UMBC is among the the nation’s best colleges for students seeking an exceptional education with great career preparation at an affordable price, according to an announcement today by Princeton Review.

In the 2016 edition of Colleges that Pay You Back, Princeton Review highlights the top 200 universities from across the U.S. that “give you the best bang for your tuition buck,” balancing superb academics, affordability, and “getting their graduates out the door to satisfying and rewarding careers.”

Princeton Review’s profile of UMBC notes:

Arguably the “best public college in Maryland,” UMBC is an “extremely diverse school” that manages to maintain a “small community feel.” And from the moment you set foot on campus it’s evident that the university is focused on “providing exceptional education and research opportunities for students.”

The profile highlights a broad range of strong undergraduate programs at UMBC, from education and interdisciplinary studies to engineering, biology and chemistry. It also describes how:

Inside the classroom, students are greeted by “very knowledgeable professors” who typically devote “most of the class time to real world discussion[s].” And, perhaps most importantly, professors at UMBC push students to “learn as much as [they] can, work as hard as [they] can and really think outside the box.”

With a focus on value, “Colleges That Pay You Back” gives particular attention to career support for students and alumni. Princeton Review writes:

Thanks to UMBC’s amazing Career Center, undergrads here are able to enter the job market with confidence. Starting from freshman year, the office works to empower students and help them plot their career goals.

The publication goes on to highlight UMBC’s recruiting and networking events as opportunities to meet with representatives from top employers, interviewing workshops, and writing seminars for resumes and cover letters.

UMBC has appeared on this “best value” list several times in the past, including in 2008, 2009, 2011, 2013, and 2014. Four other Maryland universities are included this year: Johns Hopkins University, the U.S. Naval Academy, Loyola University of Maryland, and University of Maryland, College Park.

A few weeks ago, UMBC was also again named a Best Value College for 2016 by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, appearing on both the Best Value Public University list and “top 300” national Best Value University list.

Images: UMBC library, by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC, and “Colleges That Pay You Back” (2016 edition) cover, courtesy of Princeton Review.

Salon marked Martin Luther King Day 2016 by sharing a powerful essay by UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski on how growing up during the civil rights struggle in Alabama shaped his outlook on education and opportunity. Excerpted from Pres. Hrabowski’s book Holding Fast to Dreams, the essay details his experience marching in the Children’s Crusade of May 1963—an event that profoundly impacted his life and the course of the civil rights movement.

“My students often ask me, ‘Doc, what was it like to be twelve and black in Birmingham?’” President Hrabowski begins. His complex answer draws on memories of growing up in a family and community that empowered children and treasured education, combined with “a harsher set of messages that told us we were second-class” through segregation and discrimination.

Dr. Hrabowski writes:

I received the message again in second grade when the teacher handed out books with brown paper concealing the covers. Our teacher told us not to remove the paper cover but, overtaken by curiosity, I peeled it back and discovered the name of a white school underneath. I went to her and asked, “Why do they give us their books when they throw them away?” The first thing she said was, “Boy, I told you not to peel that paper off that book.” Then she was embarrassed. She looked at me and said, “Yes, the book is second-rate, but you are a child of God. You’re first-rate. Get the knowledge. You don’t have time to be a victim.

Ultimately, Pres. Hrabowski focuses on the necessity for equity in education and the power of resilience, including how teachers and families can support students as they work through the struggles they face in life:

The experience of marching in the Children’s Crusade in May 1963 taught me that even children can make decisions that have an impact on the rest of their lives, and that they know the difference between right and wrong. It also taught me that children can struggle to overcome challenges and be stronger as a result. When children have support, any struggle, whether it’s standing up for civil rights or learning to read or solving math problems, can teach lessons about the importance of persistence. We all face struggles throughout our lives. What’s important is how we respond. As children confront different problems and learn to handle them, they develop confidence. Success breeds success.

In addition to the Salon article, the Chicago Tribune published a moving feature on Pres. Hrabowski’s talk at Valparaiso University’s 27th annual convocation honoring the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., with the theme “Facing the Challenge of Change.” His address focused on both how much progress our nation has made and how much work remains, particularly increasing access to higher education for children in low-income families.

“You must come to see the light in every child,” Pres. Hrabowski told the crowd, “how you want to make a difference in that child’s life.”

Image: Pres. Hrabowski speaks with a student at Baltimore’s Lakeland Elementary/Middle School, January 2016. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

A new feature story in University Business magazine chronicles UMBC’s rise as a major national research university and a destination for top students from around the world.

Published on the eve of UMBC’s 50th anniversary, the article digs into the history of the institution, founded in 1966 with a diverse faculty and student body and as an academic powerhouse with high standards from the start.

Today, President Freeman Hrabowski shares, “We have a special place in American higher education” as an institution that encourages students to go beyond their comfort zones and build relationships with people different from themselves. “We believe in this fundamental purpose of higher education,” he says.

In an extensive interview with journalist Matt Zalaznick, Pres. Hrabowski describes UMBC’s distinctive emphasis on “inclusive excellence,” where diversity and high academic standards go hand-in-hand.  The university’s core concerns, says Pres. Hrabowski, are “what we’ve taught [students] and the quality of the education: Are they good thinkers, do they have values that we want to see in educated American citizens?”

To describe how the university approaches this goal, the article dives into UMBC’s focus on civic engagement, the bwtech@UMBC research and technology park, and how academic innovation happens. Through redesigning classrooms to promote more engaged, collaborative learning, says Pres. Hrabowski, “People see that no student can sit back and be passive—every student has a role.”

“[UMBC] used to be a great option for education within Baltimore, now it’s a great option for a superior education and career-launching point for youth throughout the world,” says Tom Sadowski ’89, political science, president and CEO of the Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore. “It’s grown by an order of magnitude.”

This growth is evident across the university, the article notes, as Zalaznick winds his way from UMBC’s national reputation as a STEM leader through strengths in the arts, humanities, and social sciences. He pauses with Hrabowski to hear a moving student recital in the new Performing Arts & Humanities Building. The president shares, “We need arts and humanities to put our lives in perspective, to express what we’re thinking and feeling.”

Read the full article in University Business.

Image: Flags in the UMBC Commons. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

It is with great sadness we share with you that Dr. Homer Schamp, Jr., an icon in Maryland’s higher education system and a founding leader in the UMBC community, passed away on Tuesday, January 12, 2016.

In 1965, a year before UMBC opened, Dr. Schamp was appointed dean of the faculty, with responsibility for hiring the university’s first faculty members. “Homer was both a pioneer and visionary leader,” says President Freeman Hrabowski. “A renowned physicist, he and other early leaders laid the foundation for the high quality education and research that UMBC is known for today.”

Throughout his career at UMBC as a provost, vice chancellor for academic affairs, and research professor, Dr. Schamp’s enthusiasm for learning inspired all those around him. His penchant for using new education techniques has led to advances in pedagogy, scholarship, and creative achievement reflected throughout the campus’s history. His belief in the importance of connecting the university to its surrounding community established UMBC as a catalyst for economic development and quality of life in the Baltimore region.

Dr. Schamp dedicated his life to education, serving more than 50 years in higher education roles at the campus and system levels. Prior to his appointment at UMBC, he was a rising star in the physics program at the University of Maryland, College Park. He became a key player in developing the UMCP’s Institute for Molecular Physics and became its director in 1964. Known as an exceptional problem-solver, Dr. Schamp was called upon once more toward the end of his career at UMBC to assist the chancellor of the newly established University System of Maryland. His long record of building consensus was critical in helping the System navigate complex personnel and academic issues.

Viewing services for Dr. Schamp will take place on Friday, January 15, 2016, 5–8 p.m. and Saturday, January 16, 2016, 2–4 p.m. at Ruck Towson Funeral Home, 1050 York Rd., Towson, MD 21204. A memorial service will be announced at a later date. In lieu of flowers, the family requests memorial contributions to the Dr. Homer W. Schamp Memorial Scholarship. This newly established fund will support students interested in teaching science in K-12 schools after graduation.

Please make your checks payable to the UMBC Foundation, and note in the memo line Dr. Homer W. Schamp Memorial Fund. Send to:

UMBC Foundation
Dr. Homer W. Schamp Memorial Scholarship
8th Floor Admin. Building, c/o Kimberly Robinson
1000 Hilltop Circle
Baltimore, Md. 21250

Update: Baltimore Sun obituary for Dr. Homer W. Schamp, Jr.

Image: Albin O. Kuhn, Guy Chisholm, and Homer Schamp at the UMBC Groundbreaking. Photo by UMCP Photo Services, 1966.

UMBC celebrated the accomplishments of over 1,000 new Retriever alumni at 2015 Winter Commencement, with a graduate ceremony held on December 16 and undergraduate ceremony on December 17.

The ceremonies included representatives from UMBC faculty, staff, student, and alumni leadership, as well as the University System of Maryland Board of Regents. UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski shared more than a dozen inspiring stories of accomplishment, highlighting graduates who have achieved great things, often despite significant challenges in their lives and while balancing personal and professional commitments.

These graduates included students like Muntadar Al-Luwaim ’15, design, a deaf student from Saudi Arabia who welcomed the challenge of mastering two new languages, English and American Sign Language. He has helped build a welcoming community at UMBC for other deaf and hard of hearing students, and plans to develop his own design studio in Saudi Arabia.

Fellow graduate Wafa Raja ’15, information systems, came to the United States with her family eight years ago to pursue an education, but felt pressure to marry and return to Pakistan. Yearning to continue her education, she returned to the U.S. and enrolled in community college, while working and raising her young daughter. She soon transferred to UMBC, where she became both a Cyber Scholar and a Newcombe Scholar, and has shown a remarkable commitment to mentoring other students. She will work for Northrop Grumman as a cyber intelligence analyst.

During the UMBC Graduate School commencement, President Hrabowski recognized Erika Nesvold ’15 Ph.D, physics, who “spends her days thinking about asteroids smashing into each other.” She has accepted a post-doctoral fellowship at the Carnegie Institute of Washington and, in her free time, is a volunteer firefighter and EMT.

Nichole Zang Do ’15 M.A., history, has explored the history of the juvenile justice movement in Baltimore, focusing on understanding the use and misuse of juvenile reform institutions. She will support UMBC’s upcoming 50th anniversary celebrations through alumni outreach.

“The point of these stories is that every one of you indeed has a story,” President Hrabowski reflected, sharing that for each student the path to their degree “has not been easy.”

UMBC is proud to honor all of the students who received graduate and undergraduate degrees in Winter 2015.

Videos of the ceremonies will be available soon on the UMBC Commencement website. The ceremonies were also live-tweeted @UMBC, with posts available through #UMBCgrad. For additional photos, see our Undergraduate and Graduate Commencement galleries on Facebook.

Images: All photos are by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

UMBC has again been named a Best Value College for 2016 by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, appearing on both the Best Value Public University list and “top 300” national Best Value University list.

Kiplinger has recognized UMBC as a Best Value College for seven consecutive years. This ranking recognizes affordable four-year schools with outstanding academics. It is based on a combination of factors, including admission rates, student-faculty ratio, four-year graduation rates, and financial aid.

See Kiplinger’s UMBC profile for details.

This follows U.S. News rankings announced earlier in the fall that again recognized UMBC as a national leader in undergraduate teaching, tied with Yale at #6 and ranked ahead of Stanford and Duke. In a new ranking of “Most Innovative Schools,” U.S. News named UMBC #4 in the nation, joining MIT and Stanford in the top five.

Recently, the university has also been named a top U.S. and global university by the Round University Ranking (RUR), in partnership with Thomson Reuters. The RUR is a world university ranking measuring performance of 750 leading world universities across key measures in teaching, research, international diversity, and financial sustainability.

See UMBC’s “Best Colleges” website for more rankings news.

Image: True Grit statue during December 2015 graduate commencement. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Systems that store and analyze data about how students are progressing through their coursework can be a powerful source of better decision-making in higher education. That’s the theme of a CampusTechnology.com article featuring a lengthy section on UMBC’s use of the Blackboard learning management and data-analysis system to promote student success.

At UMBC, Blackboard data about student performance are now “across all the colleges and all the key functional offices that are responsible for student success, so they’re all able to get the data they want,”  says Jack Suess, chief information officer and vice president of information technology. Among the findings on teaching and learning that have emerged from Blackboard data-crunching at UMBC are these:

• students who get a D or an F use Blackboard almost 40 percent less than those who get higher grades
• heavy Blackboard use among students helps flag innovative teaching
• one way to improve student performance is through use of a Blackboard feature that lets instructors set preconditions for accessing course materials–passing a quiz, for example
• differences in the way students perform in courses subsequent to a “gateway” course can help pinpoint teaching practices that are especially effective in that course.

John Fritz, UMBC’s assistant vice president of instructional technology and new media, is a fan of the third tier of learning management systems–the area that includes electronic portfolios and the preconditions for release of new material. That part of the system “sets up a structure for student responsibility and self-awareness” that puts the focus on what students are doing for themselves, a necessary complement to what institutions are doing for students, Fritz believes.

Experts from three universities, including Suess and Fritz, named several best practices for using data from a learning management system. One piece of advise is to drop the term “analytics” in favor of, for instance, the more accessible “intelligence.”

Another best practice, according to Fritz,  is to make initial research projects simple but rigorous.”Start small, where you’re following an unsure hypothesis,” advises Fritz. “Refine your method and bring rigor … then help disseminate those findings.”

Read the full article, “How Data From Your LMS Can Impact Student Success,” at CampusTechnology.com.

Image: Student in a UMBC cybersecurity course. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

In recognition of Sexual Assault Awareness Month, join the Women’s Center, UHS Health Education and Voices Against Violence on Commons Main Street on April 16th at 6pm and let’s take back the night!

Events and activities include:

• Community Resource Fair (beginning at 6pm)
• The Clothesline Project
• Survivor Speak Out Forum (begins at 6:30pm)
• March Against Sexual Violence (begins approx around 7:20pm)
• Art Activism and Community Building (post march)

Community members are encouraged to make rally signs prior to TBTN to show your solidarity with survivors. You can make signs in the Women’s Center between 12-3pm on April 13, 14 and 15.

#UMBCtbtn is the official Twitter event hashtag, so follow us there and post your pictures from the evening. Want to learn more about what Take Back The Night is? Visit www.takebackthenight.org for more information.

This event is co-sponsored by: The Women’s Center, UHS Health Education, and Voices Against Violence. For more information, contact the Women’s Center at womens.center@umbc.edu or 410-455-2714.

“What is UMBC�’s special sauce?” �That’s what Susan Singer, director of the National Science Foundation’�s Division of Undergraduate Education, pondered aloud when she took the stage on September 16, 2014, at an education workshop co-hosted by the White House and UMBC. How has UMBC so successfully supported students from all backgrounds, while many other universities struggle with lagging retention rates and achievement gaps, particularly in the sciences, technology, engineering and math (STEM)?

Later that morning, Dean Bill LaCourse revealed the UMBC recipe. We’�ve succeeded, he shared, through a commitment to inclusion, community of support, stable leadership, recognition of the diverse strengths students bring to the table, and a �”culture of assessment”� that elevates programs proven to boost student success.

The workshop, part of the White House’�s College Opportunity Initiative, was a dynamic gathering of college and university faculty and administrators, federal officials, and association and foundation staff focused on improving STEM education nationwide. Organized by the White House Domestic Policy Council and White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the event explored how to improve teaching and learning in STEM courses and classrooms, and successful pathways for students as they move through STEM programs to jobs and graduate school.

President Barack Obama identified improving STEM education as a critical goal of his administration early in his first term and has already implemented several related initiatives. Recently, the President’�s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology urged the U.S. to take even more action to educate one million additional undergraduates in STEM over a decade.

In January 2014, the White House sponsored a College Opportunity Summit during which President Obama called for �”an ambitious new agenda aimed at improving college value, removing barriers to innovation and competition, and ensuring that student debt remains affordable.�” A key focus of that summit was helping more low-income youth succeed in critical STEM fields. A wide range of foundations, nonprofits, and college and university presidents responded to the president�’s call by announcing new steps to boost STEM achievement and broaden participation in these fields.

To build on this momentum, the White House workshop at UMBC provided an opportunity for education leaders to identify, evaluate, and scale-up innovative ways to improve STEM teaching and learning, to make STEM degrees more accessible to diverse students, and to boost degree completion.

Participants highlighted several UMBC programs regarded as national models, including the Meyerhoff Scholars Program and course redesign efforts to improve learning and retention, drawing on the innovative Chemistry Discovery Center as a key example.

UMBC Provost Philip Rous presented on UMBC�’s highly successful efforts to remove the achievement gap between students who enter as first-time, full-time freshman and those who transfer to UMBC from community colleges, focusing on the Gates Foundation-funded STEM Transfer Student Success Initiative. He reflected that the challenges UMBC faces aren’�t unique, but that at UMBC �”we have taken a very deliberate approach to how we change the culture and norms of the university, and we are very persistent in that.�”

As LaCourse suggested, the secret to the secret sauce is that it’�s not really a secret after all. It is our honest look in the mirror and commitment to balancing innovative teaching, leading-edge research, and a supportive community that make UMBC a national model.

The White House is planning three additional workshops around the country this fall at Florida International University; the University of Colorado Boulder; and California State University, Northridge.

Watch the introductory and plenary remarks and first panel of the STEM Education Workshop:

Image: UMBC Provost Philip Rous speaks at the White House College Opportunity Initiative workshop held at UMBC on September 16, 2014. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Renetta Tull, Associate Vice Provost of Graduate Student Development and Postdoctoral Affairs, is seeking equity in STEM for all.

Tull was recently the lead author on an article for peerReview titled, “The Jessica Effect: Valuing Cultural and Familial Connections to Broaden Success in Academe.” The article begins:

Jessica Soto-Pérez, daughter of Antonio Israel Soto and Luz N. Pérez, received her undergraduate degree from the University of Puerto Rico Mayaguez. She was a promising chemical engineering graduate student at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) and peer mentor for its National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) program—PROMISE: Maryland’s AGEP.

Jessica’s future plans included returning to her native Puerto Rico to pursue a career as an engineering professor. Unfortunately, she didn’t reach that goal because in 2004, she was tragically killed by her husband.

Tull makes the argument that institutions need to “definitively invite and actively include the family members and friends of graduate students in informative and celebratory events and programs.” She writes:

This practice of “family and friend” inclusion is the legacy of Jessica. It ultimately achieves several purposes including, but not limited to (1) serving as an advising model that faculty and administrators can utilize to both recognize and value the cultural and familial connections of their graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and colleagues in the STEM disciplines, (2) promoting an understanding of the university experience among those who may not be familiar with academic processes and timelines, (3) reducing feelings of isolation on the part of students and family members, and (4) expanding the opportunities for family members to offer their students the support necessary for degree completion.

Tull is now heading to the Microsoft Innovation & Policy Center in Washington, D.C. to participate in “A New America: Empowering Hispanic Millennials for Tech Leadership,” organized by the National Journal and The Atlantic.

Tull will discuss how we can reverse the trend of Hispanic underrepresentation in STEM professions and better prepare Hispanic students for high tech careers. Other event participants include U.S. Representative Tony Cárdenas; Cecilia Muñoz, Assistant to the President and Director of the Domestic Policy Council for the White House; Rafael Bras,Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology; Alejandra Ceja, Executive Director, White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics; and Deborah Santiago, Co-Founder, COO and Vice President for Policy of Excelencia in Education.