Higher Education

In a move that has caught some Maryland college officials by surprise, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. has chosen former Coppin State College President Calvin W. Burnett as his new secretary of higher education. Ehrlich spokesman Shareese DeLeaver said yesterday that the governor would likely make his formal announcement on Burnett next week. As higher- education secretary, Burnett would lead the Maryland Higher Education Commission, an agency with a paid staff of 60 and unpaid board of 12 that is charged with coordinating policy among the state's private and public colleges.

To understand what Fred Lazarus accomplished during his 35 years as president of the Maryland Institute College of Art , one need only look at the gleaming concrete-and-glass structure housing the school's Brown Center for new media. The rakishly angled building rising above the school's Mount Royal Avenue campus symbolizes the future of both art and higher education in America as surely as the stately neoclassical building across the street from it reflects its past. Mr. Lazarus, who announced this week that he will step down as president in 2014, had the genius to see that future and the skill to build it in Baltimore.

In your article "Universities are slowly tiptoeing into taming costs with efficiency" (Dec. 19), the argument is made that universities, by increasing class size, reducing professors and lectures, adding teaching by teaching assistants and increasing computer grading, can maintain educational standards while saving money in these tough economic times. This thesis is so oversimplified as to be simply false, or, at best, true only in a few limited cases. I cannot speak authoritatively to whether this higher education solution is ever possible in chemistry courses and some other natural sciences, but in the humanities and social sciences it is always educationally destructive.

Nicholas P. Jones, dean of the Johns Hopkins University's Whiting School of Engineering, has been named the new executive vice president and provost at Penn State University, the college announced Friday. Jones was selected from a nationwide search, according to a release from the university, and will start his post on July 1. His appointment is scheduled to be approved by Penn State's Board of Trustees on May 3. Penn State's president Rodney Erickson, who recently served in the position, said Jones "brings with him board experience in higher education" and "will be an important voice as we continue our trajectory of top-flight academic achievement and set priorities for the university's future.

University System of Maryland Chancellor William E. "Brit" Kirwan, who is in the midst of gathering input on the question of whether the University of Maryland-College Park and the University of Maryland-Baltimore should be merged, says it would be a shame if politics took primacy over the interests of higher education. Too late for that. The issue came up in the most political way possible - with Senate President and top College Park booster Thomas V. Mike Miller waltzing into the Budget and Taxation Committee this spring and inserting language that appeared to require the merger.

The legacy of Raymond Haysbert goes beyond business and politics ("Business and policy leader Raymond V. Haysbert Sr. 1920-2010," May 25). He was also a visionary in higher education and played an important role in an innovative program developed at Johns Hopkins in the 1990s. The Leadership Development Program for Minority Managers (LDP) was designed to attract a cohort of mid-level black professionals who sought a challenging and supportive academic business environment that combined the rich resources of the university and the Baltimore business community.

This summer, the U.S. Department of Education introduced a proposal to regulate for-profit universities. Referred to in education circles as the "gainful employment" regulations, the proposal seeks to protect students with the highest financial need who enroll at these institutions, to ensure the likelihood that they will be able to find employment and repay their loans after completing their certificate or degree programs. The Department of Education is proposing a new sanction, namely that if the for-profit programs are not producing "gainful employment" opportunities for these students, those institutions will lose their student aid eligibility — a major source of income for these education companies.

The current political divide in Congress offers an opportunity for Americans to have a conversation about federal spending, which should not be confused with investing federal dollars to grow the economy ("Trouble ahead," Jan. 2). Are continuing to rebuild our infrastructure and educating our children an appropriate use of federal dollars? I believe they are, and here's why: College affordability remains an issue for most students and their families, despite the 2012 Pell Grant appropriation of $30.3 billion.

Young people face a cruel irony. Most can't land a decent job without a college education, yet many graduates are locked into poorly paying positions that don't permit repayment of student loans. For two generations, college price tags have risen much faster than inflation and families' ability to pay. More importantly, costs have leaped faster than what graduates can earn over working lifetimes, and many diplomas do not offer a positive return on investment, as measured by graduates' ability to service their debt.

The state's fiscal crisis has thrown a monkey wrench into plans for restructuring Maryland's system of higher education. There have been deep budget cuts, and the retrenchment is expected to continue. The University of Maryland System is in a state of shock.Every crisis presents an opportunity to challenge the status quo and embark on a new path. In the case of higher education, one can challenge the system of state ownership and control and ask if we cannot do better. Instead of restructuring the system of higher education from the center, consider the idea of privatization.

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.

Thanks to Joseph Urgo, president of St. Mary's College of Maryland, for his editorial smackdown of those who think of higher education only as vocational training ("Why we need the liberal arts," March 3). His point about preparing students to really think about what makes a meaningful life versus just learning to "make a living" was well taken. It also makes me proud that our education system in Maryland supports the broader educational outlook that is only possible through rigorous study of the great philosophers, artists and thinkers who have done the most to shape our world.

Nineteen thousand four hundred thirteen. Focus on that number. Like so many numbers in news articles, you might easily have skipped over 19,413. But this is an important number for what is happening in Maryland higher education. According to the Cyber Security Jobs Report issued this month, this is the number of job openings in Maryland, as of October 2012, for qualified cybersecurity professionals. These are good, high-paying jobs. They are in such demand that the unemployment rate for people who qualify for them must be nearly zero.

The decision last week by Morgan State University's governing board to oust Dallas R. Evans as chairman appears to have been the culmination of a bitter struggle over the school's leadership between Mr. Evans and University President David Wilson. In December, Mr. Evans tried to orchestrate Mr. Wilson's dismissal after only 21/2 years on the job by persuading the school's 15-member Board of Regents not to renew the president's contract when it ends in June. But then an outpouring of support for Mr. Wilson from students, faculty members and community leaders forced the board to reverse its decision a few weeks later.

A division of the World Bank Group announced Wednesday that it has invested $150 million in Laureate Education Inc., giving the international development organization a small stake in the Baltimore-based global higher education company. "It's an incredibly strong endorsement for the company," said Douglas L. Becker, Laureate's chairman and CEO, of the investment by the International Finance Corp. and its affiliate, the IFC African, Latin American and Caribbean Fund. With annual revenue of about $4 billion, Laureate does not need the money but is eager to have the backing of an investor led by members of international governments, he said.

Steven Muller, former president of the Johns Hopkins University and a major figure in American higher education, died Saturday of respiratory failure at his Washington home. He was 85. A child refugee from Nazi Germany who went on to earn a doctorate in political science at Cornell University, Dr. Muller became the president of Hopkins in 1972. Over the next 18 years, he directed the most ambitious growth of the institution since its founding in 1876, enhancing the national and global prestige of the institution he shepherded.

The gas tax is just about the most regressive tax that exists in a place like Maryland, where living in a safe community with good schools means one must live in the suburbs ("Va. takes the lead," Jan. 10). Taxing the gasoline that people need to work, to acquire higher education, to seek medical care and to buy food makes as much sense - i.e. none - as paying for: •K-12 education by charging parents tuition equal to the cost per child, with higher fees for parents of special needs children since they are so much more expensive to educate than other children; •Police services by charging a fee to each victim of an accident or crime; •Firefighting by charging a fee per fire or accident or per life saved; •Snow removal by charging property owners a fee per foot of property frontage; Paying for highways and supporting public transportation with a gas tax makes no more sense than funding other essential public services through user fees.

The current political divide in Congress offers an opportunity for Americans to have a conversation about federal spending, which should not be confused with investing federal dollars to grow the economy ("Trouble ahead," Jan. 2). Are continuing to rebuild our infrastructure and educating our children an appropriate use of federal dollars? I believe they are, and here's why: College affordability remains an issue for most students and their families, despite the 2012 Pell Grant appropriation of $30.3 billion.