The Baltimore Sun recently chronicled UMBC’s rise over the past two decades into a nationally-recognized powerhouse for academic innovation. As the campus approaches its 50th anniversary in 2016, UMBC sports enviable credentials, the Sun wrote: “It’s cited as America’s top up-and-coming university and a leader in undergraduate teaching by U.S. News. It has an endowment of about $60 million, built from less than $1 million when Hrabowski took over. Research funding has risen from less than $10 million to about $90 million.” While UMBC is known for excellence in a wide range of fields, the Sun notes that the university has found remarkable success …