The Meyerhoff Undergraduate Scholars Program

This evening you are going to get an enthusiastic presentation from University of Maryland, Baltimore County s (UMBC s), president and founder of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program, Dr. Freeman Hrabowski. Dr. Hrabowski is one of only a very small number of African American presidents of predominantly white universities in our country. When he came to our campus in 1988, we had no coordinated minority training efforts on campus. He has really transformed UMBC. He is an example of how one person with a vision and a lot of energy can have a large catalytic effect and can change the way departments view education and treat their students. 

The first part of my presentation focuses on UMBC s Meyerhoff undergraduate program. In the latter part, I will tell you about our more recent efforts to develop a biomedical graduate training program that is modeled after the undergraduate program. 

Although the Meyerhoff undergraduate program was opened to all students in 1996, we still have 71 percent participation by African Americans, 14 percent by Asian students, and only 12 percent by Caucasians. UMBC has worked hard to make certain that the original focus would be maintained, in part 

There is a misconception when it comes to the issue of students entering the SEM pipeline. People say that there are very small numbers of undergraduate students who are interested in SEM when they enter in their freshman year. At UMBC, that is not what we see. For the fall of 2002 incoming class we have over 1,600 nominations for our Meyerhoff program. Ninety percent of these applicants are from Maryland. Of the 1,600 nominations, nearly 500 students have completed applications for only 50 available positions. Again, the majority of those 500 applications are from Maryland. 

The program that Dr. Hrabowski set up was designed to ensure that we recruit students that are likely to succeed and then make sure that we retain them in SEM. Once they get past their freshman year, large numbers of these talented underrepresented minority students want to begin working in research labs. At UMBC we have found that faculty welcome these students into their labs. 

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