All posts by: UMBC News Staff

From Freeman Hrabowski, President, and Philip Rous, Provost and Senior Vice President

We are delighted to share the news that UMBC has been recognized again as a national leader in innovation and undergraduate teaching in U.S. News & World Report’s Best Colleges guide.

For the fourth year in a row, UMBC tops the U.S. News ranking of “Up-and-Coming” national universities, a place we share this year with George Mason University.

U.S. News also ranks UMBC eighth on a list of the national universities that excel in undergraduate teaching, tied with Duke University, the University of California-Berkeley, the University of Chicago, and the University of Notre Dame. As Americans consider the value of a college degree, this recognition is a reminder of what we all know firsthand – public universities can be exceptional.

When U.S. News says “Up-and-Coming” it is talking about universities that consistently find new ways to improve students’ educational experiences, that are entrepreneurial, and that are models for others. Specifically, the magazine asks presidents, provosts, and admissions deans all over the country to identify institutions that have “made the most promising and innovative changes in the areas of academics, faculty, student life, campus, or facilities.”

In short: They are looking for leaders. Congratulations to all our faculty, staff, and students who make UMBC just such a place.

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 in areas where higher education nationally has struggled. “Educational heavyweights such as MIT and Stanford have been to Catonsville to study the methods with which UMBC churns out elite black graduates in the sciences. How, they want to know, has a 46-year-old university, founded to serve commuters, cracked the code to one of American education’s most vexing problems?”

The piece comes as President Hrabowski marks his 20th year leading UMBC, and it paints a picture of university and leader both deeply committed to students’ success.

“This is a guy who’s on a flight to speak somewhere every other day,” Jeremy Brickey ’12, English, said of President Hrabowski. “But here he takes the time to talk with me for 30 minutes all the time. It’s amazing.”

Miguel Calderon ’12, Visual Arts, seconded that: “I can’t speak to other universities. But from what I hear, it’s not an everyday thing to see the president asking students, ‘How are your classes? What did you get on your last test? You didn’t do well? Maybe you need a tutor.’ It’s really a miraculous thing.”

More than that, though, President Hrabowski stressed that it’s a sign of the culture of UMBC, and of the dedication of so many faculty and staff members. It’s who we are.

“It is part of the work of education to have substantive relationships with your students,” President Hrabowski told the Sun. “What people don’t realize is that everybody needs support, one way or another.”