University System

The incoming president of Coppin State University vowed yesterday to transform the struggling public college into a "first-choice" campus with high academic standards and improved graduation rates. Reginald S. Avery, chief academic officer of the University of South Carolina Upstate, will become the fifth president of the 107-year-old West Baltimore institution in January, officials announced yesterday. "In the next three years ... we should have increased our graduation rate to 50 percent" - or more than double the current rate, Avery said in a telephone interview from his Spartanburg office, where he has been executive vice chancellor since 2003.

Hoping to enliven midtown Baltimore with new residences and shops while providing much needed parking for the University of Baltimore, the university and a private developer are proposing a $75 million luxury apartment project at West Mount Royal Avenue and West Oliver Street. The Fitzgerald would have approximately 280 market-rate units and 14,000 square feet of street-level retail and wrap around an 1,100-space garage that could be used by students, faculty and the public, said Toby Bozzuto, executive vice president of Bozzuto Development Co. The project in the Midtown-Belvedere neighborhood would be the first step in a larger vision to enhance the area around the university through redevelopment, Peter Toran, vice president of planning and university relations, said yesterday.

Colleges and state legislatures across the country have been grappling with a problem that's not going away: the soaring price of textbooks. Last year, 21 states, including Maryland, considered legislation or policies to rein in book costs, according to the National Association of College Stores. And at least in Maryland, the issue will be coming up again this year. Two years ago, the Maryland legislature asked the university system to come up with a consortium through which public institutions, on a voluntary basis, could use their buying power to get lower prices on books.

The University System of Maryland agreed yesterday to require its colleges to provide traditional benefits to long-term contractual lecturers, who occupy an expanding second tier of the state's teaching work force. The Sun reported in December that nearly 300 full-time instructors at five colleges were not eligible for retirement and other benefits. At Coppin State and Frostburg State universities, some lecturers who had been in their jobs for more than a decade weren't even getting health insurance.

Michael Kenneth Hooker, the 53-year-old academic visionary who recast the University of Maryland, Baltimore County as a recognized research institution, died yesterday of lymph system cancer at UNC Hospital in Chapel Hill, N.C.The chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he had earlier headed the University of Massachusetts, UMBC and Bennington College."

Prompted by concerns about the lobbying activities of Maryland Board of Regents Chairman Lance W. Billingsley, the General Assembly is considering barring regents from representing, for pay, any party on any matter before state agencies.University system officials called the prohibition unnecessary and overly broad, warning it would make it difficult to get good people to agree to serve on the University System of Maryland board and could affect several current members. The system includes 11 degree-granting campuses and two research institutions.

Striving to boost the state's public colleges, Gov. Parris N. Glendening and legislative leaders endorsed a move yesterday to give the University System of Maryland more autonomy.Embracing the work of a recent state task force headed by Adm. Charles R. Larson, the governor introduced legislation that would free the 11-campus system from key regulatory oversight.But Glendening declined, for now, to allocate an additional $27 million in state funding that the task force had suggested be spent on the University System to improve academic programs.

Jennie C. Hunter-Cevera, a California-based researcher who has held a variety of posts in industry and academia, was named president of the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute yesterday.Hunter-Cevera, 51, succeeds Rita R. Colwell, the institute's founder and first president, who left last year to become director of the National Science Foundation in Washington, D.C.A native of West Virginia, Hunter-Cevera has been head of the Center for Environmental Biotechnology at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif.

Fearing donors would cut off financial support of Maryland's public colleges, University System of Maryland officials urged lawmakers in Annapolis yesterday to kill a bill that proposes letting the state review financial records of nonprofit organizations affiliated with government agencies.The university system's opposition to the bill, which will likely come up for a vote in the next few weeks, renewed a decade-long debate about whether such authority is warranted."These audits will damage donor confidence," said system Chancellor Donald N. Langenberg, speaking to the Senate Economic and Environmental Affairs Committee.

Hoke L. Smith, the fiercely competitive president of Towson University, said yesterday that he will retire in 2001.Smith, 68, made the announcement in his annual State of the University address to the staff and students. He said giving the university 21 months' notice will provide it with "time to prepare for an orderly change in the presidency."Enrollment at Maryland's second-largest campus, behind the University of Maryland, College Park, jumped from 12,000 to 16,000 during Smith's 20-year tenure and is expected to reach 20,000 within four years.

By now the dangers of smoking and exposure to secondhand smoke are so well established that hardly anyone disputes the risks they pose to public health and well-being. Every year some 390,000 Americans die from smoking-related illnesses, and tobacco contributes to 1 out of every 6 deaths annually in this country. That's why we applaud Towson University's decision last week to ban smoking everywhere on its campus. We only wonder why it took the university this long to take a step that so obviously benefits its students and the entire school community.

Do you agree with the University System of Maryland Board of Regents' decision not to establish a policy on the showing of pornographic films? Yes 51% No 46% Not sure 3% (939 votes, results not scientific) Next poll: : Do you agree with the federal government's plans to try suspected Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed in a federal court in New York City rather than before a military commission? Vote at baltimoresun.com/vote

Should BGE be allowed to levy a mandatory surcharge on residential customers to install "smart meters" that could save money for people who use less electricity at peak times? Yes 8% No 89% Not sure 3% (1,195 votes, results not scientific) Next poll: : Do you agree with the University System of Maryland board's decision not to establish a policy on the showing of pornographic films? Vote at baltimoresun.com/vote

The University System of Maryland defied Wednesday a request from state lawmakers to create a policy regulating the display of pornographic films on its campuses, concluding that such a move would provoke costly free-speech lawsuits. A pornography policy would also place undue financial and administrative burdens on the system's campuses, the Board of Regents said in explaining its unanimous decision. "As we learned more, we came to find out it would be a very difficult thing to accomplish," said system Chancellor William E. Kirwan.

Western High principal gets national honor Eleanor Matthews, principal of Western High School in Baltimore, was honored with a Terrel H. Bell Award for outstanding leadership this week in Washington. Matthews is one of two Maryland principals who received the award from the U.S. Department of Education that recognizes principals who "do whatever it takes to help their students meet high standards and are committed to the notion that in educating America's children, failure is no option," according to a statement issued Tuesday by the Department of Education.

Today, with the Maryland Board of Regents discussing a first-in-the-nation policy regulating entertainment events on its 13 campuses, we are proud to say that students have stood up and said: "No policy." As the student representative on the Board of Regents and the student body president of the University System of Maryland's flagship university in College Park, we don't support porn. Rather, we support the right of students and student groups to host entertainment events on their campuses without the fear of censorship by a university administrator or a state politician.

: Should the University System of Maryland become possibly the first college system in the country to establish a policy on student displays of pornographic films? Yes 36% No 58% Not sure 6% (1,003 votes, results not scientific) Next poll: : Should Guantanamo detainees be transferred to the United States for trial? Vote at baltimoresun.com/vote

Is it appropriate for a military leader to speak out publicly about White House policy and war strategy (as Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal did recently) when his views might conflict with those of the president? Yes 59% No 37% Not sure 4% (745 votes, results not scientific) Next poll: : Should the University System of Maryland become possibly the first college system in the country to establish a policy on student displays of pornographic films? Vote at baltimoresun.com/vote

Maryland's public university system is poised to become the first in the country with a policy on student displays of pornographic films, a direct response to legislative demands made after a screening earlier this year of a XXX-rated film at the University of Maryland, College Park. Though work on the policy is continuing, it has stirred many of the same free-speech concerns that raged when the university briefly quashed student plans to screen the pornographic epic "Pirates II: Stagnetti's Revenge" in April.

A former auditor for the University System of Maryland has been charged with filing inflated payment requests for work hours, the state prosecutor announced Tuesday. William L. Lewis, 53, who was a manager in the system's Internal Auditing Office before resigning in July during the investigation, submitted payroll sheets indicating that he was working 40-hour workweeks when he was not, according to State Prosecutor Robert A. Rohrbaugh. "A review of Lewis' payroll records revealed that he was not using annual, sick or personal leave for his absences from work," Rohrbaugh said.