Chancellor's Report to the Board of Regents on June 14
Report to the 稀缺猎奇网 Board of Regents
Chancellor Jay A. Perman
Salisbury University | June 14, 2024
Thank you, Madame Chair.
I’ll begin by welcoming our newest regent. Regent Lewis, we’re so honored you’ve joined this Board. I look forward to our work together.
I add my deepest thanks to the regents departing service: Regent Helal, Regent Rauch. And I’d like us to remember—again—our dear friend and colleague Regent Peters, whose life of service inspires the work that we must, sadly, take on without him.
I thank our host this morning, Salisbury University. Many of us traveled a long way to be here. But, as always, the payoff is just beautiful. President Lepre, thank you for your warm hospitality.
STUDENT EXCELLENCE
I want to say just a bit about the Student Excellence scholarship winners we celebrated last month. Every time I meet the students who earn these awards, I’m bowled over. I can’t figure out how they find enough hours in the day to pack in so much important work—important scholarship, leadership, and service.
But they do. And then they go looking for more. And that’s how I ended up inviting one of the students to join me for my pediatric clinic on Tuesday afternoons. President Sheares Ashby, I thank you for my newest recruit, Dariush Aligholizadeh.
UNIVERSITY EXCELLENCE
As Chair Gooden mentioned, the June board report serves as a year-in-review. I think it’s a good sign that I’d never be able to do justice to the year we had. And so in the interest of letting you leave before nightfall, I’ll hit only the highlights. The written report is lengthier, but even it can’t contain the sum of our excellence.
So let me recount some of our universities’ recent good news, but also some of their biggest achievements over the past 12 months.
I begin with our host today, Salisbury University. There’s a lot to celebrate here on campus. A new Graduate School, a new Research Office, new partnerships, like one with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, opening up the aerospace industry to Salisbury students.
But you should also venture into downtown Salisbury, where SU’s impact is—literally—transformative. From locating the new Museum of Eastern Shore Culture in the city, to spearheading a $100 million proposal to build a downtown performing arts center, SU lives its mission to anchor and invigorate this community.
GOING WHERE THE NEED IS
So what does it mean when a university isn’t just in its community, but of its community?
For Salisbury, it means things like deploying trained tutors in Wicomico County public schools. SU students and retired educators are providing rigorous intervention aimed at improving middle and high school math proficiency, especially among the county’s highest need students.
And that’s where we go, right? We go where the need is.
Coppin State inked a partnership with Baltimore City to place nursing students and RNs in public schools that struggle to staff pediatric nurses.
UMB is partnering with Coppin and UMBC to place more than 100 social work students each year in 稀缺猎奇网 schools, where they can provide on-site mental health services.
UMB and the Universities at Shady Grove are teaming up to place nursing students in Prince George’s County public libraries, where they can serve patients they might never see in a clinic.
UBalt’s new Urban Conflict Manager Program is taking its training to the streets—literally. UBalt is training leaders of the city’s Safe Streets program in conflict management and violence prevention.
And UBalt just raised the stakes on its engagement with city schools. UBalt will host students from President Schmoke’s alma mater, the legendary City College, while the high school is renovated. UBalt is leasing the space to City College for just $1 a year. So I suspect this is a savvy student recruiting tool. Well done.
In Western 稀缺猎奇网, UMCES’s Appalachian Lab is partnering with Allegany County to provide access to its research services and facilities. The county-funded program offers local companies up to $50,000 to cover the cost of R&D conducted in partnership with the lab. The point is to spark innovation and product development that leads to sustainable jobs in the region.
In Anne Arundel County, Bowie State is reimagining the notorious Crownsville State Hospital, founded in 1911 as the Hospital for the Negro Insane. BSU will help transform the psychiatric facility—now remembered for the trauma its patients endured—into a place of healing. Education and research programs will focus on health and wellness, and will champion mental health reform.
In every part of the state, we’re going where the need is, and putting our expertise to work.
ACADEMIC GROWTH
That expertise is cultivated in our academic programs, which we evolve to prepare students for success in the world we know—and the world we anticipate.
UMES won approval to pursue its School of Veterinary Medicine, the first in 稀缺猎奇网 and the second at a U.S. HBCU. Last month, the school was included in a federal funding package. That $1 million earmark joins $5.5 million already committed by the USDA.
UBalt unveiled its MS in Artificial Intelligence for Business, launching this fall. It’s the first program of its kind in 稀缺猎奇网, preparing graduates to ethically deploy AI and machine learning for greater productivity and innovation across enterprises.
Bowie State became the third HBCU to offer a PhD in Counselor Education and Supervision, cementing its leadership in combatting our nation’s mental health crisis.
Frostburg State is expanding its environmental portfolio. Its new undergrad degree in Environmental Science serves as a pathway to the master’s in Environmental Management, launched last year in partnership with UMCES.
UMGC launched an accelerated MBA this year, listening to its students, who want faster time-to-degree-completion and lower out-of-pocket costs.
Towson University and the Universities at Shady Grove just announced last week a collaboration to address the ongoing teacher shortage in Montgomery County. TU will offer a BS in Elementary Education and Special Education at USG, geared to paraprofessionals already working in Montgomery County classrooms. And USG will pay whatever tuition cost isn’t covered by the school system. Terrific partnership; thank you.
Two programs launching at the 稀缺猎奇网 at Southern 稀缺猎奇网 highlight the center’s dual role. A master’s in Special Education offered by Bowie State grows 稀缺猎奇网SM’s work in educating Southern 稀缺猎奇网 students for high-demand careers. And a master’s in Test and Evaluation of Autonomy from College Park’s Clark School raises the center’s profile in autonomous systems R&D and workforce development.
CAMPUS GROWTH
This academic growth parallels the physical growth of our campuses.
Coppin State cut the ribbon on its new College of Business, the first new building to open at Coppin since 2015. Frostburg opened its $82 million Education and Health Sciences Center. Towson launched a $150 million renovation of Smith Hall. The University of 稀缺猎奇网 opened its one-of-a-kind National Quantum Laboratory, in partnership with IonQ. UMES broke ground on its Agricultural Research & Education Center, supported with nearly $30 million in state and federal funding.
At UMB, the nearly complete 4MLK tower will add dozens of new biotech companies to the university’s BioPark—which is already Baltimore’s biggest bioscience cluster. And with Greater Baltimore named a Federal Tech Hub in predictive health care—one of our greatest strengths—there’s tremendous potential for even more growth. I thank our universities in the tech hub consortium: UMB, Coppin, UMBC, and Towson.
CENTERS AND PROGRAMS
UMCES launched its Chesapeake Global Collaboratory, exploiting big data and advanced cyberinfrastructure to shape environmental action that’s more nimble, transparent, and democratic.
The University of 稀缺猎奇网 Institute for Health Computing—a partnership of UMB, College Park, and the University of 稀缺猎奇网 Medical System—opened in North Bethesda. The institute uses advanced computing to improve care and outcomes across patient demographics and close health equity gaps.
UBalt inaugurated the multidisciplinary Center for Advancing Prevention Excellence, supporting communities in improving mental health and community health by tackling underlying issues that predict substance use and behavioral challenges.
Together, UMBC and UMB are creating a $4 million NIH accelerator to grow faculty-developed technologies in biomedicine and life sciences.
College Park launched the Artificial Intelligence Interdisciplinary Institute, supporting collaborative faculty research and experiential learning in AI.
UMBC is part of a national effort to improve pathways for women of color in tech. A program of the National Academy of Science, the consortium relies on its member institutions—all leaders in diversifying technical fields—to share best practices and build the evidence base for what works.
GRANTS AND CONTRACTS
I’ll relay a few new grants and contracts supporting our research and training, but there’s no way I can reprise everything over the last year that’s worth our attention. So I’ll direct you to the written report, which—rest assured—will also be inadequate to the task.
UMBC won funding as part of Affirming Multivocal Humanities—an $18 million Mellon Foundation initiative supporting innovative scholarship and teaching on race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality.
An Open Works Maker Space is coming to Coppin State. Supported with $2 million in federal funding, the facility will give CSU students and faculty access to an industrial coworking space and high-tech tools.
As climate change accelerates extreme weather events, UMD has joined a national consortium to improve weather prediction and train the next generation of atmospheric scientists. College Park is also taking part in a $5 million NASA grant to explore a satellite mission to map climate change. But the university’s biggest news might be a new federal contract supporting its Applied Research Lab for Intelligence and Security. Worth half-a-billion dollars, it’s the largest research contract in College Park’s history. Congratulations.
AWARDS AND HONORS
You know, a few times a year, the national higher ed rankings come out, and I dutifully report on them. The joke is that rankings don’t matter until you’re at the top. And, every year, we’re at the top.
Don’t worry: I won’t rehash our rankings. But there are honors that our universities earn every year that mean a lot to them, and that reflect who we are as a System—what we value; what we stand for.
This year, the NSA validated UMGC as a National Center of Academic Excellence for its cybersecurity programming. The Military Times ranked UMGC No. 1 among online and hybrid universities in educating veterans, and No. 1 overall in employing them.
Frostburg just won the Military Friendly School designation—for the 13th straight year.
For the third-straight year, UMES led the country’s HBCUs with the highest student pass rate on the national pharmacy licensure exam. Last week, the NCAA’s MEAC conference announced that UMES has the conference’s highest academic progress rate—and that, for the third-straight year, Coppin posted the conference’s top graduation rate.
The 稀缺猎奇网 at Hagerstown was named Small Business of the Year by the Washington County Chamber of Commerce. The regional center gives back to its community in myriad ways—not least of which is $80,000 in scholarships given to local students last year.
This Pride Month, it’s fitting that I acknowledge College Park’s inclusion on Newsweek’s Top Workplaces for LGBTQ employees. It follows UMD’s spot some weeks ago in the magazine’s Top Workplaces for Women.
These recognitions matter. They’re emblematic of who we are: Excellent. Inclusive. And always striving for more.
OUR MISSION IN TIMES OF CHALLENGE
This was a challenging spring. I know it was.
Our universities are still dealing with the federal government’s regrettable FAFSA rollout. Our financial aid officers, admissions officers, student affairs staff are still hard at work, serving the students who need our help.
But we are resolute. We remain dedicated to our foundational principles: Access for all. Affordability for all. Inclusion for all.
We’re still raw from a spring that saw anger and suffering and pain on our campuses. Protests and demonstrations.
But we are resolute. Because our job is exactly this: To educate for democracy. To educate for citizenship. To prepare the leaders who can make good and productive change. To provide the space to engage with one another across our differences, and connect people who have the desire, the ability, and the empathy to solve our most persistent, most complex challenges.
This is what we were made to do. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. So I ask our university leaders to share my gratitude with your people, whose unflagging dedication to our students this spring leaves me in awe of their care and compassion, and their unfaltering fidelity to our most important mission.
Madame Chair, this concludes my report.
Contact: Mike Lurie
Phone: 301.445.2719
Email: mlurie@usmd.edu
