[Editor’s note: This is the twelfth part of a bi-weekly series that will run through May chronicling significant events in the university’s history in honor of its 150th anniversary this year.]
In 1964, Interstate 95 did not pass the College Park area, so it was inevitable and maybe part fate that on a trip from New Brunswick, N.J. to Miami, Brit Kirwan passed through College Park and saw a glimpse of the university’s green lawns from Route 1.
Young and searching for a job, he was graduating that year with a doctorate in mathematics from Rutgers University. Unable to afford tickets to fly to Miami, Kirwan packed into a car with his wife and 1-year-old son to a math conference in Florida.
“I saw this magnificent campus and thought, ‘This is the place I’d like to be,'” Kirwan recalled. “When I got to Florida, I went to the math folks from the University of Maryland. Fortunately, they offered me a job.”
During the next four decades, Kirwan slowly made his way up from assistant professor to become department chair, provost and finally president. Under Kirwan, the university was still largely known as a safety school for Maryland residents. “I hated it,” Kirwan said of the party school image.
Kirwan worked to combat the negative image by focusing his energy on building the university academically, including strengthening the undergraduate program, creating the College Park Scholars and decreasing enrollment. Kirwan’s other highlights as president include boosting diversity among students and hiring Debbie Yow as athletics director – a move many objected because she was a woman.
But in his quest to improve the university, Kirwan faced obstacles that blocked him from succeeding, including massive state budget cuts and a lawsuit that ended university race-based scholarships.
Faculty and students loved Kirwan for his warm personality and uncanny ability to remember practically everyone’s name.
“They always say this about Bill Clinton but I would say it about Brit as well,” said Jordan Goodman, chairman of the physics department, who has known Kirwan since he was a professor. “When you’re talking to him, he makes you feel like you are the most important person. He has that effect on people.”
Brit, Kirwan’s nickname, comes from his middle name, English, and was given to him while he was still in diapers. His parents and their friends didn’t want his first name, William, to be shortened to the usual Bill because it would be too common. They nicknamed him Brit, short for British, and the name stuck.
“If someone says ‘Hey Bill,’ I know they don’t know me very well,” Kirwan said.
High hopes, difficult results
In 1988, Kirwan and other university administrators helped lawmakers draft one of the most important pieces of legislation for higher education in Maryland. It created the University of Maryland System, which became the University System of Maryland in 1997, and designated this campus as its flagship university, requiring legislators to dedicate state funding to be equal to the university’s peer institutions.
When Kirwan was appointed president in 1989, the university was in a good position to receive substantial state funding. He began an enrollment reduction plan to decrease the 38,000 undergraduates on the campus by 20 percent in a 5-year span. Then-Gov. William Donald Schaefer agreed to cover the lost tuition cost with state funding.
There was a renewed dedication among lawmakers and money flowed in from the state. It seemed as if the state finally cared about higher education.
Then two years later, the money stopped.
It was fall 1991 when Kirwan received the first of many calls from the state’s budget office. The state revenue had dropped, meaning higher education funding would get cut severely.
“We were devastated,” Kirwan said. “Here [with] all the momentum and excitement, things were really taking off. They told us, ‘Don’t worry, this is the only cut. We’ll get right back on course.’ Over the next 18 months, I got eight or nine of those calls, and every time, it was going to be the last cut.”
In the end, the university ended up losing 20 percent – about $40 million overall — of its general funds as it continued to decrease student enrollment. Kirwan made the decision to cut seven academic departments and 28 degree programs, including degrees in radio, television and film and housing and design, according to The Washington Post.
While students faced tuition increases into the double-digits, many couldn’t graduate on time because departments had to decrease the number of courses offered.
The campus rallied together in protests on Route 1, closing it for hours on school days as a message to the governor to stop the cuts, The Post reported in 1991. Kirwan endorsed the protests, telling students in front of the Main Administration Building, “I just want to say thank God for our students . . . . If we stay together, we can save our university,” according to The Post.
Nariman Farvardin, who has been a faculty member since 1984 and is now dean of the A. James Clark School of Engineering, was impressed with Kirwan’s way of handling the cuts.
“This university became a better place than it was before as a result of the decision Brit made,” Farvardin said. “Brit closed down large departments and he did that without dividing the campus.”
Despite the university’s dire financial situation, Kirwan still approved the creation of College Park Scholars, the university’s first living-learning program, to attract bright students.
Ira Berlin, a distinguished professor in the history department, approached Kirwan and asked for $200,000 to start the program.
“It was a serious financial crunch. People were counting the number of stamps they could place on envelopes,” Berlin said. “Even in this time of constant cuts, he gave us the money. It was one of the great success stories of the university.”
The university needed the College Park Scholars to bridge the gap between the honors students and the regular admission undergraduates. The scholars program is in its 11th year this year.
Making hard decisions
In 1994, Kirwan had to make another tough decision. It was time to hire another athletics director after a string of shaky leadership. The university needed someone who could improve the department in academic reforms and pull it out of debt.
The list of candidates remained confidential for the most part, until the final stages of the process. The Post printed the names of candidates, including Debbie Yow, who had formerly been Athletics Director at St. Louis University.
The next day, Kirwan received many calls telling him one thing.
“Don’t hire a woman as the Athletics Director.”
Kirwan hired her despite the negative stigmas against women athletics directors, one of the best decisions he made as president, he said.
The toughest decision of all for Kirwan came in 1998 when Ohio State University offered him the top stop, clearly a promotion at that time as the school ranked higher than this university. This university had been the only place Kirwan had worked for 34 years as a faculty member and administrator.
When Kirwan announced his decision to leave, he shocked the entire university community.
“We felt like this was going to be a vacuum without him filling the position,” Farvardin said.
But Kirwan gave one powerful, uncharacteristic message as he left. Kirwan, normally the loudest cheerleader for the university and a naturally optimistic person, said he was frustrated with the state’s lack of dedication and funding to the university. He said he wanted to leave this university to go to another state that actually cares about higher education.
“I never thought I would leave the university,” he said. “When the economy started to rebound, I was frustrated because the state didn’t seem to be making its investment in the 1988 legislation.”
Farvardin said Kirwan wanted to shake up lawmakers and to put the next president in a favorable place to start receiving adequate funding again.
Then entered current university President Dan Mote, known as the fundraising and research expert, ready to take advantage of the statement Kirwan left behind. And in 2002, Kirwan returned to the mission as system chancellor.
“Part of leaving was making this statement,” Kirwan said. “What I hoped would happen did begin to happen.”
Contact reporter Laurie Au at lauriedbk@gmail.com.
