UMBC Parent Preview

What do Lance Armstrong, Dr. Benjamin Carson, Steven Spielberg, and UMBC President, Dr. Freeman Hrabowski, have in common? They were all recently named America's Best Leaders 2008 by U.S. News & World Report.

The UMBC community is proud to be named an "Up-and-Coming" campus by college presidents and provosts across the nation - in U.S. News & World Report's Best Colleges Guide. UMBC is among the Top 5 national universities recognized as innovators, along with George Mason, Clemson, University of Southern California and Arizona State University. Other schools on the list include Drexel, Northeastern, University of California – Irvine and Ohio State.

The Princeton Review has included UMBC in its “Best Value Colleges for 2009” list. UMBC is one of 50 public institutions in the United States recognized for offering a combination of educational excellence and affordability.

The honor is the second major national distinction UMBC has received from leading higher-education rankings publications this academic year. UMBC is among the Top 5 national universities recognized as innovators by U.S.News & World Report Best Colleges Guide, along with George Mason, Clemson, University of Southern California and Arizona State University. Other schools on the list include Drexel, Northeastern, University of California – Irvine and Ohio State.

With a final-round surge against its archrival, the UMBC chess team emerged once again as the undisputed kings of the collegiate game by winning the 2009 President’s Cup April 5.

UMBC is one of the country’s most environmentally-responsible colleges according to The Princeton Review. The nationally known education services company selected UMBC for inclusion in a unique resource it has created for college applicants - “The Princeton Review's Guide to 286 Green Colleges.”

Developed by The Princeton Review in partnership with the U.S. Green Building Council, the “Guide to 286 Green Colleges” is the first, free comprehensive guidebook focused solely on institutions of higher education who have demonstrated an above average commitment to sustainability in terms of campus infrastructure, activities and initiatives.

“The Princeton Review's Guideto 286 Green Colleges” looks at an institution’s commitment to building certification using USGBC’s LEED green building certification program; environmental literacy programs; formal sustainability committees; use of renewable energy resources; recycling and conservation programs, and much more.

UMBC President Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, is among 10 national and world leaders recognized with honorary degrees at Harvard University’s Commencement exercises in Cambridge, Massachusetts today.

Hrabowski, who has served as UMBC’s president since 1992, received an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Harvard in recognition of his inspirational leadership of UMBC’s rise as a new model for American higher education and a premier training ground for the next generation of researchers and scholars. Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust hailed Hrabowski as “a galvanic force in his university’s ascent.”

Among the other honorands at Harvard this year are retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter, former Howard Hughes Medical Institute President Thomas Cech and actress Meryl Streep.

“The respect our colleagues at Harvard have for UMBC as a research university is clear,” Hrabowski said. “This honor reflects on the work of a campus community that celebrates the life of the mind and believes that students from all backgrounds will excel when expected to do so and when given support.” UMBC consistently sends its graduates on to graduate and professional programs and post-doctoral fellowships at Harvard in fields ranging from medicine and science to law and public policy.

MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell interviewed UMBC's President Freeman Hrabowski about President Obama's State of the Union comments on affordability in higher education. Hrabowski highlights the ways in which the state of Maryland has been able to keep tution costs down and create value for students.

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