By Sarah Ninivaggi
TU journalism student | Sept. 30, 2009
The construction of Linthicum Hall was part of an infamous Maryland governor’s corruption ring, said Terry Cooney, Dean of Towson’s Liberal Arts College.
Spiro Agnew, Maryland’s governor in the sixties, is remembered in history, “for not the best of reasons,” Cooney said.
When the children of the baby boomers reached college-age in the 1960s and 1970s, the amount of colleges and universities expanded tremendously across the United States.
“They grew by approximately 500-600% in the space of less than 15 years,” Cooney said.
Terry Cooney stands next to a plaque in Linthicum Hall bearing Spiro Agnew's name. Agnew was a corrupt Maryland governor who received construction kickbacks off of projects like Linthicum.(Photo by Sarah Ninivaggi, Sept. 30, 2009)
Linthicum Hall was just one of those many buildings.
After serving as governor, Agnew eventually became Richard Nixon’s vice president. However, he was forced to resign from this position.
“Spiro Agnew ultimately had to resign from that office because he was convicted of taking construction kickbacks on contracts while he had been the governor of Maryland,” said Cooney.
The former governor had been making personal profits off the construction of public buildings, like Linthicum, for years.
Agnew’s corruption now serves as a joke for staff members working in Linthicum.
“So in Linthicum Hall, when anything goes wrong with the building, we look at that sign,” Cooney said, “And say, ‘Ah, that problem, that’s because that was Spiro’s cut’.”
