WILLIAM E. Kirwan arrived this month as chancellor of the University System of Maryland with a weighty resume that includes the presidency of two large state universities - Maryland and Ohio State - and induction into the prestigious American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

But Kirwan may find himself calling upon a lesser known part of his curriculum vitae in his role as chancellor: his recent nomination to the Bush administration's Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. That's because Maryland HBCUs will likely demand much of Kirwan's - and other education leaders' - attention in the next few years.

The numbers show what a major role the four HBCUs - Coppin State College, Bowie State University, University of Maryland Eastern Shore and Morgan State University - play in the state. They make up a third of the state's 12 public four-year campuses and last year produced two-thirds of the 3,000 or so bachelor's degrees awarded to black students by Maryland public four-year campuses.

Their importance will only grow with the increase in black college students - which is expected to outpace the growth in white students, Kirwan notes.

"A large number of our increasing population will be African-American, and many of these will be the first generation in their family to go to college," he said. "This is a very significant issue."

It might seem as if the state resolved the issues facing its HBCUs in 2000 when it signed an agreement - required of all states with formerly segregated systems - with the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights (OCR). Under the agreement, the state pledged to invest more in its HBCUs, both to ensure that a quality education is available to the state's black students and to help these schools attract more nonblack students, thus desegregating the state system.

But today, more questions remain than ever before:

What is the proper role of the HBCUs? Is it to provide a college education to disadvantaged minority students who may not have access to one otherwise? Or is it to become campuses as diverse as any others in the system while still taking nourishment from their African-American roots despite their origin in a segregated past?

These are pressing questions, especially with the HBCUs sprouting new graduate study programs. (Morgan State alone hopes to double the number of black Ph.D.'s it produces within five years, its president says.) Do those programs draw resources from the remedial education that the colleges say is also in high demand? Or will they help bring nonminority students to campus, as the Office of Civil Rights agreement envisions?

Take, for example, Morgan State's recent addition of an English Ph.D. program. Will it draw Baltimore-area white students who otherwise would go to College Park for their degree? Or will it distract an English department busy teaching basic composition to the many students with poor writing skills?

Or take UMES' proposal for a new pharmacy school. On the one hand, the school argues a pharmacology program at UMES is a good idea because it will increase the number of black pharmacists. At the same time, the school says the plan makes sense because it will be another way for UMES to bring non-blacks to campus. Can both apply? UMES thinks so.

"We expect it to be a very diverse program for us," said Eucharia Nnadi, vice president for academic affairs at UMES.

That did not work at Morgan State, where an engineering school has failed to attract many non-African-American students. But Morgan can boast of being one of the top producers of black engineers in the country, while using the protections guaranteed by the OCR agreement to keep a competitive engineering program out of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Also challenging the HBCUs self-definition are the state's community colleges, where enrollment is rising as increasing four-year college tuitions and admission standards lead some students to find two-year colleges a better option.

With HBCUs all strugging with graduation rates below the state average - of black freshmen enrolling in 1995, 42 percent had graduated from Bowie State six years later; 33 percent from Coppin; 40 percent from Morgan; and 48 percent from UMES - should they be urging more students who are unprepared for college work to attend a community college first?

What is the relationship between the HBCUs and the state's other public four-year colleges? The state's predominantly white colleges are making slow but steady progress in increasing minority enrollment.

There is the oft-noted example of the Meyerhoff Program at UMBC, which has graduated almost 300 minority students in science and engineering since 1993. But Towson University and Salisbury University also have seen increases in their once-minuscule black enrollments while the flagship campus in College Park graduated 642 black undergraduates last year - second only to Morgan State.

Meanwhile, the HBCUs have seen a minimal increase in their diversity. Morgan and Coppin graduated a total of 17 whites with bachelor's degrees last year - down from 32 in 1992. Bowie State and UMES have larger numbers of white students, thanks to popular programs like physical therapy at UMES and teacher education at Bowie, but have yet to see the kind of increase that the OCR envisions.

"You have to have a campus environment that welcomes people, welcomes other races to campus," said Bowie State President Calvin Lowe, who hopes to draw more white students to campus with a new undergraduate nursing program.

UMBC President Freeman A. Hrabowski III said the growing numbers of blacks at non-HBCUs just shows that the state has to start thinking about minority higher education in a statewide context, not just in terms of the HBCUs.

"[The HBCUs] have played and continue to play a vital role in producing black bachelor's recipients," he said. "But given that half of black students are not at HBCUs, we also have to ask, 'How do we support predominantly white institutions to ensure they are giving minority students what they need?'"

How will the state comply with its obligation under the OCR agreement in a time of budget constraints?

A commission created under the OCR agreement and led by Washington College President John S. Toll found that Coppin State will need $300 million in capital funds in the next 10 years to make up for its neglect of the past two decades. But under the budget approved in April, Coppin will receive only $4.7 million in capital funds this fiscal year. At that pace, how will the state make enough difference to satisfy the OCR by 2005, when the pact is up for renewal?

"Coppin is a case for drastic action," said Del. James E. Proctor Jr., a Prince George's County Democrat and a Bowie State graduate. "But if we have another year like this one where we can't dump money into it, I don't know if we'll ever catch up."

The state's other HBCUs worry the state will address the Coppin emergency by giving it money slated for them - that the state will consider the HBCUs as a single unit, with a certain amount of money to share among them.

"It would be unfortunate if in the year 2002 we're looking at inter-HBCU rather than inter-higher education," said Morgan President Earl S. Richardson. "If the state takes from all [state schools] to give to Coppin, that would be more palatable. But there will never be a day when Maryland will take money from College Park to give to Coppin."

It's true that it's wrong to lump the HBCUs together, because the character and needs of the four colleges are drastically different. Bowie State needs new faculty to handle a huge jump in enrollment and dormitories to encourage more students to live on campus.

UMES faces the opposite situation: It has buildings galore, the latest addition a palatial student center that includes a bowling alley, 500-seat movie theater and 2,000 square-foot ballroom - but it is hoping to increase its enrollment of 3,200.

Landlocked Morgan State lacks UMES' acreage, and therefore has had to renovate many older buildings rather than expand the campus with many new ones. Its role as the state's flagship HBCU and as a research university mean it has costs far beyond its fellow HBCUs.

And then there's Coppin, with a campus in such poor repair that it makes the other HBCUs look like Ivy League schools by comparison. The OCR agreement applies to all four colleges, but the condition of Coppin in 2005 will be the true measure of whether the state has lived up to the deal.

"Meeting the expectations of the OCR agreement in a time of constrained resources will be quite a challenge," said Kirwan. "But the [Toll report] does document very well the need for additional support at Coppin, and it's challenge I welcome, and feel committed to."