University. The notion is this our university should be empowered to look in the mirror and be honest with herself, we use it in a way of talking with leadership and talking about our society that institutions that are healthy and secure and should be willing to recognize whatever is going well and to be willing to say that we have a way to go. Its empowered to be honest with itself. In the subtitle which is shared leadership, culture change in academic success starts with the notion its not about one person, is not just about the University President , its about all of us working together with the vision of educating students, that is the notion of empowerment. I found the subtitle interesting because if you look at the cover of the book, you dont have one listed higher than the other or greater priority, you really have them almost laid out as a circle that we all rely on each other. Thats exactly right. Why was that you really tell important stories in this word the university is never an overnight thing, the idea of building culture, the idea of academic success, the idea of shared leadership, those cannot just be catchwords, those are things that have to be infused and nurtured and those are things that you have to give time, you plant the seeds and give time to grow. I think the experience that you had at umb see is a great example of that. As a person is going through their own journey, how do they think about that in terms of patient and timeline for a lot of leaders is not an easy thing. You start with the idea that the university of campus is fairly young, under 60 years old and founded in the 60s. Ive been fortunate to be there for the president of 25 years. What i learned is a success that weve had, its been considerable, is, the result of the work of a lot of people taking the time to analyze and assess the problem and challenges to get to know our students, to understand how the culture needed to change and then to work in a very organized approach of making the difference. That means what, that means that we understand that in american Higher Education, half the students unfortunately will go to college and dont graduate. How can we increase Graduation Rates on the one hand. It also means we need to think about, what does it mean to be an educated person, to understand that it takes more than sending students through classes that were trying to touch the hearts and minds of people, it means we have a self fulfilling prophecy which means when students are coming to your institution, we want to make sure they succeed, most people go to college, remember when the dean or the president said look at the student to your left, look at the one to write, one will not graduate, thats a terrible thing to say to young people, or young people were not so young, look to your left, look to your right, our goal is to make sure all three graduate and if you dont wear info also, its a matter of having the patient as an institution and as an individual to know that you dont make progress overnight, when you talk about improving Graduation Rates or discussing what it means to be educated and helping people understand how to work with people different from themselves, it takes time to shape a culture to make for success. So for leaders who are going to the process, how do you know when youre on the right path of shaping the culture, how do you know because sometimes you need the benchmarks to let you know indicate going that youre in the right direction or you need to change directions. I use quotes from erics book that says culture is the seaweeds women in that you really dont appreciate until you get out of the and look back out of. I was adjusting my colleagues would suggest the coauthors and i all are saying we have to get out of the culture and step out and look back at whats going on, when thinking about success and how successful we are, the two approaches we worked on for years, analytics, use of data and looking at trends and disaggregating the data and looking at women and people of color, number one and number two, looking at the majors of students in the economic backgrounds, number two focus groups. I have learned over the years, my colleagues agree that the best way to understand what is going on beyond looking at data which can seem cold is getting to listen to the voices of people of the students, over calling what is working whats not working and whats very challenging to understand what excites them, its in the listening process that we learn more about who we are and what the challenges are. I think one fascinating thing that has happened at the university of maryland under your leadership is how he reshaped what people see when they look at you. This was a university that frankly felt like a sleepy Commuter School and now were talking about the community that is leading the nation in many ways and how is training in teaching scientists, mathematicians and engineers, and series of color for scientists, mathematicians, engineers and et cetera. So talk to us how that transition took place from going from the sleepy Commuter School in the name at the nerd factory, the house of great, talk about that transition. First of all it is true that people continue to talk about our first 20 25 years as years when we were not well known and in many ways we were still commuter, we had not become residential as we are now, in the first years, faculty was working very hard to build a Solid Foundation to make sure the academic enterprise was found and it was in that setting when i first came that i realized that we had good stuff, i colleagues and i said we spent high bars in academics and we need to see how we build on that and build the village. We come from over 100 countries, you there in new york, the fact, when you walk down on our campus, you will see students from all over the world and it feels like the plaza nation at the un, peoples talk about us with science and engineering, we meet the country with white institutions within b phds, what is more important than in that is that we are educating students of all races are crossed, the media people love the science and engineering and those are important but im really exciting that across and eight in the morning that we have students in arts that we get to the American Theater festival and we have so many students studying language and culture and studying french, i have plenty of students who speak french all day long to me. It is a place where stem is important but humanities and social science are important and i bring that up because of something we say in the book which we as a society have to appreciate the fact that is not one area of discipline and another versus another, its not stem versus non, to how we integrate, how do we teach her future scientist to appreciate the value of ethics and how do we make sure theyre looking at digital and using technology. A part of looking at the mere and the university in looking at the mere in society, how do we teach our students that they can be proficient in a number of areas and love languages and culture even if they study math or vice versa. Right now if you like this book is coming out a powerful time because weve never seen the university as a system under such attack, the Higher Education, why people need that, we need more training, so on and so forth, jobs of the future, how when you think about the empowered university, what is yours response to the criticism and was several of the university to encounter that record. I think when an institution is empowering we are able to look at the big picture, the big picture should say several things, the college is not for everyone a lot of students dont want to be in a liberal arts setting and they were right to have a post secondary opportunity later on but number two, we need to appreciate the value of Community Colleges, they are educating the most half of all students in america and at the university we need to be connecting with Community Colleges and understanding what is happening in the post secondary world, so we talk about being empowered to appreciate the genius of the end versus the tyranny of the all, that is jim collins, it means is not one thing or the other, it could be the colleges American Education is rich and diverse with all the different types of institutions. When people ask me if Higher Education matters, my First Response is always absolutely. Excuse me, when i say if you show me a family that is seen some success in college, somebody is gonna College Degree and gone on to get a job, we will see a family where they continue to want others to go, i dont see a family whos had success in college and universities saying we do not need this anymore. The challenge that we face the most people dont realize is only about 30 of American Families have experienced college graduation. If you have not experienced it, you dont appreciate what it can do for your family to move into the middle class. So two things we need to say as the book talks about, empowered to say to our nation and beyond Higher Education matters, absolutely were creating citizens, teaching people how to think critically and engagement that was the other institutions do at the same time you should be empowered to look internally at yourself in the mere is a we can do much better. Theres more that we can do. When you think about theres more that we can do, i cannot help but think about your own personal stories in your own personal journey. A journey that brought you from alabama to maryland and now leading one of the most prestigious and forwardlooking universities in the world. Can you tell some bit about your journey. In the World Education played in the journey. I appreciate that. Before he been a participant in the childrens margin birmingham and a child of educators in all my life i love reading and math and thats what i wanted as a child to appreciate the meaning of words and to understand the connections across the discipline so im very fortunate to be at a university that allows me too get to know people from all over the world, i could never imagine growing up in birmingham in the 50s and 60s that i would be at a university to have people from every continent. Because what im able to see on our campus that is so remarkably inspiring is people from countries that are so different in many ways and yet my students come in they appreciate what they have in common. They appreciate cultural differences but they also appreciate here in our country we have brought in people from all over the world who come to learn who come to talk about ideas and to prepare to be leaders. I think my own journey to have doctor king and the journey into go to jail in the experience in the child leader in the Civil Rights Movement who then was inspired that their community and we as university can only prepare people to lead in civic engagement, and stem work, and the arts in other areas. So my journey actually the year that i had the honor to march with doctor king and the other children was the same year that the university was founded in 1963 by the maryland legislature. So we are together over 30 years. I would also say for private and public Higher Education, as we tell our stories, the question has to be who are the people giving support whether our donors, alumni but empowered also means looking at context. Looking at the state, we are fortunate in maryland when the governor and the legislature comes from different parties and they work well together the way american democracy is meant to work. Our political leaders, our elected officials, the governor and the legislatures work very closely to ensure that we keep building the quality of education and Higher Education. It has been very encouraging to those in the field to appreciate in the state of maryland that the understanding is very clear that the future of our state, the future of her citizens, economy, families will be closely connected to the quality of education and Higher Education. You talked about how if you look how they value, such as people from baltimore nor maryland or the united states, this is a Global Community. What was your first exposure to the Global Community and how did it change you. I had the privilege of studying in egypt and my girlfriend at the time studied in egypt as Exchange Students from Hampton University in virginia at the American University and there were students from all over the world and it was the first time that i was in the environment or people first did not speak english except for those at the university often did not speak english and worry began to learn some things about another culture, another religion about the arabic language but most important to see how people viewed as americans and africanamericans. It was a bonding experience in many ways, it led me too appreciate what you and bc does today as we work to encourage more of her students to have experienced abroad as we have more students to come to us and faculty from all over the world and the most important thing i tell mickens all the time and for us to appreciate the beauty of the american democracy into appreciate the responsibility that we have in this country and the privilege of country to understand humankind and to reach out to other people with a sense of welcoming to say that we are all a part of this human race. How much of your education was that. When i think about your leadership on me and others, its an allencompassing love and accepting people where they are and bringing them all in this conversation. There is a formalized education and theres something you really touch on which is the informal education. Can you talk a little bit more about that. My experiences were shaped by being in egypt in my granddad and my Mother University of champaign in the late early 70s when i began to understand that the world was predominantly white quite friendly, i had been in my world in birmingham in my college and professors from other races, my world has premier the been africanamerican. I began to see the differences and challenges in the strength of being in the integrated society after being in champaign. However, all those experiences shaped me and prepared me and working other institutions for the un bc experience, historically, it is very special in the state of maryland because its only university founded at such a time of people of all races could go and come there. At the time were talking black and white. From the beginning we were an institution from different races. But this is what i saw when i went around the country and what we have worked to improve on it un bc, this is a controversial point but ill make it, we have desegregated and students of all races and all types of institutions but we are not truly integrated. At this point in my life i have to tell the truth, when you go to most places, you see people with themselves. As times when its great for people to know people from their own culture, their own backroom, of course we should appreciate self but the question we have to ask as we talked about the empowered university and the empower of society, are we teaching our young people how to interact substantively with people different from themselves. This is one of the strengths of umbc, we will ente work really d out of the classroom. Get beyond your comfort zone, you dont want to know people suffer from your own state, your owners, your own country, you want to know people from all kinds of backgrounds as human beings because the world is so diverse. And we dont talk enough about how we should go about coming to appreciate other people, caring about other people who are very different from ourselves. This is part of our success at umbc and success is never final, we can always do better, empowered university to be better than we are. We saw that perfectly on display and is a native of baltimore and a silken resident of baltimore, we saw that on display almost five years ago after the uprising around the death of freddie gray, the leadership role that you personally played in the leadership role that you and bc played in the fact that you called on our society to do what you just said to understand the interconnectedness of all of our joy and interconnectedness of our pain. Can you talk a little bit about that moment and why it was so important for you to use your voice and the voice of umbc in such an empowering way. I will never forget coming back to campus one day during that period when we were so worried about the children of baltimore, about citizens and that was a large sign over one of the buildings and it said we are baltimore to, tol and my students put this up, and our campuses in the suburbs, adjacent to the airport, 600 acres. So we were not physically connected to what was going on in the city but spiritually, emotionally connected because its our city. From the roof of my building you can see downtown baltimore. Faculty and staff who had been working and connecting and working to be supportive. People do not realize that baltimore region is the site of some of the most educated people in the world, and factor in looking at africanamerican population, we are the second best educated community in the country. To report from the brooklyn institution. You have a lot of well educated people of all races in baltimore and then you have people in new york and in america who are challenged who need our support in so many ways of education. You heard me say only 30 of americans have the expense of going to college and graduating from college. The point that i am making is the notion of an empowered university should be empowered, not only to look in at the campus but the big question, what are we doing to help the children of our region. What are we doing to help people who are poor, what will we do with the income and equality challenge that we face, the academic ups disparity in the health disparity, part of what were doing during that period is what other institutions have work to do when they proctologist, to get into the city and the environment and to get involved in the tutoring and the policies that can make a difference in there is much more work to be done. What i can tell you, our University Said we are proud to be a part of baltimore. That we stand by. What was the reaction to the students and i say primarily because you have students who are from Wes Baltimore and you have students who are from western china. You have students from all over the globe, what did you see amongst the students and everything was happening and whether their adopted backyard or their real backyard. What did you see. People were trying to understand the issues and i think what you would appreciate is we were having faculty and staff and having town Hall Meetings and we were infusing work into the curriculum that looks at issues of poverty and race and discrimination and most important what it means to try to reshape the thinking about people who have not had a voice. So large numbers of the courses and particularly community and social scientists have focused on those areas and were part of the National Movement of imagining america and thats with faculty working with students to look at the challenges that we face in our society, innercity and is not one city or a couple of cities, these are problems around the country, we know this of disparity. A part of our solution has been to infuse these challenges into the work the students are doing in the classroom and in Community Engagement so as they become leaders, whether they will be a lawyer or a teacher or scientist, they have a better appreciation of the devastating impact of poverty, the stress that children bring to the classroom and most important the possibility of changing the way that we do business. Every thinking the narrative and blaming the people who are less fortunate and teach people how to take responsibly as they can even as we work to change policies that can be so discriminating. And as full disclosure for everyone watching and listening doctor is one of the first piece people i listen to when going to guidance. When i was think about debating about taking the role of robin hood and hes the one person who contacted to get a spot in for that and so many other things im grateful it is one of the largest poverty fighting organizations in the country and we think about the role that poverty plays inside of our society and hermetic impact on everything that we see. One of the things the concept of Brain Development and how exactly are we exercising the muscle in creating a platform that every child, every person. Has a chance to exercise the muscle in a liberating way in the role they play in our society and theres some people that say in the discrepancies, that is not my issue, that is not my thing and for you, who is taken such a lead on educating not just our current but future leaders in our society, how do we help people to understand, how are we trading our scholars to understand the role that each and every one of them have to play in addressing some of these regardless of what occupation they going to her what field or profession they choose to be in. We need to look at the income inequality challenge in our society in the millions of americans of all races that are in the bottom group and how that group grows all the time as we see not just the top, more and more at the top, the challenges a structural challenge as we think about how we help our children with education which is a piece of it and theres other issues that our Society Needs to appreciate and those of us that are entitled and the advantages that we have whether housing or loans but its about ways of building our families to understand the devastating impact of things like poverty and race and gender discrimination can help us understand to solving those problems will lift us all up as a society intercampus has been amazing to me that our colleagues for a long time, years and years have known we need to talk with, work with, focused on people in our innercity areas and other places where we have challenges throughout and what that means is looking at ways of what we can learn, looking at public policy, we focused on public policy, whether education policy, ground school, and grant that we get in looking at issues of finance and healthcare, there is a need for a broader understanding by republic of all of the ways in which poverty for example has a negative impact including what nih tells us about the issues of stress and the relationship to learning. I tell you, as we work on our programs from first generation kids to coming to college who children are firsttime offenders, we see the stress and receive their ability to think and how we can own those skills, we work with schools in baltimore and we are seeing schools where ive been reading, if we develop programs designed to help leaders, the sherman scholars in this Amazing Program involving young math. In working middle schools for example and they work in the schools to help the children, America Needs to look at performance of children and understand that they are not doing well, its more complicated matter and they are simply not studying or working, its much were complicated than that. We have to give teachers more support, we have to find ways of having outcome and accountability and most important we related to the support we give teachers and children and families and its a support that can make a big difference. Speaking of support, knowing what support do we need, what support do we ask for and theres a great story in your book and i want to turn to it, its on page 71 in the chapter about grant and greatness. But youre talking about how at the time you were the interim president which is 1992 and governor William Donald schaefer the former mayor of baltimore became the governor with the state of maryland. And you had a chance to articulate your vision and what she wanted to do and what you thought could happen and theres a point here where he asked you, after hearing you speak he says freeman, what can i do s to support your candidacy to become president , im going to call the region and asked them to make you the president. And at that point i think everybody, the natural human response, thats great, thank you so much mr. Governor in your response was do not contact the board of regents. And the thing that you asked them for was not for a recommendation, you asked them to to treat. First of all can you talk a little bit about that. Are governors are always very powerful but i wanted to become president for the reasons they wanted to me too become president , i didnt want the governor to make me do it, he was a do it now kind of person and we have a great governor now, i do it the same thing. This is what i would say to you, i knew you did not have any money but he wanted to show support, we were a young campus and up on the roof and i looked around and i knew we needed more green space and i knew something he had power over and i say give us trees. Because you had these saplings these seats, all trees that grew into the other things and frankly trees that will outlast us all. Those trees will be on that campus. Those trees will be here and theyll be looking after other generations and providing shade and support and its also emblematic about how we think about Higher Education and the point of Higher Education and about theproblems in our society. Private changes very real and one of the main things and our campus is the environment whether were talking environmental science, environmental policy we have thousands of students working in those areas and faculty working on Environmental Issues whether its about water in the Chesapeake Bay all the way over to areas of technology connected to the environment so all that fits well in thinking about the empowered university to get involved with the problems of society. Climate change issues, the environment would be one of those so one of thoseproblems that i think we in america need to look more carefully at , of the relationship not only between k12 and university but the fact that such a large percentage of our students who begin in colleges never graduate and while we said its about half, the fact is that distribution is fairly bimodal. In other words the healthiest places you will see 80, 90 percent plus of people who start graduating and thinking about for years but the largest percentage of the public quite frankly aregoing to be below 40 percent. And i am always saying this should not be acceptable to any of us. In the 25 years ago because we were far more commuted we had most of the freshmen and sophomores in Campus Living but weve gone from under 40 percent to now 70 something percent and if you include those who transferred to other majors that we know about we are up to high 80s so we work hard to make sure cities who come to us do succeed. The other part of that is that there are certain strategies that we need to be using. One is course redesign. People here more and more about people redesigning courses that we understand the election method is only one way of delivering, theres a need for more active learning if you look at the Chemistry Discovery Center you will see students working in groups, use of technology, realtime assessment, use of the Biotech Companies on campus and making the education as exciting as possible. I often ask people to question about k12 and universities. How many knowstudents who are bored in school . So being able to help students appreciate the excitement of learning and getting them more actively engaged rather than opening their heads and pouring in knowledge, teaching them to use technology and make a big difference and finally for us , the number one thing you hear you nbc isgreat. Weve been using that word over 20 years are Chesapeake Bay retriever, his name is true grit and we say that you nbc is the house of great and i will tell you the fact that 50, 60 percent of our students have a parent from another country piece volumes about what people from other countries bring to this. When you put look at the people who came to new york, whats that quality western markets that hunger for the knowledge and were suggesting putting out to the society that we must be empowered to look in and asked those hard questions. Are we hungry for the knowledge, are we teaching our students not only to be hungry for the knowledge that excited about curiosity and asking the questions so it is about looking in the mirror at ourselves, not just as a universitybut as a society. How do we teach that hunger. How do we instill that hunger. Its a great question. I think the early years we know that when we go over to my colleague and i go to work in industry schools with kids in the second grade and third grade and youre asking questions, me, me. Everybodys so excited. I love getting on the floor and doing that. President s and others should be as concerned about prek as we are about bac programs so you see that curiosity in a child in the early years. The question is how do we keep that from being somehow diminished. How do we make sure we keep pulling the curiosity and exciting and its about i think giving them incentives to ask the questions, allowing them to make mistakes shoving showing them to understand that sometimes we learn more when we get knocked down and when we keep moving ahead and most important, how do we keep experimenting and trying a different approach to getting the work to be comprehensible and to understand and if i go to the board and i put a problem in differential equations and i sold it and then everybody says wow, he really knows a lot and i get a test on the problem and everybody fails the test. After i taught it . No i have not and yet we have this notion too often once we presented it thats our responsibility. As a society we do that. I would argue that the keep kids excited you have to keep thinking about what our expectations, what are we expecting. That had thought that i get on success in science arts with the idea of High Expectations but not just my expectations of the students, its High Expectations of all of us. I love about you nbc is my colleagues are constantly working whether indigenous to humanities and imaging in digital art, and the social sciences to find ways of pulling students into the work and to having them as serious as possible and taking responsibility or taking as far as they can and using us as colleagues in the process. When you say the idea of using them as colleagues, it goes back to this ideaof collaboration. Of partnership and inside of the work. Which often times for people is not easy and its not simple. Thats also something that has to be taught how to collaborate correctly. We learn to do by doing and we learn more when we see actions rather than when people tell us what to do so part of what i have said is i was talking about that song is also about Building Community among students. What does it mean to build Community Among students and faculty and what does it mean when you say it takes researchers to build Research Area takes artists to produce art. Any of us know that we are much better when we see how others have done it so the collaboration that goes on in labs, the collaboration we see in a theatrical production or working in imaging, the work that i see people doing womens studies after talking about assessing these challenges, these are the ways in which we can be much better and one of the things we say in the book have to deal with the controversy involving title ix as we talk about something happened that was exciting and something that was challenging. The exciting thing that happened was when we won the basketball game against uba and here we are a dirty campus the resources of the institution and it went well. But we took that time to look and say who are we . We take pride in having just won a National Championship in cyber security. Were that nerdy place. On the other hand we have student protests as all campuses will and it was a time to state the students we are sorry. We had been even more effective, we were working to do theright thing. We will be better and the way you get better , are evidence whether its about student protests or challenges with any group to listen carefully to what they say and thats what weve been doing and we call it retriever courage and we are proud we have been listening to our students who expert on these areas and reshaping the way we do business. Changing the structure and most important getting the resources and keeping a level of humility. Things to me that are part of being empowered as university or as a reader remaining humble. And saying i have so much more to learn , gives me at every level of our society, we need leadership that seeks to the question of humility. Confidence but humility and a willingness to listen to different voices. And to listen to people different from ourselves area and im proud of our students when we have sessions that will bring people from different political parties, different points of view and we come together to hear those different points of view, listen, understanding that frankly we could even agree to disagree with civility. We must teach our students and our society thats very important. When we talk about the role of the empowered university, you mentioned something i think is important. You talk about producing an educated citizenry. It seems like when youre talking about the idea of an educated citizenry this is not about how to get more people with an asian pacs and national degrees. Its something bigger than that you talk about that on page 21 when you say producing educated citizenry is our responsibility and at least us several critical questions, what does it mean to be educated and how is that changing. What does it mean to be educated in our society. It is a question we should be constantly asking. Ahead of Phi Beta Kappa has suggested that the role of the liberal education is to produce students who learn how to present their arguments and to base their arguments on evidence. The importance of evidence. Number two, to be willing to listen to other points of view. Not simply to win the apartment but to listen to other points of view and to look carefully at the Evidence Base to support another point of view and most important, to learn how to find a common ground. How do we figure out what are these that we all can agree four for the common good somehow so for us and you nbc, we are through our work in the humanities, through the sciences looking at ways of helping students to learn to ask the hard questions. To read critically, but to appreciate the value of evidence in a society that is bombarding us with information and different points of view, being confused about what is truth and what is not. Educated people should have the skills to ask the questions that will lead to the evidencethat can therefore determine what is truth. And thats the essence, the heart of all this empowered to speak the truth. When a person is on the path to speak the truth, i think one of the things that you touch on is that the truth has a tendency to show itself and hide itself in places that you might notexpect. In people that you might not expect. How do both institutions and individuals know about finding their both individual and collective truth . I think we can become more successful at seeking and expressing the truth by making sure that we are first understanding the biases we bring to any work, all of us bring certain points of view and sometimes we may assume that point of view is the right point of view. It may be a point of view but its not always the case that its only the right point of view i think its very important for all of us as educators and as citizens to be willing to open our minds and to hear that other perspective. Ive learned so much on people from very different perspectives on my campus because my campus is a microcosm of america and the world and people bring different religious beliefs, political beliefs, points of view and it is so important to understand those perspectives and also to be able to ask questions in a way that doesnt simply make People Defensive but rather helps the next person be more introspective. Think about what he or she is saying as we do the same thing. I would argue we too often have been teaching people to win the argument. As opposed to engaging in the argument in the debate in such a way that we can figure out what really is the truth as we think about whats best for everybody. Even as we understand theres things that are just absolutely the truth that we should tell the truth, that we should make sure that we have to honor and the work that we do. Honor in the work that we do. Is an oldfashioned idea i really believe that we as educators can show our students through our own behavior and through our working with them that while we know people can make mistakes, the honorable thing to do is to make sure we are always sincerity when were working to find the facts. And to use those facts and making decisions about what we do so empowering to again, look at self very carefully and also empowered to be honest about whats wonderful about our country, about our university and waysin which we can be even better. You talk about that quite a bit in the book which i think is important. And on page 184, where you were talking about the fact of challenges the remaining area that this is not always going to be something you cross the finish line andyou can take the cost. You publish one thing and you have a new challenge that you are there and you highlight a few. Where you say even with the swirl of course redesign and curriculum animation we have faculty who do not appreciate or see the need for new approaches to teaching and learning. Theres apartment in which no faculty members have redesigned their courses in a meaningful way. New hires will come in teacher redesigned course without understanding the new approaches that have been developed and implemented revert to a more traditional approach to pedagogy. This idea that change is always there. Change is not always welcome. And how exactly do we continue to push, knowing that certain things will work in certain things will and thats perfectly fine thats always obligated thing you for an organization to be able to take on. Colleagues were very helpful to the coauthors and me in writing the book because we decided we wanted to hear what people thought. About why we were being successful and i say this as fellow College President s, we College President s a lot of our campuses and theres a lot we dont know and after 25 years understood the reasons we were being successful and while i may have known some i learned so much from all these focus groups that we had about ways in which people had to go around obstacles in order to get it done. It wasnt we were necessarily empowering them to do what needed to be done. Sometimesbecause of personalities, because of power struggles, they had to move around obstacles , get beyond them get the work done and it was a humbling experience so when they could say yes, were doing a great job in educating people across disciplines and were producing more students are doing well in science including students of color the bottom third of the students interested in these majors are not having that success rating area that we are still not where we need to be and some departments are more inclined to be involved in innovative approaches and others are more traditional and as we listen, even to people who said yes and as we bring in more people, people are not accustomed to seeing large numbers of students exceeding science. We call the first year of science in america we out courses when i ask american audiences a question how many of you know somebody who changed their majors, people raise their hand in the First Response we have is we were not as good inscience. But the fact is that even on the work weve done with the National Academy of sciences my colleagues and i, the fact is the higher the test scores times to students whether its about the ap exams, sats, energized tests, more socially prestigious universities the greater the chance that could maybe lead in science the first year or two. There are many reasons and is not because the student is not working hardso theres doctoral issues. Issues involving our attitude about the work and what we umbc are doing and still have more to do with his back. Changing the culture to make sure we admit a reasonable chance of succeeding whether its in science or psychology or in the arts and most important, when we celebrate the success of seeing so many students doing well and going on to students in the country and beyond to get phds and bringing phd that celebrate what about the average student. What about the students in the bottom third. We as universities tend to have great anecdotes about our top students but what about the students not among the top. What else do we need to do. Planning by being inpower to be truthful about the whole story. What do you see Higher Education going as our society continues to continue of all. When you talk about the number of people who have started Higher Education and not completed, the number of people Walking Around with credits and no degree , watching cost of Higher Education continue to rise in certain areas, certain types of schools go back to than others, what do you see as the future of Higher Education, more consolidation, more buildout . I am somebody with a very positive view of the future. And i say that with great confidence. I often ask people the question in your grandparents go to college mark were your parents in college, only 30 percent have gone to college but i know in the50s and 60s , i know a lot about where we were as a society that most people were not born in the 50s so they dont understand just how challenging our society was then when people talk about the challenges facing today and we do face challenges i get that but its not the first time we have faced challenges. Go back to the 60s, either the 1960s or the 1860s and we see some of those challenges and the divisions and all the problems but i say that as i about the future because i am convinced about using that same quote ideas before, genius versus the tyranny of the war. We got to continue to see a lot of facetoface interaction because a lot of people need that for a number of reasons. Especially in some disciplines, and especially in certain ages and backgrounds but were seeing increasingly Important Role of technology and we will see both online programs and the hybrid approach, many of our classmates have horse redesigns and you have some part lecture, part working in groups but you also have something online that you have the use of technology in many ways youre going to see more of all those things happening but i also see that well be talking about postsecondary opportunities. Not just only the fouryear degree but the twoyear programs, the Certificate Programs, be credentialing. My campus umbc and the rest of the university of maryland are part of the Greater Washington partnership which involves virginia used institution, those in washington dc and maryland, all the institutions in between and we are working with companies to look at the skills that people need in one of the challenges that you may not know about is that theres so Many Technology jobs that are not getting filled right now. Its very exciting to see the work were doing and others that Greater Washington partnership to have Certificate Programs that will allow many humanity majors in the social sciences to get into the technology field. That brought education, there are certain courses they can take certain experiences whether its specifics, that will allow them to get the opportunity. The onlyway were going to deal with the Technology Infrastructure we have. Not producing enough Computer Science majors for people of color or women in the 80s or example, we had about 36 percent of the Computer Science majors. Today weredown to 20 percent or below that. Its a major travesty we have not as a society look in the mirror that something is wrong that other countries are producing higher percentages of women. Our approach is to have a center for women in it so we are encouraging more women to get involved in Computer Science, in computing and working with k12. Probably the most exciting Program Involving k12 is one for middle school girls involving yoga and coding. Yoga and coding. Its a fascinating program that teaches confidence and you learn about doing the coding but youre getting that stamina that goes with the yoga and youre able to become an ambassador for girls and technology and its funded by the National Security agency and some other companies in the area and we need to be encouraging much more of that and so the point im making is that somehow the ability of our Higher Education enterprise to look in the mirror and the empowered and to be honest about the strengths on the one hand but to say we got the problems. Show us the people in technology, the need for more women or people of color. Students from lower income backgrounds need more support, all these are ways in which we can solve problems and make the point to our society that Higher Education matters. The thing i love about that too is whether its that program for the Program Partnerships between our public sector, private sector, are institutions of Higher Education across philanthropy, that everyone has an Important Role play now. Even when i look at our k12 programs, theyve done a great job working with us on school systems, with innercity schools on stem centers in those schools and the idea of connecting the arts and sciences together and engineering and having kids aspire to become engineers, having women, people of color going into those schools and showing them what its about. Having our students from the university there as tutors and mentors read theres the need for this intersection of these different groups read the same way i talk about the shared leadership, academic success and culture change, we can talk about our society with the public and private sectors working together with government, with universities, with foundations with the goal of strengthening what we do in education. We have only a few minutes left and now very quickly id like to share a story and get your response. I was connected to another university and when their University President s came up , they wanted to talk to you and see if you have any interest in the presidency and i said i know him very well. They said your mind talking with him so i went and i emailed you and as you always do you immediately email me back and said of course and we were sitting down for lunch and i started going into it and you smiled and said i think i know where youre going with the questioning because i was asking to gauge your interest in this presidency and you said something i wont forget. You said to me to be very honest, the students over there had a better chance than not whoevers sitting in that seat belt be fine. Thereason , the thing that brought you to umbc and keep you there is not just the progress of the university has made, its the fact that you know you being in that seat matters. It matters to the students who walk on that campus. It matters to the students who are the alumni and it matters to the students who applied to go to that campus. Not only do i say thank you for that and frankly the sense of clarity that you gave me and how i think about my own life and my own career. Im incredibly grateful for this book and the contribution that youve made it to all of us in terms of talking about not just the entire university but therole of education in our society. Doctor freeman hrabowski, thank you for what you do. A final point would be the message of umbc is weve been empowered to think that kids who come from middleclass backgrounds, workingclass backgrounds can be the best and going to road scholars in oxford or chemistry professors at harvard. Our students go to the best places. A young man who is not in faculty and the classics at columbia so the idea that you can have excellence in all types of institutions and that you can have authenticity, our colleagues, my colleagues, faculty and staff they care about the students. It is an exciting place. Wes, come again and visitsoon. Will do, thank you. Watching a special edition of tv area now during the week while members ofcongress are in their districts. Tonight a look at pandemics. First the National Institute of Health Jeremy brown provides a history of the 1918 flu pandemic and his thoughts on how prepared we are for the next major outbreak. In a discussion about viruses on the 2016 brooklyn book festival featuring carles imre and ed young and later john barry describes the 1918 flu pandemic that killed as many as 100 Million People worldwide. Enjoy book tv now and over the weekend on cspan2. Television has changed since cspan began 41 years ago but our mission continues. To provide an unfiltered view of government. Already this year we brought your primary election coverage, the president ial impeachment process and now the federal response to the coronavirus. Once all of cspans Public Affairs programming on television, online or listen on our free radio app and the part of the conversation through the Washington Journal Program or through our social media feeds. Cspan created by private industry. 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