University Officials

Morgan State University officials are expecting President Clinton to deliver a commencement address to more than 900 graduates at the Northeast Baltimore campus May 18, although White House officials have yet to confirm formally that he will attend the event."

The people who care about Towson University athletics wondered one thing as they watched conference rival Virginia Commonwealth shock mighty Kansas to earn a berth in the Final Four: Why can't that be us? The question speaks to the hope Towson leaders harbor after securing $68 million for a new, on-campus arena and attracting a new men's basketball coach from the University of Pittsburgh. But it also speaks to their frustration that an athletic turnaround has not come more quickly.

A Johns Hopkins University student who died Wednesday morning likely fell ill because of a bacterial infection - not an allergic reaction he thought he was experiencing, university officials said yesterday. A preliminary blood test suggested that 19-year-old Gilbert Duvalsaint's death was the result of a meningococcal infection, which can lead to bacterial meningitis, said university spokesman Dennis O'Shea. Duvalsaint had been vaccinated against meningitis, a state requirement for students living in university housing.

If saloon-smashing Carry Nation had her ax, then the late Mary M. Avara had her scissors. And if Avara were alive today and still head of the now-defunct Maryland State Board of Motion Picture Censors, those students down there at College Park viewing Pirates II: Stagnetti's Revenge last week might not have been watching it at all if she decided to excise its sex scenes with her scissors or outright ban its showing. The Baltimore Sun reported that more than 100 students took in the pornographic film that in recent weeks pitted lawmakers, who had threatened to withhold funding from the University of Maryland, against anxious university officials, who in the wake of such a threat canceled the screening.

MOSCOW -- An American exchange student who was realizing a dream by coming to study at a Russian university fell 14 stories to his death Tuesday night from his dormitory room in southern Moscow.Officials are calling it a suicide, but an official familiar with the university program here says it looks more like murder with possible connections to the local mafia.Anthony Riccio, 21, appeared to have been strangled before he fell, according to a preliminary, as yet undisclosed examination, the official said.

Towson University police were investigating two suspicious letters sent to university staff containing a white granular substance, apparently intended to look like anthrax. Preliminary field testing showed no evidence of a hazardous material, and police believe the letters are a hoax, Susanna Craine, a Towson spokeswoman, said yesterday. Still, university officials sent alerts via email and the university Web site asking students and staff to call police to report any other suspicious letters and packages.

As Del. Howard P. Rawlings struggled with cancer this year, Morgan State University officials compiled a secret dossier about the influential Baltimore Democrat to use against him in future legislative showdowns. The research on Rawlings, who died three weeks ago, was intended to aid Morgan State in its long-running battle with the powerful chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, say people familiar with the project, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal by university officials.

Carl Stahlman is a member of Towson University's alumni association, has an $800 class ring, his name on a memorial brick at the school and fond memories of his parents attending his commencement in 1997. But there's one thing Carl Stahlman doesn't have: a degree. Stahlman has filed suit in Baltimore County Circuit Court seeking a court order that would require Towson University to give him the bachelor's degree in law enforcement that he says he earned when he finished his course work in May 1997.

They arrived with numerous signs saying "Halt TU arena now." They circulated a petition against the proposed $45 million Towson Center expansion, and they besieged university officials with questions as to why the building was being constructed. Towson University officials provided campus neighbors with maps, architectural drawings and a construction timetable for the expansion project last night during a meeting between university officials and Rodgers Forge residents. Groundbreaking for the 5,000-seat addition to the center is scheduled for spring 2010.

Morgan State University officials plan to ask the state Board of Public Works tomorrow to approve a contract for a $37 million student dormitory complex on the site of the former Pentridge Apartments, recently demolished on the west side of campus. The planned facility - on 13 acres between Loch Raven Boulevard and Perring Parkway - will house up to 800 students and provide 270 parking places, state documents show. A brisk timetable for completion shows that three-quarters of the housing should be occupied by August of next year.

Maryland lawmakers decided Tuesday to take more than $160 million in road maintenance funding from local governments to help plug a hole in next year's state budget. Senators and delegates are nearing completion of their negotiations on the state's almost $14 billion spending plan for the fiscal year that begins July 1. The two chambers must resolve their differences before the General Assembly adjourns Monday. They also addressed higher education funding, pornography at the University of Maryland, College Park and excess profits earned by Medicaid contractors.

Towson University officials have offered representatives of the Rodgers Forge community several alternative sites for a proposed $45 million sports arena on the campus, all of them adjacent to the current arena. While the residents said none of the options presented at a meeting Monday night was satisfactory, they agreed to continue discussions next week. "It was a good first step, but we need to continue to talk until the university understands the residents' point of view," Patrick Foretich, a Rodgers Forge resident, said yesterday.

They arrived with numerous signs saying "Halt TU arena now." They circulated a petition against the proposed $45 million Towson Center expansion, and they besieged university officials with questions as to why the building was being constructed. Towson University officials provided campus neighbors with maps, architectural drawings and a construction timetable for the expansion project last night during a meeting between university officials and Rodgers Forge residents. Groundbreaking for the 5,000-seat addition to the center is scheduled for spring 2010.

The University of Maryland, Baltimore broke ground yesterday on a $67 million addition to its School of Pharmacy, an expansion officials hope will help to address a nationwide shortage of pharmacists. University officials say the expansion will allow the school to increase enrollment by nearly 60 percent. Growing demand for prescription drugs, particularly from an aging population, and higher demand for pharmaceutical research to battle chronic diseases are fueling the need for more pharmacists, according to school officials.

It's just three storefronts now, just half a block with a jewelry/pawn shop, a carryout and a barber shop. But to city officials, this half a block in the 400 block of W. Baltimore St. is a critical piece for revitalization, a bridge between the University of Maryland, Baltimore campus to the west and the Hippodrome Theatre and Starbucks to the east. And so the city is pressing the university to put a planned student bookstore, to be managed by Barnes & Noble, at the northeast corner of Baltimore and Paca streets, a move officials hope will inject more energy and visibility to an area undergoing a slow transformation.

A citizens task force exploring the feasibility of building a state horse park in Howard County is planning a public hearing at 7 p.m. Jan. 10 in the County Council Chambers in Ellicott City. "I want to bring the public in," said Dr. Michael Erskine, chairman of the Horse Park Task Force. He said his group likely will present the County Council with a range of reactions and options this winter. "This isn't a proposal we're proposing or defending," Erskine said. The task force's charge from the council is to gather information and advise the council members.

Towson University announced yesterday that it will offer automatic admission and at least a $4,000 scholarship to all Baltimore public school students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their class. University officials say they want to increase the number of Baltimore students who attend Towson. Only 25 in this year's freshmen class were graduates of city public schools, according to university officials. "We're trying to be good neighbors, and we hope that it will improve our diversity on campus," said Louise Shulack, Towson's director of admissions.

The University of Maryland, Baltimore broke ground yesterday on a $67 million addition to its School of Pharmacy, an expansion officials hope will help to address a nationwide shortage of pharmacists. University officials say the expansion will allow the school to increase enrollment by nearly 60 percent. Growing demand for prescription drugs, particularly from an aging population, and higher demand for pharmaceutical research to battle chronic diseases are fueling the need for more pharmacists, according to school officials.

A University of Maryland, College Park official delivered a major blow this week to hopes of locating a state-sponsored horse park on a 900-acre farm in central Howard County, but members of a citizens task force haven't given up exploring the idea. Cheng-I Wei, dean of the university's College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, which operates the Clarksville farm, told the Horse Park Task Force that senior university officials are not interested in turning over or sharing the site for use as a $114 million Maryland Stadium Authority horse park.

It didn't hit Cheryl Peterson until she saw all 32 portraits leaning side by side against two adjoining walls in an art gallery on the campus of Virginia Tech. Her chalk pastel portraits of each of the students and teachers who were gunned down by a student on April 16 had been stored at home and at school and taken at different times to get framed. Peterson, an art teacher at Chesapeake Bay Middle School in Pasadena, had not seen all of them together until she made the 5 1/2 -hour trip July 22 to deliver the gifts and remove their brown paper wrapping.