Robert and Jane Meyerhoff on Making a Difference

Supporting the Vision
“Everybody feels a need to leave the world a better place than they found it,” said Robert Meyerhoff, the Baltimore-area philanthropist who, along with his wife, Jane who passed away in 2004, provided the initial funding that established the Meyerhoff Scholarship Program in 1989. “We had read many times about African-American men being an endangered species and the shortage of African-American scientists and engineers.”

A civil engineer who received his training at MIT, he was concerned over reports at the time that the proportion of all African-Americans in college had not grown, and the rate of enrollment by African-American men in particular had declined, especially in the sciences. “It seemed obvious to me, as it has seemed to a lot of people,” he said, “that America needs to invest more in the brain power of its minority communities.”

That investment, he believed, would be best made at a public institution, since it would ultimately reach a larger proportion of those students who need it. “We tried supporting a few minority students at MIT, Robert’s alma mater, but they just didn’t make it,” said Jane Meyerhoff. “The amount of success that the Meyerhoff Scholarship Program at UMBC has realized couldn’t have happened at a private university with only one or two students. It’s important for minority students to feel a sense of belonging, to have a tightly knit family, to feel proud of each other and help each other. Students get that at UMBC.”

“It’s a great thrill to have some role in changing peoples’ lives,” said Robert Meyerhoff. “Anyone would love to have these students as their children. You can’t help but be proud of them.”