Succeeding Together

Summer Bridge
To help acculturate students in the program’s philosophy and provide them with the tools they need to succeed in their first college semester, all incoming Meyerhoff Scholars attend an accelerated six-week residential program, called Summer Bridge. Through for-credit courses in calculus and African-American studies—as well as non-credit courses in chemistry, physics, study skills and time management—scholars experience the rigors of college-level instruction and learn how to meet higher standards of performance.

In a practical sense, Summer Bridge prepares students to be first-year students. The six-week program is not just about a transition. It is about a transformation—from adolescent to young adult, from high school to college student, from isolated to collaborative learner. It sets up patterns for work and study—and character—that will shape students’ experiences for their years at UMBC and beyond.

Working Together
Where top scholars at other institutions are motivated by competition, Meyerhoffs rely on mutual support and continually challenge each other to do more, creating an environment that amounts to positive peer pressure. Students are encouraged to form study groups for particular classes—within their majors, with Meyerhoff students, or with non-Meyerhoffs. “I always tell them, ‘If someone is getting an A, no matter who it is, go study with that person,” says UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski. The focus on study groups and tutoring allows scholars to use their strengths in certain disciplines to help other students and to be unafraid to ask for assistance when they need it.

Giving Good Counsel
The oversight of Meyerhoff Scholars is highly structured. In their freshman and sophomore years, students meet regularly with program staff for academic advising, while in their junior and senior years, sessions focus more on preparation for graduate and professional school applications.

LaMont Toliver, the program’s director, explains, “In the first two years, we set the foundation, checking where they’re studying, with whom, how and whether it is effective, as well as discussing test scores and quizzes in the past week, the current week, the week ahead.” The continual guidance is meant to teach scholars a mature method of academic foresight. “We ask them, ‘Where do you see yourself next semester, where do you see yourself next year?’ Then we say, ‘Let’s discuss strategies to position yourself to succeed at the next level.’”

Providing Positive Role Models
While Meyerhoff Program staff keep students focused and on track on campus, formal mentoring relationships with scientists, physicians and engineers in the larger community provide a different form of guidance. Mentors help students shape their long-term career goals, offering perspective and exposing them to the important aspects of working in a field.

Within the Meyerhoff Program, the goal of mentoring is to keep students focused on graduate degrees and careers as researchers. “A lot of students, particularly minority students, ask ‘Why should I bother going on for another degree?’ They wonder, ‘Why should I delay my earnings?’ The challenge is to convince them why and how to go on to graduate school,” says Dr. L.D. (Timmie) Topoleski, UMBC professor of mechanical engineering and Meyerhoff mentor. “The Meyerhoff Program encourages students to go into graduate programs right from the start.”

Opening Doors to Opportunity
“The one thing students need to be successful is access to opportunities,” says Keith Harmon, assistant director of the Meyerhoff Program. "Coupled with strong motivation, a good work ethic and ambition, talent and skill, access can really propel someone to reach his or her full potential and goals. Given the incredible talent these students have, if we can steer them in the right direction, the opportunities are endless.”

Meyerhoff Scholars participate in research, conferences, paid internships and study-abroad experiences that ground their knowledge and open their minds to other cultures and perspectives. They have studied in Paris at the Centre Interntionale de I’Enfance; had internships in Brazil, China, Honduras and Guyana; and participated in the International Research Training Program, funded by the National Institutes of Health, at the University of Lancaster in England.

According to Earnestine Baker, executive director of the program, these experiences not only help students to apply learning to the real world but also teach them how to find what they need to reach their goals—whether it is a quest for funding, employment, internship opportunities or academic pursuits. “We had one student who would take advantage of every opportunity he could find—internships, conferences, you name it,” says Baker. “At one point, he was doing an internship in Boston and trying to figure out how he could go to a conference in Montana. Instead of saying, ‘I can’t do it,’ he said, ‘I can do it; can you help me figure out how?’” The message that scholars receive from staff, mentors and advisors is that nothing is impossible—if you try hard enough.