C. Daniel Mote Jr.

C. D. (Dan) Mote Jr. has been President of the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP) since September of 1998. Before coming to UMCP Dr. Mote was on the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, where he served for thirty-one years as a professor and was Vice Chancellor from 1991 to 1998. Dr. Mote received his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley in mechanical engineering and over the course of his academic career was involved primarily with research in the fields of dynamic systems and biomechanics.

At UMCP, Dr. Mote has tried to expand the research capability and scope of the university as well as to develop more rigorous academic programs, including a more intensive core curriculum required for students of all majors. His tenure at the University of Maryland has also been noted by a significant effort at increasing private fund raising and a noticeable building campaign to both refurbish aging university buildings and expand facilities. Since Dr. Mote came to the university a new performing arts center, The Clarice Smith Center for the Performing Arts, a new basketball arena, the Comcast Center, and a new engineering building, the Jeong H. Kim Engineering building, have all been built, and work has begun on a new biotech building. Dr. Mote has been somewhat controversial both with Maryland's political establishment and with faculty and students. The state legislature and Governor Robert Ehrlich Jr. as well as former Governor, Parris N. Glendenning, have questioned Mote's fiscal prudence, and the university has had some serious fiscal problems during his tenure. At one point the graduate school wound up in such financial distress that it had to cut back on stipends to accepted students, leading to a sharp increase in the number of graduate students transferring out of UMCP to other schools. Additionally, Mote's building campaigns have aroused the ire of some in the state legislature who have contended that the projects were overly expensive, of dubious necessity, and were not well planned.

Serious problems with rioting after sporting events, particularly basketball games, have continued to plague the university and have actually gotten worse since Mote came to UMCP, and indeed got so bad that the state legislature held hearings during which Dr. Mote was roundly criticized. Expensive advertising campaigns and threats of strict sanctions, even expulsion, for rioting students failed to suppress the unrest, which has become one of many complaints between the university and the city of College Park, Maryland. Mote has also been criticized by faculty and students for a perceived disconnect between the university administration and the concerns of both those groups. However, while these things have made Mote somewhat controversial, his tenure at the university has been marked by a significant improval in the university's academic reputation belied by major expansions in its teaching and research programs.