University President

In the wake of Sunday's second annual surreptitious Nude Relays at the University of Florida, university president John Lombardi seems unperturbed.Skinny-racing might be illegal for all he knows, Lombardi said Monday, but since the Nude Relays by college track team members and other runners apparently did no harm, he's not worried about them."

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.

The founding dean of the Johns Hopkins University G. W. C. Whiting School of Engineering was named yesterday to head the University of Bath in Britain.David VandeLinde, dean of the engineering school since it was reestablished at Hopkins 13 years ago, will become vice chancellor of the British university in July 1992. The post is the equivalent of university president on U.S. campuses.The University of Bath has 4,400 students and 400 faculty.Dr. VandeLinde, 48, said in a statement that in recent years he had been "committed to bringing engineers -- and educators in general -- together in the world community, across international boundaries, and this is a wonderful opportunity to advance that interest."

James Lee Fisher, former Towson University president, has no spring break. This week he was in the Charlotte, N.C., airport on yet another consulting job. He was heading to a college whose administration is paying for his advice and recommendations. Fisher is now 76 and says he feels like 56. He still plays basketball with his grandson. From 1969 to 1978, he was the president of Towson University and saw its enrollment nearly double. "Towson was the best decade of my life. We did a lot of things and I didn't know any better," he 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.

TRUSTEES fantasizing credentials for a new president of the Johns Hopkins University might require someone who was simultaneously a physician, engineer, entrepreneur, university medical administrator, university trustee and amateur musician. One might assume there is no such person, but the trustees have just chosen Dr. William R. Brody, with exactly that resume, to be the 13th president of the university.He has been there before, with a foot in medicine and engineering, and knows what he is getting into.

Every taxpayer knows only too well: You have a legitimate deduction, and you know how much it should be, but you don't have receipts for every item, so you throw in some receipts that you do happen to have, and it's not really cheating because the total adds up to what your really-truly deduction is, so you're not really deducting any more than you're really, truly entitled to.That seems to be the best light we can throw on the $89,119 Johns Hopkins University...

A group of about 50 faculty members and students gathered Wednesday to protest the most recent round of staff cuts at Coppin State University. Five people were let go last week, workers said, increasing the total for the year to 25 layoffs and contract nonrenewals, and further straining the university administration's relationship with its staff. "As a faculty member, I find no solace or relief or comfort in seeing staff let go, especially in these perilous economic times," said Ken Morgan, an assistant professor at Coppin.

Cartoonist Garry Trudeau plans to issue an apology on his Web site late tonight to anyone who might be offended by tomorrow's Doonesbury comic strip, which due to "poor timing" features the image of a man's head on a platter. Trudeau drew the strip in April, before the beheading of an American citizen, Nicholas Berg, in Iraq, a videotape of which was posted on a Web site on May 11. Doonesbury's distributor, Universal Press Syndicate, alerted newspapers on May 14, but many newspapers, including The Sun, had already printed the comic sections that will be distributed in tomorrow's editions.

The costly new house for the Towson University president was supposed to help the college collect big gifts from wealthy guests. But all the house is collecting right now is dust. It's not that campus officials have turned shy. It's that throwing a cocktail party could land them in court. While the university looks for a new president, the house in Baltimore's Guilford neighborhood is vacant. And under neighborhood association rules, that means no parties: Homes must have residents to be used for entertaining.