likely to be eligible for the benefit in any given year, but because it touches on the issue of who should be in this country and how we treat them, it has led to vocal and passionate campaigns on both sides. But there's a practical component to the issue, too. The Dream Act is a good investment for Maryland taxpayers, and for that reason, voters should support Question 4 on November's ballot.

The U.S. Department of Education awarded more than $12.2 million in grants to Maryland's four historically black colleges and universities last week, with much of the money earmarked for programs aimed at boosting the proportion of entering freshmen who go on to graduate. Closing the gap between retention and graduation rates at the state's HCBUs and its traditionally white institutions has long been a goal of educators who realize the importance of making higher education more widely accessible.

THREE OF Virginia's most prestigious institutions of higher education are seeking independence from the commonwealth as "chartered universities." In return for freedom from state regulation, say officials at the College of William & Mary, the University of Virginia and Virginia Tech, they will find their own financial way and rely less on state financing. In short, they will walk the walk and talk the talk of private institutions, which in many ways they already are. For example, in the past 20 years, state aid to the University of Virginia has declined from nearly 28 percent of the operating budget to 8.1 percent.

Change has swept through the University of Baltimore — and the surrounding neighborhood — over the past decade. Striking new academic buildings, an apartment building and the university's first dormitory have appeared among the brownstones of the Midtown neighborhood. New shops and restaurants brighten once-dingy blocks. Streets that were deserted after dark now buzz with students. "It seems more like a university environment now," said Earl Spain, 59, who completed his bachelor's degree at UB in 2002 and is working on a master's in criminal justice.

The Sun suggests that the buck stops at Coppin State University President Reginald Avery's door regarding efforts to improve student retention and graduation rates and point the school in a new direction ("Which way for Coppin?" July 25). But whatever one's view of President Avery's leadership, to limit the discussion of Coppin's current plight to the four years of his tenure misses the boat. Mr. Avery's four-year record, faculty, staff and student sentiments and his testimony on behalf of the Coalition for Equity and Excellence, which represents the state's historically black colleges and universities in their lawsuit against Maryland's Higher Education Commission, provide an ample basis for an objective assessment of Coppin's problems.

I disagree with Timothy Law Snyder's approval of the use of student tuition to fund campus research ("A reminder of what tuition buys," July 26). Undergraduates can spend large amounts of money and incur staggering debt to attend colleges and universities. Their main goal is to get an education and to help prepare them for careers, not to fund research by faculty that they have never even heard of or seen in a classroom. Also, promotion and achieving tenure at most colleges and universities is directly related to research and publishing activities and has nothing to do with teaching ability.