Baltimore, MD - Freeman A. Hrabowski III, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), has been awarded the 1999 Reginald H. Jones Distinguished Service Award by the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering (NACME). Named for one of NACME's founders, the Reginald H. Jones Award honors the individual each year whose contributions and leadership most merit national recognition in the nationwide effort to build a diverse corps of world-class engineers. "We are honored to recognize the tremendous contributions that President Hrabowski has made in providing access to engineering and other science-based careers," says George Campbell Jr., president and CEO of NACME. Founded in 1964, NACME is a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing more African-Americans, Hispanics and American Indians into the field of engineering through scholarships and the development of high school programs. Past recipients of the Reginald H. Hones Distinguished Service Award include Shirley Malcom of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and M. Lucius Walker of Howard University. Hrabowski has received national recognition for the success of UMBC Meyerhoff Scholars Program. Co-founded 10 years ago by Hrabowski and Baltimore philanthropists Robert and Jane Meyerhoff, the program provides scholarships to high-achieving students interested in pursuing Ph.D.s science and demonstrate a commitment to the advancement of minorities in the sciences. More than 200 Meyerhoff Scholars have gone on to the nation's top graduate schools and 200 more are in the pipeline at UMBC. UMBC and NACME have also shared national recognition for their efforts. In 1996 UMBC and NACME each received the first U.S. Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring. Hrabowski accepted the NACME award in memory of Dr. Janice A. Lumpkin, formerly an African American professor of chemical engineering at UMBC, who died suddenly in 1997 soon after the birth of her fourth child. Hrabowski donated the $10,000 grant accompanying the award to the Janice Antoine Lumpkin Scholarship Fund for talented engineering students at UMBC.