On this episode of The Report Card, Nat interviews Freeman Hrabowski. Nat and Freeman discuss Black students in STEM, the state of free speech on college campuses, university spending and how to keep costs down, whether high schools are doing a good enough job of preparing students for college, the NCAA tournament, campus culture, the value of collaborative teamwork, how to improve graduation rates, multibillion-dollar university endowments, and more.

Freeman Hrabowski served as president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) from 1992 until earlier this year. Under his leadership, UMBC became the nation’s number one college in terms of the number of Black students it graduates who later earn a Ph.D. in the natural sciences and engineering—an especially impressive feat when you consider that UMBC’s undergraduate enrollment is only about 11,000 and that Black students make up slightly less than 20% of that number. During Hrabowski's tenure, UMBC also more than doubled graduation rates, earned the #1 ranking in US News's list of up and coming universities for six consecutive years, and won the biggest upset in the history of March Madness.

Show Notes:

Meyerhoff Scholars Program

Replicating Meyerhoff for Inclusive Excellence in STEM

Meyerhoff at Berkeley and UCSD

Freeman Hrabowski on 60 Minutes

The Empowered University

Holding Fast to Dreams

Overcoming the Odds

Beating the Odds

UMBC Upsets UVA