Faculty Senate

Wendy's in Millersville reopens after crash$MILLERSVILLE -- The Wendy's restaurant that was damaged Friday when a car crashed into the dining area, injuring 21 customers, reopened for business yesterday.A company official had told reporters after the accident that the restaurant, in the 8200 block of Veterans Highway, would be shut down indefinitely while engineers checked on the building's structural integrity.But a manager, Terry Rzegocki, said that damage was not as severe as first thought and all repairs were made by lunchtime yesterday.

The faculty at Coppin State University overwhelmingly expressed no confidence in the institution's president, Reginald Avery, in a vote taken Monday, according to letters obtained late Thursday by The Baltimore Sun. Fifty-five faculty members indicated that they are not satisfied with the leadership of Avery, who has been the school's head since January 2008. Thirteen faculty members opposed the no-confidence vote during the all-faculty meeting. "[Avery] has brought neither a clear vision of mission to CSU, nor established a coherent or viable strategic plan, nor wisely allocated resources," wrote Nicholas Eugene, the leader of the university's faculty senate, in a letter dated Wednesday to William E. Kirwan, chancellor of the state's university system.

Turmoil surrounding the leadership of Baltimore County's two-year colleges continued yesterday -- reaching as far as the General Assembly -- in the wake of the firing of Chancellor Daniel J. LaVista.Some frustrated faculty leaders began discussing other strategies to grapple with the board of trustees -- including unionization. At least one trustee, a LaVista supporter, is considering resigning from the board. A state senator is seeking legislation that would scrap the county's unified system, splitting it into three independent schools.

The president of Baltimore City Community College was forced out this week, following a tumultuous two years and a recent dramatic drop in enrollment. President Carolane Williams said she was caught off guard when two trustees called her Monday to say she had been "separated" from the college. Williams, who has headed the college for six years, said she was "confused" by the board's abrupt decision, which was announced Tuesday. "It came as a surprise, because there had been no previous conversations about it or any leadership issues that they had been concerned about, either from the board chair or the board as a whole," Williams said.

Baltimore International College, a private institution that teaches cooking skills and hospitality management, is slated to lose its accreditation at the end of the summer, a rare blow that generally causes colleges and universities to close. The downtown college, which enrolled 474 undergraduates and 19 graduate students in the spring, would be unable to receive federal financial aid if it loses accreditation from the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. "It is very difficult" to continue operating without accreditation, said the college's president, Edgar B. Schick.

The president of Coppin State University says he won't be derailed by a recent vote of no confidence from faculty members and promises rapid efforts to improve communications with those who have criticized his leadership. "I certainly take all of the issues, whether it's budget or academic affairs, seriously," said President Reginald Avery in an interview Friday. "I just think there has been a lack of communication, and if I need to do more to improve that, I will. " Avery said he wants to hold a town hall meeting as early as next week and will also hold meetings with smaller groups of faculty to hear their concerns.

Massachusetts Lowell will move up to Division I and join the America East Conference, representatives of both announced today at a rally at the Tsongas Center on campus. The school, which is currently in Division II, will also add men's and women's lacrosse for the 2014-15 season, the Boston Herald reported on its website . The America East Board of Presidents unanimously approved accepting UMass Lowell as a member of the conference effective July 1, 2013. The move also received the unanimous support of UMass Lowell's Faculty Senate Executive Committee and Student Government Association.

"Speaking For Myself: Personal Reflections of Vernon R. Alden," by Vernon R. Alden. Ohio University Libraries. Illustrated. 233 pages. $24.95.Vernon R. Alden appears to be one of those accomplished people whose accounts of their own lives, while interesting in their details, leave out what the reader most wants to know: How did he really do it? How did all this happen?Alden's story has an odd combination of the plain and the extraordinary. A minister's son from Illinois who went to Brown University before World War II, served in the Navy, returned to graduate from Brown and went to Harvard Business School, intent on a career in academic administration.

Alabama's faculty senate, citing the failure of Arizona voters to approve a holiday honoring Martin Luther King Jr., urged the school's football team not to play in the Sunkist Fiesta Bowl if asked. University President Roger Sayers said it would be premature for him to take a stand on the Fiesta Bowl controversy."We have other constituencies we have to consider, including the football team, the coaches and the Southeastern Conference," he said. "And besides, I'm an incurable optimist, and I still want to go to the Sugar Bowl."

Joanne K. Glasser, a veteran Towson University administrator credited with helping boost the stature of the former teachers college, has been selected as the president of Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, Ky. Glasser said yesterday she looked forward to taking the helm of the 12,000-student university, also a former teachers college. "It's extremely exciting and enormously gratifying. The institution is very similar to Towson, and that's part of what captured my interest in it," said Glasser, who was in Kentucky yesterday seeing her 10th-grade daughter off to her new high school there.