On November 13, Freeman Hrabowski III, the president of the University of Maryland-Baltimore County (UMBC), was profiled on 60 Minutes. Under Hrabowski’s leadership, UMBC has become a powerhouse in the sciences for racial and ethnic minorities (and many others). Although the 60 Minutes reporter marveled at Hrabowski’s success, when I watched the interview, the strategies and successes made sense. Hrabowski earned his bachelor’s degree at Hampton University—one of the nation’s premier black colleges and liberal-arts colleges. He learned how to love math in a cooperative, supportive environment and had role models that looked like him teaching his classes. This makes a huge difference.
Hrabowski brought this knowledge and memory of his experience to the UMBC presidency. At UMBC, Hrabowski has created a nurturing and supportive learning environment for students while maintaining high standards. This approach attracts many, many students to the sciences. In fact, while most colleges have about 25 percent of their students enrolled in the sciences, UMBC boasts 41 percent of its students earning bachelor’s degrees in this area. At UMBC, students consider being smart to be cool, and they thrive while participating in hands-on, relevant experiences.
According to Hrabowski, UMBC focuses on “excellence and inclusivity.” Often university administrators at colleges and universities throughout the country think that excellence and inclusivity are polar opposites. Hrabowski has achieved true excellence and diversity in the area of the sciences—something that most colleges and universities have not achieved and worse yet, have not tried to achieve. With the Meyerhoff Scholars Program, the approach is to create an all-encompassing environment in which students socialize, work, study, and learn together. The environment focuses on cooperation not competition. Hrabowski urges the students to see each other as peer-teachers, to work in teams, and to believe in themselves as scientists. And, these strategies work, especially for students of color and women. UMBC has graduated 1,813 Meyerhoff students and 90 percent of them have gone on to graduate school in the sciences.
In order to capture the success at UMBC, Hrabowski has authored several books that offer a road map for student success. The nation’s other colleges and universities should look to UMBC (and the nation’s black colleges) for strategies for supporting students of color and women in the sciences. There are no excuses for lack of inclusion and lack of success. We know what to do at this point.
