January 25, 2019
A newsletter for students, faculty, staff, alumni and friends
Anderson fills three cabinet-level posts Among the many tasks new UMES President Heidi M. Anderson confronted during her first four months on the job was building a cabinet – of senior advisers. Prior to the winter holiday break, Anderson announced the appointment of three vice presidents to her administration, including a senior leadership position emphasizing the importance of student enrollment. They are (from top): • Hans Cooper, enrollment management and student experience (formerly student affairs). • Lester Primus, administration and finance (formerly administrative affairs). • David Balcom, institutional advancement. They join Dr. Robert Mock, Anderson’s chief of staff who came on board in December, as members of the presidential cabinet. Meanwhile, a search is underway to fill one more cabinet post – provost, the university’s chief academic policymaker. Balcom is no stranger to Maryland’s public higher education scene; since 2000 he’s held fund-raising positions across the University System of Maryland at Coppin State, at College Park, at the Center for Environmental Science and with the USM Foundation. He routinely has connected donors who have made six-figure and million dollar gifts to the USM institutions he’s represented. Balcom’s first day was Jan. 7. Primus comes to Princess Anne from Capital Community College in Hartford, Conn., where as dean of administration since 2004 he oversaw institutional planning and oversight of administrative and fiscal operations. He’s also worked as a senior level administrator at three other institutions in Connecticut since 1993; Eastern Connecticut State University, Yale University’s School of Medicine and Manchester Community Technical College. Primus will start Feb. 4. Like Balcom, Cooper has extensive experience working for universities in the state of Maryland. For the past year and half, he was registrar at Johns Hopkins University. Prior to that, he was Morgan State University’s registrar for four years, was associate registrar at the University of Maryland Baltimore County and a grants program management specialist at Bowie State University. Cooper’s first day is Jan. 28.
Winter Commencement The 22nd edition of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore’s winter commencement exercises began shrouded in fog, much like the way some degree candidates surely must have felt their first day of college – some just 3½ years ago. By midday Dec. 14, 270 newly minted graduates emerged from the William P. Hytche Athletic Center to find the fog had lifted and bright futures ahead. The latter was among the messages Dr. Richard Warren Jr., Maryland’s 2018-19 state Teacher of the Year, delivered to some 3,000 who sat raptly as he spoke about how education turned his life around. Warren, who earned three degrees from UMES, including a doctorate in May 2018, described the hardscrabble upbringing of a “move-around” kid with divorced parents who lost a close friend to gun
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COMMENCEMENT / continued on page 2
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December Commencement Cont.
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1968 Golden Hawks Recognized
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Essay: A Graduate Student’s Triumph Assistant Professor Named DPI President Endowment Fund Established
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UMES Students’ Public Art In Princess Anne
Triple-Jumper Makes A Big Apple Splash
Same Voices, New Look: Faces Of WESM
Professor Gifts Original Painting To Pro Wrestler
Bowler Earns National Honor
Champion Tree Located On Campus
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2019 Homecoming Events