School Closing Protest

http://library.umbc.edu/speccoll/UMBC_50th_Online_Exhibit/50umbctimeline/PDFs/JPEG/P2014-01-0073.jpg
Photograph of Students Protesting School Closing, March 3, 1981. Baltimore Sun Photographs, P2014-01-0073. View larger.

"One thousand students packed into the quad Monday, chanting slogans, waving placards, and cheering speakers in the largest mass meeting in UMBC’s recent history. The rally followed reports in the Sunpapers, News American, and the Washington Star of a State Board of Higher Education proposal to close down UMBC and turn the campus into an industrial park." – Retriever, March 4, 1981.

As reported in the Retriever, students rallied on the Quad against reports that UMBC could be shut down by SBHE. Timed to coincide with a visit by University President John Toll to address a faculty gathering, the rally featured SGA president Scott Rifkin and State Senator Tim Hickman, a UMBC alumnus. When the rally ended, the crowd squeezed into Dining Hall I to hear remarks by Chancellor Dorsey and President Toll. Dorsey stated: "If the threat is real, we are prepared to fight it.” Toll deplored the report as “maximally damaging to UMBC coming as it did in the middle of the recruitment season for faculty and students, and on the morning of our defense of the university budget in the state legislature."