U of MD Eastern Shore names new president

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), May 24, 2002 by Daily Record Business Writer

Thelma B. Thompson will be moving north from Norfolk, Va., to Princess Anne to become the 12th president of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore with a budget of $63.8 million, the University System of Maryland Board of Regents announced yesterday.

In a sense, she will be coming back to her career roots. She taught a reading program at Bowie State University from 1974 to 1976.

On July 1, Thompson, vice president for academic affairs at Norfolk State University and a long-time liberal arts dean, will succeed Dolores R. Spikes, who retired last September. Since Spikes' departure, Jack Thomas, executive vice president of UMES, has served as interim president.

"Thelma Thompson is the ideal candidate to lead this historic institution," said Nathan Chapman Jr., chairman of the regents, in a statement issued yesterday. "The depth and breadth of her experience in higher education, combined with her energy and enthusiasm, will be an inspiration to the campus.

"This is an exciting time in the life of UMES, which has a growing reputation for excellence and a wealth of possibilities before it," Chapman said. "The university is unique on the Eastern Shore and in many ways in all of public higher learning, and it deserves a unique person like Dr. Thompson as its president."

Thompson has served for four years as vice president of academic affairs at Norfolk State, where she is responsible for 39 undergraduate and 14 graduate programs serving about 7,000 students as well as more than 400 full-time teachers. She works with governing boards, alumni groups, community leaders and state and national education agencies, and manages a nearly $40 million budget.

In the absence of Norfolk's president, she is responsible for the daily operations of the university. She helped raise $11 million to establish the university's Wilder Center for the Performing Arts.

From 1990-98, Thompson was dean of Norfolk's School of Arts & Letters. In that capacity, she managed five academic departments.

Of her appointment at UMES, Thompson was quoted in a statement: "It is a great honor for me to be chosen to lead this historic institution. It is my goal to respect its wonderful past, while at the same time I want to maximize its potential in what I call a broadband style -- meaning it's about students, faculty, staff, alumni, everyone in UMES' extended community.

"With the students at the center of the enterprise, I want to work with all constituencies to make UMES a respected center of learning," she said. "We are entrusted with the minds of young students, and to me that makes education much more than a business. It dictates the future of our nation, and our graduates tell us who we are as a society."