The University System of Maryland’s Board of Regents has asked the chancellor, Donald N. Langenberg, to retire amid increasing complaints that he lacks the political skills needed for the job.
During a closed session at their regular October meeting, the regents voted unanimously to approve a plan calling for Mr. Langenberg to step down effective April 30, 2002. The chancellor’s job status had been uncertain since August, when he caused an uproar by offering one of the board’s own members a high-paying job as vice chancellor.
“Today’s action should put an end to speculation about the board’s views and allow us to focus on the future,” said the board’s chairman, Nathan A. Chapman Jr., in announcing the vote.
The decision to keep Mr. Langenberg in office for 18 more months was described by sources close to the regents as a compromise between a faction that wanted him out in six to eight months, and one that had sought to keep him on indefinitely.
The board’s action defied the wishes of Gov. Parris N. Glendening, who had urged the board -- whose members he appoints -- to drop any discussion of Mr. Langenberg’s removal.
Mike Morrill, a spokesman for the governor, said Mr. Glendening, a Democrat, was disappointed with the outcome of the board’s vote. “I made my position on this very clear, and I said it very publicly,” the governor said through his spokesman.
For his part, Mr. Langenberg, who is 68, said he welcomed the prospect of retiring in 2002. “I have been thinking about it for some time,” he said in an interview last week.
He has been chancellor of the Maryland system, which has 11 degree-granting campuses and about 112,000 students, since May 1990. He previously had been chancellor of the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a professor of physics at the University of Pennsylvania.
During his tenure at Maryland, Mr. Langenberg has acquired a national reputation as a leading thinker on higher-education policy. He has been at the forefront of recent movements to improve assessments of student learning in undergraduate and teacher education; to measure and demand accountability and productivity at universities; and to promote greater cooperation between higher education and public schools.
He is president of the National Association of System Heads, and previously served as president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and as chairman of the board of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges.
Observers of Maryland politics said last week that the chancellor’s quiet, unassuming leadership style had kept him from building up a solid base of political support. They also noted that it was inevitable that he would alienate some people, especially those regents, public-college officials, and state lawmakers who argued that the system was shortchanging particular campuses.
The Board of Regents’ support for Mr. Langenberg reportedly deteriorated in August, after several regents learned that he was considering a member of the board, Lance W. Billingsley, for a new vice chancellorship paying about $185,000 a year.
Critics of the job offer noted that Mr. Billingsley led a committee that had recently voted to give Mr. Langenberg a raise of nearly $31,000, or 11 percent, placing his annual salary at about $330,000. Although Mr. Billingsley had recused himself from voting on the pay raise, he had signed off on the annual review of Mr. Langenberg that informed the panel’s decision.
Several board members also questioned whether Mr. Billingsley, a lawyer by training, was qualified for the new position, in which the duties involve external relations and partnerships between the university system and private industry.
Mr. Langenberg’s decision to consider Mr. Billingsley for the job was assailed as improper by prominent Maryland legislators as well as in scathing editorials by The Sun, in Baltimore.
When board members questioned Mr. Langenberg about the decision at their August meeting, they were told that Mr. Billingsley had withdrawn his name from consideration.
“The board considered this plan to be an error in judgment on the part of both the chancellor and Regent Billingsley,” Mr. Chapman, the chairman, said in a statement.
Mr. Langenberg was quoted in the statement as saying, “In retrospect, I should have consulted with the board about this matter.”
At the same meeting, the board informally agreed to ask Mr. Langenberg to step down, and called on Mr. Chapman to discuss a retirement date with the chancellor, according to sources close to the board, who asked that their names not be used.
The regents refused to publicly discuss what transpired during the meeting, saying it involved confidential personnel issues. But the president of the state Senate, Thomas V. Mike Miller, said board members had told him that the departure arrangement they had hoped to propose included “face-saving for all of the parties involved, including a period of time for Mr. Langenberg to consider other positions” within the university system.
Mr. Glendening intervened on Mr. Langenberg’s behalf, meeting with Mr. Chapman and urging that he ask the board to drop the matter, according to the governor’s press secretary, Michelle Byrnie. She said Mr. Glendening wanted stability in the system at a time when he is asking lawmakers to substantially increase appropriations for public-college operations, as well as to spend $1.23-billion on campus facilities over the next five years.
Some lawmakers have accused Mr. Glendening of improperly interfering in the affairs of the board, but Mr. Chapman said last week that the governor had not told him “anything that could even be remotely interpreted as undermining our authority.”
Several of the system’s university presidents defended Mr. Langenberg. Among them was Catherine R. Gira, president of Frostburg State University, who said she interpreted recent increases in state tax-dollar support for the system -- which has risen more than 10 percent in each of the past two fiscal years -- as “a statement of confidence by the governor and legislature in the leadership of the system.”
Some of the presidents also worried that Mr. Langenberg’s departure would hurt the system’s capital campaign, which has a goal of raising $700-million by 2002.
Other college presidents in the system, however, failed to come to Mr. Langenberg’s defense, and the Board of Regents reportedly came under pressure from some of its own members, as well as some lawmakers, to defy Mr. Glendening’s wishes.
Among those lawmakers pushing for change was Mr. Miller, a Democrat, who frequently had complained that Mr. Langenberg and the university system were failing to provide enough money and autonomy to the flagship campus, at College Park. “Dr. Langenberg is a very fine man,” the senator said. “He is a very thoughtful man. But, in my opinion, he has a difficult time selling himself and his positions to others.”
http://chronicle.com Section: Government & Politics Page: A32