University

The contractor building a new library at Morgan State University declined to do several million dollars in work on another project that the university asked for, saying it went so far beyond the contract that the work would have violated state procurement laws. Hess Construction Co. told a university construction official that it would not submit a quote to install telecommunications cabling connecting the library and other buildings. In a Feb. 22, 2006, letter obtained by The Sun, Hess wrote, "Our legal counsel also advises that because the work ... is clearly outside the general scope of our contract with the University, directing Hess to perform the work likely would be a violation of the State's competitive bid statutes."

The Johns Hopkins University has concluded architectural studies of the former Eastern High School property on East 33rd Street in Baltimore and determined that the building is sound enough to be recycled for educational uses, as it proposed this year.The Schmoke administration in July selected the university, over a group that wanted to build a shopping center, to develop the high school and surrounding property and gave it until Sunday to decide whether to proceed.Hopkins' plan called for the high school, built in 1939 and vacant since 1986, to be recycled at a cost of $11.5 million to be used as academic and administrative space.

SALISBURY -- For the first time in three years, the budget is in the black in the town of Snow Hill. And new Town Manager Al Cohen is counting on a team from Salisbury State University to keep it that way.Once almost $500,000 in debt, the town is trying to stay clear of problems with help from the university's Institute of Public Affairs and Civic Engagement (PACE), which officially opened last week.Aimed at putting university experts and undergraduate researchers to work finding practical solutions to workaday problems of small-town governments, the institute is the latest example of the increasingly important role that Salisbury State is playing in the economic, cultural and academic life of the Eastern Shore.

The University of Maryland, Baltimore announced yesterday it was offering a $3,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the killer of a dental student last weekend, as city police released details of its investigation. David J. Ramsay, president of the university's Baltimore campus, made the announcement, saying that the school's dental students also have been contributing money to a scholarship fund established in Christian W. Ludwig's name. Ludwig, 26, was stabbed to death about 3 a.m. Saturday when he tried retrieve a purse stolen from a female friend in the Ridgelys Delight neighborhood near the campus.

Baltimore attorney and Orioles owner Peter G. Angelos has pledged a $5 million matching grant for a new law center at the University of Baltimore that could transform the midtown architectural landscape. The gift, which will be announced today, is the largest in the public campus' history and will fund part of the construction of a 190,00-square-foot building on what is now a school parking lot at North Charles Street and East Mount Royal Avenue. The $107 million building is expected to open in 2012 and is part of UB's 2006 master plan to expand its footprint in the Mount Vernon area and boost the regional prominence of its academic offerings.

WASHINGTON - NASA chief Sean O'Keefe is expected to resign from the agency this week. The NASA administrator, who has been in the job for almost three years, is the top choice for chancellor of Louisiana State University and has agreed to be a formal candidate, according to a spokesman for the school. O'Keefe's departure would close the book on a period of tragedy and transition for the agency, marked by budget cutting, the 2003 Columbia space shuttle disaster, investigations and ambitious plans to send astronauts back to the moon and eventually to Mars.

Sylvan Learning Systems Inc., a Baltimore-based education services company, announced yesterday tentative plans to build a university in India as part of a network of colleges around the world it has begun acquiring. Sylvan announced that it has signed a preliminary agreement with the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh that will give it six months to conduct a study on whether to proceed with building a university specializing in information technology. Late last month, Sylvan paid 11.29 million rupees -- about $235,000 -- as a 50 percent down payment on 250 acres near Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh and India's fifth-largest city.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - It was back-to-school day at colleges and universities throughout Iraq yesterday, but at Baghdad University, faculty members made a brief but important detour on the way to their classrooms. They practiced democracy. For the first time in the memory of even the most venerable professors, the faculty had been granted the right to vote for the university's president and two senior deputies. And in the oven-like heat of a mid-May morning, they crowded into a stifling auditorium with no air conditioning to do what is normal for many Americans: nominate candidates, listen to them speak, bicker over procedure, challenge rules and - eventually - cast their ballots.

For the second time in three years, scores of students have arrived at Morgan State University for the new school year only to find that the college has no housing for them. As classes began yesterday, the university was paying for 65 students to temporarily stay in hotels, said Morgan spokesman Clinton Coleman. Other students were squatting with upperclassmen or staying with relatives who live nearby. Some told of sleeping in cars. About 130 students lack permanent housing, Coleman said.

The Johns Hopkins University has filed a multimillion-dollar civil lawsuit against its former facilities director and four others, charging that the university was defrauded in a scheme involving false and inflated billings from two contractors.The suit, filed Friday in Carroll County Circuit Court, follows the sentencing three weeks ago of the facilities director, Robert J. Schuerholz, who received 18 months in federal prison for income tax evasion for failing to pay taxes on money he received in the scheme.