U. of Maryland’s Academic Leaders Criticize Board and Praise President

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Academic leaders at the University of Maryland at College Park expressed strong support on Thursday for President Wallace D. Loh and chastised the university system’s Board of Regents for demanding his ouster.

In a letter shared on Twitter, the provost, Mary Ann Rankin, and all of the university’s academic deans shared their “dismay and deep concern for the events and the process” that led to Loh’s forced retirement. Loh said on Tuesday that he would step down in June 2019.

That announcement followed months of speculation about how the regents would hold people accountable for the university’s troubled football program. In June, a 19-year-old offensive lineman, Jordan McNair, died after suffering heat stroke during a team practice. Reports later surfaced of an abusive program with a toxic culture, and an investigative report commissioned by the regents described a program with little oversight, where players feared to speak out.

Loh, the athletic director Damon Evans, and the head coach DJ Durkin were at the center of the unfurling scandal. Originally, just Loh was made to retire. The board publicly recommended that Evans and Durkin stay on. The regents also privately recommended retaining the athletic trainers who have been blamed for failing to treat McNair promptly, The Washington Post reported.

But late Wednesday, Loh announced that Durkin had been fired. Durkin’s departure is “not at all a reflection of my opinion of Coach Durkin as a person,” but it’s “in the best interest of the university,” Loh said in a letter to the campus.

In their letter, sent on Thursday, the university’s academic leaders threw their support behind Loh. They had been “extremely alarmed for weeks” by what they called interference from the regents, the letter says. Personnel decisions are at the president’s discretion, the letter says, and recent actions by the board have “usurped the president’s authority,” which neither the board’s bylaws nor state law allows.

The board’s actions have violated the university’s independence and have “already damaged the trust of students and their families, faculty, staff, alumni, donors, and supporters,” the letter says. The signers support the “well-reasoned and thoughtful steps” that Loh has taken, and they urged the board to affirm its support for Loh — in essence, demanding that the president’s ouster be reversed.

“We believe Dr. Loh’s leadership is critical for the university at this challenging time,” the letter says.

The regents are scheduled to convene a special meeting at 2 p.m. on Thursday.

Emma Pettit is a staff reporter at The Chronicle. Follow her on Twitter @EmmaJanePettit, or email her at emma.pettit@chronicle.com.