Author Profile
Freeman Hrabowski III | President, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Current Position and Past Experience
Since 1992, Freeman Hrabowski III has served as President of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). He chaired the National Academiesā committee that produced the recent report, Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation: Americaās Science and Technology Talent at the Crossroads. He also was recently named by President Obama to chair the newly created Presidentās Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans.
Education, Honors and Achievements
At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Hrabowski earned his M.A. in mathematics and four years later his Ph.D. in higher education administration/statistics at age 24.
In 2008, he was named one of Americaās Best Leaders by U.S. News & World Report, which ranked UMBC the nationās #1 āUp and Comingā university the past five years (2009-13). During this period, U.S. News also consistently ranked UMBC among the nationās leading institutions for āBest Undergraduate Teachingā ā in 2013, other universities on the list included Duke, Cal-Berkeley, Princeton, and Brown. TIME Magazine named him one of Americaās 10 Best College Presidents in 2009, and one of the ā100 Most Influential People in the Worldā in 2012. In 2011, he received both the TIAA-CREF Theodore M. Hesburgh Award for Leadership Excellence and the Carnegie Corporation of New Yorkās Academic Leadership Award, recognized by many as the nationās highest awards among higher education leaders. Also in 2011, he was named one of seven Top American Leaders by The Washington Post and the Harvard Kennedy Schoolās Center for Public Leadership. In 2012, he received the Heinz Award for his contributions to improving the āHuman Conditionā and was among the inaugural inductees into the U.S. News & World Report STEM Solutions Leadership Hall of Fame.
Personal Details and Community Involvement
A child-leader in the Civil Rights Movement, Hrabowski was prominently featured in Spike Leeās 1997 documentary, Four Little Girls, on the racially motivated bombing in 1963 of Birminghamās Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.
Hrabowski serves as a consultant to the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the National Academies, and universities and school systems nationally. He also serves on the boards of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, France-Merrick Foundation, Marguerite Casey Foundation (Chair), T. Rowe Price Group, The Urban Institute, McCormick & Company, and the Baltimore Equitable Society. He served previously on the boards of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Maryland Humanities Council (member and Chair).
Since 1992, Freeman Hrabowski III has served as President of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). He chaired the National Academiesā committee that produced the recent report, Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation: Americaās Science and Technology Talent at the Crossroads. He also was recently named by President Obama to chair the newly created Presidentās Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans.
Education, Honors and Achievements
At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Hrabowski earned his M.A. in mathematics and four years later his Ph.D. in higher education administration/statistics at age 24.
In 2008, he was named one of Americaās Best Leaders by U.S. News & World Report, which ranked UMBC the nationās #1 āUp and Comingā university the past five years (2009-13). During this period, U.S. News also consistently ranked UMBC among the nationās leading institutions for āBest Undergraduate Teachingā ā in 2013, other universities on the list included Duke, Cal-Berkeley, Princeton, and Brown. TIME Magazine named him one of Americaās 10 Best College Presidents in 2009, and one of the ā100 Most Influential People in the Worldā in 2012. In 2011, he received both the TIAA-CREF Theodore M. Hesburgh Award for Leadership Excellence and the Carnegie Corporation of New Yorkās Academic Leadership Award, recognized by many as the nationās highest awards among higher education leaders. Also in 2011, he was named one of seven Top American Leaders by The Washington Post and the Harvard Kennedy Schoolās Center for Public Leadership. In 2012, he received the Heinz Award for his contributions to improving the āHuman Conditionā and was among the inaugural inductees into the U.S. News & World Report STEM Solutions Leadership Hall of Fame.
Personal Details and Community Involvement
A child-leader in the Civil Rights Movement, Hrabowski was prominently featured in Spike Leeās 1997 documentary, Four Little Girls, on the racially motivated bombing in 1963 of Birminghamās Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.
Hrabowski serves as a consultant to the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the National Academies, and universities and school systems nationally. He also serves on the boards of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, France-Merrick Foundation, Marguerite Casey Foundation (Chair), T. Rowe Price Group, The Urban Institute, McCormick & Company, and the Baltimore Equitable Society. He served previously on the boards of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Maryland Humanities Council (member and Chair).
