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UMBC:
A Born Leader: Freeman Hrabowski
UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski shares his passion and techniques for mentoring minority science students.
Freeman A. Hrabowski III seemed destined for leadership from an early age. At 12 he participated in the 1963 Children’s March protesting segregation in Birmingham, Alabama, at the height of the civil rights movement.
By age 24 he had earned a master’s degree in mathematics and a Ph.D. in higher education and statistics. As a professor of statistics and an administrator at Alabama A&M University, Coppin State College, and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), he focused his research on the participation and performance of African American students in higher education. He became president of UMBC in 1992. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Hrabowski received the U.S. Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring in 1996.
Surely, one of Hrabowski’s most lasting legacies will be the Meyerhoff Scholarship Program at UMBC, which has produced more than 400 professionals in science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) to date. Hrabowski takes a personal interest and pride in these students and their futures—keeping in touch with them even after they have moved on to graduate school. Considered a role model and an inspiration for minority students on a mostly white campus, he spearheads attempts to change attitudes among science faculty, encouraging them to “talk science” with students of color.
“A scientist produces a scientist—not the university president, not the staff—and most scientists are white,” says Hrabowski. He adds that there is still work to be done to get science faculty involved in mentoring minority and women students.
His passion on the topic is evident as he relates a story about the time the late Jane Meyerhoff fell ill in the hospital. Her husband, Robert Meyerhoff, noticed all her doctors deferring to one African American doctor, and Meyerhoff asked to meet the young man. When the doctor, an M.D./Ph.D., approached, he told Meyerhoff, “I’m one of yours. I was a Meyerhoff Scholar.” Meyerhoff later commented to Hrabowski: “It never occurred to me that one of the kids that we helped would later help my wife at the end of her life.”
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