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UMBC president speaks on diversity

Freeman Hrabowski III
11:33 a.m., June 23, 2004--Freeman Hrabowski III, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) since 1992, was the keynote speaker at UD’s General Education Institute June 9.

Hrabowki has studied minority student achievement and helped create the highly successful Meyerhoff Scholars Program in 1988 for high-achieving minority students in the fields of sciences, mathematics and engineering. He is the coauthor of “Beating the Odds, Raising Academically Successful African-American Males” and “Overcoming the Odds: Raising Academically Successful African-American Young Women.”

Hrabowski discussed “Promoting Diversity in a Public University: The UMBC Experience” and touched on several issues facing colleges and universities.

A public research university founded in 1966, UMBC emphasizes science, mathematics and engineering, seeking excellence in these areas rather than all. The school is not heavily involved in athletics (it does have a chess team and gave a chess scholarship) and is a “community of nerds,” but nerds pay the bills, Hrabowski said.

When he came to UMBC in the 1987, 60 percent of freshmen were interested in science and engineering, but a large percentage did not make the grade or lost interest. This included a large percentage of minority students and a large number of white students.

To change the environment, UMBC goals included providing an honors and small liberal arts college experience in a public research university and supporting high-achieving minority students. The idea was to excite students about learning and to think beyond credits and cultivate the intellect and the “life of the mind.” A general foundation requirement was installed with the underlying goal to promote the ability to read and write clearly, reason conceptually and work independently and with others.

Top research faculty were encouraged to present seminars on a variety of topics from Beethoven to infinity to human rights. Undergraduate research is encouraged at UMBC, as a prestigious activity, Hrabowski said, and students present and publish their findings in local or national journals.

Students reside in living/learning communities, which house 80 percent of freshmen and 50 percent of upper classmen and are intended to promote interaction between the faculty and students as in smaller liberal arts colleges.

Hrabowski also touched on academic integrity and how UMBC was meeting dishonesty by facing the problem openly, making students aware of cheating and introducing values and attitudes and an honors statement.

Students also are involved with the UMBC Shriver Center, Hrabowski said, where 800 children of color, mostly boys, who have had a brush with the law, are supervised by the center 24 hours a day, seven days a week to ensure they attend school and an after-school program and that they are home nights. UMBC students act as tutors and mentors and learn from the experience, Hrabowski said.

Another area Hrabowski discussed is what students need to know. Education should be more interdisciplinary, he said, with partnerships across disciplines and interdisciplinary majors. For example, he said, biology students need to have a knowledge of physics, chemistry and math, as well as biology.

Returning to the topic of helping students succeed, Hrabowski said UMBC encourages bright minority students by giving them support, advisement, summer bridge programs and remediation—helping them “to want to be smart.”

Hrabowski concluded by saying that education should come from the top down, with research faculty working with minority students, so that the best and most capable students are schooled by the best.

Additional information about Hrabowski and UMBC, as well as UD’s General Education Institute, held June 8-9, is available at [www.udel.edu/ugs/gened/gei2004/index.htm].
Aspects of the General Education initiative goals were highlighted by an ethics presentation and breakout session by Alex London, Carnegie Mellon University, and Tom Powers, University of Virginia, and a cultural diversity presentation and breakout session by Debra Humphreys, Association of American Colleges and Universities.

Article by Sue Moncure

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