Chancellor's Report to the Board of Regents on April 11
Report to the USM Board of Regents
Chancellor Jay A. Perman
Towson University | April 11, 2025
Thank you, Madame Chair. I extend a special welcome to Frostburg State Interim President Darlene Smith. I look forward to our work together.
USM RISING
To abbreviate what could be an even longer report than usual, I’ll ask that you read my written comments for some impressive Systemwide achievements.
I’ll give you the short version: Our academic excellence is celebrated in the latest U.S. News grad school rankings. Our innovation is reflected in the System’s new ranking for U.S. patents—8th among the nation’s public institutions. Our international reach is recognized with 33 Fulbright Students and 10 Scholars across the System. Our civic engagement is acknowledged with several schools named Voter Friendly Campuses for exceptional student registration and voting rates.
And illustrating our service are several universities offering education, retraining, and career support for out-of-work Marylanders. Federal layoffs and cuts affect Maryland’s economy more acutely than any other state’s, and this help is a lifeline for our neighbors who really need us. Thank you all.
UNIVERSITY EXCELLENCE
Turning to our individual universities, I’ll start with our host. Towson just earned Research University classification from the Carnegie Foundation, acknowledging important research conducted at non-doctoral institutions. We know this is merely prelude to R2 status, a priority ambition for President Ginsberg and his team.
And I want to point out Towson’s abiding leadership in education, faithful to its roots. As a key partner in Maryland’s K12 Blueprint, Towson provides comprehensive support to 600+ community schools statewide—schools that provide holistic, wraparound support to students and families, promoting equitable education and strong neighborhoods. President Ginsberg, thank you for this important work.
The American university’s role as an anchor institution is something UBalt President Kurt Schmoke explored in the Baltimore Sun. He said the ideal is that an individual’s worth will be matched with their ability to contribute to the greater good; that what universities do well—his own included—is solve complex problems for their communities. These solutions are what we’re celebrating during UBalt’s centennial year. President Schmoke, thank you.
Speaking of solutions, the School of Medicine at UMB has developed a CT scan technique to help oncologists better predict how head and neck cancers will respond to certain therapies—tipping the scales toward survival. Provost Ward, thank you.
At Coppin State, the College of Business has launched the Microsoft Scholars Program, offering select students invaluable exposure to career pathways in the technology and entertainment sectors. Congratulations, President Jenkins.
At UMCES, researchers have found that hurricanes can stimulate toxic algal blooms, carrying significant environmental and human health impacts. With climate change accelerating stronger and wetter tropical storms in coastal regions, this research is critical to our mitigation and adaptation strategies. Thank you, President Miralles-Wilhelm.
Speaking of climate change impacts, saltwater intrusion is threatening the Eastern Shore’s biggest crops—corn, soybeans, wheat. So UMES is working with farmers to study salt-tolerant switchgrass as an alternative crop. Switchgrass can be used for feedstock and biofuel production, and could reduce nutrient pollution entering the Bay. Thank you, President Anderson.
Let me round out this coastal theme with Salisbury University. This fall, Salisbury will offer Maryland’s first coastal engineering major, featuring project-based instruction that prepares graduates to protect our shorelines and build sustainable coastal communities. Congratulations, Provost Couch.
With grant funding from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, UMBC will build a Quantum Science Institute, supporting graduate fellowships, new quantum courses and programs, and equipment to establish and enhance quantum laboratories. Congratulations, President Sheares Ashby.
UMGC has teamed up with Amazon Web Services to promote the AWS Cloud Institute, where learners with little-to-no technical background can train for entry-level cloud computing roles. And Provost Pomietto, congratulations on your Institution Award from the Council of College and Military Educators. I know it means quite a lot.
Bowie State is convening its fellow HBCUs for collective impact. Last month, Bowie gathered aspiring teachers from all four Maryland HBCUs, offering them support as they prepare for their licensure exams. And last week, Bowie brought together universities, policymakers, and partners for the inaugural HBCU Prison Education Summit to scale our work at Maryland’s correctional facilities. Thank you, President Breaux.
At Frostburg State, new data show rising enrollment and retention rates—for the 3rd-straight year. A great way to begin your tenure, Dr. Smith, and a great way to ensure a rich pool of presidential candidates.
College Park is celebrating three new fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, promoting actionable science for the benefit of all people—very timely. College Park now has more than 110 AAAS fellows. An incredible distinction, President Pines.
The USM at Southern Maryland welcomed leaders in regional K12 and higher education for a summit on strengthening the teacher prep pipeline. Southern Maryland’s innovative work and tight collaboration is a model we might replicate for statewide impact. Thank you, Dr. Abel.
The Universities at Shady Grove celebrated National Children’s Dental Health Month with 40 UMB dentistry students providing free oral health care to more than two dozen young patients at USG’s state-of-the-art facility. Thank you, Dr. Khademian.
And the USM at Hagerstown welcomed prospective students to explore programs in business, health care, education, IT, and social sciences, showcasing the partnerships that bring Systemwide excellence to local students. Thank you, Dr. Ashby.
USM RESPONSE TO FEDERAL ORDERS
I want to pivot now to the landscape of federal orders affecting higher education—orders still causing significant confusion and concern at our universities.
At our meeting in February, I addressed the proposed cut to the NIH indirect cost rate—a cut that would cost the System more than $60 million and cost the state far more, as the economic impact of our R&D would shrink alongside our research dollars. Maryland joined a lawsuit to block implementation of the rate cut, and a permanent injunction was granted this week, barring NIH from capping indirect costs at 15%. The administration has appealed the ruling.
This isn’t the only NIH-related lawsuit we’ve joined. Last Friday, a coalition of 16 states, including Maryland, filed suit to end delays in the NIH grant application process and restore grants terminated by the administration. Both the slowdown in new grant funding and the revocation of awarded grants are causing irreparable harm to our indispensable science—science that underpins human health and well-being and, literally, saves lives.
Maryland joined another suit last Friday—this one to stop the dismantling of the Institute of Museum and Library Services and six other small agencies.
And we suffered a loss that same day, as the Supreme Court ruled that grants under two federal teacher training programs could be terminated as our lawsuit progresses. The ruling lifted a temporary restraining order that Maryland and other states had won to protect the Teacher Quality Partnership and SEED programs, which recruit and prepare teachers for hard-to-staff schools. No question, this is a blow to our work in addressing the teacher shortage and filling Maryland classrooms with capable, caring teachers. Still, we persist—and hope, ultimately, for a favorable outcome.
Meanwhile, a preliminary injunction remains in place barring the Office of Management and Budget from freezing federal grant disbursements. Maryland joined this lawsuit with 22 states, arguing that the funding freeze affecting health care, disaster relief, and education puts vital services—and lives—in jeopardy, and that the move halts congressionally approved spending without legal authority.
In another lawsuit, I submitted a declaration attesting to the material harm that will likely be done to our students and our universities should the U.S. Department of Education slash its personnel by 50%. Our students rely on the Department for Pell grants, for student loans, for work study: 85,000 USM students receive federal aid—fully half of our student population. We saw the consequences last year of disrupting that process, and I believe that cutting department staff by half would eclipse the FAFSA disaster. It also puts at risk millions of dollars in grants, vital data collection, and our students’ civil rights.
And, finally, two days ago, the System signed on to support an amicus brief submitted by the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration. The brief supports a preliminary injunction to stop the administration from revoking student visas without cause, and arresting, detaining, and deporting noncitizen students and faculty.
The revocation of visas is already happening at our USM universities. And our students are scared. Not just visa-holding students, but any student with noncitizen status. I’ve heard from some who carry their documents at all times, lest they be detained. The AG’s Office has issued guidance for our universities on immigration enforcement, and the immigration clinics at both of our law schools—UMB’s and UBalt’s—have offered their services to affected students. Thank you, Kurt, Roger, Katherine.
But anxiety remains. Of course, it does. And so I’d like to end with our students. Always appropriate.
OUR COMMITMENT AS A STUDENT-CENTERED SYSTEM
At our Systemwide Student Success Symposium last Friday, I addressed student-serving teams from every one of our universities—the people who work most closely with our students. And then, over the weekend, I met with the USM Student Council and other student leaders. They shared how vulnerable and isolated they feel. They shared a fear that the diversity we’ve long cherished might now be seen as a liability.
So I’d like to reprise a portion of what I said to our students and to those who support them. It’s a theme you’ve already heard me speak to: what it means to be a student-centered System. It means that our policies, programs, partnerships, and practices serve an essential goal—that all students can come to the USM for their education, and all students can succeed once they’re here.
Student-centeredness is still our mantra because student-centeredness is still our mandate. It’s still the foundation of our strategic plan. Students are still the beating heart of who we are and what we do.
And if you embrace student-centeredness, then you have to embrace the full diversity of our students: different in race and ethnicity and first language; different in age and income and disability; in ideology and experience and religion; in gender and gender identity and sexual orientation; in their status as veterans and parents and immigrants.
Our diversity isn’t a matter of belief. Our diversity is a fact. And our mission is to create the conditions, and lay in the supports, and develop the strategies that help every single one of these students thrive. Not through monolithic action, because there is no student monolith. There is no typical student. No exemplar. Our students aren’t totems.
We are—all of us—different from one another. And our commitment to equity means that we see these differences, and how they might influence the way our students learn, and the barriers they might throw into our students’ paths. And we dismantle them. One by one, we dismantle them.
Because that’s what a student-centered System does. It puts students above structure. It puts students above politics. It puts students above everything.
So, no, our values haven’t changed. They don’t need to. Not if we tether ourselves to the commitment that all students will get from us what’s fair and just—a valid chance at what we’ve long called the American dream.
I’m deeply grateful to everyone across the System doing this vital work. I’m grateful for their commitment, their collaboration, their courage; for their undimmed belief that what they’re doing matters. Because it always has.
Madame Chair, this concludes my report.
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Contact: Mike Lurie
Phone: 301.445.2719
Email: mlurie@usmd.edu
