Innovative Programs at UMBC

Academic Chess Scholarships
UMBC is one of the top college chess powers in the world and consistently beats Ivy League teams in international tournaments. It is also one of a handful of U.S. universities to offer full scholarships for chess. The UMBC Coca-Cola Chess Fellows program funds four full scholarships (including food and housing stipends) for students who combine extraordinary chess skills, academic excellence and community service.

ACTiVATE
UMBC's ACTiVATE program reflects its commitment to entrepreneurship, technology transfer and workforce development. ACTiVATE trains mid-career women to start their own businesses based on technologies developed at area universities and research institutions. In just four years of operation, the program has trained 92 women and 25 companies have been launched, with more in the works. ACTiVATE has been honored with several national awards, including the 2007 Innovation Award from the Association of University Research Parks and the 2007 Best Specialty Entrepreneurship Education Program award from the U.S. Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship.

ADVANCE
UMBC is playing a leadership role in helping to increase the number of women teaching in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. The University's ADVANCE program, funded by the National Science Foundation, has helped to nearly double the number of female tenured and tenure track STEM faculty at UMBC over the last six years. The ADVANCE "Faculty Horizons" program provides incoming post-doctoral fellows and upper-level graduate students, particularly women, with the support and skills necessary to become successful tenure-track faculty members in STEM. ADVANCE maintains that support throughout the academic year through mentorship, workshops, fellowships and other specialized support networks aimed at insuring positive outcomes for new underrepresented minorities on the path to a STEM career.

Center for History Education
UMBC seeks to strengthen and invigorate the teaching in Maryland schools through innovative professional development programs and resources for elementary, middle and high school educators. Its Center for History Education has received five $1-million grants from the U.S. Department of Education's Teaching American History Grant Program. The Center will work with elementary, middle and high school teachers in Anne Arundel County Public Schools to improve the teaching and learning by students of American history. The Center is a resource for educators throughout Maryland and beyond - an online library of lesson plans, created by program participants, can be accessed by teachers across the country.

Chemistry Discovery Center
UMBC has expanded best practices from its signature Meyerhoff Scholars Program into programs that increase academic success for all students. The University's Chemistry Discovery Center is a radical reinvention of Chemistry 101 that has led to a dramatic increase in student performance and participation. Created by chemistry professors Ralph Pollack and William LaCourse, the Center supplements large lecture classes with team-based problem-solving sessions in a high-tech learning lab. In addition to increased pass rates for Chemistry 101 and better grades at all levels, the new approach has seen students build teamwork, communication, management and other entrepreneurial skills through cooperative learning. Read more online.

Entrepreneurship
UMBC is building entrepreneurship programs across the campus, with support from a $2-million grant from the Kauffman Foundation. The mission of the Kauffman Campuses Initiative is to catalyze entrepreneurship programs outside of business and engineering schools. The award acknowledges the success of UMBC's Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship, created seven years ago through a gift of $1 million from the Alex. Brown Foundation to develop a leading university entrepreneurship center for the Baltimore region. UMBC has appointed three Faculty Fellows who are institutionalizing entrepreneurship within their academic disciplines and their colleges. In this role they will serve as faculty champions for entrepreneurship to raise the profile of entrepreneurship within their respective areas. The first Fellows are William LaCourse, professor of chemistry and biochemistry; Kriste Lindenmeyer, professor and chair of history; and Uri Tasch, professor of mechanical engineering.

Imaging Research Center
Recognizing imaging as a process that is rooted in art and design, incorporates science and technology and vividly describes ideas, the Imaging Research Center (IRC) is just one example of the type of interdisciplinary collaboration that happens at UMBC. Since its inception in 1987, the IRC has developed successful academic programs for undergraduate and graduate students focused on exploring new technologies and their use for interpreting and presenting content. These students receive valuable experience with contemporary digital art technologies while working as partners with researchers, artists, scholars and industry specialists to create large-scale, high profile works.

Industry/Government/University Partnerships
UMBC helps to anticipate and shape the future by producing new knowledge through faculty and student research - either individually or through a variety of partnerships. UMBC is:

- home to three major NASA collaborative research centers and the second most frequent NASA research partner in the nation.

- collaborating with IBM on The Multicore Computing Center (M2), a unique campus facility that will focus on supercomputing research related to aerospace/defense, financial services, medical imaging and weather/climate change prediction.

- joining with Princeton to create a new Engineering Research Center (ERC) expected to revolutionize optics. The ERC is one of a select number of interdisciplinary centers located at universities across the U.S. UMBC's optics expert, Anthony Johnson, professor of physics and computer science and electrical engineering, is the deputy director.

Living Learning Communities
Living Learning Communities (LLCs) in UMBC's residential halls provide a range of academic and social activities with like-minded colleagues. They also embody the University's commitment to diversity and inclusiveness — gaining a sense of belonging and understanding of various cultures and viewpoints. Students receive academic support with ready-made study groups and have more outside classroom interactions with faculty than non-LLC residents. They also take classes together, participate in community service projects, plan on-campus events and visit the many Baltimore-Washington attractions. LLCs currently include: Aspiring Teachers, Center for Women and Information Technology, Exploratory Majors, Honors College, Humanities Floor, Intercultural Living Exchange, Shriver Living Learning Center, Visual and Performing Arts Floor, Visual and Performing Arts Floor and Women Involved in Learning and Leadership.

Management of Aging Services Programs
UMBC's Erickson School prepares leaders for the aging revolution of the 21st Century. It's the first professional school in the nation to integrate the study of human aging with public policy and business management in each of its programs. The school's undergraduate and graduate degree programs in the Management of Aging Services provide students a bold and transformative education experience aimed at preparing a new generation of leadership for society’s biggest aging-related challenges and opportunities.

Meyerhoff Scholarship Program
UMBC's Meyerhoff Scholarship Program is a national model for educating talented students from all backgrounds in science, engineering, mathematics and computer science. The university is a leading producer of African Americans who go on to receive Ph.D.s and M.D./Ph.Ds. Currently, 200 Meyerhoff alumni have completed graduate degrees, and 250 more are in graduate school. "The Meyerhoff program is truly making a difference," said LaMont Toliver, director of the Meyerhoff Scholar Program. "Meyerhoff Scholars are twice as likely to graduate with a science or engineering major than students who decline the scholarship offer. Their GPAs in science, math and engineering are higher, and they are significantly more likely to enroll in a graduate program in a technical field."

Promise
UMBC is creating one of the most inclusive graduate communities in the nation. Its programs for graduate students include PROMISE: Maryland's Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate, a UMBC-led collaboration between Maryland’s public research universities. The $2.5-million program seeks to increase the diversity and number of sciences and engineering Ph.D. students who go on to academic careers. PROMISE programs, such as the regular "Dissertation House”" workshops, give small groups of master’s and doctoral students a week of one-on-one and group coaching, support and strategies to help students complete their theses and degrees.

The Scholars Programs at UMBC
UMBC scholars design their futures through innovative programs of study. The University is known for its programs that allow students to focus their education on intense study in the arts, engineering, humanities, information technology, sciences and social sciences. UMBC scholars programs also include internships, research and study abroad experiences. Programs include: Center for Women and Information Technology (CWIT) Scholars Program, Humanities Scholars Program, Linehan Artist Scholars Program, Meyerhoff Scholars Program, Sherman Teacher Education Scholars Program and Sondheim Public Affairs Scholars.

Sherman Teacher Education Scholars Program
The Sherman Teacher Education Scholars Program is just one way UMBC is addressing the shortage of highly qualified STEM teachers and the achievement gap that exists between students from low-income families and their counterparts. The program capitalizes on UMBC's strengths in teacher preparation, experiential education and leadership development to increase the number of outstanding STEM students in teacher-education. Within five years of the program's 2006 inception, UMBC will host 50 Sherman Scholars (undergraduate students) and 10 Sherman Fellows (graduate students) annually.

Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement Day/Undergraduate Research Awards
Providing undergraduates with wide-ranging opportunities for research and creative achievement is a vital part of UMBC’s culture. Founded in 1997, Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement Day (URCAD), gives students valuable experience preparing for graduate school or future careers. Many URCAD projects are funded by Undergraduate Research Awards (URA), competitive grants of up to $1,500 given annually to support student research over an academic year. UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski said, "URCAD is one of the best academic events of the UMBC year because it reflects the strength of our academic program, including the strong relationships between faculty and students, the rigors of research here and the broad enthusiasm for, and talent in, the creative arts on our campus."