By Susan Thornton Hobby

The first question on the Jacqueline C. Hrabowski Endowment scholarship application is “How did you develop such a passion for service?”

Jackie Hrabowski answers that one easily: Her parents.

Growing up in rural Virginia, Hrabowski remembers her parents constantly serving others. For years, young Jackie accompanied her parents as they filled out forms, calculated taxes, built brick walls, or repaired houses for her parents’ combined 28 siblings or for the rest of the town. As a teenager, she once pouted, “Why does it always have to be us that helps everyone?”

Her father answered simply, “Because we can.”

“Those are the role models that I saw,” Hrabowski said. “You grow up with that in your DNA. And that’s been the thing that has moved me forward throughout my entire life.”

Hrabowski is a former vice president of community involvement at T. Rowe Price, a passionate advocate for child welfare, and the wife of Freeman. She has been mentoring the recipients of her endowment’s scholarship for 20 years. Because she can.

One of Hrabowski’s mentees, Nia Hampton ’13, media and communications studies, struggled with expectations at the internship that Hrabowski found for her. After Hampton’s rough first day with the company, Hrabowski responded by buying Hampton clothes, getting her hair done, and counseling her on professional behavior.

Now a freelance journalist, multimedia artist, and still a self-proclaimed “rebel,” Hampton recently texted Hrabowski, thanking her for her support. 

“Mrs. Hrabowski was really good at connecting me with people who could see me and understand me. I kinda knew I would be something she may not know what to do with,” Hampton said, but Hrabowski didn’t give up, instead connecting Hampton to UMBC Vice Provost and mentor Yvette Mozie-Ross ’88, healthy science and policy. To help mentees toward success, Hampton said, “sometimes it takes all kinds of people.”

Thomas Southerland ’22, economics, met Hrabowski at the scholarship recipients’ cohort dinner she gave at Baltimore’s Center Club.

“She was very supportive and very wise,” he said, and he and many of the scholars took notes while they chatted with their mentor. The connections he made will serve him well in his career in finance after graduation, he said.

You Can’t Be What You Can’t See

Hrabowski excelled at math, even beating her future husband Freeman on their calculus test scores. But she majored in psychology at Hampton University, because a role model, a Fisk University graduate who taught Sunday School at her church, was also a psychology major.

She often quotes the saying posted in her husband’s office: “You Can’t Be What You Can’t See.”

“Role modeling means having to see actual images of what it looks like to be what you want to be,” said Hrabowski, who taught educational psychology and early childhood education at UMBC in the 1980s. “You can sit and talk until you’re blue in the face about what you need to do and how you need to behave. Words alone aren’t enough. They’ve got to see it.”

Alicia Wilson ’04, political science, Hrabowski’s first mentee, agrees.

“Jackie was one of the first Black women I’d ever met in corporate America at the highest level,” said Wilson, now the vice president for economic development at Johns Hopkins University and Health System. “She’s a wonderful mentor—she imparts her knowledge and her experience in a spirit of love and caring and support.”

Jackie Hrabowski and Alicia Wilson in 2017, courtesy of Jay Baker.

Now Wilson is mentoring seven Retrievers, making sure she “meets students where they are,” at the UMBC dining hall or outside their dorms.

Wilson, and so many others, clearly learned lessons from Hrabowski.

“You use the talents that you have, not so much for your own purpose, but to make life better for others,” Hrabowski said. “Because when you do that, your universe expands in a positive way as well.”

Read more about the Hrabowskis’ philosophy of mentorship in the Equation of Change.

As UMBC heads into its 50th year, we’ve been looking back on our tales of grit and moments of greatness. What better time to do that than the Endowed Scholarship Luncheon, a yearly event where donors meet the students who’ve benefited from their contributions? Throughout this spring’s luncheon, speakers stressed the importance of investing in young people, and how education can bring forth greatness from humble beginnings.

Sylvia Brown came from such beginnings in rural Virginia, and said that she wouldn’t have been able to get where she is today – teacher, administrator, philanthropist – without the help of caring parents and teachers in her youth. She’s since dedicated much of her life to ensuring access and opportunities for young people across the Baltimore area. She and her husband Eddie Brown were some of the first donors to invest in the Meyerhoff Scholars Program, and they have provided abundant support to UMBC over the years.

Mrs. Brown spoke of the importance of giving, and said that it fills her with gratitude to see a beneficiary of her gifts turn around to help someone else. As she looked around the room at students sitting with the donors who funded their scholarships, she said, “I think it’s been working.”

Jackie Hrabowski, former faculty member at UMBC, current board member at T. Rowe Price, and wife of UMBC President Dr. Freeman Hrabowski, also cited key influences from her childhood on her choice to give back. Her parents were known in their community for their generosity, and she remembered asking her father, as a teenager, why their family had to be the ones to help out all the time.

Her father answered, quite simply, “Because we can.”

The people who have established scholarship funds for UMBC students have done so not out of obligation, but because they could, because they wanted to invest in the success of future generations. Scholarship recipients, in turn, have a habit of paying it forward.

Awardees use their gifts not only to put themselves through school, but to give back to the institution and the community. One such beneficiary is Parker James ’16, health administration and policy, who, as a France-Merrick Fellow and Sondheim Public Affairs Scholar, co-created Students for a Healthy Baltimore, an organization that places undergraduate volunteers at health clinics throughout the city. He says these opportunities have affirmed his commitment to removing barriers to health care access for the underprivileged.

As Vice President of Institutional Advancement Greg Simmons ’04, M.P.P. public policy, put it, stories like these matter, and the establishment of endowed scholarships demonstrates the university’s commitment to elevation. Dr. Hrabowski agreed, citing UMBC’s contribution to the growth of the middle class and to the next generation of leaders.

As Dr. Hrabowski said, if we can do all this in 50 years, imagine where we’re headed next.

— Julia Celtnieks ’13

Give our students a hand, and pay it forward by making a gift today. For more photos from the event, head to Flickr.

In the fall of 2003, Kevin Yang ’07 computer science and financial economics and Katelyn Niu ’05, biochemistry, found themselves in the same physics study group.

But their relationship began to bloom a year later, when a computer virus brought them together.

“Katelyn’s computer was affected by a virus, and she called me for help,” Kevin recalls.

He admits that he took his time fixing the computer problem, making several trips to Katelyn’s place at Walker Avenue Apartments. “That gave us time to chat,” he says.

Kevin and Katelyn also began bumping into one another more frequently in the dining hall. “I wasn’t stalking her or anything, but I have a good memory and I memorized her schedule. I’d show up [at the dining hall] a little before she’d get there,” he says with a playful grin.

While Kevin found the time in his full academic schedule to see Katelyn, her recollection of life as an undergraduate at UMBC is a little different.

“I was always so busy studying,” Katelyn says, who earned a joint Ph.D./D.D.S. from the University of Maryland, Baltimore, after graduation.

Katelyn was eventually won over by Kevin’s persistence. The couple married this past fall at the Center Club in Baltimore after a two-year engagement. They live in Ellicott City, a half-way point between Katelyn’s commute to her dentist’s office in Hagerstown andKevin’s position as an investment analyst at T. Rowe Price in downtown Baltimore.

While life as young commuting professionals is busy, Katelyn and Kevin stay connected to UMBC. She uses the pool on occasion; he plays tennis on the campus’s courts. They volunteer their time at recruiting events for prospective students, and attend alumni events. They also see UMBC President Freeman A. Hrabowski, III and his wife, Jackie, from time to time.

“I was a Meyerhoff Scholar,” says Kevin. “He was the founder. We’ve kept in touch .”

Read the full issue of the Winter 2014 UMBC Magazine.