Howard University

Abby Harry had four major goals entering her senior season at Strath Haven. She wanted the Panthers to win the Central League and Delaware County track championships. She wanted to win an individual championship at the PIAA state meet, and she wanted to earn a track scholarship. Today, only the state title remains. Harry, one of the top sprinters and jumpers in the state, yesterday signed a national letter of intent to attend Howard University on a full scholarship. Harry, who as a junior finished second in the state in the long jump (18 feet, 2 inches)

H. Patrick Swygert, executive vice president of Temple University, confirmed yesterday that he was a candidate for the presidency of Howard University in Washington. Swygert, 46, said he met with Howard's search committee for a two-hour interview Wednesday and was awaiting word as to whether he would be invited to the campus for follow-up talks with students and faculty members. School officials and Swygert declined to confirm a report that the Temple administrator was notified yesterday that he was to report for another interview.

Howard University has learned a lesson - the hard way. Ever since the Washington campus was the site of two hate rallies, indignant alumni have demanded an accounting, students have had to deal with an unwelcome notoriety and recent graduates have been asked by prospective employers a pointed question: Just what kind of place is Howard University? My own answer is that it's a pretty good place. But it's been slow to understand the implications of both racism and anti-Semitism - and the suspicion lingers that many people there still haven't caught on. Far too often, an accusatory finger is pointed in the wrong direction.

A few weeks ago, one of my more emotional colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania followed me down the great central staircase of Bennett Hall, the English Department building, lamenting: "You must be just horrified at what is happening at your alma mater. It really is a shame for you!" He was talking about historically black Howard University, situated in Washington, D.C., and founded during the 19th century by the United States Freedmen's Bureau to educate aspiring black citizens of America.

People who knew John Linehan thought he was nuts. The 1996 Chester High graduate was passing up a full basketball scholarship to Howard University and a chance to start all four years at one of the finest academic institutions on the East Coast. But Linehan, a lighting-quick, 5-foot-9 point guard, had different plans. Linehan had gone up against some of the best high school players in the nation while he was at Chester and in top-shelf summer tournaments and held his own. He had even outplayed most of them.

First it was Howard University. Then it wasn't Howard University. Dayton and George Washington were in the running. Then they were out of the picture. Chester High graduate John Linehan took a circuitous path before signing a national letter of intent Thursday to play basketball for the Providence Friars. It wasn't the first time he had put his signature to such a document. He had signed a letter of intent to play for Howard in 1995 before a summer of AAU play against big-time high school competition convinced him that he could play at a Division I program with a higher profile.

Wayne Bryant Age: 59 Hometown: Lawnside. Occupation: State senator and lawyer (retired from Zeller & Bryant on March 1.) Education: Bachelor's degree in political science, Howard University; law degree, Rutgers University School of Law, Camden. Public service: Camden County Board of Freeholders (1980-82), State Assembly (1982-95), State Senate (since 1995). Major leadership roles: Chairman of the Senate Budget and Appropriations and Joint Budget Oversight committees, until stepping down amid the investigation last fall.

Humbert L. Howard, 84, who worked as a mail carrier in Philadelphia before becoming a renowned local painter, died Saturday at a retirement home in Philadelphia. Mr. Howard was born in Philadelphia, but moved with his family to Chicago as a child. He returned at age 11 and entered what was then the H. Josephine Widener Grammar School at 13th and Thompson Streets. It was in grammar school that he began taking an interest in art. His teachers, who always asked him to draw holiday announcements on the blackboard, encouraged him to study art in college.

Natica Marshall Moose, 82, a reading teacher and administrator for nearly a quarter-century in Philadelphia schools who at age 75 began a second career as an organist, died Friday at Albert Einstein Medical Center from cancer. A Cherry Hill resident for the last 20 years, Mrs. Moose taught for many years in Philadelphia Public Schools. She was a reading adjustment teacher, a reading clinic teacher, a supervisor of reading, and an assistant director of reading before retiring in 1979.

Herbert Houston Dickerson, 74, who began studying voice at age 9 and later performed in Philadelphia's black opera productions, died Tuesday at West Jersey Hospital-Marlton. A Cherry Hill resident for the last 22 years, Mr. Dickerson's singing abilities ran in the family, said his daughter, Joy Dickerson-Carey of Cherry Hill. "Dad used to sing in the church choir as a boy, and they say he had a beautiful voice. And they say my grandfather's voice was even better. " Raised in South Philadelphia, he graduated from Central High School and then studied music at the Philadelphia Conservatory of Music and at Howard University.

G. Wesley "Wes" Allen, 91, a lawyer for the City of Philadelphia and the U.S. Postal Service for many years, died of natural causes Nov. 7 at Montgomery County Rehab Center in Wyndmoor. Mr. Allen practiced law in Philadelphia for 15 years, and served as an assistant city solicitor in the 1960s before his appointment as regional counsel for the Post Office. He retired in 1987. Mr. Allen was born in Collingdale and grew up in Cleveland. He attended Glenville High School, and was Ohio's high-jump champion and an all-city basketball player.

Ronald W. Walters, 72, a longtime political scholar and analyst at Howard University and the University of Maryland who was a leading expert on race and politics, has died. University of Maryland spokesman Lee Tune said that Dr. Walters died Friday night. He had been suffering from cancer. Dr. Walters spent 25 years at Howard before becoming director of the African American Leadership Institute at the University of Maryland. He wrote more than 100 articles and numerous books, including 1987's Black Presidential Politics in America: A Strategic Approach , in which he discussed the path a black presidential candidate would need to take.

NOW THAT there's no more time for drama in Mary J. Blige 's life, can we really expect to see her dashing across the yard on Howard University's campus on her way to class? I can't quite picture her lugging a bunch of heavy text books around or parsing sentences during English 101. Nor can I see her putting off a scheduled recording session because of a big exam. But if you believed the soul diva's onstage chatter during a recent mini-concert on "Good Morning America," enrolling in college appears to be in her not-so-distant future.

La Salle yesterday announced the hiring of Jeff Williams as the Explorers' women's basketball coach. The university will introduce him this afternoon at a news conference at the Hayman Center. He replaces Tom Lochner, who was fired earlier this month. Williams, 45, said last night that La Salle was an easy sell to him. Now his task is to make the Explorers a similar attraction to recruits in an effort to return to the Atlantic Ten tournament and improve upon this year's 7-22 record.

Much of Cheyney University's financial woes were due to nearly $7 million in unpaid student bills, an amount that has been cut nearly in half the last few months, officials said yesterday. Irene Moszer, Cheyney's outgoing vice president of finance and administration, told the board of trustees yesterday that the school had stepped up efforts to help students fill out and file financial-aid forms so that their bills could be paid. About $3.7 million in unpaid bills remain, she said.

Cheyney University has suffered from a lack of funding, and now it's up to the state, the alumni, and the community to fill the void, said the incoming chairman of a new advisory board for the school. The fact that the historically black university hasn't built a new dorm in more than 30 years is proof, said H. Patrick Swygert, former president of Howard University, a historically black school in Washington. "At the risk of sounding like it's all about funding, a good part of it is about funding," said Swygert, a Philadelphia native and former Temple University executive who stepped down last June as president of Howard.

Omar Blaik Real Estate Developer, U3 Ventures Omar Blaik was the real estate development and planning visionary behind reinvention of the University of Pennsylvania campus, Walnut Street, 40th Street and the West Bank complex, all in West Philadelphia. He also had a hand in developing the Penn Alexander School - the collaboration between Penn, the city school district and the teachers' union - whose "catchment area" has become a hot draw in Philly real estate. Born and educated in Cairo, Egypt, he is now a consultant to urban colleges around the United States that are looking to redevelop the town-gown boundaries of their campuses.

The head coach of Howard University men's soccer team was arrested after police said he used the Internet to solicit a person he thought was a 13-year-old girl for sexual purposes. Joseph Okoh, 40, was arrested Friday and charged with one felony count of using a communications system to solicit a person under 15 years old with lascivious intent. He was being held without bond at the Central Virginia Regional Jail in Orange pending a bond hearing Friday. The Louisa County (Va.)

Wayne Bryant Age: 59 Hometown: Lawnside. Occupation: State senator and lawyer (retired from Zeller & Bryant on March 1.) Education: Bachelor's degree in political science, Howard University; law degree, Rutgers University School of Law, Camden. Public service: Camden County Board of Freeholders (1980-82), State Assembly (1982-95), State Senate (since 1995). Major leadership roles: Chairman of the Senate Budget and Appropriations and Joint Budget Oversight committees, until stepping down amid the investigation last fall.

Caitlin Cliggett, owner of one of Coatesville's few downtown restaurants, said she opened her 14-seat eatery on East Lincoln Highway last summer with big hopes for the city's future. Jarrett Jackson, who is struggling to get his software-training business off the ground, sees himself moving someday into one of the sparkling office towers planned for the city. Cliggett and Jackson are among dozens of potential small-business operators who have graduated from the Coatesville Regional Entrepreneurial and Training Endeavor, or Create.