University System

YES, THAT $25,000 gold medal they draped around the neck of Towson University President Mark L. Perkins at his inauguration was an example of wretched excess, even if taxpayers didn't pay for it. But the $850,000 mansion in Guilford, with its $600,000 in renovations? In the garden of college and university presidential residences, it's a common marigold. Million-dollar, even multimillion-dollar homes for university presidents are common across the country. They're usually supplied, along with cars, country club memberships, lucrative corporate board positions (paying well into five figures)

The recent op-ed written by William E. Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland, is similar to Chicken Little declaring that the sky is falling ("Doomsday for Md. higher education," April 24). Mr. Kirwan states that "under the doomsday budget, the USM would be cut nearly $50 million" and would "dictate a double-digit increase for in-state undergraduate tuition, an increase significantly higher than the 3 percent included in the governor's budget proposal. " However, based on information found on the USM's own website (www.usmd.edu)

When Robert L. Caret, the new president of Towson University, ventures out to talk about his vision for the school, he often gets asked about something else. "Everyone wants to know about the elevator," he says. "The elevator," of course, refers to one of the standout features of the mansion in Baltimore's Guilford neighborhood that Towson purchased and renovated - at a cost of $1.8 million - for Caret's predecessor. Mark L. Perkins resigned last year under fire for the spending, leaving it to an interim president and now Caret to handle the fallout and get the state's second-largest public university back on track.

Earlier this month, both houses of the Maryland General Assembly passed the state's fiscal 2013 operating budget, but both houses failed to pass tax legislation and a companion bill required to fund and implement the budget. As a result, our state faces two possibilities. Ideally, GovernorMartin O'Malleyand the legislative leadership will work out their differences, reconvene in a special session, and pass the legislation necessary for the FY 2013 budget to go into effect as lawmakers intended on July 1, 2012.

A technique developed by University of Maryland scientists for cultivating seafood indoors is slated to get its first real-world tryout under a licensing agreement with a newly formed Baltimore company. The technique, in which fish destined for the dinner table are bred in captivity and raised in large tanks of artificial sea water, has been licensed to a biotechnology startup called Maryland Sustainable Mariculture, University System of Maryland officials say. It's a watershed for Yonathan Zohar and his team of scientists and technicians, who've been working for years to perfect their "recirculating marine aquaculture system" in the Columbus Center at the Inner Harbor.

MARYLAND'S STUDENTS, their parents and all Maryland taxpayers should have the full story on the success (or lack thereof) of the operation of the University System of Maryland (USM).Many concerns have been raised regarding whether the current University System, established 10 years ago, is operating in the best interest of students or Maryland's institutions of higher education. As a result, the General Assembly has adopted legislation to establish a task force to study the governance, coordination and funding of the system.

The University System of Maryland could better manage increasing energy costs by signing long-term contracts with providers, a Board of Regents panel is recommending. "We have a huge problem with rising energy costs, just as homeowners and businesses do," said regent James C. Rosapepe, a member of the finance committee. The committee will recommend that the full board allow the largest institution in the system, the University of Maryland, College Park, to seek out natural gas contracts that could affect all university system institutions.

The University System of Maryland is considering putting a center in Hagerstown that would offer graduate and undergraduate degree programs run by institutions in the system."

THE JOB of chancellor of the University System of Maryland always looked like an odd fit for anybody accustomed to being in charge -such as a governor like Parris N. Glendening, considered the leading candidate until he withdrew last week. On paper, it looks great - $340,000 a year and a wonderful mansion, Hidden Waters, on Old Court Road in Baltimore County. Its occupant gets to pontificate on issues of higher education while leading one of the hottest systems in the country. The University of Maryland, College Park is soaring in the rankings, and other campuses - particularly University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Salisbury University and several schools at the University of Maryland, Baltimore - attract favorable national publicity.

The Maryland Court of Appeals upheld yesterday a ruling rejecting an attempt by University System of Maryland students to challenge a midyear tuition increase assessed at short notice during the winter break last year. The students had sued in Baltimore Circuit Court to block the 5 percent tuition increase, arguing that colleges were violating a contract with students by charging more for the spring semester than advertised. The appeals court agreed with the lower court that tuition rates listed on bills at the start of the school year didn't amount to a contract.

University of Maryland University College was academically sound on the day President Susan Aldridge resigned, according to the chancellor of the state university system. That assurance, conveyed by Chancellor William E. Kirwan in an interview last week, is the closest Maryland higher-education officials have come to answering questions about the sudden departure last month by the leader of the nation's largest online-focused public university. Aldridge's decision to step down has drawn notice across the national higher-education community because neither she nor the university system has offered an explanation.

Susan C. Aldridge will resign as president of University of Maryland, University College, the state's leading online educational institution, at the end of March. Aldridge had been on unexplained administrative leave since the end of February, and Thursday's announcement of her resignation shed little light on the reason for her sudden exit. "Given all that we have accomplished over the past six years, I think this is a good time to step down," Aldridge said in a statement released by the state university system.

A career biochemist will take the reins of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore on July 1, the university announced Wednesday. Juliette B. Bell, the current provost and vice president for academic affairs at Central State University in Ohio, was appointed president of the college, according to a press release from the university system. She will replace Thelma B. Thompson, who stepped down in August 2011. Bell has two decades of experience in higher education, including research, teaching and administration The first of her family to attend college — she holds bachelor's and doctorate degrees in chemistry biochemistry — Bell has advocated throughout her career for increasing the number of minority scientists and the opportunities for students to participate in scientific research.

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.

The leaders of Maryland's university system say they're grateful that Gov. Martin O'Malley has proposed another increase in higher-education spending for 2012-2013 at a time when many states are slashing support for public universities. University officials were in Annapolis on Wednesday to testify on behalf of the governor's proposed budget, which includes a 0.8 percent increase in operating funds and $215 million in capital projects for the state system. As in previous years, O'Malley chose to "buy down" a systemwide tuition increase, adding $9 million to the budget to limit the increase to 3 percent for a third straight year.

The Sun's high praise for the course design innovations at the University of Maryland Baltimore County is well deserved ("A Model Institution," Dec. 27). UMBC's success in transforming courses in fundamental chemistry, mathematics and physics has led to better student performance in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines that are so important to moving Maryland forward. The transformation at UMBC reflects an effort throughout the University System of Maryland to increase student performance in a range of gateway introductory courses.

The University System of Maryland's top official has sent a polite "no thank you" to the athletic director of Coppin State College in response to his offer to repay consulting fees paid by the college to former state Sen. Larry Young."

The task force charged with studying the way Maryland public colleges have been governed for the past 10 years heard its first round of testimony yesterday from college presidents whose main complaint about the system was that not everybody stays within its rules."

Who says sitting in the back of a packed lecture hall trying to absorb the intricacies of trigonometric functions or the chemistry of organic molecules is the only way to teach aspiring young scientists the tools of their trade? Well, tradition mostly. That's how generations of undergraduate math and science students were trained, and for a long time the system seemed to work. But there was always a downside to the method: Far too many of those budding Einsteins and Edisons never made it past Chemistry 101. Discouraged by the impersonal formality and isolation of a hard sciences education, they dropped out to pursue less abstruse fields of study.

University System of Maryland Chancellor William E. "Brit" Kirwan, who is in the midst of gathering input on the question of whether the University of Maryland-College Park and the University of Maryland-Baltimore should be merged, says it would be a shame if politics took primacy over the interests of higher education. Too late for that. The issue came up in the most political way possible - with Senate President and top College Park booster Thomas V. Mike Miller waltzing into the Budget and Taxation Committee this spring and inserting language that appeared to require the merger.