Q and A with Maravene Loeschke
Matthew Hazlett/ The Towerlight
The Towerlight: Did you ever see yourself as President of Towson University?
President Maravene Loeschke: No, I just never did. I was going to be an actress. And after I found out I loved teaching so much I was really delighted to switch. But president of the University, no, no it was not part of the plan. This was one of the reasons I said in the inauguration last Friday, when I spoke directly to the students to pay attention to what drops in unexpectedly from the skies. You don’t know what life has in store for you and half of what you’re planning is not going to happen and things you could never imagine are going to happen.
TL: How is being president different from being in the theatre department?
ML: Well that was so long ago because I left the theatre department to be the Dean of Fine Arts here. So that was 15 years ago. Then I left here to become the provost of Wilkes University and that was five years ago. Then there was five years as president of Mansfield. So the difference, I couldn’t even begin to tell you. If somebody told me tomorrow ‘You must go back to teaching,’ I would say, ‘Cool. I love it, are you kidding me? That’s no kind of punishment.’ There’s no job on earth like being president of the University. They’re very different. In the classroom, particularly in an acting class, you get to work one on one with students. You get to rehearse scenes, you get to work with students outside of class, you get to critique their monologues, you work with their nervousness, you work with their speech. Here, you don’t see students nearly as much as I want to. But I don’t get to work with students like you do as a teacher. So I kind of like helping to transform people’s lives from a place to a better place. Doing that as a president is different from doing it as a teacher, but you’re still doing it.
TL: As President what’s your biggest goal, where do you see yourself and Towson?
ML: I want Towson to be a national model for how to do things well in a number of areas. One of them is innovation and teacher preparation, a second is to prepare people in for a world of STEM. We want to be known nationally for our leadership development of our students so when they leave here they are prepared to make a positive change. We want to be a national model for how to address immediate and all standing issues regarding to diversity. Particularly we would like to think that we’re finished with that, we don’t have to deal with that anymore, but we know we’re not. How does a campus handle that? I would like people to say ‘Well, let’s look how Towson does it?” when their values are threatened. When their students are feeling offended by things that people are doing. I want people to look to us as a model. I want us to be able to provide an internship for almost every student if we possibly can. So I have this whole list of things that I’ve extracted from a big strategic plan that we have. We’ve pulled it down to eight major goals. I want people to look to Towson and say “My gosh, students have a wonderful experience there, how do they do it?”
TL: Part of that experience is Homecoming, what are you looking forward to about Homecoming this year?
ML: Well there’s two things, one is very personal. One for me is it is a homecoming. I was announced a year ago a week before homecoming to be the president but I didn’t get here until January. I think homecoming will always have a special place because a year ago it was announced and this year it was inauguration. But homecoming is so important because our alumni feel so great about this institution. I don’t care where I go, I don’t care if I’m at a 60th reunion or five-year reunion, the feelings are the same. Everyone talks about individual attention, everybody talks about the faculty who really care, everybody talks about how much experience they have outside the classroom, how much opportunity they had for leading things and doing things, how much they felt safe here and all kinds of reasons. So it’s a place to welcome people back and say ‘Come home for a weekend, come be a part of the fun of everything.’ The other part is athletics. There are two major doorways to campus where the community comes in. One is the arts. So when you’re doing 25 theatre productions a year and seven exhibits in one gallery and seven in another gallery and 150 music performances, that’s a lot of people coming in to see beautiful work. The other place is athletics. People come to see the games. They love the whole vitality of it. Football brings tremendous vitality to a campus because you’re in there and the cheerleaders are cheering and the band comes out and everyone’s screaming and yelling and everyone’s in black and gold—it’s just pure vitality and pure fun. So it’s just a time when you celebrate that you ever were at Towson or that you are at Towson or that you’re sitting here next to someone who went here 40 years ago and then down here is someone who went here five years ago. It’s just so cool.
TL: Can we expect to see you at this year’s Homecoming festivities?
ML: Oh, I’ll definitely be at the game. I’m going to pop into as many events as I possibly can but focusing mostly on alumni because I get to see the students during the whole year but I don’t get to see the alumni. So I’ll be focusing mostly on alumni events. But I get around each week at a lot of events. It’s my favorite part of the job. Being with the students and seeing their work—whether it’s on the field or at a play or whatever. It’s just such a great way to spend a day so I can’t get enough of that.
TL: Where on campus do you feel most at home?
ML: Probably anywhere with the students, always with a big group of students. And the fine arts building because I spent 32 years in that and helped design it.
– Compiled by Megan Flannery
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Why not ask why money was spent on a pointless “inauguration”. You’re not the fucking president of the US, lady.
TU Grad student is quite the badass, better watch out!
Towson needs a president like Maravene!
@TU grad student, did you attend the inauguration? It was a nice event, and in no way excessive. Maybe as an undergraduate I’m not as wise and jaded as you, but the fact that a Towson alumna has come back to lead this university definitely merits quite a ceremony.
Maravene was brought here as President by the USMD Board of Regents for a reason. By far, she was not the most qualified candidate, far from it. She will be gone in 3 yrs as they bring in a new president after she has stunted the growth of the univeristy as planned.
@steve-o: do you have inside knowledge of this? Or is it what you read from the Internet?
Steve – O is actually pretty spot on.
Let me explain, read carefully.
The University System of Maryland at College Park receives most of the states funding by a wide margin every year. Just in case any of you would like to dispute this look up Maryland’s 2012 Capital Budget Overview, it can be found using a Google search. This is understandable. Maryland has a limited budget and College Park is the flagship University.
Not all of a Universities funding comes from the state though. A large part of funding will come from your alumni base. The state gave College Park a law school and medical school which in turn create very wealthy alumni who are able to give back to their Alma Mater. Towson University does not have these.
Politicians in the U.S. generally are run by the wealthy. If most of the top tier native lawyers and doctors in the state all came from one university, and send their children to that university, and give that university money – you better be sure that politicians will be looking out for that university as well.
College Park does well in the “college ranking” magazines, and it thought of as a great school in Maryland. Nationally though, it’s not held up there with other nearby public universities such as UVA, William & Mary, University of North Carolina etc.
People in Maryland want College Park to continue to rise in the standings and if Towson University is getting equal funding them that’s not happening. We have two good schools as opposed to a great school and a good school.
This brings me to Robert Caret. He played a major role in raising the profile of public universities such as San Jose State and Towson University. He is nationally recognized as someone who can come in and establish connections and relationships to boost a schools funding and raise its profile. He was so well respected that he received offers from major universities such as Temple before taking the helm at the University of Massachusetts.
Caret has honorary bachelors degrees in chemistry and mathematics. He has a PHD in organic chemistry. Before starting at Towson University he had two honorary doctorate degrees, he has four now. He had been President of San Jose State for 8 years before coming to Towson. He had worked at Towson at almost every level for 25 years before that. As President of Towson he raised graduation rates dramatically, improved the infrastructure of the campus and spear headed the campus makeover, enrollment increased dramatically as well.
He also constantly spoke about wanting Towson to be nationally recognized not as an inferior little brother, but as the other big state school. Think Florida State or Michigan State. Enrollment projections were saying that Towson would be the biggest public university in the state by 2020.
Do you think College Park started to get a little irritated, maybe even nervous? Probably. And that’s when enrollment slowed down because Towson funding for it stopped.
Caret got a better opportunity and took it.
Again, Maryland has a limited budget. If it had all the money in the world every school in the state would be incredible but it doesn’t. It needs to use the money it has to raise the profile of College Park. If other schools start to challenge that profile then that creates problems.
Enter Maravene Loeschke. Went to Towson as a commuter student back when it wasn’t a very good school. The resume isn’t impressive at all. An english and theatre major, masters in education. Many people have scoffed at her doctorate in philosophy as well since she basically earned it online from the Union Institute of Cincinnati.
She is a woman who has a passion in theatre. Her biography on Towson Universities website makes sure to let you know that, talking about how many plays she has participated in and directed.
She served as provost and then as President at two very small universities. One of them being private.
Does she strike anyone as the aggressive type that will be out there forging relationships with businesses and politicians to raise Towson’s profile in academics and athletics? To have new buildings and athletic facilities built? To increase enrollment?
No, she is devoting free time to putting on plays with her husband.
I am sure she is a nice and very intelligent woman who cars deeply about Towson University. But if the board of regents wanted Towson to be a great school, they would have selected someone like Caret.
By the way, in one of her answers above, she even mentions what little time she spends with alumni.
Big mistake hiring this woman. Sorry.
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