Faculty

Nurturing individual achievement for students and faculty, creating a more unified university, and strengthening its community role are among his top priorities, the Johns Hopkins University's 14th president, Ronald J. Daniels, told an audience of more than 500 people attending his formal installation. "Proud as we are of our magnificent past, our best days are yet to come," he said, after speaking of the university's legacy and prominence. As he offered insights into the direction the university might take under his leadership, Daniels, who has been Hopkins president since March, received lengthy applause when he spoke about financial aid. He said he hopes the 133-year-old institution "will join the pantheon of great universities whose undergraduate programs are need-blind, not need aware."

WASHINGTON -- Yielding to the idea that college professors should spend more time with their students, the Supreme Court ruled 8-1 yesterday that state-run universities may order the faculty to do more classroom teaching and student counseling and less research.In a brief opinion, the court upheld the constitutionality of an Ohio law that singles out professors, among all state employees, for controls on their workloads. That law also took away the right of faculty unions to negotiate over how professors divide their time.

SCHENECTADY, N.Y. -- A decision by Union College to restrict its next four faculty hires to minority candidates and loosen the purse strings to pay them has angered some professors and prompted a debate over affirmative action on campus.Frustrated from years of losing qualified minority professors to other schools, the Union faculty voted last March to exclude candidates who were not black or Hispanic from the searches.The latest faculty member to be hired under the policy, Daniel Mosquera, was named last week as assistant professor of Spanish.

The search for a replacement for William E. Kirwan, president of the University of Maryland, College Park, will kick into high gear this week with student and faculty forums, the first step in a process that is expected to culminate by July 1.Kirwan is scheduled to be named president of Ohio State University today, replacing E. Gordon Gee, officials at both universities said yesterday."

The University of Phoenix, the nation's largest for-profit university, won state approval yesterday to open three campuses in Maryland -- bringing a new era of competition to higher education."

Mary Pat Seurkamp knows the power of tradition. The 51-year-old Pittsburgh native was chosen last year as the first president of the College of Notre Dame of Maryland who is not a member of the Roman Catholic religious order that founded the school 102 years ago.Seurkamp has been on the job for nine months, but some on the North Baltimore campus still call her "Sister.""People are having trouble breaking the habit," she said this week, laughing at her unintended pun. All her predecessors were from the School Sisters of Notre Dame, or "SSNDs," as many on campus call the nuns, who remain active in teaching and managing the college.

If you're in high school -- or in your dotage and still having nightmares about the experience -- the proposition that teachers are from another planet will not seem like a ludicrous Hollywood fantasy. It would be more an affirmation of your long-held suspicions.Of course, it should be immediately added that if you're a teacher, the idea that the student body is composed entirely of hostile aliens amounts to the only logical explanation for their attire, attention span and attitude.But in the shrewdly calculated audience demographics behind "The Faculty," teachers don't count.

The University of Maryland, Baltimore will receive $399,900 in federal money to revitalize the West Baltimore neighborhood surrounding its campus.The grant is part of a $7 million nationwide community outreach initiative spearheaded by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Eighteen colleges and universities received awards."This initiative will benefit cities, their residents and colleges by reversing decades of neighborhood decline," said HUD Secretary Andrew M. Cuomo. He announced the grants on Wednesday at a national conference on college and university community revitalization in East St. Louis, Ill."

Towson University's dance faculty, graduates and friends are in the spotlight this weekend at the Maryland Arts Festival."Making Headways in Dance" features ballet, modern, jazz and tap works by faculty member Jaye Knutson; Priscilla Kaufhold, artistic director of Kinetics Dance Theater in Ellicott City; Cara Anderson Etris, director of its school; and Scott Rink, a dancer with the Lar Lubovitch Company and founder of his own troupe, Dance Rink. He will bring dancer Lenna Parr from his company.

Growing up in 1960s Harlem, Irving Pressley McPhail was treated to sweet sounds drifting from Small's Paradise night club while the streets crackled with political insurgency."

Nurturing individual achievement for students and faculty, creating a more unified university, and strengthening its community role are among his top priorities, the Johns Hopkins University's 14th president, Ronald J. Daniels, told an audience of more than 500 people attending his formal installation. "Proud as we are of our magnificent past, our best days are yet to come," he said, after speaking of the university's legacy and prominence. As he offered insights into the direction the university might take under his leadership, Daniels, who has been Hopkins president since March, received lengthy applause when he spoke about financial aid. He said he hopes the 133-year-old institution "will join the pantheon of great universities whose undergraduate programs are need-blind, not need aware."

The Morgan State University band struck up "Pomp and Circumstance" when Clayton Stansbury waved his white-gloved hands from atop the promenade at the other end of the football field. The faculty - flanking him on his left and right - paraded off the promenade and down the steps when he said, "OK. Go." The soon-to-be-graduates turned to the left when he turned and sat when he motioned them to sit. And they moved their gold tassels from right to left as he moved his tassel for the 35th consecutive year, as the students took a symbolic step into adulthood with yet another class.

Need a last-minute book as a Christmas present for a thoughtful friend? Have a teenager who might be inspired by the imaginations and insights found in good writing? If so, you can forget about gift-wrapping a college textbook. Textbooks are unwieldy. They are often uninspiring, regardless of the initial enthusiasm that sparked their publication. And they are expensive - easily outpacing the lavish coffee-table productions featured in most bookstores. Every year, the outcry over the rising cost of textbooks is heard anew.

As part of its formal case for reaccreditation, Coppin State University officials watered down a faculty and staff-written report critical of the college's treatment of its core academic staff, records show. Among the criticisms omitted or played down in a final "self-study" report to the Middle States Commission on Higher Education was that Coppin's shared-governance committee has not convened in several years, that professors are underrepresented in university decision-making bodies and that there is a general "absence of active, systematic, meaningful faculty involvement in budget planning and development."

The Johns Hopkins University's impressive financial commitment to recruit more minority and female faculty members is a welcome recognition that higher education has to try just as hard to diversify faculty as it does to diversify the student body. But increasing the ranks of minority professors at any given campus can't be accomplished by simply recycling the existing pool. Recruitment efforts must also focus on making the academy more inviting as a career choice. Nationally, about 52,700 doctoral degrees were awarded in 2004-2005.

While the nation's colleges and universities have made strides in recruiting minority students, these students are unlikely to encounter mentors who look like them, as the proportion of faculty of color lags behind. The academy has taken notice, and universities are offering financial incentives to diversify their faculty. The Johns Hopkins University is the latest to do so, with a pledge of $5 million over the next five years to recruit female, African-American, Latino and Native American professors for its nine schools.

Richard C. Roberts, a founding member of the faculty of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and a professor at the university for 25 years, died of cancer Thursday at his home in Columbia. He was 82. Dr. Roberts was one of five division chairmen at UMBC when it opened in 1966. As head of the mathematics and physics departments, he recruited faculty, taught courses and helped set the course for the fledgling university. He was later dean of the mathematics department. "In the formative years of the department, his vision counted a lot," said Manil Suri, a UMBC mathematics professor whom Dr. Roberts hired in 1983.

Gemini -- Howard Community College will present the Gemini Piano Trio Taiwan Tour Concert, a faculty performance with pianist Hsiu-Hui Wang, violinist Sheng-Tsung Wang and cellist Benjamin Myers, at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow at Monteabaro Recital Hall in the college's Peter and Elizabeth Horowitz Visual and Performing Arts Center, 10901 Little Patuxent Parkway, Columbia. Works by Beethoven, Piazzolla, Dvorak and Taiwanese composers will be performed. Admission is $15; $10 for senior citizens. HCC faculty, staff and students pay $5. The Gemini Piano Trio will tour Taiwan early next month.

Dance lecture -- The Anne Arundel Community College Cultural Events Committee will present "Dancing on Air" at 12:30 p.m. tomorrow in Room 112 of the Humanities Building, 101 College Parkway, Arnold. Part-time faculty member Megan Morse Jans will lead the lecture and a DVD demonstration of aerial dance. Free. 410-777-7021.

High school seniors who want to go to a selective college next fall should already be making arrangements to take the tests they will need before they apply ahead of the deadlines for such schools, which are usually in January or February. One of the consequences of taking these tests is that if you do well, you may be deluged with literature from colleges and universities all across the country. Some students may feel flattered that Harvard, Yale or MIT seems to be dying to have them apply.