A Collaboration or A Takeover?

A proposal to combine the University of Maryland, College Park and the University of Maryland, Baltimore is before the General Assembly once again. Supporters of the move say it wouldn’t be a full-out merger, but a way to strengthen the formal partnership between the schools established five years ago. That generated applied research, joint-faculty appointments, and tech companies that now raise the question -- why not bring College Park and Baltimore even closer? Opponents fear it would be a takeover of UMB by College Park. A key question: should the joined schools be governed by one president or two? We’ll discuss it with James Brady, a member of the University System of Maryland Board of Regents, and Barry Rascovar of the blog Political Maryland.