SEASON 3: Ep. 5 Building an R1 Without Leaving Students Behind with Freeman Hrabowski III, UMBC

In this episode, longtime University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) president Dr. Freeman Hrabowski reflects on three decades of transformational leadership and the lessons that shaped one of the nation’s most innovative public universities. He shares how a relentless focus on student success, equity in STEM, research excellence, and community impact helped UMBC become a national model for inclusive achievement. Drawing from his experiences in the Civil Rights Movement and his tenure leading through change, Dr. Hrabowski offers candid insights on moral leadership, shared governance, resilience, and the responsibility higher education holds in preparing students to lead with purpose in a complex and evolving world.

This podcast is sponsored by Viv Higher Education 

About Viv Higher Education

Viv Higher Education is a Boston-based, female-owned comprehensive marketing agency specializing in higher education. With expertise in strategic planning, creative asset development, and media campaigns, we focus on enrollment-centric initiatives. Our approach is grounded in industry best practices, ensuring precision in reaching target audiences. We have extensive experience in marketing to diverse groups, including high school students, Hispanic, military, LGBTQ+, international students, and online learners. Navigating the complex landscapes of university environments is second nature to us, and we prioritize fostering collaborations that yield mutually beneficial outcomes. With a personable, nimble, and highly responsive approach, we deliver tailored solutions to empower organizations to achieve their objectives.

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Transcript

 Dr. Robowski, it is so nice to have you on the show. Welcome. How are you today? I am fine. How are you? I am wonderful. Really excited to have a conversation with you about your 30 year presidency at the university of Maryland, Baltimore County, UMBC.

To start, maybe tell us a little bit about how you ended up in that role and maybe what the major initiatives were that you focused on over those 30 years. And now you're, retired, so what have you been up to in the last almost four years? Sure. I went to the university in 1987 as vice Provost and having been a provost at another institution.

From there I was academic VP at at a smaller institution and, within a short period. My working on issues involving the academic performance of students, undergraduates, particularly , in general. And then the, the real problems we were having with students of color, academic challenges.

Things went well, and, within a couple of years I was executive vp. And within that five year period, from 87 to 92, I became the president And the initiatives involved, number one, student success. in the first year as undergraduate student success, and then we extended it to the graduate students.

That was very important, there's a lot to be said about that, and particularly because we have many students coming with an interest in science and engineering, and we looked at those issues from a national perspective and the. Persistence rates, the issues that students face of all colors, quite frankly.

And that allowed us to look at teaching and learning broadly. On the other side, we were building research and having started as a campus with a number of research faculty, starting with that emphasis with the undergraduates and then building the graduate school. And before I left, we had become research one.

So the key of tension there was, are you gonna really focus on those undergraduates? Or you gotta focus on the research. And we used one of the statements from Jim Collins, which says. , The genius of the end versus the tyranny of the awe meaning that very deliberately and in intentional way, we began to pull undergraduates into the research from the humanities.

To the sciences and build that research infrastructure for students of all types, on all levels and with the faculty. And so those were the two big initiatives. And, but equally important, we went through a lot to get a research park. It took a lot of effort in culture change on our campus because the electable question was, will this take away from the academic mission in the social sciences of humanities and the arts because.

The research park is heavily, as you might expect, biotech, cybersecurity, those kinds of areas, and as we developed through shared governance, a kind of vision of who we would be in that research park space, we had the challenge of the community, the local community being very worried about traffic, but other issues that you might not think about people.

Thought of biotech is something that might give them cancer or biotech is something that was gonna be dangerous to them. And we had to work with colleagues and with people in the community to build the trust so we could do that. And so when I think about the major initiative, it would be those three and then outreach to the larger community.

   in our area in Baltimore County, but also in Baltimore City, much more focus on Baltimore City and having a social impact. I wrote an article on that with a colleague that focused on the things we were doing in pre-K through 12, to help from a program involving first time offenders all the way to Upward Bound programs, to more programs focusing on getting people into teaching.

Those kinds of things. And so those were the major priorities when you think teaching, research the service, and really wanting to have an impact on society right around the campus and in the Baltimore area. Yeah. And I know your presidency is known for the focus that you had on equity access and student outcomes.

And so when you're talking about the, major initiative around research, I'm also curious, how do you think this R one status and the opportunity pull undergraduates into the research enterprise and expanding into the community? What impact did that have? On equity access and student outcomes? Great question.

. I think we have become, really well known for the Meyerhoff Scholars program for talented students of color, starting with African Americans and then broadening it for men and women of all backgrounds and races, and looking at people who were underrepresented broadly in science and engineering and that initiative.

Led to students from all over the country coming to campus, and the goal was to produce scientists and researchers in engineering and in science in those areas. But that also led to our looking at sending more and more students to graduate school in general. And part of that preparation for graduate school will be research.

Undergraduates started two journals in the social sciences, in the humanities and the arts. And we have scholars programs in the arts and in the humanities that are modeled after Meyerhoff with an emphasis on building community among students.

And so just as we were emphasizing meeting the special needs of students and preparing many for grad school or for professional work. We were supporting faculty in building their research and bringing those students into the research. And so the, funding just increased substantially over that period, as did the budget.

And we had great support from the state. Most important, we were building a brand and we were somewhat rebellious because in our society, so often people think of public institutions as being less serious than private institutions, whether in the research or in being attentive to students and having attended both private and public.

I can say it depends on the institution and the people.  And, what I loved about UMBC and what kept me there for 30 years was this passion that people had for learning, whether talking about students or faculty and staff and for supporting each other. But we took great pride in being. A serious campus.

the big joke was we'd never had a football player to make under an a because we don't have a football team. He just chose not to have one. and it was unbelievable international success when our basketball team, which is, not one that gets a lot of money compared to the big places, but when we

beat the number one seat. We were the number 16 seat. And for people who don't know basketball, that means the least well prepared to win. We were able to be victorious over the powerhouse UVA and that night, to show you the flavor, the, the sense of what happens at UNBC when, , the reporters are interviewing my students and saying, what are you gonna do now?

Like, you know, Disney or something. And one kid said, We've gotta go to our rooms and study. I got tears in my eyes. It was so amazing. and they, everybody was so shocked. And another student said, literally with tears in his eyes, we stand on the shoulders of our chess team because we are known for having very serious chess players.

I mean, grand Masters on the campus. And if you look at tables in the student union, in the Commons, they are chess boards. So well to talking about the fact that we actually beat Yale in Model United Nations some years ago. It was amazing. So what I'm hearing from you is. Kind of pride and joy in how integrated the the academic rigor became with the research enterprise, with equity and student community. You mentioned that. that's really inspiring to hear about.

even down to, you know, then being able to rise to kind of these really challenging challenges in athletics and beyond. you mentioned that, initially when you came in, you were immediately focused on serving students that were, um. Historically, maybe underserved. Mm-hmm. I want to hear a little bit about, what kinds of risks did that require early on and throughout your presidency to get to the place that you just described, which is so integrated and joyful and impactful.

I appreciate that when, when people say, well, what did you do? It wasn't, wasn't just about what I did, it was what my colleagues and I talked about. I, the vision was one that was collective. We talked about we want to be this institution that is very effective in working with students from all types of backgrounds.

And if the students don't have the background and can't come in immediately, we want to think about the kinds of pre-college programs we can have to build the backgrounds of students so they can come. And so we can keep the standards very high. But when we envisioned with Bob Meyerhoff, who's now 102, and still very involved with my whole program.

We envisioned the notion of students from underrepresented backgrounds, African Americans, excelling in a class with students from all over the world and going on to get PhDs from Harvard and Stanford. People thought we were out of my minds. They just said, it's not time. It will take another generation or two.

And my question was, and what are you base that on? Or how do you decide it's gonna take 20 more years? And so it was a time when many were wondering how much we could accomplish. But others were saying there's no way they can increase substantially the number of black students, Latino students who are excelling at that level.

Because even when people bring in the students of color, they tend not to be at the top, especially in science and engineering. what we wanted to show, and I talk about this in my TED talk, was how, when you have the highest expectations for students and of yourselves as faculty and staff to give them the support they need and you get them excited about the work.

I'm a mathematician. I get goosebumps doing math. But you get 'em excited in those labs and then when you teach them how not to be cutthroat in approach, but rather to support each other. To be vulnerable enough to say when they don't understand something and to get help.

And to work in groups and then evaluate what you're doing. All kinds of things are possible. And so we were able to show the country, this is the first time that a predominantly white institution could show what we call big numbers. We are the leading producer of blacks. At first, it was among predominantly white institutions, but we've gone ahead of even the HBCUs in producing blacks who go on to get science and engineering PhDs, particularly in the life sciences and MD PhDs.

That's an outcome stat right there. That's so inspiring. Yes, it's great.  it's because of two things, the commitment of those students to work so hard and the commitment and the love shown by faculty and staff at UMBC. Yes. Today at this moment that we're in 2026, students are concerned and feeling uncertain about belonging and affordability and opportunity and familiar, but also entirely unprecedented ways.

Yeah. Right. So when we're thinking about the risk taking, the entrepreneurial leadership that it took during your tenure. How should leaders now think about this responsibility to students in this moment and to help them along to get to those outcomes and, build on them even more? I'm from the deep South and in the deep south we believe in stories. We always talk about stories and I am convinced that we can help people, we can inspire people by telling our stories, and mine involves growing up as a little kid in Birmingham and being in the Civil Rights movement and, and walking in marching with children under the leadership of Dr.

King and spending time in jail and learning that even young people. Can help shape their own destiny and their future. And I, as someone older can attest to how tough things were when you couldn't go into stores or you couldn't go in the front door, or you couldn't drink out of a water fountain, or when you heard people on TV talking about you as inferior all the time.

Well, as I say to students now and to different groups around the country, more and more people are comfortable. Suggesting some kind of inferiority among people of color, among women. It's very interesting to see how we can go forward and make so much progress. Yeah. And then the pendulum swimmings back again.

We get knocked down, but there's a saying in the black church, we fall down, but we get back up. And that there is the point we cannot give up. We cannot see ourselves as victims. Uh, I had some students and my own grandson who lives with me, at the time, he was 13, he's 14 now, and he heard. the leader in our country call the plane crashed.

He said It's because of DEI, right? Yeah, that's right. Students called me and my grandson said, is he trying to say that the plane crossed because they had somebody color as the pilot and, I said, or woman, he's saying, DEI. It's all of us that some people are painting us as inferior. And the point is, it's not the first time it's happened.

It's only been a hundred years that women were allowed to vote. You see? Right. So we've been through times before. We in certain groups, women, people of color and others from other groups, L-G-B-T-Q have been seen as less than or not as good as. And we have had to stand up. And this is as Americans of all backgrounds, men and women, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, whatever, um, native American to say this is unacceptable.

And so a part of what we have to do with students is to say, look at how the American people right now are standing up around the country and saying what they believe in. Saying, we don't want to treat human beings this way. And that whether somebody came from another country or not, they're human beings.

And most of us, one way or the other, came from another country other than Native Americans. And that we have a responsibility to be our best selves so we can help others and pull them along and people say, oh, but we're doomed. No, we are not doomed. No. I believe in our country. This democracy is messy, but there's a saying from Dr.

King when he received the Nobel Peace Prize in I think 64, he said, good, temporarily defeated is stronger than evil. Triumphant. Want you to think about that good. Temporarily defeated is still stronger. Than evil triumphant. We may go through times when it looks like policies and elected officials of some.

groups are seeming like they're not caring about children or about insurance for people or about higher education, or about the loans that people have, but this will not last because most people in society, most people in our country really are decent people, even if we vote in different ways. When you get down to fundamentals.

We can help people see what's wrong and what's right. And for students most important, we have to inspire them to say, our generation will be better than yours. , And we will make it so.  You said you get goosebumps when you do mathematics. I can't say that's ever happened to me, but I do get goosebumps listening to you right now.

Well, I, it is, I believe it and I've, slipped on the floor in jail and I've, been turned away because of the color of my skin, and I've seen the governor of my state in Alabama say I wasn't good enough to go to the University of Alabama. and yet I remember what my mother said, you don't have time to be a victim.

Right. No, that's his problem. Get the knowledge. That's the first thing I'm always saying to get the knowledge. Most people are fair. learn to think critically, and that comes from the humanities and the social sciences. And develop a sense of self to believe in oneself, even when powerful people want to suggest.

That we are less than if we don't look like them. If we have a sense of self, we know that's their problem because most people in the world are either women or people from diverse groups. it's only going to accelerate that. Wow. Yeah. Thank you for sharing all of that and inspiring me.

I was gonna ask where do you kind of see higher education's greatest opportunity right now to deliver on its mission and on its promise? And I think a lot of that was already indicated in, this answer that you just gave because college campuses are phase that is uniquely, positioned to inspire students And To really set the stage for the next generation. But what would you add there? What is higher education especially poised to do right now? I think we are in the position to be moral leaders and to speak the truth and to teach young people to discern between that which is false and that which is true.

And that goes beyond knowing whether my grandson can always tell me when something is AI on social media. Papa, that's ai. and he's teaching me how to detect that. That's one level of false and true. But we are talking about fundamental truths. We are talking about when we see someone shooting a mother.

In the face in a car, and we see the car turning away from the shooter and we heard that woman say, I'm not mad at you. And yet we see that wonderful person shot in the face. And then we hear powerful people on TV saying she was trying to run someone down. That is a lie. My grandson saw it. He says, Papa, explain to me how they can say when the tires are turned that way.

and Papa, she didn't have a gun. He was shooting in the car, not once. and my grandson's question was this, he's 14. He says, why isn't he in jail? Is that a question? What is that? To investigate? He wanted to know, and he said they wanted to investigate it. we've seen it from different angles, and I had to explain to him that sometimes justice doesn't move as quickly as we want.

That we have to analyze the situation and figure out how best to move next. And you don't do all of that in 24 hours. You just don't, and his point at his age, it's writing this wrong and you just do the right thing. Well, that would be great if but it doesn't work like that.

It doesn't mean we shouldn't aspire to that. But sometimes the problems as in mathematics, as in reading difficult poetry will take more time to understand how best to attack the problem. And that's, what we have to work with college students on.

but first we have to, it's not just about seeking the truth, it's about making sure that they care about people other than themselves. Part the challenge we have right now with some of our leaders is that they were elected by people on the basis of what. Leaders they thought could do for them personally, not on the basis of the values of the leaders that said, let's help children around the world, or poor children in this society.

It was, the values were such that people were focused on me, me, me, me, me.  Part of our responsibility, I would argue when talking about moral responsibility, is that to be an enlightened human being, one must care much more about those around us than simply about our own. We must find ways to care deeply.

We should all be having problems sleeping. When we think about the children who are dying every day. Because we cut off USAID around the world, that there are children dying every day. I'm just so sorry that people aren't putting those faces of those little babies on the TV screen so we can see it because it, it's almost as if, if people don't see it, they can just turn their heads away.

It was the only reason there was so much support for my, kid friends, childhood friends, and me. When the, fire hoses knocked children down and dogs bit them, was that the television showed the pain of those little children. Showed them as they were throwing them into the police wagons and decent people from around the country and world said, unacceptable.

I'm saying universities have to teach or encourage students to think about their responsibilities, and not just in this country, but as the richest country in the world. What responsibility do we have for helping to ease the suffering around the world?

That it's an amazing responsibility that our institutions have right now. I mean, it is true that campuses are such a potent place where people A, learn to care about not just themselves. B, learn to think critically. That then allows them to see truth, and we can teach them the patience and the endurance to not necessarily expect.

Truth to be present everywhere they look. Right. Justice to be immediate, like you were saying, and, and really thinking about campuses as a training ground for that endurance that you need to build once you have moral clarity in your life. That's exactly right. And to understand it, sometimes in difficult situations, one must use really strong thinking skills to figure out the best thing to do.  There are many things in life that are in the gray area. There really are, but it will be that the grounding in the humanities, I'm convinced that can give us that ethical, that moral compass. And the community to be with too, because I think there are ideologies currently that are dominating, that are so tempting.

You know, if you're willing to kind of turn off your critical thinking, turn off your responsibility to others, and those ideologies work for you, they're very tempting. So very temping. And the thing I didn't say, the one point I didn't make is that we do have a responsibility to teach people to understand that people can disagree and still remain civil.

And still remain friends. Yeah. We don't have to just agree, but we have to learn. And we always talked about this at UMBC, uh, sometimes when we'd be having the arguments even when I'm arguing with young faculty about things, uh, I would say, well, why don't we just say we will agree to disagree.

Agreeably. Some people would accept that others didn't want to. And I would just say, and if you can't just breathe deeply. Breathe deeply, and give it time. Right? because we, teach students to win. Think about it. Whether it's in athletics, in debate, in whatever it is, we teach people to win, not.

Necessarily to seek the truth or to, figure out what's the right thing. The best technique I see in debate and in some of the different competitions is when a student has to argue from both points of view to make sure that student understands. How others are seeing things. Yeah. That civil discourse or civic friendship, you know, that we can model and teach on college campuses is so critical.

And I'm glad you brought that up as well. We did talk a little bit just now about. You said arguing with faculty. Right. And I wanna spend a little bit of time on the shared governance side of things. Yeah. Because we talked about students and the mission there and risks we can take on behalf of students.

We also know that higher education contexts are very slow to change. There are a lot of hoops, an administrator has to jump through to, push vision and, and achieve lasting change. So can you talk a little bit about the entrepreneurial leadership that you brought to your presidency to get faculty on board, to get staff on board, to get the governance structure aligned, to be able to promote equity, access and transformation.

I appreciate that and the advantage that I had was that I was there at the university five years before I became president, and I came to appreciate the strong shared governance that was already there. And a part of what I've come to say as I work with groups on leadership, as I teach new presidents in one of the Harvard programs and others around the country, is that we should not as leaders get pushed into the corner of talking about.

Our individual vision for a campus, for example, what is your vision?  I can't start with that. I need to hear the perspectives of those on campus. My students, colleagues, faculty and staff, the board, the alumni, legislators, donors.  I need to understand. Where are we now and what are we hoping to accomplish?

And as I say in my book, my colleagues and I wrote a book entitled The Empowered University several years ago. And the more recent one is the Resilient University and empowered to do what? Empowered to look in the mirror and be honest with self. What are we doing well and what do we need to work on?

And it was in that spirit that we became one of the most innovative campuses in the country because we looked at how we were teaching chemistry, for example, or we looked at why we would want a research park and why we would want to knock down boundaries around the campus to have students out working in the community, in companies, in the agencies in the Baltimore Washington corridor, and how faculty would be working.

With different researchers and different groups from the humanities and social sciences and the arts to the sciences and engineering, so that we became more and more integrated into society and yet a place where people could come and think and learn how to agree and disagree. And I would say when I think about entrepreneurial, I think about this need to keep hope and to be willing to take risks and to think about.

What seems impossible, that may not be. And so when we started with that research part, most people said, there's no way We don't have enough money to do what we're doing right now. But a number of us said no. We've got the brain power here to work on grants, to talk with the corporate community and to start a, an incubator first in a trailer.

We started. And to make sure that we were giving those budding scientists the support they needed to build those companies. And it started with a few companies on a trailer. And now we've got acres and acres of well over a hundred companies on campus, biotech, cyber security, ai, all types. And what fits into our mission is you've got CEOs of all backgrounds, more women.

More people of color, uh, people from around the world and that, one of the things I've not said about UMBC is that probably more than half of our undergraduates, at one point it was about 60%, I don't know what it is now of the undergraduates have at least one parent from another country. Wow. And so when you walk around the UMBC campus, the largest minority group is Asian actually.

And when you walk around the UMBC campus you see the United Nations, you really do see the plaza nations at the un. You see literally about a hundred countries represented. You see people who can speak all types of languages and many are Americans. Their parents came from wherever, whether it's from India or from Latin America or from the islands, you know, or from China, wherever.

And that allows the campus to think about global issues even more so. To have programs like language literacy and culture, for example, or international studies and political science. There's so many areas where people are connecting disciplines and focusing on global problems. The, the major challenges in engineering, for example and many who go overseas to work with different groups.

So you've got people back and forth on campus to other countries a lot, and that's a part of that being entrepreneurial. And I did just one other example of truly entrepreneurial spirit. One of our faculty of several decided that some of the students didn't have the money to go overseas, and so he worked on partnerships with other institutions overseas to have classes taught together between countries, between nations, joint faculty on our campus and another campus, right where they would teach.

Have students who would get to know each other through Zoom through the technology, and it could be a technical course, but still learning more about the culture of another, because everybody doesn't get the chance as an undergrad to go overseas, but you can still have an overseas international experience.

So we did both and that was another one of those entrepreneurial activities, I would say. Yeah, I mean, I just think the importance of having a vision that's. Out there that's reiterated and repeated, and then just having that hope that you mentioned too, and the. Endurance to show that the doubts are not always warranted and to kind of believe in what's possible.

that's gonna resonate I think, a lot with people who are looking to affect change. Then on the flip side, now we are in a situation where presidents are only in these roles. Five years or less on average. And that I think is indicative of how difficult the job has become, and maybe in some cases impossible.

The job has become, and you have the benefit of having done it for 30 years at the same institution and now being retired. So when you look back and when you look around now, what advice would you give someone? Who is in that role, or even someone who is maybe in a provost role or in a VP role in these really complex, messy university environments, looking to, lead big.

and to endure. What advice would you have for them? the o adage know thyself first. Uh, one has to know as much as possible about what he or she can endure. And what perspective one will take when the times get tough because the times get tough for all of us as presidents. I admire people who are presidents right now.

People who keep as positive an attitude as possible tend to do better. It's very easy when people are criticizing you to finally just become cynical or negative about it. I always said to myself, if I ever become so bothered that I become negative and cynical, I need to leave.

Because you need that positive attitude to encourage other people when times are tough, and secondly when people say, wow, you must have been really good. No, I, I'm a person of faith.  . So I start by saying, but by the grace of God, anything could have happened. That would've changed that trajectory.

But I just had so many people who were being very supportive and it was a sensitive time when I became president, I was first black president of any predominantly white institution in this region, and that I got the letters from people using the N word and and saying, I shouldn't be president of that white university.

I got a lot of that. I, and I had many people who said, both races well, well, they're just doing that as a token for a year. He won't last two years. And that could be very discouraging. And yet. I had wonderful people who were saying to me, it's not just about you Freeman, it's about all of us. This is all of us.

And in, in one of those books I mentioned, the first line is, it's not about me, it's about us. You don't make it about yourself, then it's not personal, first of all. Mm-hmm. And it's about what the institution needs and putting students first. And for me. One of the most important lessons was getting to know our students of different types.

Sitting with them, listening to them, having great conversations and arguments with them, but also getting to know faculty and staff and letting people know you. The more people know about you, and the longer you're there, the more support you get from them. There will always be people who are naysayers.

You know, I always say there are two types of people in the world, people who can elevate you and inspire you, and you just say, wow, what a great conversation. And then other people who can really depress you, you know, you talk to them 15 minutes and you're thinking, my God, where are we going? And the secret is, anybody can be in either one of those categories any day.

If we are written down, you know, you come to work and before you know it, you can bring other people down. Like you, everyone has the capacity for both in that. Oh, that's exactly right. And we must bring out the best in each of us. Mm-hmm. Yeah. my grounds people would, were wonderful to me. I would be walking in early one morning feeling somewhat depressed, working on problems.

And just focus as I had my head down. And I'll never forget one of the gentlemen working on the, on the grounds 'cause I would stop sometimes and talk to them. said to me, doc, hold your head up. You're gonna make us think we're going down the tubes. Hold your head up. And I did, and I, I started laughing.

He said, just remember this. You are on this side of the grass. And I had to think about what that meant. That is, um, a good point. There is life. There is hope. Wow. And sometimes I think back to that, that we as leaders must keep the optimism, the hope to keep looking up. When I was a child, my pastor, whom I admired so much, at the end of every service as we were leaving, he would say to the audience, keep looking up.

Keep looking up. you aspire to be better than you are. You know? And I think we as leaders must be inspired by our colleagues, but also we must show how we can survive and thrive. In the midst of the storm, we all saw that during COVID, for example. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We're going through challenging times right now, but what we are seeing that is so encouraging around this country and more and more people with the courage to speak up and to speak their truth, and to get in the streets and to say, no, we will not treat people like this.

No, we are not gonna kill people and not see it as wrong. , we have to have the courage to speak the truth. Yes. Wow. Thank you for lifting me up and inspiring me

and what a wonderful conversation and thank you for the insights and, and for taking the time. Can't wait to share this with the world. Sure Susan, I enjoyed the conversation and let me just repeat what my, that childhood pastor said. Keep looking up. Keep looking up. Yes. I love that.

Or you're on this side of the grass. I'll start using that. Well, the one I use through the, the trite one, keep hope alive. We must remember that.