Maryland System

The Finance Committee of the University of Maryland System will conduct a public forum from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Dec. 16 at the University of Maryland Baltimore County in the Catonsville school's faculty/staff dining hall to discuss tuition policy.The committee will address these issues and others: Should the tuition policy of the 11-campus University of Maryland System ensure accessfor qualified students regardless of ability to pay? Should the system's institutions charge different tuition for different academic programs?

It is 6:45 a.m. and Severna Park High School freshman Chelsea Rogers has a decision to make: skip the most important meal of the day or skip the school bus. "There's no time for breakfast," said Rogers after reaching the corner of Hill Road and Baltimore Annapolis Boulevard in Severna Park, where the bus will take her to school in time for classes to begin at 7:17 a.m. She said she hadn't had a bite since 8 p.m. the night before and wouldn't eat...

The Dream Home feature will periodically visit the homes of notable citizens.Not too many people can say a dream house came with their job.However, for the chancellor of the University of Maryland System, living at Hidden Waters, a three-story brick mansion on 120 acres in Baltimore County, is a condition of employment.In 1988, shortly after Donald N. Langenberg took the position as chancellor, the Board of Regents decided that the chancellor should live there. The board leased the property from the University of Maryland Foundation, a private, not-for-profit that manages gifts to the university.

St. Joseph Medical Center officially became part of the University of Maryland Medical System this past weekend, and it's difficult not to see this development as a victory for all involved. The hospital had been rocked by a malpractice scandal — and hundreds of lawsuits — involving unnecessary surgeries conducted by its cardiology department, and the new ownership would seem to give the institution and its employees a fresh start. For several years, St. Joseph has been operating under a cloud left behind by Dr. Mark Midei and the stent procedures of questionable merit.

The University of Maryland System Board of Regents unanimously voted today to merge its Baltimore City and Baltimore County campuses.The resolution approved by 16 board members today also asks Gov. William Donald Schaefer and state legislators to give the necessary approvals, which would probably include a bill in the General Assembly.If approved, the combined school would be called University of Maryland Baltimore.The new school would focus on the health sciences, life sciences, technology, social work, law and public policy.

Students at most University of Maryland System campuses would see their spring tuition bills increased by 6 percent to 12 percent under a proposal now before the system's Board of Regents.The largest percentage increase would be at Towson State University, where full-time students from Maryland would see their spring tuition bills go up by $110 -- or 12.2 percent for the semester.Full-time Towson students from outside the state would face a 15 percent increase in the spring tuition.The midyear increases proposed by UM Chancellor Donald N. Langenberg would raise about $6 million to help offset $24 million in state budget cuts.

Imagine this headline in the sports section: ''World-classrunner shoots self in foot to heal broken leg.''Laughable, of course. It would never happen.But turn back to the front page a moment: ''Higher ed funding cut again as state struggles with economic slump.''We're shooting ourselves in the foot, all right. Just when Maryland is most in need of both the intellectual vigor and the job-creating power of its colleges and universities, we have taken aim at them and squeezed the trigger.Gov.

For its first dive in the fund-raising pool, the University of Maryland System executed a fairly impressive full-gainer: UMS has reached a $200 million goal it had set for its five-year campaign 1 1/2 years ahead of schedule. The campaign, begun in 1988, isn't to run out until the end of 1993, so officials have revised the goal to a level they initially rejected as unrealistic: $236 million."It can no longer be said that Maryland's public universities do not enjoy private support," said Allen J. Krowe, a senior vice president and chief financial officer of Texaco Inc., who chairs the campaign.

HOMER SCHAMP greets a visitor outside his new office on the campus of Coppin State College almost apologetically. The closet-sized room dominated by new computer equipment is too small for chatting, he says, as he ushers one into a nearby classroom.The tiny office that he shares with a secretary is the beginnings of the Center for Excellence in Urban Education, a product of the University of Maryland System intended to help Baltimore city schools improve the quality of their education."The center itself will be kind of a broker," says Schamp, explaining that as acting director he will be a liaison between the system's Baltimore-area campuses and the Baltimore public schools.

Towson State University is no stranger to name changes. It's had four in 130 years.But now it's ready for a new identity.Hoke L. Smith, president of the university, would like to eliminate "state" from the name, calling it Towson University."

A federal court has dismissed a case against a rehabilitation hospital owned by the University of Maryland Medical System that was accused of diagnosing patients with a rare malnutrition-related disorder to collect bigger Medicare and Medicaid payments. The federal government filed a $8.1 million lawsuit in U.S. District Court against Kernan Hospital last year, saying the West Baltimore facility manipulated its computer system to show that patients suffered from kwashiorkor, a disease most typically found in impoverished regions.

State legislators often prioritize important legislation the way kindergartners rank vegetables among the food groups. They focus on media-friendly social legislation instead of structural reform requiring time and effort to understand and craft. Why, for example, did they pass gay marriage and a law regulating how long a child must face rearward in a car seat but not figure out the budget until the absolute last minute? And why didn't they spend time this year on how to pay the pensions of the 373,000 people in the state retirement system?

Financially troubled St. Joseph Medical Center ended its search for a new owner Friday, announcing that it has entered an agreement to become part of the rapidly expanding University of Maryland Medical System. The announcement was greeted with cheers at the Towson hospital, said Dr. Paul McAfee, head of spinal surgery. "If the doctors in the operating room and emergency room had flowers, they would have thrown them," he said, adding that UMMS plans to upgrade the facilities and turn the hospital into a major surgery center.

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.

St. Joseph Medical Center has narrowed its search for a strategic partner to three, the hospital said Wednesday. The troubled hospital did not identify the finalists, but several sources with knowledge of the process confirmed that the potential buyers are LifeBridge Health, which owns Sinai and Northwest hospitals; Ascension Health, which owns St. Agnes Hospital; and the University of Maryland Medical System. "The St. Joseph Medical Center Board met Jan. 19 and narrowed the number of potential strategic partners to three for the next round of discussions," reads a statement from St. Joseph.

The University of Maryland Medical System and LifeBridge Health are among five suitors vying for a partnership with St. Joseph Medical Center, though a deal will likely be complicated by the Towson hospital's poor financial situation. St. Joseph has had a sharp drop in revenue and patient admissions since 2009, when allegations of unnecessary coronary procedures and a separate kickback scheme were made public. A deal with St Joseph "would certainly take some serious discussion on how we try to mitigate those losses," E. Albert Reece, dean of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said Friday.

If regents who set policy for Maryland's public university system have their way, the university in Towson will lose its state. The public professional schools in downtown Baltimore will lose a preposition. And Maryland's flagship university will lose its hometown.Under a measure adopted unanimously yesterday by regents at a meeting in Cambridge, Towson State University would become Towson University.The University of Maryland College Park, the flagship campus, and the University of Maryland at Baltimore, the cluster of professional schools, would both call themselves the University of Maryland -- although, on official letterheads, their hometowns would be listed either after a comma or below the words "University of Maryland."

College Park. -- The University of Maryland System is five years old today! A birthday is a good time in the life of a person or an institution to take stock, to ask ''How are we doing?'' For our system, the answer is ''Remarkably well, everything considered.''The University of Maryland System was created to provide Maryland with a nationally eminent system of public higher education. In its initial years, it was given unprecedented increases in financial support. Hopes and expectations were high.

Thanks to Wall Street bonuses and government bailouts, the size of the federal debt, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and other recent scandals, U.S. politicians have learned to express outrage as reflexively as some of us say "ouch" even before the doctor inserts the needle. Just watch the cable networks or read the blogosphere: It pays to be angry these days, and the less rational the better. But sometimes knee-jerk populist indignation comes off as, well, knee-jerk populist indignation.

Former University of Maryland Medical System CEO Edmond F. Notebaert, who resigned two years ago during a tumultuous time that included infighting and a board shakeup, is again the subject of controversy over his $7.8 million pay package. Notebaert walked away with the compensation — details of which weren't disclosed in filings with the Internal Revenue Service until this week — after he announced his retirement in July 2008. Tensions had arisen between him and physicians over how the system was run. Shortly after his departure, one-third of the board resigned, including the chairman and vice chairman.