Johns Hopkins University

Johns Hopkins University President Steven Muller, one of the nation's longest-serving university presidents, has announced that he will resign on June 30, 1990. Muller, 61, who has been president of the university for 17 years, did not say Wednesday what he will do after he resigns.

Jozef Glemp Polish cardinal Cardinal Jozef Glemp, 83, the head of Poland's influential Roman Catholic church from 1981 to 2004 - a time when it played a historic role in the fight against communism - died Wednesday in Warsaw. Jozef Kloch, a church spokesman, said in a statement that Glemp had been ill for many years, and the Polish news agency PAP said he had lung cancer. Glemp oversaw the church at a critical time in its history and that of Poland. He was the primate for most of the papacy of the Polish-born Pope John Paul II, who was elected pope in 1979.

Philip D. Curtin, a historian of the African slave trade who after World War II was a leading figure in reviving the neglected field of African history, has died. He was 87. Curtin, who was awarded a MacArthur Foundation grant in 1983, died June 4 of pneumonia at Chester County Hospital in West Chester, Pa.

The president of Johns Hopkins University is leaving to head the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. "The fit was extremely good," said William C. Richardson, university president since July, 1990. Richardson, 54, will become president of the nation's second-largest foundation on Aug. 1. He succeeds Russell G. Mawby, who is retiring after 25 years.

Dr. Michael J. Klag, a Johns Hopkins University physician and administrator who spearheaded the reform of research practices at the Baltimore medical school, will become the new dean of the campus' Bloomberg School of Public Health, the university announced. Among the first doctors to document and explain the rising problem of kidney disease in America, Klag, 52, was chosen from more than 100 candidates to succeed Dr. Alfred Sommer, who will step down in September after 15 years on the job.

Nearly 6,000 books, photographs and letters by and about H.L. Mencken have been acquired by Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore from the estate of an accountant with a penchant for the curmudgeonly journalist. George H. Thompson began collecting Mencken-related material in 1962 and continued until his death last year, said Cynthia Requardt, a curator at the Sheridan Libraries.

Johns Hopkins University announced Monday that it has received a $50-million challenge grant, the largest donation for arts and sciences ever made to any university. The Krieger Fund, founded by Baltimore lawyer and investor Zanvyl Krieger, a Hopkins alumnus, will match--dollar for dollar up to $50 million--every donation made in the next five years to the financially pinched School of Arts and Sciences. Hopkins President William C.

Entrepreneur Michael Bloomberg announced a $55-million donation to Johns Hopkins University and Johns Hopkins Hospital and Health System. The gift, believed to be the largest private gift in the area, by the 1964 Johns Hopkins graduate is part of a $900-million capital campaign by the university and the health system. The campaign is headed by Bloomberg, 53, who will become chairman of the university's board of trustees in May.

Dr. Victor A. McKusick, the Johns Hopkins University physician who is widely regarded as the father of medical genetics, died Tuesday at his home in Baltimore. He was 86 and died of complications from cancer. McKusick was a pioneer in linking diseases to specific genes and began the first database of gene functions, a repository that now includes more than 18,000 human genes.

WASHINGTON -- There are 40,000 "Choose Civility" magnets around suburban Howard County, Md., and more on the way. Some adorn cars; others sit on office desks as reminders. "Please Drive Gently" bumper stickers have started to appear on the vehicles of some drivers in suburban Montgomery County. Believe it or not, some people are trying to make the world a little nicer. "People are longing for civility," said Valerie Gross, executive director of the Howard County Library. That is the longing that overwhelmed Johns Hopkins University professor Pier Massimo Forni, who got this quiet civility movement started.

Taking aim at one of the last bastions of live-animal training for medical students, a physicians' group that champions animal rights renewed its call Wednesday for Johns Hopkins University to stop using live pigs to teach operating-room techniques. Calling the practice inhumane and unnecessary, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine noted that Hopkins is one of just two top-tier medical schools still convening live-animal labs.

IT'S been 20 years since Max Apple's last work of fiction and more than a decade since his memoir of life with his grandfather, "Roommates," became a national hit, spawning the movie of the same name starring Peter Falk. In the intervening years, Apple has kept a relatively low profile; his short fiction periodically shows up in magazines and journals, and he teaches writing at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Martin D. Abeloff, an international authority on the treatment of breast cancer and chief oncologist and director of the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins University for the last 15 years, died of leukemia Friday at the center in Baltimore. He was 65. Abeloff specialized in solid-tumor research, treatment of lung and breast cancer, and the transfer of research findings from the laboratory to the clinic.

Nearly 6,000 books, photographs and letters by and about H.L. Mencken have been acquired by Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore from the estate of an accountant with a penchant for the curmudgeonly journalist. George H. Thompson began collecting Mencken-related material in 1962 and continued until his death last year, said Cynthia Requardt, a curator at the Sheridan Libraries.

Scientists at Johns Hopkins University who last year published a controversial report suggesting that a single evening's use of the illicit drug Ecstasy could cause permanent brain damage and Parkinson's disease are retracting their research in its entirety, saying the drug they used in their experiments wasn't Ecstasy after all. The researchers blamed the error on a labeling mix-up.

Recording contracts: Odetics, a high-tech manufacturer in Anaheim, has won contracts to build 12 of its space recorders worth $28.8 million. Under a contract with Nippon Electric Co. in Japan, Odetics will deliver 10 space recorders for use in an observation satellite program. The company will also deliver two space recorders to the applied physics laboratory of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

FILM noir remains a genre in search of its roots -- and perhaps even a proper definition. That's because, unlike other genres (westerns, musicals, romantic comedies), it was not identified as one until dozens, perhaps hundreds, of movies in the noir vein had been made. In the 1940s, no one in Hollywood -- asked what he or she was currently doing -- would have replied, "Oh, you know, a nice little noir over at Warner Bros."

Using the active ingredient in illegal hallucinogenic mushrooms, researchers at Johns Hopkins University have induced a lingering sense of spirituality that they believe has the potential to help patients struggling with addiction or terminal cancer. Researchers said that the 36 subjects in the tightly controlled experiment -- none of whom had ever taken the drug before -- already had deep religious convictions, which primed them for a mystical experience.