January 7, 2022 • 39 mins
For the past three decades, University of Maryland, Baltimore County has become synonymous with Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski, III. He is nationally celebrated for his results-driven commitment to inclusive excellence, collaborative approach to leadership, and mentorship that pairs high expectations with strong support. In this episode of the MSCHE Pillars of Change Podcast, Dr. Katherine Conway-Turner, MSCHE Vice-Chair and President of Buffalo State College, explores the impact Dr. Hrabowski has had on his students, faculty, and staff in shaping conversations surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion issues as well as striving to meet the challenges of society . UMBC's model of distributed leadership brings a variety of voices to the table to help move campus discussions forward by incorporating self-reflection.
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Katherine Conway-Turner (00:17):
Welcome to the Pillars of Change
podcasts presented by MiddleStates Commission on Higher
Education.
I'm Dr.
Kate Conway Turner, president ofBuffalo State College, and a
member of the MSCHE ExecutiveCommittee.
I would like to thank you forjoining me for the Commission's
continuing series of broadcast,focusing on the topics of
(00:37):
diversity, equity, andinclusion.
I'm especially pleased to takeanother turn in the interview
chair.
As I introduced University ofMaryland Baltimore County
president Dr.
Freeman Hrabowski.
Before I do that, I want toremind our listeners that Middle
States Commission on HigherEducation, holds in an important
voice and space within thehigher education community.
(00:58):
This broadcast series spotlightshighly effective institutional
practices that have made adifference in the lives of our
students through diversity,equity, and inclusion
initiatives.
Today, I'd like to welcome.
UMBC's Dr.
Freeman Hrabowski.
For the past three decades, UMBChas become synonymous with Dr.
Freeman Hrabowski.
He is nationally celebrated forhis results driven commitment to
(01:22):
include of excellence,collaborative approach to
leadership and mentorship thatpairs high expectations with
strong support.
During president Hrabowski'stenure UMBC has ascended to the
national rankings.
Over the last decade, UMBC hasincreased it six year graduation
rate for full-time freshman from55.7% percent to 69.2%.
(01:47):
And UMBC has become known forwelcoming and supporting
transfer students, including alarge number of first generation
college students.
And while UMBC made basketballhistory and 2018 as the first
number 16 seat to beat a numberone seat in the NCAA men's
tournament, I suspect that beingthe reigning national mock trial
(02:10):
champion and winning or time forfirst pace, 10 times at the
Pan-American inter collegiateteam chess championship may be
celebrated by Dr.
Hrabowski a little bit more.
What is clear is that as heannounces retirement from UMBC
effected the end of 2122academic year, Dr.
(02:30):
Hrabowski has made a lastingimpact, not just at UMBC, but on
higher education.
And it's been wonderful toexperience from afar the arc of
your leadership at UMBC.
Welcome Dr.
Freeman Hrabowski,
Freeman Hrabowski (02:44):
Thank so much.
And I I'm old enough that I tellpeople often unless use first
names, Kate and I'm Freeman, ofcourse, and of course, Freeman,
of course.
And I wan to start bycongratulating you in your
career.
I I've observed you from afarfor some time, know that you are
Marylander in and for a while,as provost have had a success
seven years there in Buffalo,and these days when you can talk
(03:05):
about making it through sevenyears as a president, it's a big
deal.
It really is.
, we're trying to showthat stability, you know what I
mean, in leadership, indifferent places.
So thank you delighted to behere.
Katherine Conway-Turner (03:15):
Well, thank you so much for saying
that.
And, and certainly I canremember meeting you many years
ago and following your careerand connecting with you many
times.
So it's great to have thisconversation.
So let's let us get started.
Yes.
Um, DEI has taken on a new levelof importance in our country
after the racial unrest in theUS and globally after the murder
(03:36):
of George Floyd and the massivedemonstations protesting p olice
brutality against blackAmericans and condemning the
systemic racism we've beenworking against for s o, so many
decades.
Sure.
So we c ould begin by, you know,what is your sense of race,
diversity, a nd inclusion beforethe acts of brutality were
widely covered during the springand summer of 2 020?
(03:59):
And as we sit in 2022, what isyour sense of race, d iversity,
a nd inclusion, and has itshifted?
Freeman Hrabowski (04:06):
Great question.
And I've been talking about thiswith colleagues, uh, in many
places.
Let me start by saying that Icompare this period, this period
of 2015, 16, all the way up to21, to what we had with George
Floyd, to what I experienced asa child in Birmingham, in the
(04:26):
sixties, and having a chance toparticipate in the children's
March with Dr.
King and going to jail and allof that.
And, and one of the points Imake to students is that the
civil rights movement was highly, uh, visible in the sixties
because of the, the, the marchesand the march on Washington and
the bombing of the church andall of that.
(04:46):
And then the legislation andpeople were saying, oh, for the
first time, somehow these thingsare coming to light.
Well, for many of us, wellbefore the 1960s, mm-hmm
, we knew we hadthese challenges all the way
back to the 1860s.
And we can talk about that, butI say the, that to say this,
that this period we're goingthrough right now has light
shining on the issues that asyou said, have been with us for
(05:10):
a long time, the notion ofstructural racism, we've had
reports from the nationalacademy of sciences, talking
about criminal justice andstructural racism for years.
Uh, it's just that when tobecome very, um, protest
oriented and we have people inthe streets, then they become
breaking news and the media willbegin to cover them more.
(05:31):
And we in universities andcommunity colleges are
microcosms of the largersociety.
And so they come to the frontall of a sudden, because before
this last few years, in past fewyears, uh, you heard a lot of
people saying, well, racedoesn't really matter that it's
all about income.
And while we know that we haveto work on poor children and low
(05:52):
income students, uh, and we knowthat the largest proportion of
poor children are actuallywhite.
Quite frankly, we still have tolook at the factor of race, uh,
as we look at all of the race inwhich diversity should be
considered.
And so where do I see us today?
I see several things.
Number one, yes, it is true thatblack lives matter.
(06:12):
And there's a reason people talkabout that.
It is that we've had such adifficult way to go in this
country for hundreds of years.
That's not emotion.
That's not an opinion.
It is the history of slavery andwhere we are today and the
results of that.
And without people appreciatinghistory, it's very hard to
(06:32):
understand where we are or wherewe have to go.
At the same time though.
I like to use the concept of, ofthe genius of the, and versus
the tyranny of the awe and thatI wish I invented the idea it's
from Jim Collins in one of hisbooks, but it's the notion that
yes, we want to talk aboutAfrican Americans and we need to
talk about the Latinxpopulation.
(06:54):
And we need to talk about LGBTQand people from, uh, a variety
of backgrounds and religion andall those things.
And so it's really important tolook at how we juggle all these
things in many ways at one time,because when you put out
something about one group otherswant to say, what about us?
What about us?
And it's a fair question.
It really is.
So we are in that position rightnow, uh, on our campus of
(07:18):
determining how we discussinches of gender title IX of
racism, of the challenges offirst generation college.
And we have to put all of thoseon the table and have those
conversations.
I will say this when theprotests occur in the streets of
our country, campuses spend evenmore time figuring out what's
(07:42):
going on because we are allconcerned about the protests
that start to happen on ourcampuses.
The challenge we face is to notwait until the next protest, but
to make sure we are doing theright things for the right
reasons every day.
And for my campus for UMBC.
(08:03):
And by the way, I can't imagineI've been talking this long, and
I haven't said anything about mybeloved UMBC, you know,
we presidents have to talk aboutour campuses.
Absolutely.
You know, and, but I will saysomething that's very
controversial.
Um, when you see blackpresidents of universities,
people immediately assume theyare primarily black.
(08:24):
They just do, because they'renot accustomed to seeing African
American presidents atinstitutions that are
multicultural, large numbers ofwhites, whatever.
And so I'm always having toexplain to people that UMBC was
founded at a time in the sixtieswhen, um, most people in our
state were either going to a, anH B, C U, wonderful Morgan or
(08:47):
UMES Maryland State at thattime, or Bowie State, uh, or
Coppin, or they were going toone of the predominantly white
schools like College Park orTowson and others now at
Salisbury, Frostburg, allwonderful institutions.
Well, we were the first placethat said students of all races
could come to us.
So from the beginning, we hadthis diversity, though it was
(09:07):
predominantly white.
Today, we are a minority servinginstitution.
Um, and that may means that.
And, but the reason we'reminority serving surprises
people is because of our Asianpopulation.
We are over 25% of Asianbackgrounds, heavily Chinese and
Indian and others.
Um, primarily students whoseparents came from those places.
(09:30):
60% of our students have atleast one parent from another
country.
And because of this corridor,the Baltimore, Washington
corridor, and kids who come fromNew York in those places.
And, but I tell you that becausewe've got a very strong black
population, we have about 2000kids.
We have 14,000 students ingeneral.
And, uh, of that 14,000, uh,approximately 11,000 undergrad,
(09:53):
approximately 3000, not quitethree are graduate students.
And in that population about 40%are white, another percentage
will be from other countries.
Uh, and, um, literally we aretalking about a very diverse
place where that looks like thePlaza nations at the UN when you
walk across the campus.
(10:14):
So, so, and we like to say, welook like what America is
becoming, and that, that's theexciting part about that.
But now what does that mean?
That means that we have to payspecial attention to every one
of those groups.
My Muslim students havechallenges we have to deal with.
My LGBTQ students.
And at the same time, as youwould imagine, people want to
(10:34):
know how are black studentsdoing when you can.
So that's a overview, that's thecontext in which we are talking
today.
I'm gonna stop there so that,cause I could, you know,
presidents can go on and on, butgo ahead and ask this question.
Katherine Conway-Turner (10:46):
OK.
Absolutely.
Well, you know, I'm, I'm reallytaken understanding more the,
um, diversity within your campuswith DC and, and how you have
these various sectors ofdiversity on campus.
Yeah.
So I'm wondering, how does thatframe the conversations on
campus?
Because it's not just a black,white thing, right?
(11:08):
It's not just African Americanstudents and white students that
you have extremely diversecampus.
Yeah.
So how does that change or, ormodify the discussions that
current around issues of raceand diversity because it is such
a diverse campus.
Freeman Hrabowski (11:22):
Yeah.
I appreciate that.
Believe it or not, we have foryears believe that every leader
on the campus has a certainresponsibility, first of all, to
deal with DEI situations.
Uh, and, and to appreciate thesignificance of inclusion on our
campus.
We like to think we are thismodel of inclusive excellence.
(11:44):
I always say, but success isnever final.
We have a way to go as everycampus does.
So I'm not here just to say, oh,look at how great we are.
Know, we all have a way to go.
I will give the faculty on ourcampus and staff, a lot of
credit.
As I'm leaving, I can look backand look at it and say, they've
really worked on these issues, agreat deal.
We have our DEI council and amajor office of DEI that reports
(12:08):
to me through our chief of staffof Candace Dodson-Reed.
Uh, and we only had that in thepast few years.
People say you didn't have onebefore.
Well, we had an office ofmulticultural affairs.
We had all kinds of things oncampus, but we've always
believed that I've always hadthe idea that, that our provost,
our vice presidents, the facultyleadership, the staff
leadership, should be interestedin these issues too.
(12:30):
And I wanna say something thatmay sound controversial.
Sometimes people will have anoffice and a couple of people,
or a few people there, and theywill say, well, diversity is
their responsibility.
I think that's a real mistake.
I really do.
It's fine for these offices tohelp us with these issues and to
serve as consultants andfacilitating things.
But until the campus has aculture that says, no, this is
(12:53):
the responsibility of all of us.
We need to know our blackstudents and our Latinx students
and our first generationstudents.
We won't have the level ofsuccess that we want to have.
So we, and we only got this unitas we have it now because the
faculty asked for it after wehad certain title IX challenges
and we needed to work on those.
And so, but the best news was inthe envisioning that the campus
(13:13):
did it.
And my new book in The EmpowerUniversity says, shouldn't be
about me, the president.
No, it's about all of us.
It's very important.
Um, and, and I say that becauseit was really faculty leadership
and staff and students who cametogether to say, this is the
approach we want to take.
And so we have this council thatconsists of faculty, staff and
students it's led by the head ofthe office.
(13:35):
Uh, and Ariana(Arnold) is a, isa well prepared lawyer, um, uh,
multicultural lawyer.
Uh, and we have, uh, the Dean ofEngineering who is a gay man who
is very into diversity in alllevels at all in always.
And they chair this council thathas some of our senior faculty
(13:56):
and staff and student leadersfrom student governments on the
council.
The, the office of OEI, uh,really does this idea of equity
and inclusion really does focuson the challenges that women may
be having, that a black studentmay be having in those kinds of
challenges.
And it looks at recordrecommendations for other parts
(14:16):
of the campus, whether they'retalking about looking at
curriculum or other kinds ofthings that we need to do.
But I say that to say this, that, uh, from the point of view of
the entire university and D andDEI, there are two broad areas
that I am always interested incampuses thinking about.
Number one is how the student isdoing both academically and
(14:38):
beyond the classroom, those twobig issues.
What can we say about theiracademic performance, their
graduation rates, theirperformance in certain
disciplines.
One other area of diversity Katethat that may surprise you, that
we talk about will be academicdisciplines.
The perspectives of students inyour area in the social sciences
(15:00):
will be different from theperspectives in engineering and
perspectives of faculty aredifferent.
And because we are more thanhalf in science and engineering,
the paper of rights about us inthose areas, and we are known
for this Meyerhoff program inproducing the largest number of
percent number of AfricanAmericans.
We get PhDs in STEM.
That's what people know us for,but we are also strong in the
(15:22):
humanities, in the arts, in thesocial sciences.
And as president I'm out theresaying, wait a minute.
Yeah, I'm glad we are doing sowell in STEM.
We have lessons there, but we'veworked on these other areas,
right?
And, and that's another part ofthe diversity conversation that
people often don't get to, butacademic performance.
And then what will students sayabout the environment, the
culture of the place.
(15:43):
That's what we talk about in TheEmpowered University.
Are we willing to look in themirror at self and see how we
may be lacking?
In some ways, all are accustomedto talking about what works well
and our best students, ofcourse, but what will the
average students say, thetypical student on the campus,
and what will the students saywho left about what they
experienced at?
So all of that is a piece.
(16:05):
And what I would say to you thatsome people may disagree with is
that's within the context ofdiversity, but that's about our
students in gen.
I have said for years, if youshow me a campus that is working
hard to care about its studentsin general, I'll show you a
campus that's talked about thosewho may be different from the
(16:25):
majority.
And so we, we have to put it inthe context of how are students
treated.
So those are the two big thingswith students.
And then the other with facultyand staff, what, what, what,
what, what, what can we sayabout representation?
And we reflecting the countrywhen reflecting our campus about
professional staff.
And then what can we say aboutthe faculty?
I wrote an article with thecolleague, some several in the
(16:46):
last year, during the midst, inthe midst of the protest.
And I wrote an article about howhigher education should address
structural racism.
And one of the points I madethis was in the Atlantic.
And one of the points I make isthat, um, we are very good about
critiquing the larger societyand its issues.
We don't as higher educationenterprise critique ourselves.
(17:10):
And as I've said on my campus,we should all be that we are so
poorly represented among theprofessorate of certain groups.
It's hard to find at mostcampuses in our country, um, the
percentage of blacks or Latinxfaculty, for example, or to have
talked about what we call ourout group page.
(17:31):
When, when, when L G B T facultycame out publicly, say, let us,
let you see who we are so we canhelp our students there.
For example, you know, so I'msuggesting to you that we have a
way to go in, pulling into thefaculty in producing and growing
our own and doing differentthings to have more faculty in
from the different racialgroups.
And, and often I will say theblack faculty representation
(17:54):
will be the lowest of all.
And there are reasons for that.
And, and the worst thing peoplecan say these days, quite
frankly, is we can't find anymm-hmm because when
we are creative, there are waysof doing it.
If you get a chance to peoplecan look at our stride program,
S T R I D E focuses onrecruiting additional faculty,
(18:15):
because we have a way to go.
We've done the best in, um, thearts, humanities and social
sciences.
We're 10 to 12% black faculty,for example.
And similarly Latinx, we haveour first woman Dean of an
academic college.
Uh, um, we Dean of the gradschool, we have a Dean of the
grad school, who's black, uh,but, and who's on the board at,
Renselaer actually very proud ofher, but, um, we have now, um,
(18:38):
uh, the Dean of arts, humanitiesand social science is interim
Dean right now doing a greatjob.
Who's, uh, professor in languageliteracy, culture, who's African
American.
And so we are moving there andthen the Dean's and the other
areas are working on theseissues because the first thing
we had to do in science andengineering in all these areas
is to get a presence in everydepartment.
That's the word I use and peoplewho are not in higher ed don't
(19:01):
realize many science departmentsand engineering departments
don't have any blacks on thefaculty, you know, and, and I
say that you, you're what I'msaying, and it's not to point
fingers.
It is to say, all of us can doit because I mean, it's been a
big deal to get the first one ortwo in biology, or to have one
or two in computer science yousee, or, or in chemistry, still
(19:23):
working on it.
You know what I mean?
So, so it's, it's, it'ssomething we don't even talk
about.
And so before we finish ittoday, I'd love to do some,
talking out my own research onthe science and engineering
piece and diversity for thecountry.
But, but those are the three,the, the, the performance of
students academically, howthey're experiencing the
environment and then the, theliterally the representation of
(19:45):
faculty and staff, and then howare they, because it's one thing
to bring them into the campus,but then what you do to give
them support, to make sure theysucceed, I'll stop there.
Katherine Conway-Tu (19:55):
Absolutely.
You know, well, I was, uh,really taken with your
discussion of the distributedmodel of leadership, uh, around
DEI on campus and how you as thecampus president had really
ensured that a whole variety ofpeople, you know, walk to the
table and are seen as leadersand, and move forward.
And I, I think that's a positivelesson, uh, for higher education
(20:18):
in general.
Uh, you also, it sounds like thebiggest challenge that you see
moving forward is therepresentation or
self-reflection of campuses.
Yeah.
And also, you know, um, youknow, growing our own across
broader institutions.
Yes.
Yes.
Are those the two majorchallenges?
Are there other major challengesyou see today?
(20:38):
I
Freeman Hrabowski (20:38):
Appreciate that.
I really do the, you know, andas I'm looking at you, as, I
mean, think about it 25 yearsago, the two of us, well, you
know, know, I'm so old, I'vebeen president about 30 years.
So let me say 35, 40 years ago,we wouldn't have seen one black
president talking to anotherblack president in institutions
that were not the serious HBCU.
Absolutely.
You know what I mean?
But I say that for this reason,one campus campuses have to ask
(21:01):
them themselves.
The question, well, even inlooking at the upper
administration, is there anybodythere call are on block, for
example, Latinx, who's not thediversity person, that's a
sensitive conversation, but itneeds to be had I, I, and, and
the diversity broadly, I wannasay that again, because my
provost, our provost is fromacross the pond.
He's British.
(21:21):
He was a professor in physics,on our campus Dean of science,
but, and became provost becauseof, is quite frankly his passion
for not only the research, butin education.
And in diversity, you see, uh,the, one of the vice provosts,
African American, another one isfrom, uh, Portugal.
So the international diversity,the vice president for research
(21:41):
for the campus is German.
You see, but as I said, the Deanof the grad school is black.
So it's the internationaldiversity we talk about.
And the, the domestic diversity,I think it's important to talk
about both.
And then to talk withspecificity.
One more point, black is notblack is not black and Latinx is
not Latinx.
What do, I mean, my blackstudents who are from DC
(22:04):
Washington or New York, um, aredifferent from my black students
who come from the islands.
Mm-hmm,, you know,my Caribbean Student Association
is very different from myCaribbean American Student
Association.
You see, they have differentperspectives.
And so one of our challenges inmindset, as we talk about
talking about the challenges ishow do we get us all of us to
(22:25):
rethink our definitions of evenof race and of how we categorize
people?
Mm-hmm because myblack students, whose parents
are professors are verydifferent from my black students
who are first generationcollege.
Similarly, my white students whoare first generation colleges
from the Eastern shore will bedifferent from the person whose
(22:46):
dad is a lawyer.
Who's my, is a doctor.
So, so we, we are gonna have tobring more specificity to our
understanding of these students.
That's just one that lay on allon all of us, but I would say
this, that, I mean, there arecampuses that are doing a fine
job with having a diversityoffice and a, maybe a VP or
(23:07):
whatever the title is for that.
Uh, and who may not have otherpeople of color.
The question then becomes, ifyou don't then are you convinced
that the people in the positionshave this issue as a major
priority, this issue ofdiversity as a major priority,
because sometimes it's notpossible with certain people in
place already to be fair topeople.
(23:27):
You know what I mean?
But is it the question is, is ita priority of the president's
council, of the provost group totalk about performance for us?
It's, it's a very big deal wehave because of the, the
challenges of so many studentsnot doing well in science and
engineering, we really needed towork on that.
And my first years there, andwhat we learned was the things
(23:48):
we could do to help the blackstudents could help all
students.
And that became a part of again,of the DNA of our campus.
But those are the challenges asyou say.
Yes,
Katherine Conway-Tu (23:58):
Absolutely.
Well, thank you.
Thank you so much for that.
Um, so, you know, we start outour conversation talking about
the, the moment we're in rightnow in the last few years and
how so many issues have beenhighlighted that have been
around for hundreds of yearsaround, uh, systemic racism and
so forth.
Are there any lessons that youthink we're learning in higher
(24:19):
education, given the profile on,uh, Black Lives Matter, even the
pandemic that we're livingthrough and the differential
effect of the, the pandemic, uh,the storming of the capitol
about a year ago?
I mean, are there things thatyou could reflect on that we are
learning from the moment thatwe're in or these last years?
Freeman Hrabowski (24:42):
Excellent question.
And I'm gonna ask people to also, I'm gonna talk from several
articles, my colleagues and Ihave been writing, um,
concerning, uh, these issues.
One of the things we say is that, uh, in issues in science and
technology, and some otherarticles in the last two years,
that these, these challenges ofthe pandemic, of social justice
(25:03):
issues, of economic disparities,and the health disparities all
come together.
And, um, and we've been learningon my campus.
And as I talk with campusesusing the book around the
country, the question is, how dowe look at what's working to
give us the resilience that weneed to keep going?
The line that I use with myfellow presidents and the
(25:26):
Universe System of Maryland, weare very fortunate to have very,
very strong collaboration acrossthe campuses with our chancellor
and the presidents together,more than ever.
It's been very positive andlearning from each other.
And so there are several lessonsthat involve our USM University
System of Maryland, but alsoinvolve our campus at UMBC.
And one would be, um, thisnotion of where teaching and
(25:47):
learning, where should teachingand learning come into this.
You know, people are not alwaysaccustomed to presidents talking
about that side of things fromwhen we were the, on the
academic side, I'd like to thinkthe whole campus is the academic
side.
So we spent a lot of timetalking about teaching and
learning.
We have a pivot program that wasimportant in learning how we can
use more effectively, both in,um, the online experience, but
(26:12):
also in the classroom and in thehybrid experiences since more
and more of our teaching andlearning will be hybrid and
we'll use it.
And there are many strategies.
And so faculty developmentoffice on our campus is very
important working with peopleacross the disciplines, from the
sciences to the youth amenities.
Uh, but even back to FreddieGray before George Floyd,
(26:32):
Freddie Gray in Baltimore, youknow that from the Maryland
years, the, um, we spent timelistening to faculty in some
disciplines saying we don't knowhow to talk about these issues
in our classrooms, whether theywere in the social sciences or
in technical areas, they said,and people are coming in and
they just watched the protests,or they know it's happening and
they want to know what do wethink, how should we think about
(26:54):
this?
What should be our role in this?
And so we have spent time on ourcampus, uh, led by the scholars
in the humanities and socialsciences and the arts, um, in
dealing with these issues, the,the, um, the, the, the wonderful
initiative imagining America isone of those that we actually
had the conference here in theBaltimore area, and with
collaborating with othercampuses, and we've written big
(27:16):
grants from, to the MellonFoundation, focused on diversity
and humanities, for example, um,one in the Mellon Grant, um,
that has done really wellwithout humanities people, um,
uh, working with other campuses,including HBCUs on some of these
issues, and that has gone well.
And then our, our Dean in thathumanities area has another
(27:37):
Mellon Grant on diversifying thefaculty and working with Morgan
and College Park.
And so we are looking at ways ofdiscussing the challenges within
our institutions, but also thechallenges in our society.
Because beyond years ago, Iwrote an article called Beyond
the Numbers beyond graduationrate and retention rate.
(27:58):
The question is when studentsgraduate, who are they?
What have they learned?
And have they changed sincecoming to us, or did they come
in one way and, and, and leadthe same way.
I work with new presidents, newcollege presidents and some of
the Harvard programs.
And, and one of the things I saythat either makes people smile
(28:18):
or upset them is, you know, wealways complain about Congress.
Well, almost all of thosepeople, and they are people and
they are alum.
They are alumni, they are ourgraduate, they are institutions.
So we, in the liberal artsbroadly, we, we may be a
research campus, but we takegreat pride in saying we are the
liberal arts.
It's very important on ourcampus that any student, whether
(28:39):
in literature or in chemistrybecomes broadly educated.
All right.
And the question is, um, if theliberal arts are supposed to
open our minds and get us toexamine our values, mm-hmm,
, what is it thatwe still are not doing to help
our leaders in the country,understand what we can do to
(29:01):
find the common ground.
Uh, my friend, Fred Lawrence,um, talked specifically from Phi
Beta Kappa, secretary of PhiBeta Kappa talks about this
responsibility we have of beingable to present our arguments,
to teach our students, topresent their arguments based on
evidence, to listen to thepoints of view of others and
look for the evidence, and thento find ways of reaching that
(29:23):
common ground.
Somehow, this is the challengeof our society, whether talking
about social justice orchallenges with the economy, or
talking about health disparitiesof that, that we need, we've
gotta find ways of helping ourstudents to get the, to take in
all this information more thanever.
And to be able to, to turn itinto knowledge, to figure out
(29:45):
ways of knowing how to seek thetruth, to find the truth.
And let's say what's truth andwhat's opinion.
What's not backed up byevidence, and it doesn't just
automatically happen.
We know we should know from thestate of the country, that we've
helped the country in many waysto move many people from poverty
into the middle class.
We have done that.
(30:05):
We can take great pride in that,but we have a way to go in
moving beyond what was said backin the sixties, 1800s and 1900s,
that we are a nation dividedbecause we are still very
divided in many ways.
And I think we as universities,community colleges, the four
year institutions, the bigresearch campuses have a greater
(30:27):
responsibility to play inlooking at those issues and in
grappling and grappling withthese challenges on our campuses
.
Very important.
Mm-hmm,
Katherine Conway- (30:37):
absolutely.
Well, I can hear in yourcomments, there are many things
you're very proud of that haveoccurred at UMBC under your
leadership, and you certainlyhave had a long and successful
and very laudable, uh, number ofyears at UMBC.
Um, so, you know, really wannathank you for all that, that you
have done not only on yourcampuses, but how you've touched
(30:58):
other campuses, but as you sortof look around the corner, uh,
could you reflect on what yousee as the future at UMBC?
So, so, uh, in this sphere ofDEI integration of the I, into
all the other major thingsyou're doing, yeah.
You know, what do you think,what do you see for the future?
Freeman Hrabowski (31:16):
You know, it, we are, I'm leaving at, uh, an
amazing time for our campus.
We are stronger than ever.
The, the freshman numbers wereup substantially.
The grad numbers were upsubstantially.
We're actually at that 70%graduation rate, but we can, we
can account for another 15% whohave graduated from other
institutions because of programswe did not have for example, or
(31:37):
other circumstances.
So we we'll continue to do that.
Um, we don't, we don't talk asmuch as we can about the
research.
We are now with enough researchto be research one, we have been
broadening it across somedisciplines.
And at some point we'll go forthat going from research two to
(31:58):
research one, uh, we have nothad that as the top priority.
Our top priority has been, let'smake sure we're doing a great
job with these students, and wehave that in place.
And so this notion of the geniusof the and, we have been seen as
a research campus that does agreat job with, with undergrad
and grad students.
But it's gonna go to the nextlevel in the sense that the
(32:19):
reputation continues to grow.
And so you all in thisinstitution should, should
evaluate itself on the basis ofthe success it has in producing,
uh, students who become leadersand servers, servants in our
community.
We can talk a lot about that.
Um, right now across my foreheadis this name, Dr.
(32:40):
Kizzmekia Corbett, I'm veryclear about that.
Every American should know thatname first black woman, to
create a vaccine in the country,in the world who recruited her
from rural North Carolina, cameto us as a 17 year old, went
back to after graduating andmajored in biology, in
sociology.
Very important to say that.
And we'll say how the socialsciences helped her with some of
(33:00):
the challenges she's faced inrecent years, but led the team
with Dr.
Barney Graham at NIH inproducing the Moderna, the, the
RNA technology, and with that isassociated most closely with the
, with the Moderna she's now at,on the Harvard faculty.
But I say her name because we'venever thought about a, a black
woman created a vaccine.
(33:21):
You see, none of us had thoughtabout that possibility, but when
girls see her regardless ofrace, mm-hmm, right
as a regular person, uh, itmakes a difference in terms, and
we will be continuing to inspirepeople just at another graduate
to go into the National Academyof Medicine and of Sciences.
And, uh, quite frankly, um,Howard Hughes investigator, we
(33:43):
are very connected to the HowardHoward Hughes program.
Having had an investigator, MikeSummers for years and years, and
having that person, um, become aleader, a white male, become a
leader in producing blackscientists.
You see, and that's, so we are amodel where students and faculty
(34:03):
will come and look at what weare doing.
We're replicating our programson other campuses.
The Meyerhoff has beensuccessfully replicated at
Chapel Hill and Penn State.
There's a science article wewrote together, uh, on that in
recent years, but we're nowreplicating Meyerhoff that
notion of, and that, that is alltied to my TED talk, which
continues to either inspirepeople or o ffset people.
(34:25):
Let's say that< laugh> c ause Italk about the fact that t hat
STEM is still seen as weed o utin our culture, and we've gotta
get beyond that.
So look at what C han Zuckerbergis doing to replicate Meyerhoff
out at Berkeley a nd San Diego,UMBC will continue to be this
model for campuses to come and,and, and spend time
understanding how we can helpmore students succeed in science
(34:47):
and engineering.
And as I say in the TED talk,we're talking about high
expectations, not just of thestudents though, but also of the
faculty and the staff, the wholecampus building community, not
having cutthroat, uh, realizingit takes scientists to do
scientists, but it also takessocial scientists to produce
social scientists and humaniststo produce humanists.
(35:08):
So, so the campus will be, andthen we have to evaluate, I'll
be doing this around thecountry, working.
I do some of it with newpresidents at Harvard now, and
I'll continue to do that, butI'm working with a number of
boards and faculty for myself,but the campus will be a beacon
and light in these areas morethan ever very proud of that
very much so and most important.
(35:29):
Um, people will see how thesestudents are excelling in these
areas and how faculty of allraces are involved on these
things.
We need groups of faculty fromcampuses coming to places that
are doing it successfully tosay, this is how it can be done.
Let's work together on thesethings.
That will be what UMBC will bedoing.
(35:49):
And that's, I'll be going aroundtalking proudly about all the
great things they're doing.
Katherine Conway-Turner (35:55):
Well, one exciting to future for U M B
C you lay out.
And we certainly look forward tohearing your voice within higher
education in all kinds of ways,as a continued mentor, as you
have been to many, and just aclear voice on what we are
doing, what we can do andlooking toward the future, what
we must do, uh, as we move ahead.
(36:16):
So, so I, I really wanna thankyou for being so generous with
your time, uh, for thisdiscussion, uh, as always you've
provided great insights andthoughtful explorations into
your leadership at UMBC, butreally also the broader cha
challenges of higher education.
You know, as we continue tograpple with discrimination,
(36:37):
race inequality within ourworld.
And personally, I clearly seehow you have moved the dial in
many ways at U M B C and thatyour accomplishments, uh, have
not only impacted the workthere, but also have touched the
rest of higher education.
So really wanna thank you forthat.
Um, your honesty and open hasbeen really wonderful to hear,
(37:01):
and I really wish you well onthe next chapter, which I know
will be a rich and layeredchapter.
As you decide all the many waysyou're gonna continue, uh, to
touch our education.
So, so thank you again.
Freeman Hrabowski (37:18):
Thank you Kate.
I really appreciate that is forpeople to look at what we are
doing with K through 12, pre Kthrough 12, we should never have
a conversation about diversityinclusion without talking about
the university, theinstitution's responsibility to
working with teachers andchildren.
We're doing a lot in that pre-K,I should say, and 12, and then
what we're doing on the otherside of the university, what
we're doing with the economy,look at our research part and
(37:39):
the work that, but also the workin championing and, and being,
um, advocates for our graduatesto help them get into professory
positions and others.
So while we talk today primarilyabout what's happening within
the community, let's not forgetin DEI work, what we can be
doing to help with the kidsbefore they get to us and
teachers.
(37:59):
And on the other end, when theyleave us, how are we working
with companies?
Look at our research park andthe large numbers of people of
color in the research park inthose companies.
That's, that's my last statementand I'm sticking to it.
Katherine Conway-Turner (38:10):
And I think you've laid out a couple
of other wonderful topics for usto talk about in the future.
So, absolutely thank so much.
Thank you.
So thank you again.
Dr.
Freeman Hrabowski.
And to our listeners, thank youfor joining us.
If you want, uh, the commissionto highlight the efforts of your
institution in a future podcast,then please visits M S C H E
(38:34):
slash Pillars of Change tosubmit your suggestion.
On behalf of Middle StatesCommission on Higher Education
and our guest, Dr.
Freeman Hrabowski, I'm KateConway Turner saying thank you
to you all.
And until next time.
Welcome to the Pillars of Change
podcasts presented by MiddleStates Commission on Higher
Education.
I'm Dr.
Kate Conway Turner, president ofBuffalo State College, and a
member of the MSCHE ExecutiveCommittee.
I would like to thank you forjoining me for the Commission's
continuing series of broadcast,focusing on the topics of
(00:37):
diversity, equity, andinclusion.
I'm especially pleased to takeanother turn in the interview
chair.
As I introduced University ofMaryland Baltimore County
president Dr.
Freeman Hrabowski.
Before I do that, I want toremind our listeners that Middle
States Commission on HigherEducation, holds in an important
voice and space within thehigher education community.
(00:58):
This broadcast series spotlightshighly effective institutional
practices that have made adifference in the lives of our
students through diversity,equity, and inclusion
initiatives.
Today, I'd like to welcome.
UMBC's Dr.
Freeman Hrabowski.
For the past three decades, UMBChas become synonymous with Dr.
Freeman Hrabowski.
He is nationally celebrated forhis results driven commitment to
(01:22):
include of excellence,collaborative approach to
leadership and mentorship thatpairs high expectations with
strong support.
During president Hrabowski'stenure UMBC has ascended to the
national rankings.
Over the last decade, UMBC hasincreased it six year graduation
rate for full-time freshman from55.7% percent to 69.2%.
(01:47):
And UMBC has become known forwelcoming and supporting
transfer students, including alarge number of first generation
college students.
And while UMBC made basketballhistory and 2018 as the first
number 16 seat to beat a numberone seat in the NCAA men's
tournament, I suspect that beingthe reigning national mock trial
(02:10):
champion and winning or time forfirst pace, 10 times at the
Pan-American inter collegiateteam chess championship may be
celebrated by Dr.
Hrabowski a little bit more.
What is clear is that as heannounces retirement from UMBC
effected the end of 2122academic year, Dr.
(02:30):
Hrabowski has made a lastingimpact, not just at UMBC, but on
higher education.
And it's been wonderful toexperience from afar the arc of
your leadership at UMBC.
Welcome Dr.
Freeman Hrabowski,
Freeman Hrabowski (02:44):
Thank so much.
And I I'm old enough that I tellpeople often unless use first
names, Kate and I'm Freeman, ofcourse, and of course, Freeman,
of course.
And I wan to start bycongratulating you in your
career.
I I've observed you from afarfor some time, know that you are
Marylander in and for a while,as provost have had a success
seven years there in Buffalo,and these days when you can talk
(03:05):
about making it through sevenyears as a president, it's a big
deal.
It really is.
mean, in leadership, indifferent places.
So thank you delighted to behere.
Katherine Conway-Turner (03:15):
Well, thank you so much for saying
that.
And, and certainly I canremember meeting you many years
ago and following your careerand connecting with you many
times.
So it's great to have thisconversation.
So let's let us get started.
Yes.
Um, DEI has taken on a new levelof importance in our country
after the racial unrest in theUS and globally after the murder
(03:36):
of George Floyd and the massivedemonstations protesting p olice
brutality against blackAmericans and condemning the
systemic racism we've beenworking against for s o, so many
decades.
Sure.
So we c ould begin by, you know,what is your sense of race,
diversity, a nd inclusion beforethe acts of brutality were
widely covered during the springand summer of 2 020?
(03:59):
And as we sit in 2022, what isyour sense of race, d iversity,
a nd inclusion, and has itshifted?
Freeman Hrabowski (04:06):
Great question.
And I've been talking about thiswith colleagues, uh, in many
places.
Let me start by saying that Icompare this period, this period
of 2015, 16, all the way up to21, to what we had with George
Floyd, to what I experienced asa child in Birmingham, in the
(04:26):
sixties, and having a chance toparticipate in the children's
March with Dr.
King and going to jail and allof that.
And, and one of the points Imake to students is that the
civil rights movement was highly, uh, visible in the sixties
because of the, the, the marchesand the march on Washington and
the bombing of the church andall of that.
(04:46):
And then the legislation andpeople were saying, oh, for the
first time, somehow these thingsare coming to light.
Well, for many of us, wellbefore the 1960s, mm-hmm
back to the 1860s.
And we can talk about that, butI say the, that to say this,
that this period we're goingthrough right now has light
shining on the issues that asyou said, have been with us for
(05:10):
a long time, the notion ofstructural racism, we've had
reports from the nationalacademy of sciences, talking
about criminal justice andstructural racism for years.
Uh, it's just that when tobecome very, um, protest
oriented and we have people inthe streets, then they become
breaking news and the media willbegin to cover them more.
(05:31):
And we in universities andcommunity colleges are
microcosms of the largersociety.
And so they come to the frontall of a sudden, because before
this last few years, in past fewyears, uh, you heard a lot of
people saying, well, racedoesn't really matter that it's
all about income.
And while we know that we haveto work on poor children and low
(05:52):
income students, uh, and we knowthat the largest proportion of
poor children are actuallywhite.
Quite frankly, we still have tolook at the factor of race, uh,
as we look at all of the race inwhich diversity should be
considered.
And so where do I see us today?
I see several things.
Number one, yes, it is true thatblack lives matter.
(06:12):
And there's a reason people talkabout that.
It is that we've had such adifficult way to go in this
country for hundreds of years.
That's not emotion.
That's not an opinion.
It is the history of slavery andwhere we are today and the
results of that.
And without people appreciatinghistory, it's very hard to
(06:32):
understand where we are or wherewe have to go.
At the same time though.
I like to use the concept of, ofthe genius of the, and versus
the tyranny of the awe and thatI wish I invented the idea it's
from Jim Collins in one of hisbooks, but it's the notion that
yes, we want to talk aboutAfrican Americans and we need to
talk about the Latinxpopulation.
(06:54):
And we need to talk about LGBTQand people from, uh, a variety
of backgrounds and religion andall those things.
And so it's really important tolook at how we juggle all these
things in many ways at one time,because when you put out
something about one group otherswant to say, what about us?
What about us?
And it's a fair question.
It really is.
So we are in that position rightnow, uh, on our campus of
(07:18):
determining how we discussinches of gender title IX of
racism, of the challenges offirst generation college.
And we have to put all of thoseon the table and have those
conversations.
I will say this when theprotests occur in the streets of
our country, campuses spend evenmore time figuring out what's
(07:42):
going on because we are allconcerned about the protests
that start to happen on ourcampuses.
The challenge we face is to notwait until the next protest, but
to make sure we are doing theright things for the right
reasons every day.
And for my campus for UMBC.
(08:03):
And by the way, I can't imagineI've been talking this long, and
I haven't said anything about mybeloved UMBC
we presidents have to talk aboutour campuses.
Absolutely.
You know, and, but I will saysomething that's very
controversial.
Um, when you see blackpresidents of universities,
people immediately assume theyare primarily black.
(08:24):
They just do, because they'renot accustomed to seeing African
American presidents atinstitutions that are
multicultural, large numbers ofwhites, whatever.
And so I'm always having toexplain to people that UMBC was
founded at a time in the sixtieswhen, um, most people in our
state were either going to a, anH B, C U, wonderful Morgan or
(08:47):
UMES Maryland State at thattime, or Bowie State, uh, or
Coppin, or they were going toone of the predominantly white
schools like College Park orTowson and others now at
Salisbury, Frostburg, allwonderful institutions.
Well, we were the first placethat said students of all races
could come to us.
So from the beginning, we hadthis diversity, though it was
(09:07):
predominantly white.
Today, we are a minority servinginstitution.
Um, and that may means that.
And, but the reason we'reminority serving surprises
people is because of our Asianpopulation.
We are over 25% of Asianbackgrounds, heavily Chinese and
Indian and others.
Um, primarily students whoseparents came from those places.
(09:30):
60% of our students have atleast one parent from another
country.
And because of this corridor,the Baltimore, Washington
corridor, and kids who come fromNew York in those places.
And, but I tell you that becausewe've got a very strong black
population, we have about 2000kids.
We have 14,000 students ingeneral.
And, uh, of that 14,000, uh,approximately 11,000 undergrad,
(09:53):
approximately 3000, not quitethree are graduate students.
And in that population about 40%are white, another percentage
will be from other countries.
Uh, and, um, literally we aretalking about a very diverse
place where that looks like thePlaza nations at the UN when you
walk across the campus.
(10:14):
So, so, and we like to say, welook like what America is
becoming, and that, that's theexciting part about that.
But now what does that mean?
That means that we have to payspecial attention to every one
of those groups.
My Muslim students havechallenges we have to deal with.
My LGBTQ students.
And at the same time, as youwould imagine, people want to
(10:34):
know how are black studentsdoing when you can.
So that's a overview, that's thecontext in which we are talking
today.
I'm gonna stop there so that,cause I could, you know,
presidents can go on and on, butgo ahead and ask this question.
Katherine Conway-Turner (10:46):
OK.
Absolutely.
Well, you know, I'm, I'm reallytaken understanding more the,
um, diversity within your campuswith DC and, and how you have
these various sectors ofdiversity on campus.
Yeah.
So I'm wondering, how does thatframe the conversations on
campus?
Because it's not just a black,white thing, right?
(11:08):
It's not just African Americanstudents and white students that
you have extremely diversecampus.
Yeah.
So how does that change or, ormodify the discussions that
current around issues of raceand diversity because it is such
a diverse campus.
Freeman Hrabowski (11:22):
Yeah.
I appreciate that.
Believe it or not, we have foryears believe that every leader
on the campus has a certainresponsibility, first of all, to
deal with DEI situations.
Uh, and, and to appreciate thesignificance of inclusion on our
campus.
We like to think we are thismodel of inclusive excellence.
(11:44):
I always say, but success isnever final.
We have a way to go as everycampus does.
So I'm not here just to say, oh,look at how great we are.
Know, we all have a way to go.
I will give the faculty on ourcampus and staff, a lot of
credit.
As I'm leaving, I can look backand look at it and say, they've
really worked on these issues, agreat deal.
We have our DEI council and amajor office of DEI that reports
(12:08):
to me through our chief of staffof Candace Dodson-Reed.
Uh, and we only had that in thepast few years.
People say you didn't have onebefore.
Well, we had an office ofmulticultural affairs.
We had all kinds of things oncampus, but we've always
believed that I've always hadthe idea that, that our provost,
our vice presidents, the facultyleadership, the staff
leadership, should be interestedin these issues too.
(12:30):
And I wanna say something thatmay sound controversial.
Sometimes people will have anoffice and a couple of people,
or a few people there, and theywill say, well, diversity is
their responsibility.
I think that's a real mistake.
I really do.
It's fine for these offices tohelp us with these issues and to
serve as consultants andfacilitating things.
But until the campus has aculture that says, no, this is
(12:53):
the responsibility of all of us.
We need to know our blackstudents and our Latinx students
and our first generationstudents.
We won't have the level ofsuccess that we want to have.
So we, and we only got this unitas we have it now because the
faculty asked for it after wehad certain title IX challenges
and we needed to work on those.
And so, but the best news was inthe envisioning that the campus
(13:13):
did it.
And my new book in The EmpowerUniversity says, shouldn't be
about me, the president.
No, it's about all of us.
It's very important.
Um, and, and I say that becauseit was really faculty leadership
and staff and students who cametogether to say, this is the
approach we want to take.
And so we have this council thatconsists of faculty, staff and
students it's led by the head ofthe office.
(13:35):
Uh, and Ariana(Arnold) is a, isa well prepared lawyer, um, uh,
multicultural lawyer.
Uh, and we have, uh, the Dean ofEngineering who is a gay man who
is very into diversity in alllevels at all in always.
And they chair this council thathas some of our senior faculty
(13:56):
and staff and student leadersfrom student governments on the
council.
The, the office of OEI, uh,really does this idea of equity
and inclusion really does focuson the challenges that women may
be having, that a black studentmay be having in those kinds of
challenges.
And it looks at recordrecommendations for other parts
(14:16):
of the campus, whether they'retalking about looking at
curriculum or other kinds ofthings that we need to do.
But I say that to say this, that, uh, from the point of view of
the entire university and D andDEI, there are two broad areas
that I am always interested incampuses thinking about.
Number one is how the student isdoing both academically and
(14:38):
beyond the classroom, those twobig issues.
What can we say about theiracademic performance, their
graduation rates, theirperformance in certain
disciplines.
One other area of diversity Katethat that may surprise you, that
we talk about will be academicdisciplines.
The perspectives of students inyour area in the social sciences
(15:00):
will be different from theperspectives in engineering and
perspectives of faculty aredifferent.
And because we are more thanhalf in science and engineering,
the paper of rights about us inthose areas, and we are known
for this Meyerhoff program inproducing the largest number of
percent number of AfricanAmericans.
We get PhDs in STEM.
That's what people know us for,but we are also strong in the
(15:22):
humanities, in the arts, in thesocial sciences.
And as president I'm out theresaying, wait a minute.
Yeah, I'm glad we are doing sowell in STEM.
We have lessons there, but we'veworked on these other areas,
right?
And, and that's another part ofthe diversity conversation that
people often don't get to, butacademic performance.
And then what will students sayabout the environment, the
culture of the place.
(15:43):
That's what we talk about in TheEmpowered University.
Are we willing to look in themirror at self and see how we
may be lacking?
In some ways, all are accustomedto talking about what works well
and our best students, ofcourse, but what will the
average students say, thetypical student on the campus,
and what will the students saywho left about what they
experienced at?
So all of that is a piece.
(16:05):
And what I would say to you thatsome people may disagree with is
that's within the context ofdiversity, but that's about our
students in gen.
I have said for years, if youshow me a campus that is working
hard to care about its studentsin general, I'll show you a
campus that's talked about thosewho may be different from the
(16:25):
majority.
And so we, we have to put it inthe context of how are students
treated.
So those are the two big thingswith students.
And then the other with facultyand staff, what, what, what,
what, what, what can we sayabout representation?
And we reflecting the countrywhen reflecting our campus about
professional staff.
And then what can we say aboutthe faculty?
I wrote an article with thecolleague, some several in the
(16:46):
last year, during the midst, inthe midst of the protest.
And I wrote an article about howhigher education should address
structural racism.
And one of the points I madethis was in the Atlantic.
And one of the points I make isthat, um, we are very good about
critiquing the larger societyand its issues.
We don't as higher educationenterprise critique ourselves.
(17:10):
And as I've said on my campus,we should all be that we are so
poorly represented among theprofessorate of certain groups.
It's hard to find at mostcampuses in our country, um, the
percentage of blacks or Latinxfaculty, for example, or to have
talked about what we call ourout group page.
(17:31):
When, when, when L G B T facultycame out publicly, say, let us,
let you see who we are so we canhelp our students there.
For example, you know, so I'msuggesting to you that we have a
way to go in, pulling into thefaculty in producing and growing
our own and doing differentthings to have more faculty in
from the different racialgroups.
And, and often I will say theblack faculty representation
(17:54):
will be the lowest of all.
And there are reasons for that.
And, and the worst thing peoplecan say these days, quite
frankly, is we can't find anymm-hmm
we are creative, there are waysof doing it.
If you get a chance to peoplecan look at our stride program,
S T R I D E focuses onrecruiting additional faculty,
(18:15):
because we have a way to go.
We've done the best in, um, thearts, humanities and social
sciences.
We're 10 to 12% black faculty,for example.
And similarly Latinx, we haveour first woman Dean of an
academic college.
Uh, um, we Dean of the gradschool, we have a Dean of the
grad school, who's black, uh,but, and who's on the board at,
Renselaer actually very proud ofher, but, um, we have now, um,
(18:38):
uh, the Dean of arts, humanitiesand social science is interim
Dean right now doing a greatjob.
Who's, uh, professor in languageliteracy, culture, who's African
American.
And so we are moving there andthen the Dean's and the other
areas are working on theseissues because the first thing
we had to do in science andengineering in all these areas
is to get a presence in everydepartment.
That's the word I use and peoplewho are not in higher ed don't
(19:01):
realize many science departmentsand engineering departments
don't have any blacks on thefaculty, you know, and, and I
say that you, you're what I'msaying, and it's not to point
fingers.
It is to say, all of us can doit because I mean, it's been a
big deal to get the first one ortwo in biology, or to have one
or two in computer science yousee, or, or in chemistry, still
(19:23):
working on it.
You know what I mean?
So, so it's, it's, it'ssomething we don't even talk
about.
And so before we finish ittoday, I'd love to do some,
talking out my own research onthe science and engineering
piece and diversity for thecountry.
But, but those are the three,the, the, the performance of
students academically, howthey're experiencing the
environment and then the, theliterally the representation of
(19:45):
faculty and staff, and then howare they, because it's one thing
to bring them into the campus,but then what you do to give
them support, to make sure theysucceed, I'll stop there.
Katherine Conway-Tu (19:55):
Absolutely.
You know, well, I was, uh,really taken with your
discussion of the distributedmodel of leadership, uh, around
DEI on campus and how you as thecampus president had really
ensured that a whole variety ofpeople, you know, walk to the
table and are seen as leadersand, and move forward.
And I, I think that's a positivelesson, uh, for higher education
(20:18):
in general.
Uh, you also, it sounds like thebiggest challenge that you see
moving forward is therepresentation or
self-reflection of campuses.
Yeah.
And also, you know, um, youknow, growing our own across
broader institutions.
Yes.
Yes.
Are those the two majorchallenges?
Are there other major challengesyou see today?
(20:38):
I
Freeman Hrabowski (20:38):
Appreciate that.
I really do the, you know, andas I'm looking at you, as, I
mean, think about it 25 yearsago, the two of us, well, you
know, know, I'm so old, I'vebeen president about 30 years.
So let me say 35, 40 years ago,we wouldn't have seen one black
president talking to anotherblack president in institutions
that were not the serious HBCU.
Absolutely.
You know what I mean?
But I say that for this reason,one campus campuses have to ask
(21:01):
them themselves.
The question, well, even inlooking at the upper
administration, is there anybodythere call are on block, for
example, Latinx, who's not thediversity person, that's a
sensitive conversation, but itneeds to be had I, I, and, and
the diversity broadly, I wannasay that again, because my
provost, our provost is fromacross the pond.
He's British.
(21:21):
He was a professor in physics,on our campus Dean of science,
but, and became provost becauseof, is quite frankly his passion
for not only the research, butin education.
And in diversity, you see, uh,the, one of the vice provosts,
African American, another one isfrom, uh, Portugal.
So the international diversity,the vice president for research
(21:41):
for the campus is German.
You see, but as I said, the Deanof the grad school is black.
So it's the internationaldiversity we talk about.
And the, the domestic diversity,I think it's important to talk
about both.
And then to talk withspecificity.
One more point, black is notblack is not black and Latinx is
not Latinx.
What do, I mean, my blackstudents who are from DC
(22:04):
Washington or New York, um, aredifferent from my black students
who come from the islands.
Mm-hmm,
is very different from myCaribbean American Student
Association.
You see, they have differentperspectives.
And so one of our challenges inmindset, as we talk about
talking about the challenges ishow do we get us all of us to
(22:25):
rethink our definitions of evenof race and of how we categorize
people?
Mm-hmm
are professors are verydifferent from my black students
who are first generationcollege.
Similarly, my white students whoare first generation colleges
from the Eastern shore will bedifferent from the person whose
(22:46):
dad is a lawyer.
Who's my, is a doctor.
So, so we, we are gonna have tobring more specificity to our
understanding of these students.
That's just one that lay on allon all of us, but I would say
this, that, I mean, there arecampuses that are doing a fine
job with having a diversityoffice and a, maybe a VP or
(23:07):
whatever the title is for that.
Uh, and who may not have otherpeople of color.
The question then becomes, ifyou don't then are you convinced
that the people in the positionshave this issue as a major
priority, this issue ofdiversity as a major priority,
because sometimes it's notpossible with certain people in
place already to be fair topeople.
(23:27):
You know what I mean?
But is it the question is, is ita priority of the president's
council, of the provost group totalk about performance for us?
It's, it's a very big deal wehave because of the, the
challenges of so many studentsnot doing well in science and
engineering, we really needed towork on that.
And my first years there, andwhat we learned was the things
(23:48):
we could do to help the blackstudents could help all
students.
And that became a part of again,of the DNA of our campus.
But those are the challenges asyou say.
Yes,
Katherine Conway-Tu (23:58):
Absolutely.
Well, thank you.
Thank you so much for that.
Um, so, you know, we start outour conversation talking about
the, the moment we're in rightnow in the last few years and
how so many issues have beenhighlighted that have been
around for hundreds of yearsaround, uh, systemic racism and
so forth.
Are there any lessons that youthink we're learning in higher
(24:19):
education, given the profile on,uh, Black Lives Matter, even the
pandemic that we're livingthrough and the differential
effect of the, the pandemic, uh,the storming of the capitol
about a year ago?
I mean, are there things thatyou could reflect on that we are
learning from the moment thatwe're in or these last years?
Freeman Hrabowski (24:42):
Excellent question.
And I'm gonna ask people to also, I'm gonna talk from several
articles, my colleagues and Ihave been writing, um,
concerning, uh, these issues.
One of the things we say is that, uh, in issues in science and
technology, and some otherarticles in the last two years,
that these, these challenges ofthe pandemic, of social justice
(25:03):
issues, of economic disparities,and the health disparities all
come together.
And, um, and we've been learningon my campus.
And as I talk with campusesusing the book around the
country, the question is, how dowe look at what's working to
give us the resilience that weneed to keep going?
The line that I use with myfellow presidents and the
(25:26):
Universe System of Maryland, weare very fortunate to have very,
very strong collaboration acrossthe campuses with our chancellor
and the presidents together,more than ever.
It's been very positive andlearning from each other.
And so there are several lessonsthat involve our USM University
System of Maryland, but alsoinvolve our campus at UMBC.
And one would be, um, thisnotion of where teaching and
(25:47):
learning, where should teachingand learning come into this.
You know, people are not alwaysaccustomed to presidents talking
about that side of things fromwhen we were the, on the
academic side, I'd like to thinkthe whole campus is the academic
side.
So we spent a lot of timetalking about teaching and
learning.
We have a pivot program that wasimportant in learning how we can
use more effectively, both in,um, the online experience, but
(26:12):
also in the classroom and in thehybrid experiences since more
and more of our teaching andlearning will be hybrid and
we'll use it.
And there are many strategies.
And so faculty developmentoffice on our campus is very
important working with peopleacross the disciplines, from the
sciences to the youth amenities.
Uh, but even back to FreddieGray before George Floyd,
(26:32):
Freddie Gray in Baltimore, youknow that from the Maryland
years, the, um, we spent timelistening to faculty in some
disciplines saying we don't knowhow to talk about these issues
in our classrooms, whether theywere in the social sciences or
in technical areas, they said,and people are coming in and
they just watched the protests,or they know it's happening and
they want to know what do wethink, how should we think about
(26:54):
this?
What should be our role in this?
And so we have spent time on ourcampus, uh, led by the scholars
in the humanities and socialsciences and the arts, um, in
dealing with these issues, the,the, um, the, the, the wonderful
initiative imagining America isone of those that we actually
had the conference here in theBaltimore area, and with
collaborating with othercampuses, and we've written big
(27:16):
grants from, to the MellonFoundation, focused on diversity
and humanities, for example, um,one in the Mellon Grant, um,
that has done really wellwithout humanities people, um,
uh, working with other campuses,including HBCUs on some of these
issues, and that has gone well.
And then our, our Dean in thathumanities area has another
(27:37):
Mellon Grant on diversifying thefaculty and working with Morgan
and College Park.
And so we are looking at ways ofdiscussing the challenges within
our institutions, but also thechallenges in our society.
Because beyond years ago, Iwrote an article called Beyond
the Numbers beyond graduationrate and retention rate.
(27:58):
The question is when studentsgraduate, who are they?
What have they learned?
And have they changed sincecoming to us, or did they come
in one way and, and, and leadthe same way.
I work with new presidents, newcollege presidents and some of
the Harvard programs.
And, and one of the things I saythat either makes people smile
(28:18):
or upset them is, you know, wealways complain about Congress.
Well, almost all of thosepeople, and they are people and
they are alum.
They are alumni, they are ourgraduate, they are institutions.
So we, in the liberal artsbroadly, we, we may be a
research campus, but we takegreat pride in saying we are the
liberal arts.
It's very important on ourcampus that any student, whether
(28:39):
in literature or in chemistrybecomes broadly educated.
All right.
And the question is, um, if theliberal arts are supposed to
open our minds and get us toexamine our values, mm-hmm,
our leaders in the country,understand what we can do to
(29:01):
find the common ground.
Uh, my friend, Fred Lawrence,um, talked specifically from Phi
Beta Kappa, secretary of PhiBeta Kappa talks about this
responsibility we have of beingable to present our arguments,
to teach our students, topresent their arguments based on
evidence, to listen to thepoints of view of others and
look for the evidence, and thento find ways of reaching that
(29:23):
common ground.
Somehow, this is the challengeof our society, whether talking
about social justice orchallenges with the economy, or
talking about health disparitiesof that, that we need, we've
gotta find ways of helping ourstudents to get the, to take in
all this information more thanever.
And to be able to, to turn itinto knowledge, to figure out
(29:45):
ways of knowing how to seek thetruth, to find the truth.
And let's say what's truth andwhat's opinion.
What's not backed up byevidence, and it doesn't just
automatically happen.
We know we should know from thestate of the country, that we've
helped the country in many waysto move many people from poverty
into the middle class.
We have done that.
(30:05):
We can take great pride in that,but we have a way to go in
moving beyond what was said backin the sixties, 1800s and 1900s,
that we are a nation dividedbecause we are still very
divided in many ways.
And I think we as universities,community colleges, the four
year institutions, the bigresearch campuses have a greater
(30:27):
responsibility to play inlooking at those issues and in
grappling and grappling withthese challenges on our campuses
.
Very important.
Mm-hmm,
Katherine Conway- (30:37):
Well, I can hear in yourcomments, there are many things
you're very proud of that haveoccurred at UMBC under your
leadership, and you certainlyhave had a long and successful
and very laudable, uh, number ofyears at UMBC.
Um, so, you know, really wannathank you for all that, that you
have done not only on yourcampuses, but how you've touched
(30:58):
other campuses, but as you sortof look around the corner, uh,
could you reflect on what yousee as the future at UMBC?
So, so, uh, in this sphere ofDEI integration of the I, into
all the other major thingsyou're doing, yeah.
You know, what do you think,what do you see for the future?
Freeman Hrabowski (31:16):
You know, it, we are, I'm leaving at, uh, an
amazing time for our campus.
We are stronger than ever.
The, the freshman numbers wereup substantially.
The grad numbers were upsubstantially.
We're actually at that 70%graduation rate, but we can, we
can account for another 15% whohave graduated from other
institutions because of programswe did not have for example, or
(31:37):
other circumstances.
So we we'll continue to do that.
Um, we don't, we don't talk asmuch as we can about the
research.
We are now with enough researchto be research one, we have been
broadening it across somedisciplines.
And at some point we'll go forthat going from research two to
(31:58):
research one, uh, we have nothad that as the top priority.
Our top priority has been, let'smake sure we're doing a great
job with these students, and wehave that in place.
And so this notion of the geniusof the and, we have been seen as
a research campus that does agreat job with, with undergrad
and grad students.
But it's gonna go to the nextlevel in the sense that the
(32:19):
reputation continues to grow.
And so you all in thisinstitution should, should
evaluate itself on the basis ofthe success it has in producing,
uh, students who become leadersand servers, servants in our
community.
We can talk a lot about that.
Um, right now across my foreheadis this name, Dr.
(32:40):
Kizzmekia Corbett, I'm veryclear about that.
Every American should know thatname first black woman, to
create a vaccine in the country,in the world who recruited her
from rural North Carolina, cameto us as a 17 year old, went
back to after graduating andmajored in biology, in
sociology.
Very important to say that.
And we'll say how the socialsciences helped her with some of
(33:00):
the challenges she's faced inrecent years, but led the team
with Dr.
Barney Graham at NIH inproducing the Moderna, the, the
RNA technology, and with that isassociated most closely with the
, with the Moderna she's now at,on the Harvard faculty.
But I say her name because we'venever thought about a, a black
woman created a vaccine.
(33:21):
You see, none of us had thoughtabout that possibility, but when
girls see her regardless ofrace, mm-hmm,
as a regular person, uh, itmakes a difference in terms, and
we will be continuing to inspirepeople just at another graduate
to go into the National Academyof Medicine and of Sciences.
And, uh, quite frankly, um,Howard Hughes investigator, we
(33:43):
are very connected to the HowardHoward Hughes program.
Having had an investigator, MikeSummers for years and years, and
having that person, um, become aleader, a white male, become a
leader in producing blackscientists.
You see, and that's, so we are amodel where students and faculty
(34:03):
will come and look at what weare doing.
We're replicating our programson other campuses.
The Meyerhoff has beensuccessfully replicated at
Chapel Hill and Penn State.
There's a science article wewrote together, uh, on that in
recent years, but we're nowreplicating Meyerhoff that
notion of, and that, that is alltied to my TED talk, which
continues to either inspirepeople or o ffset people.
(34:25):
Let's say that< laugh> c ause Italk about the fact that t hat
STEM is still seen as weed o utin our culture, and we've gotta
get beyond that.
So look at what C han Zuckerbergis doing to replicate Meyerhoff
out at Berkeley a nd San Diego,UMBC will continue to be this
model for campuses to come and,and, and spend time
understanding how we can helpmore students succeed in science
(34:47):
and engineering.
And as I say in the TED talk,we're talking about high
expectations, not just of thestudents though, but also of the
faculty and the staff, the wholecampus building community, not
having cutthroat, uh, realizingit takes scientists to do
scientists, but it also takessocial scientists to produce
social scientists and humaniststo produce humanists.
(35:08):
So, so the campus will be, andthen we have to evaluate, I'll
be doing this around thecountry, working.
I do some of it with newpresidents at Harvard now, and
I'll continue to do that, butI'm working with a number of
boards and faculty for myself,but the campus will be a beacon
and light in these areas morethan ever very proud of that
very much so and most important.
(35:29):
Um, people will see how thesestudents are excelling in these
areas and how faculty of allraces are involved on these
things.
We need groups of faculty fromcampuses coming to places that
are doing it successfully tosay, this is how it can be done.
Let's work together on thesethings.
That will be what UMBC will bedoing.
(35:49):
And that's, I'll be going aroundtalking proudly about all the
great things they're doing.
Katherine Conway-Turner (35:55):
Well, one exciting to future for U M B
C you lay out.
And we certainly look forward tohearing your voice within higher
education in all kinds of ways,as a continued mentor, as you
have been to many, and just aclear voice on what we are
doing, what we can do andlooking toward the future, what
we must do, uh, as we move ahead.
(36:16):
So, so I, I really wanna thankyou for being so generous with
your time, uh, for thisdiscussion, uh, as always you've
provided great insights andthoughtful explorations into
your leadership at UMBC, butreally also the broader cha
challenges of higher education.
You know, as we continue tograpple with discrimination,
(36:37):
race inequality within ourworld.
And personally, I clearly seehow you have moved the dial in
many ways at U M B C and thatyour accomplishments, uh, have
not only impacted the workthere, but also have touched the
rest of higher education.
So really wanna thank you forthat.
Um, your honesty and open hasbeen really wonderful to hear,
(37:01):
and I really wish you well onthe next chapter, which I know
will be a rich and layeredchapter.
As you decide all the many waysyou're gonna continue, uh, to
touch our education.
So, so thank you again.
Freeman Hrabowski (37:18):
Thank you Kate.
I really appreciate that is forpeople to look at what we are
doing with K through 12, pre Kthrough 12, we should never have
a conversation about diversityinclusion without talking about
the university, theinstitution's responsibility to
working with teachers andchildren.
We're doing a lot in that pre-K,I should say, and 12, and then
what we're doing on the otherside of the university, what
we're doing with the economy,look at our research part and
(37:39):
the work that, but also the workin championing and, and being,
um, advocates for our graduatesto help them get into professory
positions and others.
So while we talk today primarilyabout what's happening within
the community, let's not forgetin DEI work, what we can be
doing to help with the kidsbefore they get to us and
teachers.
(37:59):
And on the other end, when theyleave us, how are we working
with companies?
Look at our research park andthe large numbers of people of
color in the research park inthose companies.
That's, that's my last statementand I'm sticking to it.
Katherine Conway-Turner (38:10):
And I think you've laid out a couple
of other wonderful topics for usto talk about in the future.
So, absolutely thank so much.
Thank you.
So thank you again.
Dr.
Freeman Hrabowski.
And to our listeners, thank youfor joining us.
If you want, uh, the commissionto highlight the efforts of your
institution in a future podcast,then please visits M S C H E
(38:34):
slash Pillars of Change tosubmit your suggestion.
On behalf of Middle StatesCommission on Higher Education
and our guest, Dr.
Freeman Hrabowski, I'm KateConway Turner saying thank you
to you all.
And until next time.
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