Older Students

Coppin State University should enroll higher-caliber freshmen, focus more on transfer and returning students, and reorganize its academics and administration, a committee plans to report Wednesday to the University System of Maryland Board of Regents. The recommendations, from a panel convened in December to study Coppin State, are meant to turn around the stressed institution, one of Maryland's four historically black colleges and universities. The school has one of the lowest six-year graduation rates for first-time, full-time students in the country at 15 percent as of fiscal year 2012 and is underenrolled by more than 2,000 students, the committee said.

Names such as "Tumbling Tykes and "Mighty Minis" reinforce the perception that gymnastics is a sport for the young. Even at Olympic levels, the sport seems dominated by tiny young women and fresh-faced young men who hardly seem old enough to stay up late for the ceremonies. It makes sense, however. A certain flexibility and fearlessness are inherent in the young, and those same characteristics are needed in a gymnast. But plenty of adults love the sport, too, and being old enough to stay up late doesn't mean you can't do gymnastics.

Susan Proto, a 19-year-old sophomore at the University of Maryland, College Park, was talking strategy last night."Keep the ball down, because when it goes into the air, it's easy to catch," she said.It could have been baseball she was describing until she added, "Unless you can kick it so far that no one can catch it."Proto was talking kickball, a sport that attracted 170 Maryland students to the school's first intramural kickball championship tournament last night.Maryland and the University of Nebraska are the only two schools in the country that offer the sport, which most students hadn't played since they were wearing hand-me-down sweat shirts and corduroy reversible slacks.

It was the week before Christmas, and Sharon Habighurst was nervous: Twenty years had passed since she had taken a final exam. Her head stuffed with facts about Medicare, she anxiously reviewed a binder full of notes. At the same time, the 49-year-old student was juggling a full-time job, the schedules of her two teenage children and holiday duties. When she finally sat down to prove her mastery of "The Experience of Aging," she recognized the same blue exam booklets she used in the 1980s.

A month shy of his 16th birthday, Ty Hobson-Powell made history Sunday when he walked across the stage at The Lyric as the youngest person ever to graduate from the University of Baltimore. Hobson-Powell gave up a fledgling basketball career when he began college three years ago, commuted more than an hour each way from his home in Northwest Washington after transferring last fall from Howard University and once completed 27 credits in a single semester while shuttling between classes at Howard, Montgomery College and the Internet.

Maryland's in-state undergraduates will pay a few hundred dollars more per semester this fall under a new tuition-and-fee plan approved Wednesday by the university system's Board of Regents. Out-of-state students will be hit a little harder, paying as much as $1,060 more, for example, at the University of Maryland, College Park. The plan marks the fourth year that tuition for resident undergraduates at most Maryland schools has gone up 3 percent — an increase characterized by university system officials as moderate and lower than many states.

Maryland is poised to join a growing number of states that are requiring students to stay in school until their 18th birthday, a shift that President Barack Obama urged during his State of the Union address in January. A measure to raise the compulsory attendance age — state students now must attend until they turn 16 — has cleared both chambers in the Maryland General Assembly. It needs final approval by the Senate, which is expected as early as today. Gov. Martin O'Malley has said he will sign the legislation, which would fully take effect in 2017.

Howard, Carroll and Frederick counties, working as a consortium, will receive $228,000 in federal funds to train 135 teachers in a pilot project centered primarily on reading instruction for high school students.The program will allow teachers to work with their own students and schools to identify problems older students experience in reading in all subjects. Teachers will then try to find solutions and use them in class.The funding is part of $567,000 in federal Goals 2000 money that the Maryland State Department of Education awarded recently.

Here are things an excellent school reading program does:* Sets aside time for reading every day.* Involves the whole school in reading, including teachers, administrators and custodians.* Makes effective use of the school library.* Has novels and magazines in every classroom to augment library.* At the primary level, uses a number of teaching approaches: phonics, whole word or look-say, whole language.* Uses reading and writing as part of every subject from math to geography.* Has resource teachers to help students who are having trouble reading.

High school graduation came about 17 years late for Lloyd and Tammy Poates of Union Bridge, but not too late for the couple to celebrate their joint success. Nor for their two children to share in their pride. They were among some 100 adults who received diplomas from Carroll County's Alternative Program in graduation ceremonies held last week at Westminster High School.Some completed their secondary education through the General Equivalency Diploma program, studying traditional academic courses and taking a comprehensive eight-hour final exam.