University System

A former Baltimore County teacher filed a complaint with a state board Monday, alleging that the University System of Maryland Board of Regents violated the state open meetings law when it voted in closed session on the University of Maryland's move to the Big Ten athletic conference. "I think it's a disgrace that no one has complained about this," said Ralph Jaffe, who taught political science in the county public schools and has run for U.S. Senate and governor in recent years. Jaffe, who lives in Pikesville, sent a letter to the Maryland Open Meetings Compliance Board on Monday saying that the Board of Regents illegally met last week to approve the university's move, which ended six decades of membership in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

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.

Few would argue that the University of Maryland's decision earlier this week to join the Big Ten isn't about the money — $24 million a year in television revenue. But university officials are helping to sell the deal with what they argue is a significant academic benefit to joining the athletic conference. The 12 universities that make up the Big Ten Conference, plus the University of Chicago, constitute an academic consortium called the Committee on Institutional Collaboration.

While questions about the University of Maryland's decision to join the Big Ten seemed to dissipate when school leaders explained the financial benefits of the move, doubts about the process used to reach the conclusion linger. Before entering into serious talks with the Big Ten, Maryland President Wallace D. Loh signed a nondisclosure agreement pledging to keep details out of public view. Such agreements are not uncommon when schools' negotiations with conferences involve sensitive financial information.

In his first 2 1/2 years as president at the University of Maryland, Wallace Loh oversaw sweeping changes to the leadership of his athletic department and confronted the pain of cutting teams to patch gaping budget holes. But he had never steered headlong into the kind of controversy that erupted Monday when the university broke a near-60-year relationship with the Atlantic Coast Conference in favor of the long-term television riches offered by the Big Ten. The decision is so large - fundamentally changing the portal through which many alumni and donors interact with the university - that it seems likely to define Loh's presidency, for better or worse.

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.

A former leader of a national group of public universities has been named the interim president of Coppin State University, the state university system announced Wednesday. Mortimer H. Neufville, who until June had served as the interim president of University of Maryland Eastern Shore, will become the interim president Jan. 23 when the current president, Reginald S. Avery, steps down. Avery received a vote of no confidence from the faculty last year. He pledged to increase the university's low graduation rate when he arrived in 2008, only to see it continue to fall.

Ricardo Campos was born in El Salvador, but it was three years ago in a hospital room at Johns Hopkins Hospital that he was given life. Suffering from bone cancer, he underwent surgery in 2009 that required him to use a wheelchair for one year, until he could learn to walk again. On Saturday, Campos said, he put his gift to its best use yet. The 23-year-old pre-medicine student at Montgomery Community College marched to the University of Maryland, College Park with about 1,000 other immigrants in support of the Maryland Dream Act. The proposed law to allow in-state tuition rates for the children of illegal immigrants will come before voters next month.

Regarding your recent editorial about our school, for nearly the last five years, I have had the distinct privilege of serving as president and CEO of Coppin State University ("Which way Coppin?" July 25). Our faculty, staff, and administration have worked tirelessly to provide an opportunity for students to receive a quality education. A majority of our students are first generation college students. They come from families who have not experienced the challenge of college life or had the opportunity to achieve a college degree.

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)