Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski III, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), will present a lecture titled “Youth and Leadership in the Civil Rights Movement: Reflections on Birmingham” on Thursday, February 26, at 8 p.m. in Goucher College’s Kraushaar Auditorium.
The United States has seen profound changes in the past 50 years, including increased access to education for students of all races; but many challenges persist. Hrabowski will share his perspective on the civil rights movement and insights from his career in education. He firmly believes that the world does not have to remain as it is today and that everyone has a story that can inspire change.
Hrabowski’s talk is part of both the Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Visiting Professorship Series and the theme semester speaker series “Civil Rights: Past/Present/Future.” This event is free and open to the public, but reservations must be made at www.goucher.edu/tickets or by calling 410-337-6333.
Hrabowski was born in 1950 in Birmingham, Alabama, at a peak time in the civil rights movement. He was a child leader in the movement and participated in the “Children’s March” in May 1963 in Birmingham, organized by Martin Luther King, Jr. During the march, Sheriff Eugene “Bull” Connor unleashed dogs and fire hoses on the demonstrators, including 12-year-old Hrabowski. The sheriff spit on him, and Hrabowski spent five days in jail. He was featured prominently in Spike Lee’s 1997 documentary, Four Little Girls, on the racially motivated bombing of Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in 1963.
From his childhood, Hrabowski excelled in school. At age 12, he was in ninth grade, and at 15, he went to college, graduating four years later from Hampton Institute with highest honors in mathematics. After earning an M.A. in mathematics, he received his doctorate in higher education administration at age 24 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Now, as the president of UMBC, a position he has held since 1992, Hrabowski is devoted to helping others succeed, in school and beyond.
His research and publications focus on science and math education, with special emphasis on minority participation and performance. He chaired the National Academies’ committee that produced the recent report Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation: America’s Science and Technology Talent at the Crossroads. He also was recently named by Barack Obama to chair the newly created President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans.
With philanthropist Robert Meyerhoff, Hrabowski co-founded the Meyerhoff Scholars Program at UMBC in 1988. The program is open to all high-achieving students committed to pursuing advanced degrees and research careers in science and engineering and advancing under-represented minorities in these fields. The program is recognized as a national model, and based on program outcomes, Hrabowski has authored numerous articles and co-authored two books, Beating the Odds and Overcoming the Odds, focusing on parenting and high-achieving African American males and females in science.
Named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World by TIME (2012) and one of America’s Best Leaders by U.S. News & World Report (2008), he also received TIAA-CREF’s Theodore M. Hesburgh Award for Leadership Excellence (2011), the Carnegie Corporation’s Academic Leadership Award (2011), and the Heinz Award (2012) for contributions to improving the human condition. UMBC has been recognized as a model for academic innovation and inclusive excellence by such publications as U.S. News, which has ranked UMBC the No. 1 “up and coming university” in the nation for the past six years.