“The key to accelerating discoveries in science or the next tech breakthrough will be dependent on our ability to bring fresh perspectives to STEM fields,” says Priscilla Chan, co-founder of the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI). Now, CZI has turned to UMBC for a model of how to make that happen.

CZI announced today that it has awarded $6.9 million to support a unique partnership to replicate UMBC’s Meyerhoff Scholars Program at UC San Diego and UC Berkeley.

“California’s openness to new ways of thinking is what has made this state an innovation engine for the world,” says Chan. “With these new grants, we hope to help bring even more diversity of perspective and experience to our state—and to Silicon Valley.”

The UMBC Meyerhoff program, founded in 1989, is recognized as one of the most effective models in the nation to help engage and retain underrepresented students pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees in STEM fields. Program participants have already earned 300 Ph.D. degrees, 130 M.D. degrees, 54 M.D.-Ph.D. degrees, and 253 master’s degrees. Hundreds more are currently pursuing graduate degrees.

These achievements are particularly striking in a national context. UMBC graduates more African American students who go on to earn dual M.D.-Ph.D. degrees than any other college in the U.S.—a credit to the Meyerhoff program model. UMBC is also second in the nation when it comes to graduating African American students who go on to earn a Ph.D. in any STEM field.

A thrilling combination

“It is truly thrilling to think about the national and global impact the Meyerhoff Scholars Program will have through partnerships like this,” says Michael Summers, Robert E. Meyerhoff Chair for Excellence in Research and Mentoring and Distinguished University Professor at UMBC. “By working together we can help shape the future of our national Ph.D. pipeline, with inclusive excellence as a core shared value of our work.”

The University of California system is the largest undergraduate and graduate educator of underrepresented and low-income students in the country within the Association of American Universities, and UC Berkeley and UC San Diego are major sources of top talent for Silicon Valley and STEM fields more broadly.

The CZI support announced today will enable UC San Diego and UC Berkeley to apply many of the strategies successfully used at UMBC. These include outreach to high achieving underrepresented high school students, robust research experiences, team learning, peer counseling, intensive advising, preparation in the summer before matriculation, and engagement with students’ families.

Informed by UMBC’s own approach to measuring the impact of student support initiatives, UC San Diego and UC Berkeley will provide rigorous data to measure the effects of their new programs over the five-year grant period. In this way, they hope to determine what approaches work best to create a welcoming and supportive environment for underrepresented groups, and ultimately to improve education for all in STEM fields.

As UMBC recognizes, these findings can also help a university support students beyond STEM, in any field, as they work to discover and fulfill their potential.

Extending community

UMBC Meyerhoff alumni pursuing graduate degrees at UC Berkeley and UC San Diego are particularly excited to see this new partnership grow.

“Seeing a version of the program come to Berkeley is exciting because it means there is another initiative to increase the support for students of color. It means building and extending the community that wants to see us in academic spaces,” says Robyn Jasper ‘17, M25, biological sciences, who is currently a Ph.D. student at UC Berkeley in plant and microbial biology.

“Being a Meyerhoff Scholar has connected me and continues to connect me with advocates for my personal growth and institutional change,” she shares.

Rockford “Rocky” Sison ‘13, M21, mathematics, a current Ph.D. candidate in applied mathematics at Berkeley, feels similarly. “As an alum of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program, I’m so excited to see other programs spring up across the country,” they share. “It means a lot to me that more students will receive the type of financial, professional, and emotional support I received as an undergraduate. Ideally, every student would get this level of support.”

For Sison, “being a Meyerhoff Scholar meant that I hit the ground running in college.” The Summer Bridge program before their first year and subsequent programming meant “I knew what internships were, office hours weren’t as scary because I knew a couple faculty members, and I was friends with a bunch of people that would also be in my classes.”

Sison carries on that legacy of support, sharing, “When I graduated from UMBC, being a Meyerhoff Scholar meant that I was dedicated to paying it forward, and I had a sprawling network of people with the same commitment.”

Now, UMBC’s Meyerhoff Scholars Program model will reach more people than ever before, reshaping the future of STEM in California and the nation, and unlocking new opportunities for students.

Featured image: Naomi Mburu ’18, chemical engineering, a Meyerhoff Scholar and UMBC’s first Rhodes Scholar. She is now studying nuclear engineering at Oxford. All photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

This week, Times Higher Education shined a spotlight on UMBC’s advancements in graduating more low-income and minority students in the sciences—what it calls the “holy grail of academia.” “Everybody wants to understand our model,” UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski told reporter Paul Basken.

As Hrabowski explained, lessons learned in one area can inform another, and UMBC’s work to support underrepresented students in STEM fields has led to investments in support programs for students of all backgrounds across UMBC.

“The words I use are ‘inclusive excellence’,” Hrabowski told the London-based publication. “Yes, we are helping kids of color, but we are helping all kids.”

The article travels across UMBC’s growing campus. Basken takes a stop in the Chemistry Discovery Center, speaking with Diana Hamilton, Ph.D., ’93, lecturer in chemistry and biochemistry, about effective, team-based approaches to active learning. He also speaks with Yvette Mozie-Ross ’88, vice provost for enrollment management, about UMBC’s strategic use of analytics to determine where students are struggling and how to support students and faculty through additional resources.

“Most institutions have a data warehouse,” says Mozie-Ross. “What most institutions don’t have is an analytics tool to use that data on a daily basis, to make informed decisions” as UMBC does, she explains.

As UMBC further expands student support programs across the university, the world is also looking at efforts to replicate UMBC’s Meyerhoff Scholars Program at other institutions, Times Higher Education notes. The Meyerhoff Scholars Program is known as the gold standard in supporting diverse students in STEM fields. UMBC is now the nation’s #1 producer of African American undergraduates who go on to complete M.D./Ph.D. degrees, and #2 nationally for African American undergraduates who complete a Ph.D. in any STEM field.

In 2014, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute made a five-year, $8 million investment in adapting the Meyerhoff program at both Penn State and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Those efforts are showing strong results, and have sparked interest from other universities across the nation.

Featured image: Associate Professor Laura Hussey congratulates new UMBC graduates during winter commencement, December 2018. All photos by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.

Last Sunday’s Boston Globe greeted readers with a front-page story about lessons to be learned from a top research university, but it wasn’t about local powerhouses Harvard or MIT. It was a profile of UMBC.

The bold headline read, “In Maryland, lessons for UMass Boston: Thriving UMBC has support of students, faculty, and, most importantly, the state.” Above that headline, just under the masthead for the Sunday Globe, was a quote from President Freeman Hrabowski. It gave a snapshot of UMBC, noting, “Nothing is more important here than brainpower and grit.”

In Maryland, there are lessons to be had for UMass Boston. https://t.co/1hmUR5qQKj pic.twitter.com/YZnHnKXeIW

— The Boston Globe (@BostonGlobe) July 22, 2018

The article starts in a math refresher course, where students are hard at work during the summer to prepare for the semester ahead. Even in the academic off-season, the campus is buzzing with activity, reporter Laura Krantz found. “At UMBC, black and yellow flags flutter above the central sidewalk and even in the summer,” she wrote, “the campus is alive with summer camps, graduate students doing research, and the Meyerhoff students, who are still in calculus class.”

Krantz spent hours meeting with students, faculty, staff, and alumni, and shadowing President Hrabowski, to learn what makes UMBC tick. “It’s never about the one person” at UMBC, President Hrabowski explained. “It has to be a tone that when the person comes in it’s not us versus them, but how do we work together.”

Working together to constantly improve is one of the secrets behind UMBC’s success, the article suggests. “We’re not perfect,” said Dean Bill LaCourse of the College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences. “But when we look in the mirror we don’t…blame the students, we don’t blame external aspects, we look at ourselves first and see what can we change.”

The supportive community that this kind of growth-oriented collaboration creates is meaningful for faculty, staff, and students alike. “It’s a very safe environment to try new things, to innovate, so that’s huge,” said Katharine Cole, vice provost and dean of undergraduate academic affairs.

State investment in education is another key to the university’s growth and its ability to serve as an economic engine for the region, the article also emphasizes. “The state feels that it is important to support higher education,” said Delegate Adrienne Jones ’76, psychology, Maryland House Speaker Pro Tem. “We see that as a link to the economy of the state and a well-educated workforce.”

Thanks to everyone who makes UMBC such a special community. “It’s one of those places where everyone always seems to be upbeat, even when it’s raining out and you’re dodging raindrops,” said @DelegateAJones.https://t.co/ebR7k5xyFf

— UMBC (@UMBC) July 24, 2018

Ultimately, said President Hrabowski, “We want working- and middle-class people to believe that they have opportunities to go to first-rate institutions that they can afford.”

The Globe reports that data show UMBC is achieving its goal of providing a first-rate education to students of all backgrounds. The paper notes that the university’s graduation rate is strong across all racial and ethnic groups, and that 2018 alumni have gone on to promising careers and graduate programs at Columbia, Cornell, Duke, MIT, Harvard, and Yale.

UMBC is a place, the Globe notes, that has skyrocketed to “students’ first choice,” and continues to focus on growth.

Featured image: Orientation Peer Advisors at UMBC. All photos by Marlayna Demond.