Guide, role model and leader, hrabowski i have to start with the new book entitled the end Howard University end empowered university. To look in the mirror and be honest. We talk about leadership, our society and institutions that should be willing to recognize whatever is going well and also be willing to say we have a way to go. The subtitle starts with the notion that its not just about the one person. Its about all of us working together with the addition of educating students and that is the notion of empowerment. Account of the subtitle interesting because if you look at the cover of the book, and you dont have one that is higher than the other. You have t been almost to almoss concentric circles. So why was the . The notion of the circles are connected and thats the point when we think of culture change and academic success and leadership, those are not separate topics. They are ways in which we will collectively through those to the introspection to think about how ie as a leader and a provost or faculty member can work effectively in a culture to educate students into so it is the notion of building synergy. Your life story and trajectory so how its never a overnight thing. The idea of building culture and shared leadership, those are things that have to be infused and nurture and you give time to grow and i think the experience that you had is a great example of that. As a person that is going through their own journey, how do you think of that hundreds of patients which for a lot of leaders is not the always an easy thing. The university we are under siunder6yearsold found in the, and ive been found to be the fortunate to be there for 25 years and ive learned is the success that we have had has been considerable and has come as a result of the work of a lot of people taking the time to analyze and to assess the problems and challenges to get to know our students didnt understand how the culture has changed and went to work in a very organized approach to make a difference and that means what . It means that we understand that in the american Higher Education, half the students who go to colleges dont graduate. How can we increase the Graduation Rates and it also means that we need to think about what does it mean to be an educated person . If we understand, quite frankly, that it takes more than 50 classes that we are trying to touch the hearts and minds of people it means we have a kind of selffulfilling prophecy with students coming to the institutions, we want to make sure they succeed. Most people go to college remember when the dean or the president said that the student to your left and the student to your right. One of you will not graduate. That is a terrible thing to say to young people are people that are not so young. What we say is look to the left and right our goal is to make sure all of you graduating if you dont speak to it as a matter of having the patient as an institution but as you said, as an individual to know you dont make progress overnight. When you talk about improving Graduation Rates or what it means to be educated at helping people understand how to look at people different from themselves, it takes time to shape a culture. For the leaders going through this process, how do you know when you are on the right path . Of shaping the culture, how do you know, because sometimes you need those benchmarks to let you know keep going, you are in the right direction or you need to change directions. I used a quote from the geography the sea policewomen we swim in. I suggest, the books suggested my colleagues suggest, the coauthors and i are all saying we have to get out of the culture and t instead of if youk back at what is going on. When thinking about success, the two approaches that we have looked at for years, analytics, use of data and looking at the trends and disaggregating the data and looking at women and people of color and others is number one coming up from her too, looking at the majors of the students into their economic backgrounds, so number two, doing focus groups. Ive learned over the years, my colleagues and i agree that the best way to understand whats going on beyond looking at the data is getting to listen to the voices of people, of the students out of our colleagues, whats working, whats not working, to understand what is quite freaky sometimes very challenging, to understand what is in the listening process that we learn more about who we are and the challenges. One of the fascinating things but i think is happening at the university of baltimore maryland is how you also reach this was a university that was like a sleepy Commuter School and now we are talking about a community that is leading the nation in many ways analogous training and teaching mathematicians and engineers have particularly unjust to science, mathematicians and engineers that students of color etc. So, talk to us about how the transition took place and going from again a sleepy Commuter Schools are now being asked many people know a school they nicknamed the nerd factory. Talk about the transition. Sure. Its true people continue to talk about the first 25 years and years we were not well known, and in anyways we were still a commuter. We havent become residential as we have now become the first years and i want to make this point the faculty was working very hard to build up a Solid Foundation and make sure the academics were sound and it was an upsetting when i first came here that i realized my colleagues and i said listen, we have to set some high bars to see how we build on that. So we have students from over 100 countries and the fact is when you walk down the corridor you will see students from all over the world and it feels like the un. People talk about us as science and engineering and we leave the country among the institutions, but more importantly than that quite frankly is that we are getting students of all races across. The media people always love this and those areas are important but i am really exciting these students an art and we have so many students studying languages and culture. Im studying french now and i have plenty of students on campus to speak french to me all day long. It is a place that the humanities and social sciences are important and i bring that up because we have a society and we have to appreciate the fact we have one area of discipline and another versus another. Its not them. Its how we integrate these. Scientists appreciate the value of ethics and make sure that theyre looking at the digital l humanities and the technologies and so a part of this is looking at the mayo mayor in universityd society to see ho to say how doh our students that they can petition in a number of areas that they can learn and love languages and culture. Right now it feels like this book is coming at such a powerful time because we have never seen the university as a system under such attack. The virtue of Higher Education about why people need that and getting more training and so forth. Jobs of the future. How when you think about the import university, what is your response to that criticism and the role of Howard University to counter that. When an institution is empowered and we are empowering that on our own campus we are able to look at the big picture that says several things, number one, colleges and for everyone and students dont want to be in the liberal arts setting and they have the right they mainly from come tfrom time to do. Number two, we need to appreciate the value of the community colleges. Colleges. They are educating almost half of the students in america. And that as a university, we need to be connecting with k12, colleges and understanding whats happening in the postsecondary world. So, we talk about being empowered to appreciate the genius of the end versus the tyranny of the all and tha in aa gem sprin sprays spring io themes of this and wondering where the gutter. Research universities are liberal arts colleges. Its that american Higher Education is rich and diverse in all these different types of institutions. When people ask me if Higher Education matters, my First Response is always absolutely. In fact what i say is if you show me a family that has seen some success in college, at least somebody has gone on to get a job, you will see a family where they continue to want others to go. I dont see families that have had success in science and college and universities saying we dont need this anymore. The challenge we face most people dont realize is only about 30 of American Families have experienced college graduation. If youve not experienced it you dont really appreciate what it can do for your famil family, su move into the middle class. So, two things we need to be saying is the book talks about, power, the nation and beyond, Higher Education matters. We are creating citizens, teaching people how to think critically, teaching them the importance of Civic Engagement in all these things we do. We see these other instances but at the same time, we should be empowered to look internally at ourselves in the mirror and say look, we can be much better. There is more that we can do. And when you think about there more that we can do, i cant help but think about your own personal story and your own personal journey. The journey that brought here from alabama to maryland and now leading one of the most prestigious forwardlooking universities in the world. Can you tell us about your journey into the role that education platonist . Im very fortunate to have been in the march on birmingham and all of my life i loved reading and math and that is what i want is to appreciate the meaning of the words and understand the connections across the disciplines and so i am very fortunate to be at a university that allows me to get to know people from all over the world. I could ever imagine growing up in the 50s and 60s that i would be at a university that has people from every continent because what i am able to see on our campuses that is so remarkably inspiring his people, countries that are so different in many ways and yet my students coming intcome into the apprecit they have in common. They appreciate the cultural differences, but they also appreciate that here in our country we have brought in people from all over the world come to learn kung fu come to talk about ideas and prepare to be leaders. I think of my own journey as one where i have the chance to be about doctor king in children and go to jail and have that experience a child care, child leader in the Civil Rights Movement who then was inspired to understand through community and three values we as a university can prepare people to even Civic Engagement and a stem work and other areas. In my journey that year i had the honor to march we were together and ive been there over 30 years and i would also say that the public Higher Education and private Higher Education if we tell our stories questioning it has to be fo hade people getting the support whether its our daughters, our alumni also lookin but also looe context and so every Public Institution is looking at the context of one state. We are fortunate in maryland and i say this around the country to have a governor and a legislation come from different parties, different Political Parties and they work well together the way that american democracy is meant to work. So, our political leaders, our elected officials worked very closely to ensure we keep building the quality of education and Higher Education and it has been very encouraging to those of us in the field to appreciate that in the state of maryland the understanding is very clear that the future of our state, the future of our citizens, the economy, of our families will become closely connected and the quality of education and Higher Education. You talk about how the student body is so many different places. Its not just from baltimore or northeast maryland or from the united states. Its a global community. What was your first exposure to the global communit community ad it change you . I had the privilege my girlfriend at the time, wife and i studied as Exchange Students from Hampton University in virginia at the American University in cairo. It was the first time that i was in an environment people didnt speak english except for those at the university o university n didnuniversity that oftendidnn to learn some things about another culture and religion and the arabic language. But most importantly, to see how people viewed other americans and it was a broad experience in many ways and it led me to appreciate what we do today as we encourage more and more students to have greater experiences abroad and we have more and more students that come to us from all over the world and the most important thing is for us to first appreciate the beauty of the american democracy and the responsibility that we have in this country to understand the humankind and reach out to other people with the extent of welcoming to say that we are a part of this human race. And how much of your education was that . When i think about your leadership and impact its an allencompassing love. Its the love of accepting people where they are and bringing them all along so there is a formalized education and the informal education can you talk a little bit about that . Then the university of alabama and in the early 70s when i began to understand that the world was, quite a predicament d been in my world on birmingham and by College Effect is my world had been primarily has bey africanamerican and i began to see the differences and challenges into strengths is being in a society however, all those experiences shaped and prepared me for working at other institutions. Historically its very special in the state of maryland because it is the only university found thauniversityfounded at such a f all races dont come there. From the beginning we were people of different races but this is what i saw around the country and what we worked to improve on. This is a controversial point but i will make it we had at the segregated into students of all races and institutions but we havent fully integrated and at this point in my life i have to tell the truth the fact is when you go to most places there are times when its a great for people to know people from their own culture and background of course. We should appreciate that, but the question that we have to ask as we talk about College Diversity and power in society is are we teaching our young people how to interact with people different from themselves and this is one of the strengths we work really hard both in the classroom and beyond the classroom to do one thing. We see this students beyond. You dont want to know people separate from your own state or your own race or your own country. You want to know people from all different kinds of backgrounds. The world is so diverse and we dont talk enough about we should appreciate other people different from ourselves. And yet as we say it is ever final. Empower them to be better than we are. The sofa perfectly on display is a native of baltimore we saw that perfectly on display almost five years ago after the uprising and the leadership role that you personally played and the fact that you really called on our society to do what you said, to understand the interconnected us of all of our joy and all of our pain. Can you talk a little bit about that moment and why it was so important to use your voice and the voice of nbc. I will never forget coming back to campus during the period that we were so worried about the children of baltimore and the citizens there and that was the large side on one of the buildings and said [inaudible] anand or campuses in the suburb. We were not physically connected to what was going on but spiritually, emotionally, psychologically connected because it is a recipe and from the roof of my city you can see downtown baltimore and my students would get involved in all kinds of Civic Engagement and faculty and staff where they are connecting and working to be supportive. People dont realize that baltimore is the site of some of the most educated people in the world. In fact we are the second best educated in the brookings institution. Youve got a lot of well educated people of all races in baltimore, and then you have people as is the case in new york and america were challenged and beat our support in so many ways. They say only 30 of americans are going to college and graduating from college and so the point i am taking is that the notion of the empowered university should be empowered not only to look inward as a campus but the big question, what are we doing to help the children of the region, what are we doing to help people, to deal with that income inequality challenge that we face academics in the health disparity, so a part of what we are doing in the period is what others have worked to do when theyve had challenges and that is to get into the city and the environment and get involved in the tutoring and working on policies and there is much more work to be done but what i can tell you is we are proud to be a part of baltimore. Wha what was the reaction to the students, and i think primarily because you have students who are from west baltimore and u. S. Students were from western china and all over the globe. What did you see him on everything happening, what did you see in that moment . People were trying to understand the issues and i think you would appreciate the head of the faculty and staff that were having town Hall Meetings and we were in fusing work into the curriculum that looks at the issues of poverty and race and discrimination and most importantly, what it means to try to reshape the thinking about people that have not had a voice and so large numbers of the courses particularly in the humanities, social sciences and the arts are focused on those areas we are part of the National Movement and that is the faculty of working with students to look at these challenges that we face in our society and the city