Langenberg

It's "vision time" at the University of Maryland System. Last August, the board of regents asked Chancellor Donald N. Langenberg to devise a "vision" for the 130,000-student network that finds itself in the midst of profound changes. The chancellor unveiled the first part of his blueprint this week, a plan that deals frankly with the system's immediate problems but in only vague terms with the system's future direction."We confront many very difficult, perhaps intractable, problems," the chancellor told the regents.

The University of Maryland chancellor said today the state must choose between more public aid for higher education or substantial tuition increases to achieve the quality envisioned for the system in a 1988 reform law.Chancellor Donald N. Langenberg also asked the university's governing board to force campuses to bring in revenues from other non-state sources besides tuition -- including entrepreneurial activity by faculty, research and development funds,...

Somebody's LyingEditor: The Opinion * Commentary page of Oct. 9 headlined a difficult question which I think I can answer. "Somebody's Lying -- Him or Her?" The answer is: it is neither him or her -- it is "He or She," or possibly "Both."Today's Senate is a disgrace to the United States. That United States includes not thou and I, but thee and me . . . and even him and her.Ellicott City.University IssuesEditor: If Pat Meisol's Oct. 27 article,''Frustrated by system, UM leaders seek change,'' is intended to inflame controversy, promote individual agendas and distract attention from the real issues, then it is a tour de force.

University of Maryland junior Anne Doyle found out yesterday about the 15 percent surcharge she will have to pay with her tuition bill in January."Does that mean it has to be paid in advance?" asked Doyle, a 20-year-old English major from Hagerstown. "I don't feel good about this at all. I'm here to get an education and my department is getting cut extremely."Doyle and other UM students returning to campus for the fall semester were surprised to learn of a vote yesterday by the Board of Regents to impose the one-time surcharge on the spring semester's tuition.

The University of Maryland System has been told to cut $24.1 million from its 1992 budget, and that the latest swing of the budget ax could lead to a tuition increase for students in January.UM Chancellor Donald Langenberg was informed of the new round of higher education cuts last week by the Department of Budget and Fiscal Planning, the governor's budget department. The cuts are part of a statewide $300 million belt-tightening announced earlier this month in response to a revenue shortfall in the state's general fund.

University of Maryland Chancellor Donald N. Langenberg was on the job a year before he was inaugurated in Baltimore last week. In a call-to-arms speech, Langenberg said American higher education must engage in a "revolution" to avoid becoming a "historical anachronism" and a "bastion of arrogant irrelevance."Langenberg vowed that the university he heads will lead that revolution, but he didn't say how. He particularly didn't say how his revolution will occur at a university that has been badly wounded by budget cuts.

"I am here to incite a revolution," Donald N. Langenberg said last week in his inaugural address as chancellor of the University of Maryland. What he has in mind are sweeping changes to transform the state's vast university system. The alternative, he said, is for UM to become "a historical anachronism, a bastion of arrogant irrelevance."Dr. Langenberg's address amounted to a harsh condemnation of hidebound campus leaders who have thwarted past efforts to bring about much-needed reforms at UM. Failure to respond to "a swiftly evolving global society" has robbed the university of its role as "a vital engine of our society."

In a stinging criticism of higher education, University of Maryland System Chancellor Donald N. Langenberg yesterday accused universities of sheltering bloated bureaucracies and maintaining smug resistance to change. On the occasion of his inauguration, he pledged to lead a revolution to revitalize them."In a swiftly evolving global society that waits for no institution to keep pace, we are in very real danger of becoming a historical anachronism, a bastion of arrogant irrelevance," he said in an inaugural speech.

He took official control of the University of Maryland system with a pledge to incite a revolution, but Donald N. Langenberg said he plans to operate as chancellor with an agenda of "elegant simplicity."Langenberg's inauguration yesterday at the Lyric Opera House in Baltimore drew about 2,000 state and national academic officials. They heard the new chancellor issue a call to UM's 11 campuses for sweeping changes to set new standards in higher education.The ceremony, a luncheon and a catered dinner at Langenberg's Baltimore County home cost $38,180 and was financed by private donations.

It's been an uncomfortable rookie year for University of Maryland Chancellor Donald N. Langenberg. He took over the state's 11-campus university system last July just as the bubble burst on Maryland's economy. Then he rubbed the governor the wrong way. And finally, he touched off a round of academic paranoia at College Park.Yet through it all, Dr. Langenberg has remained unruffled. Adjusting to Maryland's politically charged higher education scene has not been easy for the 59-year-old physicist after his previous success in melding two urban campuses into the University of Illinois-Chicago.