Regents Turn to University of Md., Baltimore Chief to Become New Chancellor
The University System of Maryland Board of Regents on Thursday tapped Jay A. Perman, the president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore, to be the next chancellor of the University System of Maryland.
Perman will become the fifth chancellor of the USM next summer, when he succeeds Robert L. Caret, who was planning to leave his position by the end of his contract.
“In our search for a new USM chancellor we were looking for a nationally recognized leader — ideally someone who had run a large and complex institution, an innovator committed to economic growth and development — but above all a person with a passion for education and committed to shared governance, transparency, and diversity. Fortunately for us that we found all of those things right in our own backyard,” said USM Board Chairwoman Linda Gooden. “Jay Perman embodies these attributes. He is warmly regarded by his fellow USM presidents and greatly respected in Annapolis.”
A nationally recognized pediatric gastroenterologist, Perman has been president at UMB since 2010 where he has worked to strengthen that institution’s ties to the city of Baltimore and enhance both economic development and the health and well-being of its closest neighbors. He has also been a national leader on issues like accreditation, ethics and integrity, community engagement, affordability and access, diversity and inclusion, and interprofessional education.
In 2014, he established the Office of Community Engagement to coordinate UMB’s varied outreach projects — with special emphasis on West Baltimore — and to leverage resources so that the university may respond quickly and effectively to identified community needs. In fall 2015, the university opened the UMB Community Engagement Center in West Baltimore and expanded it earlier this year to provide direct health, employment, legal, financial, and social services to nearby residents.
“I am deeply humbled to be called to this responsibility,” Perman said in a statement. “It will be a privilege to work as chancellor with our outstanding USM institutions to ensure that Marylanders — today and tomorrow — have the opportunities I was so fortunate to be given in gaining a higher education.”
Gov. Lawrence J. Hogan Jr. (R) and the General Assembly’s presiding officers, House Speaker Adrienne A. Jones (D-Baltimore County) and Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) issued statements praising the selection.
“Jay has served with distinction as president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and has a strong record of empowering students and communities,” Hogan said. “A dedicated educator and civil servant, Jay is the right choice for this critical position.”
Perman’s appointment as president of UMB in 2010 marked a return to the campus. He chaired the Department of Pediatrics in the university’s School of Medicine from 1999-2004, before leaving to serve as dean and vice president for clinical affairs at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine from 2004-2010.
Perman, who is 73, received a Doctor of Medicine degree with Distinction in 1972 from Northwestern University. After his residency in pediatrics at Northwestern University Children’s Memorial Hospital (1975), he completed a fellowship in pediatric gastroenterology at Harvard Medical School and at the Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Boston (1977).
From 1977 to 1984, Perman was an assistant professor and associate professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco. He first came to Baltimore to work at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine from 1984-1996, serving as a professor of pediatrics and head of several divisions. Perman was then named the Jessie Ball duPont Professor and Chairman in the Department of Pediatrics at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Medical College of Virginia from 1996 to 1999.
Perman, who grew up in Chicago, lives in Baltimore with his wife, Andrea, a research nurse. They have four adult children and nine grandchildren.
Josh Kurtz
Founding editor
Founding Editor Josh Kurtz is a veteran chronicler of Maryland politics and government. He began covering the State House in 1995 for The Gazette newspapers, and has been writing about state and local politics ever since. He was an editor at Roll Call, the Capitol Hill newspaper, for eight years, and for eight years was the editor of E&E Daily, which covers energy and environmental policy on Capitol Hill. For 6 1/2 years Kurtz wrote a weekly column on state politics for Center Maryland and has written for several other Maryland publications as well. Kurtz regularly gives speeches and appears on TV and radio shows to discuss Maryland politics.
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