University System

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.

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.

Several months after Nancy S. Grasmick left her job as state superintendent of schools, Michelle Rhee, the former schools chief in Washington, spoke in Baltimore and let a secret slip. She told the crowd at Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall that Grasmick had said she wanted her next job to be helping to revamp the way teachers are prepared for the profession. Rhee, a hard-line education reformer, was pleased that Grasmick might help improve the training that Rhee thinks is so lacking in teacher colleges.

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.

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.

If it has been a while since you've driven through the heart of this Eastern Shore city, the buildings might come as a shock. One after another, they tower shiny and modern above the chain restaurants and strip-mall shops that dominate Route 13. The buildings, three of them with a combined price tag of $165 million, are the outward manifestation of Salisbury University's changing self-image. For years, Salisbury was known for its proximity to the beach and for the ease with which its name (then Salisbury State)