Johns Hopkins University

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."

John Jay Pecora, a civil engineer who founded a Mount Vernon-based construction company and was active in his industry's professional circles, died Sunday of complications from cancer and Alzheimer's disease at Stella Maris Hospice. The Roland Park resident was 89. Born in Baltimore and raised on Eldorado Avenue, he was a 1935 graduate of Forest Park High School. He earned a degree in civil engineering from the Johns Hopkins University and taught the subject while serving in the Army during World War II. Soon after his military service, he founded Allied Contractors - naming it for the war's allied forces.

James Yager, senior associate dean for academic affairs at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, has been named the Edyth H. Schoenrich Professor in Preventive Medicine. A professor of toxicology in the department of environmental health sciences, and an expert on the mechanisms of estrogen carcinogenesis, Yager focuses his research on the genetic and environmental susceptibility factors related to breast cancer. Yaeger's professorship is named in honor of Schoenrich, credited with developing one of the nation's premier preventive health programs at Bloomberg.

Dr. Brian Cornblatt has been appointed manager of the Oncology Research Office at the Cancer Institute at St. Joseph Medical Center. Cornblatt earned his Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University. His work has been published in Cancer Research and Biochemical Pharmacology. Dr. Elliot McVeigh has been named the new director of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University. Howard County General Hospital has appointed Sharon P. Hadsell as senior vice president of patient care services.

Kim, Oh join the board of HCC Educational Foundation Miji Kim and Sang W. Oh have joined the board of directors of the Howard Community College Educational Foundation. Kim is a contract specialist for Cosmopolitan Inc. in Columbia. She is president of the Clarksville Fire Department, commissioner for the Howard County Commission For Women and is a member of the Howard County Personnel Board. She has been a Howard County resident since 1974. Oh, an attorney in practice in Ellicott City, has been an assistant state's attorney, judicial clerk for Judge Dennis M. Sweeney, and executive assistant to former Howard County Executive James N. Robey.

As the graduate student walked by a dark sport utility vehicle on her way to the Johns Hopkins University's Homewood campus, the men inside the vehicle struck up a conversation with her, asking for directions to North Avenue. Then a passenger emerged from the parked SUV in the 100 block of W. 29th St. and tried to force the 29-year-old woman into the back seat. "He grabbed her arm and started to pull her toward the SUV, and threatened her to come with him," said Maj. Michael Pristoop, commander of Baltimore's Northern District.

MY LIFE AS ELMO It's not easy being red, either. Kevin Clash should know. He's been the man behind the Sesame Street puppet Elmo for about two decades. The Baltimore native will discuss his autobiography, My Life as a Furry Red Monster, this weekend at the Catonsville Library. Clash will autograph copies of the book, which tells the tale of his life as a puppeteer, performer and producer. Elmo will also be on hand to set the record straight. .................... Clash's talk begins at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at the Catonsville Library branch of the Baltimore County Public Library, 1100 Frederick Road, Catonsville.

Mr. Leon Howard Kaplan died peacefully on Friday, March 30 at Gilchrist Hospice. Hewas born on November 18, 1922 in New York. He was preceded in death by his beloved parents Hyman and Celia Kaplan and his brother, Robert Kaplan of Newton Highlands, MA. He is survived by three sons, Daniel and wife Kristen of Summerfield, North Carolina, Jonathan Rosenbloom of Saco, Maine, Harry Wolf and wife Cindy of Owings Mills, Maryland; and daughter Susan Elman and...

Education symposium to hear Ulman Howard County Executive Ken Ulman will speak at an educational symposium, organized by the Young Professionals Network of the Howard County Chamber of Commerce, to be held from 8 a.m. to noon Tuesday on the Columbia campus of the Johns Hopkins University Carey Business School. Local educators, business people and professionals will discuss leadership, image management, community participation and careers and business in Maryland. The event is to kick off the academic year at the business school's Professional Career Services.

F. Hooper Bond, a former law firm partner and Talbot County school board member, died Tuesday of complications from pneumonia at Memorial Hospital in Easton. He was 78. Born and raised in Baltimore's Mount Washington neighborhood, Mr. Bond graduated at 16 from St. Paul's School in 1944. He then enrolled at the Johns Hopkins University. In 1946, Mr. Bond enlisted in the Army. He was based at Fort A.P. Hill in Virginia, according to his family. After a brief stint in the Army, Mr. Bond returned to Hopkins to finish his studies and joined the campus ROTC program.

The pickup truck being sought by police in the hit-and-run death of a Johns Hopkins University student was found parked on a Northwest Baltimore street, and police continue to seek its driver, a city police spokesman said Sunday. Agent Donny Moses, the spokesman, said the white Ford F-250 with Maryland tag 94W412 was found legally parked in the 3800 block of Egerton Road in Ashburton about midnight Saturday after residents there recognized the truck from news accounts of the student's death and called police.

A 20-year-old Johns Hopkins University student, who was struck by a hit-and-run driver Friday afternoon as she tried to cross St. Paul Street, died early Saturday with her parents at her side, according to city police and university officials. The driver of the white Ford F-250 was traveling at a high rate of speed north in a narrow lane on the east side of the 3500 block of St. Paul St., according to Agent Donny Moses, a Baltimore police spokesman. Witnesses reported to police that the male driver never stopped after the accident but continued north and made an illegal left turn onto East University Parkway, Moses said.

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."

Raymond P. Srsic, a longtime Anne Arundel County pediatrician and professor of medicine whose practice spanned 50 years, died Thursday of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease, at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He was 81 and lived in Queenstown. Dr. Srsic, the son of a saloonkeeper and a homemaker, was born and raised in Pittsburgh. He was allowed to skip his senior year at North Catholic High School and enrolled at the University of Notre Dame, where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1948.

C. Edward Utermohle Jr., a retired Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. president who helped bring the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant to completion, died of Parkinson's disease Thursday at the Blakehurst Retirement Community in Towson. The former Fox Chapel resident was 94. Born in Baltimore and raised in Windsor Hills, he was a 1933 graduate of Baltimore Polytechnic Institute. He received a degree in mechanical engineering from the Johns Hopkins University. Mr. Utermohle joined Baltimore Gas & Electric in 1934 and remained with the utility for more than 50 years.

The Johns Hopkins University hopes to buy a vacant block in Charles Village once planned for luxury condos and transform it into a mixed development of parking, shops and other university uses once the economy rebounds. A Hopkins spokesman said Wednesday that the university is in talks with a joint venture of Baltimore-based Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse Inc. and Canyon Johnson Urban Funds to purchase the property in the 3200 block of St. Paul St. Struever and Canyon Johnson had proposed The Olmsted as luxury condos with price tags as high as $700,000, then shifted to smaller, market-rate and affordable apartments amid the housing slowdown.

ANDREW PAUL COX, JR of Glen Allen, VA died Monday, April 13, 2009 after a brief illness. Born in Baltimore, MD in 1937, he graduated from Baltimore Polytechnic Institute in 1956 and Johns Hopkins University with a BES in Electrical Engineering in 1959 and MS in Management Science in 1970. He served as First Lieutenant in the Army Artillery after college ROTC, stationed at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma and Ft. Hood, Texas in 1960. He co-authored and received at least 3 patents and designed computer circuits at Westinghouse Underseas Division from 1961 to 1967.

Marcia C. Pines, a retired administrator in public health programs at the Johns Hopkins University who pioneered guidelines for human volunteers in clinical research and who advocated greater awareness of mental illness, died Sunday morning at Sinai Hospital of complications from lymphoma. She was 83. Mrs. Pines started her professional career as a research assistant at Johns Hopkins in 1966, in the epidemiology department in what was then known as the School of Hygiene and Public Health.

Four men forced their way into a party in North Baltimore and robbed more than a dozen people late Thursday, city police said. The robbery happened in the 400 block of E. Lake Ave., about three blocks west of York Road, shortly before midnight, police said. The home had been rented to four Towson University students since September, according to the home's owner, John Komsa III. Reached by phone yesterday morning, Komsa said he had not been told about the home invasion at his property.

I was dismayed to read that, after 20 years of hosting the groups, the Johns Hopkins University is refusing to allow Confederate Civil War re-enactment groups to rent space for their yearly ceremony ("Hopkins balks at Confederate banner," Nov. 20). As the wife of a Civil War history enthusiast, I know that the Civil War was about more than just slavery and that those who seek to celebrate Confederate ancestors are not also seeking to celebrate discrimination and bigotry. By including in its article on the controversy quotes from the NAACP condemning the Confederate flag as a symbol of hatred, the newspapers boxes re-enactors and historical enthusiasts in with white supremacists and others who twist history to suit their political needs.