SENATE BUDGET AND TAXATION COMMITTEE
HEALTH, EDUCATION AND HUMAN RESOURCES SUB-COMMITTEE
HEARING ON R30 B21
UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND, BALTIMORE BUDGET FOR FY 2009
February 5, 2007
Testimony of The Honorable Francis X. Kelly, Jr.
University System of Maryland Board of Regents

Senator Kasemeyer, Members of the Committee

I am Frank Kelly, a member of the Board of Regents of the University System of Maryland, and in this role I am delighted to address you today on behalf of the University of Maryland, Baltimore, the founding campus of the University System.

As a former member of the Senate of Maryland, and as Vice Chair of the Board of  Regents I am proud of all the campuses of the University System and of the work that Chancellor Kirwan and the Presidents and the faculty and staff do to bring outstanding higher education, research and public service to all of our citizens.

That said, I confess I have a special fondness for the University of Maryland, Baltimore -- and for President Ramsay and the deans of the medical school, the law school, the dental school, the pharmacy school, the nursing school and the social work school. 

That campus, year in and year out, brings in hundreds of millions of dollars in sponsored research -- the most of any campus in the system and second only to Hopkins in the State of Maryland. UMB educates our doctors, dentists, nurses, pharmacists, social workers and many of our attorneys.  It is also the driving force behind the West Baltimore renaissance, and its faculty, staff and students devote literally millions of hours annually in providing outstanding public service and patient care to some of the poorest of Maryland's citizens.

Because of my fondness for the campus I have agreed to chair the UMB capital campaign.  Over the next several years we intend to raise at least $650 million in philanthropic support to endow scholarships and faculty positions and to build and renovate needed facilities -- all to make a great institution even greater, and to set it firmly on a glide path to become the very best in the county.

The faculty, staff and students of UMB are all doing their part, and the philanthropic community is stepping up to the plate.  I endorse the Governor's budget for the University System and its campuses, and I urge you to support it as well.

Thank you.

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