Transcripts For CSPAN2 After Words Freeman Hrabowski The Emp

CSPAN2 After Words Freeman Hrabowski The Empowered University July 13, 2024

What is the empowered university . The notion is this, our universities should be look at universities and be honored with self. We talk about our leadership and our society that institutions that are healthy and secure should be willing to recognize whatever is going well, because knowledge of course, but also to be willing to say, but weve got a way to go. So its empowered to be honest with self and the subtitle which is shared leadership, culture change and academic success, starts with the notion that its not about the one person. Its not just about the University President , its about all of us working together with the vision of educating students and thats the notion of empowerment. And i found the subtitle really interesting, too, because if you even look at the cover of the book, you dont have one listed out as higher than the other or a greater priority than the other. You really have them almost laid out as concentric circles. You said that well. That we all rely on each other. Thats exactly right. Why was that . I have to tell you. I get goose bumps doing math, im a mathematician and the notion of those circles. If you look at them you see some intersection and theyre connected and thats the point. When we think about culture change, when we think of academics and leadership, those are not separate topics, theyre ways in which we work collectively through those, through this intersection to think about how i as a leader, whether im a College President , a provost or a faculty member can work effectively in a culture to educate students. Its the notion of building synergy in the sense of empowering university. And whats really interesting, i think your life story and your trajectory, you really tell an important story in this, where the empower university is never an overnight thing. The idea of building culture, the idea of academic success. The idea of shared leadership. Those cant just be catch words, those things have to be infused, nurtured and you have to give time. You plant seeds and then give time to grow and i think the experience that you had at unbc is actually a great example of that. As a person going through their own journey, how do they think about that in terms of patient and timeline, which for a lot of leaders is not always an easy thing . Sure, i mean, you start with the idea that our campus, unbc, university of maryland, were under 60 years old. We were founded in the 60s and ive been fortunate to be president there for over 25 years, what ive learned is that the success that weve had and its been considerable, has come as a result of the work of a lot of people taking the time to analyze, to assess the problems, the challenges, to get to know our students, to understand how the culture needed to change, and then to work in a very organized approach to making a difference and that means what . It means that we understand that in american Higher Education, half the students, unfortunately, who go to colleges dont graduate. So, how could we increase substantially Graduation Rates on the one hand and it also means that we need to think about, what does it mean to be an educated person, to understand, quite frankly, that it takes more than simply sending students through classes, that were trying to touch the hearts and the mind of people. It means that we have kind of a selffulfilling prophesy which says when students are coming to our institutions, we want to make sure that we succeed. Most people who go to college when the dean or president said look to the student to your left, to the right, one of you will not graduate. Thats a terrible thing to say to young people, or people not so young. Look to the left and right, all three of you graduate, if we dont, its a matter of fault. A matter of having a patience as an institution, but as you say, as an individual to know you dont make substantive progress overnight. When you talk about improving Graduation Rates or discussing what it means to be educated or helping people understand how to work with people different from themselves, it takes time to shape a culture, to make for success. And so for leaders who are going through this process, how do you know when youre on that right path of shaping the culture . How do you know . Sure. Because sometimes you need those benchmarks. To let you know youre going in the right direction or you need to change direction. You know, i use the quotes from eric weiners book, the sea we swim in. You dont appreciate it until you get out of it and look back at it. I would suggest and the book suggests my colleagues, henderson, and the coauthors and i all are saying we have to get out of the culture, we have to step out of it and look back at whats going on and when thinking about success and how successful we are, the two approaches that we have worked on for years, are analytics, use of data in looking at trends and disaggravating the data, and looking at women and people of color, number one, and number two, looking at majors of students and their economic backgrounds. But number two, doing focus groups. I have learned over these years, my colleagues and i agree that the best way to understand whats going on, beyond looking at data, which can seem a little cold, is getting to listen to the voices of people, of the students, of our colleagues, whats working, whats not working, to understand what is, quite frankly, sometimes very challenging to understand what excites them. Its in that listening process that we learn more about who we are and what the challenges are. I think one of the fascinating things, one of the many fascinating things thats happening at the university of maryland, baltimore county, under your leadership is how youve reshaped what people see when they look at unbc. This was a university that prior to you, frankly, felt like, it was a sleepy Commuter School, and now were talking about, you know, a community that is leading the nation in many ways, in how its training and teaching scientists and mathematicians and engineers, and particularly, were not talking about scientists and mathematicians and earning engineers, but people are color, and talk to us how that transition took place from going again, a sleepy Commuter School to now being, as many people, you know, blissfully and joyfully nickname, the nerd factor factory. [laughter]. The house of grit. Sure, sure, we talked about our first 20, 25 years when we were not wellknown and in many ways we were still commuting and not become residential as we are now. In the first years, i want to make that point. Faculty were working hard and faculty and staff building a foundation to make sure the enterprise was sound and it was in that steth, we ha setting, weve got something to build on visibility. And we have a campus with students from over 100 countries. In new york, the fact when you walk down the corridor from our campus, youll see students from all over the world. It feels like the u. N. If people talk about us in science and engineering, we le lead blacks going on to get the degrees. The media people always love the science and engineering and those important, but im excited our classes in greek and latin are full at 8 00 in the morning, for example, that we have students in the art. That we get to the American College theater festival and we have so many students studying language and culture. Im studying french now, an ive got students speaking french to me. And stem is important and sciences is important and i bring it up, something we say in the book, we as a society have to appreciate the fact its not one area of discipline and other, versus another. Its not stem versus nonstem. Its how do we integrate these, and how do we teach our future scientists for ethics, and how do we have digital and technology. Apart of looking at the mirror in the university and a mirror of society how do we teach our students, they can be proficient in a number of areas, study language and culture and math and it book is coming at a powerful time. Weve never seen the university as a system under such attack. Yes. The virtue of Higher Education, about why people need that, more training and so on, so forth. Jobs. Future. How, when you think about the empowered university. Whats your response to that critique or that criticism and whats the role of the empowered university to counter that type of rhetoric . Sure. I think when an institution is empowered and we are feeling that sense of empowerment on our own campus, were able to look at the big picture. The big picture should say, its not for everyone, and a lot of students dont want a liberal setting. They might want post opportunities, and number two, we may appreciate the value of communities colleges. Theyre educating almost half of all students in america and as a university, we theede to be connecting with k through 12, with Community Colleges and understanding whats happening in the postsecondary world and so we talk about being empowered to appreciate the genius of the and, versus the all. It means its not one thing or the other, its not universities or liberal arts colleges or its that American Colleges are rich and diverse with all the different types of institutions. When people ask me if Higher Education matters, my First Response is absolutely. Excuse me in fact, i say if you show me a family that has seen some success in college, at least someone has gone on and got a College Degree and got a job. We will see a family that others want to do. I dont see families in success in colleges and universities saying no, we dont need this anymore. The challenge we face that most dont realize. Only about 30 of americas families have experienced college graduation. If youve not experienced it, you dont really appreciate what it can do for your family to move into the middle class. Two things we need to be saying that the book talks about, empowered to say to our nation and beyond, Higher Education matters, absolutely. Were creating citizens, were teaching people how to think critically. Were teaching them the importance of civic engagement, all of these things that we do at unbc that all the other institutions do, but at the same time we should be empowered to look at self in the mirror and say, but we can be much better. Theres more that we can do. When you think about theres more that we can do. Yes. I cant help, but think about, your own personal story and your own personal journey. You know, a journey that brought you from alabama to maryland and now leading one of the most prestigious and forward looking universities in the world. Can you tell us a bit about your journey and the role that education played in that journey . I appreciate that. I am a very fortunate to have been a part of the childrens march in birmingham and to be the child of educators, and so all of my life, ive loved reading and math and thats what i want for every child is to appreciate the meaning of words and to understand their connections across these disciplines, and so i i am very fortunate to be at a university that allows me to get to know people from all over the world. I could never have imagined as had a black kid growing up in birmingham in the 50s and 60s that i would be at a university that had people from every continent. Because what im able to see on our campus at umbc, that is so remarkably inspiring is people from countries that are so different in many ways and yet, my students come and they appreciate what they have in common. They appreciate cultural differences, but they also appreciate that 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 lead, and so, i think of my own journey as one where i had the chance to be around dr. King and the children and to go to jail and to have that experience as a little child leader in that Civil Rights Movement who then was inspired to understand that through community and through values, we as a university can prepare people to lead in civic engagement, in stem work, in the arts and in other areas, so, my journey, actually the year that i had the honor to march with dr. King and the other children is the same year my university at umbc was founded in 1963 by the maryland legislature. So, we are together and ive been there at the university over 30 years. I would also say for public Higher Education and private Higher Education as we tell our stories, the question has to be who are the people who are giving us support, whether its our donors, our alumni, but empowered also means looking at context. So, for every public institution, its looking at the context of one state, were fortunate in maryland and i say this around the country, to have a governor and a legislature who come from heavily from different parties. Political parties and they work well together the way that american democracy is meant it work. And so, our political leaders, our elected officials, the governor and the legislators work very closely to ensure that 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 of the economy of our families will be closely connected to the quality of education and Higher Education. And you talked about how if you look at umbc, the student body is so many different places. Yes. They arent just people from baltimore nor just from maryland or the united states. Right. This is a Global Community. Yes. What was your first exposure to the Global Community . And how did it change you . I had the privilege of studying in egypt. My girl friend at the time, now wife, studied in egypt as Exchange Students from Hampton University from virginia, at university of cairo. There were students from all over the world there and it was the first time i was in an environment where people first didnt speak english except for those at the university often did not speak english and where i began to learn some things about another culture, another religious, about the arabic language. But most important, to see how people viewed us as americans, and as africanamericans. And it was a broadening experience in many ways, and it led me to appreciate what unbc does today as we work to encourage more and more of our students to have experiences abroad, as we have more and more students who come to us, as we have faculty from all over the world and the most important thing i tell americans all the time is, for us to first appreciate the beauty of the american democracy, but secondly, to appreciate the responsibility we have in this country, in this most privileged of countries to understand human kind, and to reach out to other people with a sense of welcoming to say that we are all a part of this human race. And how much of your education was that . I mean, when you think about your leadership and your impact on me and on so many others. Sure. Its an all encompassing love. Its a love of accepting people where they are. And bringing them all along this, in this conversation. So theres a formalized education and then theres something that you really touch on, which is the informal education. Yes, yeah. Of the exposure. Sure. Can you talk a little more about that. Sure, and my experiences were shaped, being in egypt and beloved hampton and virginia, and my grand alma mater, university in champlain and understanding that the world was predominantly white in my world in birmingham and at my college, while we have professors from other races the fact is my world had primarily been africanamerican and i began to see the things at university at champlain and prepared me for the umbc experience. Its the only university founded at such a time that people of all races to go, to come there and at that time we were talking black and white. In the beginning we werent an an institution from different races, but this is what i saw around the country and worked to improve on at umbc, this is a controversial point, but ill make it. We have desegregated now in that we have students of all races at all types of institutions, but we have not truly integrated and at this point in my life, i have to tell the truth. If you go to most places, you see people like themselves. And of course, with the background, we should appreciate self. The question we should ask, as we talked about empowered university and empowered society are we teaching our young people how to interact substantively with people different from themselves . And this is one of the strengths of umbc. We work really hard both in the classroom and beyond the classroom to do one thing. We say this to students from the beginning, yet beyond your comfort zone. You dont want to know people just from your own race and background. You want to know all 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. Yet, as we say success is never final we can always be better. So empowered university, empowered to be better than we are. We saw that perfectly on display and i say this as a native baltimoreian and still a resident of baltimore, we saw that perfectly on display after the uprising around the death of freddie gray. Yes. And the leadership role that you personally played, the leadership role that umbc played, and the fact that you really called on our society to do exactly what you just said, to understand the interconnectedness of all of our joy and interconnectedness of all of our pain. Can you talk a little 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 . Ill never forget coming to campus one day, during the period we were so worried about the children of baltimore and citizens there, and that was a large sign up over one of the buildings and it said, we are baltimore, too. Too and my students put it up. Our campus is in the suburbs, adjacent to the airport, 600 acres. We were not physically connected to whats going on in the city, but we were emotionally and you can see the downtown. And my staff and working to be connected and supportive. People dont realize that baltimore is the site this baltimore region the site of some of the most educated

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