Leader in STEM education to speak at liberal arts and engineering symposium

Publication Date

Freeman Hrabowski III, a prominent leader in science and math education, will deliver the keynote address at the College's annual symposium on integrating a liberal education with engineering.

The two-day symposium kicks off Friday, June 3, and will feature a number of presentations and workshops that explore pedagogical approaches to teaching engineering in a liberal arts context.

Hrabowski's talk, "Inclusive Excellence Across the Disciplines," is at 6 p.m. Friday in the Nott Memorial. A reception is at 5 p.m.

President of UMBC (University of Maryland, Baltimore County) since 1992, Hrabowski is a consultant to national agencies, universities and school systems.

He was selected by President Obama to chair the new President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans. He also chaired the National Academies’ committee that produced the report, “Expanding Underrepresented Minority Participation: America’s Science and Technology Talent at the Crossroads.”

Hrabowski has been named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World by TIME and one of America’s Best Leaders by U.S. News & World Report.

UMBC has been recognized as a national leader in academic innovation and undergraduate teaching.

Born in segregated Birmingham, Ala., Hrabowski was a child leader in the civil rights movement. In 1963, when he was 12, Hrabowski participated in the Children’s Crusade march. He was arrested and spent five days in jail. He appeared in Spike Lee’s 1997 documentary, “Four Little Girls,” about the racially motivated bombing in 1963 of Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.

Hrabowski is the author of “Holding Fast to Dreams: Empowering Youth from the Civil Rights Crusade to STEM Achievement.”

To learn more about Hrabowski, click here.

This marks the ninth year the College has hosted a conference on integrating engineering and the liberal arts. The event has attracted national attention, including a feature in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Among the schools and companies represented at previous symposiums are IBM, General Electric, California Polytechnic State University, Princeton, Dartmouth, Swarthmore, Lafayette, U.S. Military Academy and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

In 1845, Union became the first liberal arts college to offer engineering in response to the needs of a nation characterized by rapid industrial and urban growth.

This year’s symposium is funded in part by the Laurence W. Levine ’52 and Barry Traub ’53 Endowed Lecture Fund.