USM Board of Regents Appoints Dr. Shadow JQ Robinson as President of Frostburg State University
Feb 13, 2026 10:57 AM
The following press release was issued by the University System of Maryland. For more information, contact bboughamer@usmd.edu.
Robinson to Join Frostburg from Current Position as Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs at University of Arkansas–Fort Smith, Will Succeed Former President Ron Nowaczyk
Baltimore (February 13, 2026) – The University System of Maryland (USM) Board of Regents has appointed Dr. Shadow JQ Robinson as the president of Frostburg State University (FSU). Robinson, currently the provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of Arkansas–Fort Smith (UAFS), will begin his tenure as FSU president on July 1.
Robinson, who holds a Ph.D. in theoretical nuclear physics, will lead FSU after more than 20 years working as a professor and administrator at four esteemed institutions of higher education
As UAFS’s chief academic officer, Robinson led an effort to launch new degrees in education and nursing and worked with industry partners to add an advanced manufacturing engineering degree – the first four-year engineering program in the university’s history and a part of an effort to meet the needs of regional employers. He also worked to secure $7.5 million to establish a Center for Nonprofits and endow a social work program, and he helped increase freshman enrollment by 20 percent – a remarkable achievement at a university where half of its 5,500 students are first-generation and Pell-eligible.
From 2018 to 2022, Robinson served as dean of the College of Engineering and Natural Sciences at the University of Tennessee at Martin (UT Martin). There, he managed the design and construction of a $65 million engineering and science building and led fundraising for the $18.5 million TEST (Tennessee Entrepreneurial Science and Technology) Hub.
“Dr. Robinson is the right person to lead Frostburg State University at this critical moment,” Board of Regents Chair Linda R. Gooden said. “He understands the challenges that the university and region face. He knows the community well. And he has the skills and intellectual capacity to bring people together around solutions and move the community forward. The Board of Regents was thoroughly impressed with him, and we can’t wait to see where he takes FSU.”
Robinson will succeed the late Ron Nowaczyk, who led FSU with distinction for nine years and sadly passed away in January 2025 after a long illness. Darlene Smith has led the university as interim president since January 21, 2025.
"I am deeply honored by the opportunity to serve Frostburg State University and the community it calls home,” said Robinson. “For more than a century, FSU has been an anchor institution in Mountain Maryland and an engine of opportunity for talented students from across the state and Appalachia. I look forward to joining in this work as we strengthen our campus and our region together.”
“Across his career in academic leadership, Dr. Robinson has excelled in all the areas valued by the FSU community,” said USM Chancellor Jay A. Perman. “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.”
In addition to his leadership roles at UAFS and UT Martin, Robinson held permanent faculty positions at Millsaps College (Jackson, Mississippi) and the University of Southern Indiana (Evansville, Indiana). At Millsaps, he chaired the Department of Physics. At Southern Indiana, he earned an award for outstanding teaching by new faculty.
Robinson earned a Ph.D. in theoretical nuclear physics from Rutgers University (New Jersey) in 2002 and has been published extensively.
Robinson grew up in Appalachia, two miles from the Virginia border in eastern Kentucky. He earned a bachelor’s in physics and astronomy and a bachelor’s in mathematics from the University of Kentucky, where he began study at 14 and enrolled full-time at 16. For 20 consecutive years, he wrote a 50,000-word novel each November as part of National Novel Writing Month.
To learn more about Frostburg State University, visit https://www.frostburg.edu.
The USM comprises 12 institutions: Bowie State University; Coppin State University; Frostburg State University; Salisbury University; Towson University; the University of Baltimore; the University of Maryland, Baltimore; the University of Maryland, Baltimore County; the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science; the University of Maryland, College Park; the University of Maryland Eastern Shore; and the University of Maryland Global Campus. The USM also includes three regional centers—the Universities at Shady Grove, the University System of Maryland at Hagerstown, and the University System of Maryland at Southern Maryland—at which USM universities offer upper-division undergraduate and graduate courses.
Systemwide, student enrollment is roughly 175,000. The USM and its institutions compete successfully for nearly $1.5 billion in external grants and contracts annually. USM institutions and programs are among the nation's best in quality and value according to several national rankings. To learn more about the University System of Maryland, visit www.usmd.edu.