University President

UMES president Juliette B. Bell today announced her acceptance of a task force recommendation that the university not restart its football program, which has been dormant since 1980. Bell had commissioned a task force to evaluate a study conducted by an independent consultant that weighed the pros and cons of adding a football program at UMES. “The university is not currently in position, with either human or fiscal resources, to reinstate football at this time,” the task force report said.

The Johns Hopkins men's lacrosse program plans to surrender its status as an independent and join a conference, the university announced Friday. The Blue Jays have competed independently for 130 years, winning nine NCAA championships and qualifying for 41 consecutive NCAA tournaments before getting left out of the postseason earlier this month. In a letter to the Johns Hopkins community and posted on the school's website, president Ronald J. Daniels said he accepted the recommendation of a seven-member special committee that proposed that the program pursue a conference affiliation.

Morgan State University Alumni Association's Harford County Chapter held a meet and greet in Havre de Grace recently where the featured guest was the university's new president, David T. Wilson. Held at La Banque De Fleuve on May 29, the event was hosted by Morgan alumni County Executive David Craig and Bruce and Theresa Lewis of Total Urgent Care. Leaders of the local chapter and the national association are both hoping to increase enrollment and donations among the extensive network of Morgan alumni in Harford and Cecil counties, and having the opportunity to hear from and meet the new president certainly enhanced that effort, organizers said.

Four presidents at public research universities made a collective $9.2 million in fiscal year 2012, with the top earner of the group making much of his money because he was fired, according to a report released Sunday by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Graham B. Spanier, who was terminated from Pennsylvania State University in late 2011 for his handling of a child-molestation scandal, was paid $2.9 million - $1.2 million of it in severance. This was the first fiscal year that four presidents topped the million mark in compensation.

W. Robert Higgins, a retired American history professor who headed Southeastern University in Washington, died of dementia Sunday at the Keswick Multi-Care Center. The Mount Vernon resident was 71. Born in Gaffney, S.C., he earned undergraduate and master's degrees in history from the University of South Carolina and a doctorate from Duke University, where he met his future wife, the former Eva Poythress, who sells residential real estate in Baltimore. Dr. Higgins, who was known as Rob, served in the Navy from 1959 to 1963 in the Pacific aboard the aircraft carriers USS Hornet, Kearsarge and Yorktown.

The Rev. Thomas Fitzgerald, a Jesuit who had been president of St. Louis University and later taught at Loyola College in Baltimore, died Monday of a heart ailment at his home on the Georgetown University campus in Washington. He was 82. The Washington native joined the Roman Catholic Society of Jesus in 1939 and was ordained as a priest in 1952 in Leuven, Belgium. He earned degrees in sacred theology at the Leuven seminary and a doctorate in classical languages from the University of Chicago.

The newly installed president of Catholic University, Christian Brother who grew up in Baltimore, has pledged to work against rising tuition rates, pare program duplications and tackle the special educational needs of a new wave of immigrants.Brother Patrick Ellis, 64, became the 13th president of the Roman Catholic university in ceremonies on its Northeast Washington campus Tuesday. He succeeds the Rev. William J. Byron, who held the position for 10 years.Born in Baltimore, Brother Patrick received his high school education at Calvert Hall College before attending Catholic University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and the University of Pennsylvania, where he received his doctorate in English in 1960.

Baltimore Hebrew University President Robert O. Freedman announced last night that he will resign his post at the end of this academic year to devote more time to his scholarly interests: the politics of Russia and the Middle East. Freedman, who has been president since the 1995 death of his predecessor, Norma Furst, made the announcement at the end of graduation ceremonies at the Park Heights campus. The audience responded with an extended standing ovation. "In sum, this has been a wonderful 5 1/2 years for me as president of BHU, but all good things must come to an end," Freedman said.

Johns Hopkins University President William C. Richardson shocked his campus yesterday by announcing that he would leave the university after five years to lead one of the nation's largest philanthropies.On Aug. 1, Dr. Richardson will become president and chief executive officer of the W. K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Mich., with assets from the cereal fortune exceeding $5 billion. It is the nation's second-largest foundation and awarded grants of $264 million last year.The move took Hopkins by surprise: Dr. Richardson flew to New York City on Wednesday to tell trustee Chairman Morris W. Offit the news, and he spent much of yesterday morning informing campus officials.

A University of Maryland commission is expected to make its recommendations public within the next 24 hours on which athletic teams are being targeted for elimination because of severe budget issues, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the situation. Among the teams on the commission's list of recommended cuts are men's swimming and diving, women's swimming and diving, and women's water polo, the sources said. Those teams recently contacted recruits and said that letters of intent were being withheld because of the programs' uncertain futures.

The Towson University Alumni Association Board of Directors supports President Maravene Loeschke and her commitment to advance our alma mater's focus on student success and academic excellence. Since Ms. Loeschke's arrival, Towson alumni have witnessed countless examples of her enthusiasm and devotion to Towson University. Her love for students is evident in everything she does. Dr. Loeschke's leadership - transparent, compassionate, inclusive and decisive - has served her well in making difficult, sometimes heart-wrenching decisions.

I have been following the testimonials in The Sun from longtime associates and friends of Towson University President Maravene Loeschke affirming her leadership and managerial skills ("Towson University has a first-class leader," April 24). I'm sure that she has performed many of these skills well. However, her actions on March 8 were not a demonstration of any of them. It's hard to imagine a more mismanaged day. Evidently, in an effort to limit the number of student-athletes she would actually have to look in the eye, she tried to pull the kids out of class with less than an hour's notice, spoke to less than half of each squad, delivered a message of a few minutes in length while escorted by campus police, took no questions, and departed the scene escorted by even more policemen.

Rutgers men's lacrosse players and parents expressed loyalty to suspended coach Brian Brecht at a meeting with university President Robert L. Barchi on Tuesday. A large group of players - dressed in khakis and suit jackets - and their parents met with Barchi on Tuesday. At the meeting, the group presented Barchi with a petition that contained between 800 and 1,000 signatures in support of Brecht, a former Loyola University assistant, a source at the meeting said. The source also said there were an estimated 50-plus people in attendance at Tuesday's meeting.

BWI Business Partnership's April signature breakfast will be held Wednesday, April 17 from 7:45 to 9:15 a.m. at the Hotel at Arundel Preserve, 7795 Arundel Mills Boulevard, in Hanover. Keynote speaker Maravene Loeschke, president of Towson University, will talk about new initiatives at Towson. Towson University is one of the largest public universities in Maryland, and has interdisciplinary partnerships with public and private institutions, which provide research, internship and jobs for students.

UMES president Juliette B. Bell today announced her acceptance of a task force recommendation that the university not restart its football program, which has been dormant since 1980. Bell had commissioned a task force to evaluate a study conducted by an independent consultant that weighed the pros and cons of adding a football program at UMES. “The university is not currently in position, with either human or fiscal resources, to reinstate football at this time,” the task force report said.

A Morgan State University alumnus who is leading a coalition suing the state over discrimination at historically black colleges and universities has criticized the university's embattled president for showing "minimal interest and involvement in the lawsuit. " David J. Burton, president of the Coalition for Equity and Excellence in Maryland Higher Education, wrote in a letter to Dallas R. Evans, chair of Morgan's Board of Regents, saying university president David J. Wilson's actions could "be interpreted as his being against rather than in support of the Coalition's case.

WHETHER OR NOT the schools that constitute the University System of Maryland win their battle to squeeze some additional funding out of next year's tight state budget, one fact is clear. Thanks to Towson University, they've already won two dubious achievement awards: the first for bad judgment, the second for terrible timing. Just as Chancellor Donald N. Langenberg and a handful of university presidents went on the road last week to drum up support in Annapolis and elsewhere for Gov. Parris N. Glendening's proposed $31 million budget increase for the university system, news broke about the newly purchased home for use by Towson's president.

Setting aside almost 60 years of athletic tradition in a quest for greater financial stability, the University of Maryland will join the Big Ten Conference, school and league officials announced Monday after a weekend of whirlwind negotiations. In another of the massive conference shifts that have defined college sports in recent years, Maryland will join the traditionally Midwestern Big Ten in 2014, leaving behind the Atlantic Coast Conference, which the university helped found in 1953.

Members of the Towson baseball and men's soccer teams continue to wait to hear whether their programs will be disbanded by the university. President Maravene Loeschke sent a message to students and faculty Monday saying that a task force asked to study the decision had endorsed the recommendation to cut the sports. But she also said she would need more time to examine the issue before making her decision. She hopes to do so “as soon after winter break as possible.” Loeschke was not available for an interview this week, nor was Towson athletics director Mike Waddell.

COLLEGE PARK - The announcement that Maryland might reinstate some of its dropped sports surprised most everybody - including athletes who say they still feel betrayed by the cuts and even the man who will co-chair a panel to study the issue. Barry Gossett attended a wedding over the weekend and was still in Florida when he heard - via streaming video - when Maryland president Wallace D. Loh said Monday that the school's entry into the Big Ten may provide enough cash to restore some of the seven sports discontinued June 30. "I thought, 'That's news to me,' " said Gossett, a regent and top donor who is expected to co-chair the commission that will study Maryland's finances and recommend whether some of the teams may be able to return.