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New Frostburg State University president appointed
New Frostburg State University president appointed
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The University System of Maryland Board of Regents has appointed Dr. Shadow JQ Robinson as president of Frostburg State University, the system announced in a news release Friday.
Robinson, currently provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith, will assume the role July 1. He will succeed the late Ron Nowaczyk, who died in January 2025 after leading the university for nine years.
“Dr. Robinson is the right person to lead Frostburg State University at this critical moment,” said Linda R. Gooden, board chair. “He understands the challenges that the university and region face.”
Robinson brings more than 20 years of experience as a professor and administrator. At Arkansas-Fort Smith, he led efforts to launch new degrees in education and nursing, and helped secure $7.5 million to establish a Center for Nonprofits. Under his leadership, freshman enrollment increased 20% at the university, where half of its 5,500 students are first generation and eligible for Pell grants.
From 2018 to 2022, Robinson served as dean of the College of Engineering and Natural Sciences at the University of Tennessee at Martin, where he managed construction of a $65 million engineering and science building.
“I am deeply honored by the opportunity to serve Frostburg State University and the community it calls home,” Robinson said. “For more than a century, FSU has been an anchor institution in Mountain Maryland.”
Robinson holds a Ph.D. in theoretical nuclear physics from Rutgers University and has held faculty positions at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi, and the University of Southern Indiana.
He grew up in Appalachia near the Virginia border in eastern Kentucky and earned bachelor’s degrees in physics, astronomy and mathematics from the University of Kentucky, where he began studying at 14.
Darlene Smith has served as interim president since Jan. 21, 2025.
“Across his career in academic leadership, Dr. Robinson has excelled in all the areas valued by the FSU community,” USM Chancellor Jay A. Perman said. “We were asked to find a president who had experience in growing enrollment and academic excellence, someone who could achieve fiscal stability and secure money for strategic priorities, someone who could build partnerships and align university programs with regional needs, someone who would ignite FSU pride. We found all of that in Dr. Robinson, and we can’t wait to welcome him to Frostburg State and to the University System.”
This article was generated using an artificial intelligence platform and was reviewed by The Daily Record editorial staff.
