The Scholarships Unit has conducted its annual Academic Review for all merit scholar recipients.  Notifications to any student receiving a discontinuation notice, will be sent via e-mail as well as USPS mail.

Scholars with extenuating circumstances may appeal their scholarship discontinuation by submitting a Scholarship Discontinuation Appeal.

All scholars appealing their discontinuation must submit an appeal form by the published deadline. Appeals must include documentation to explain any extenuating circumstances that lead to the unsatisfactory academic results. The scholar must also have a detailed plan and timetable on how they will restore themselves academically with the Academic Plan Worksheet. The Scholarship Review Committee reserves the right to make individual decisions based on extenuating circumstance(s).

Please note: If the appeal is denied or no appeal is submitted by the published deadline, the scholarship will be permanently discontinued and cannot be reinstated.

The following information is required in order to complete the appeal request. Feel free to review the documents prior to accessing the on-line form.

1. Scholarships Appeal Statement – a personal statement explaining the reason(s) you failed to meet scholarship standards for the semester(s) as reflected on your transcript.
2. Scholarships Academic Plan Worksheet
3. Supporting Documentation – Documentation supporting the extenuating circumstance(s) listed in your appeal statement (i.e. hospital visits/bill, death certificate, etc). Time frames on your documentation should support the circumstance described in your statement.
   

The deadline for all Spring 2019 Scholarship Discontinuation Appeals is 4:00PM on Thursday, June 27, 2019 (for Spring 2019 discontinuations only).

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It is in a quite neighborhood in proximity to giant, Weis, and UMBC shuttle. Please contact me if you are interested, and want to check out the place.

Dr. Michael Summers is the Robert E. Meyerhoff Chair for Excellence in ​Research and Mentoring​; a Distinguished University Professor​; and an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Over the years, he has worked with dozens of Meyerhoff scholars in his lab. UMBC Magazine sat down with Summer​s to talk about his history with the Meyerhoff Scholars Program, now celebrating its 30th year.

UMBC Magazine:  Can you tell us what your involvement has been with the Meyerhoff Scholars Program over the years?

Mike Summers:  Well, I have no administrative role with the Meyerhoff program. I got started when [UMBC President] Freeman [Hrabowski] was vice provost, and I was an assistant professor. He called me up, and we talked about general things, like my life, my background. He said, “Thanks for meeting with me, and I remember leaving, thinking, “What was that about?” Then maybe a couple of months later, a young student, Chianna Paschall, came into my office and wanted to do research. I said, “What’s your GPA?” She said, “Well, I have a 4.0, and I’m a Meyerhoff Scholar.” And I said, “Oh, tell me. What is Meyerhoff?”

Then she ended up doing some very high-profile work that was published on the cover of a journal and now it’s in a lot of textbooks.  The next year, there were about four Meyerhoff scholars who wanted to work in my lab. And, now there are typically 20 or so undergraduates in my lab, including not only Meyerhoff Scholars, but MARC and BUILD scholars as well, along with UMBC students who aren’t in any particular program.

UMBC Magazine:  How do you make sure students are on the right track with their research?

Mike Summers:  What I try to do is get students to start talking to faculty about research after their first semester at UMBC. I encourage them to meet with different faculty, learn about their research, talk to students in the lab, find out if it’s an environment and the kind of research that they’re interested in. Do they think they could have a good rapport with a faculty member? I always say there are no bad mentors. There are just poor mentor-student dyads.

There are some faculty who probably would be terrific mentors to only a few students who need a certain type of mentoring. I think our best mentors are those that can adjust to a broader range of student needs. UMBC is fortunate because we’ve got lots of really terrific mentors and research labs, so students can choose from a multitude of really good opportunities. If a student comes and says they want to work in my lab, I first make sure that they’re on good academic footing because I tell them, “No matter what you want to do when you graduate, people are going to  look at your GPA first.”

UMBC Magazine:  How would you describe the effects of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program on the way you and others teach? And how has that changed over time?

Mike Summers:  Think about what happens when you intentionally put a group of 20 or 25 high-achieving minority students shoulder to shoulder in the front row of a classroom of 350 students. They are in their seats 10 minutes before class, asking good questions and typically doing extremely well on exams. It causes you to change the way you think about the abilities of minorities in science.  Prior to Meyerhoff, the well prepared minorities would be sprinkled around the class or sitting in the back. They didn’t stand out, and we tended not to notice or pay attention to them even when they did do well. As a white male who was raised in the South, I had my own set of prejudices and misconceptions when I started at UMBC. But I believe that people who go into academics typically do so because they want to do something good for society.  They generally want to do the right thing. So it’s a natural thing for us to see that kind of performance among minorities in our classrooms and laboratory, and then go home and look in the mirror and say, “Wow, I couldn’t have been more wrong in my thinking.” When that happens, faculty like me begin reaching out and communicating in different ways. Our expectations just naturally go up, for all students.

And I think the high visibility of the Meyerhoff Scholars also raises expectations among minorities who are not in the program. Consider a non-Meyerhoff who earns a C on their first entry-level chemistry exam; it’s not that they haven’t studied hard, but they don’t know how to study for a college-level exam. For me, it took years to figure out how to go from a C/B average to a B/A average. They get their first test back, and because they weren’t asked to just recite what they’ve been taught, as happens often in high school, they were asked to take what they’ve been taught and apply it in a way they’ve never seen before, and they don’t know how to do that yet.  Now, the sense of imposter syndrome creeps in.

So, I believe that the Meyerhoff program directly addresses imposter syndrome because these students look up in that front row and there are those Meyerhoff Scholars who are making As. Rather than thinking, “I don’t belong here. Society was right. I’ve been hearing this message my whole life,” they instead think, “Okay, what do I have to do differently?” They might go to the tutorial center and be tutored by somebody who looks like them and has common life experiences.  What our studies show is that the number of minorities who aren’t even in the program and graduate with science degrees has increased dramatically since Meyerhoff started, even for students who are not in the program. As the saying goes, a rising tide raises all the boats up.

UMBC Magazine:  Have you seen these changes happen beyond UMBC?

Mike Summers:  Fortunately, yes!  Over the years, lots of schools have visited UMBC and learned about our program, but they tended to pick and choose what they wanted to do. They had some success, but nothing like our success. A few years ago, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute funded a partnership experiment between UMBC, UNC, and Penn State.  The leadership at those schools expressed a willingness to “go all in.” It was a risky thing for HHMI to support: Freeman has shown what can be done at a majority school by a dynamic, charismatic black leader. The chief diversity officer at Penn State said, “This will never work here because parents of high-achieving black children will not trust us with their kids. They are so isolated. Their minority population is much, much lower than UMBC’s as a percentage, and they don’t have the history.” The question was, can it be done at different institutions with majority leadership and with different histories and different geographies?

Penn State and UNC agreed to try to replicate Meyerhoff as faithfully as they possibly could, and they got help not only from UMBC administrators, faculty, and staff, but even from Meyerhoff Scholars who visited their campuses and helped them recruit their first cohorts.   

The best news is that their outcomes dramatically exceeded expectations — reaching Meyerhoff-like academic performance, retention, and matriculation to Ph.D. and/or M.D./Ph.D. programs in their very first year.  Both programs are now institutionalized and supported by major endowments, and both continue to share ideas and outcomes with UMBC as we work together to strengthen our programs and show the rest of the nation how true inclusive excellence can be achieved.

Thirty years ago, Baltimore philanthropist Robert E. Meyerhoff came to then-UMBC vice provost Freeman Hrabowski with the seed of an idea: to create a program that would enable all students, regardless of background, access to the highest levels of science.

Last week, hundreds of Meyerhoff Scholars Program alumni filled an auditorium stage to thank Meyerhoff for his bold vision. They also came to share their own experiences as proof that he was right to believe in their potential and invest in their futures so many years ago.

Standing on the shoulders of giants

The night of gratitude kicked off an emotional weekend of fellowship and reflection celebrating the Meyerhoff Scholars Program’s 30th anniversary. Over the course of Friday evening, alumni and supporters shared stories of the successes they attribute to a community that believed in them from the start—one that in the words of poet Langston Hughes let them “hold fast to dreams.”

“Meyerhoffs are ‘all in’ types,” said Keith Harmon, director of the program. “Now as alumni, they are distinguishing themselves as STEM professionals, changing the face of the STEM workforce, and showing the world how right Bob Meyerhoff was to believe in them in the first place.”

Setting a national example

The first of its kind in the country, the Meyerhoff Scholars Program launched in 1989 with a small cohort of African American men interested in pursuing graduate degrees in science, engineering, and related fields. In the years that followed, the program expanded to include women and students of all backgrounds who were committed to increasing the representation of minorities in science and engineering.

 

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As we look forward to celebrating Bob Meyerhoff and #Meyerhoff30 this weekend, let’s first take a trip down memory lane, courtesy of our past cohorts! #TBT

A post shared by UMBC (@umbclife) on May 30, 2019 at 10:19am PDT

Today, more than 1,100 Meyerhoff alumni are changing the face of science across the country. The program is a national leader on the forefront of efforts to increase diversity in STEM fields, and UMBC is the nation’s number one producer of African American undergraduates who go on to earn M.D./Ph.D.s.

This spring, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative awarded $6.9 million to support a unique partnership to replicate UMBC’s program at UC San Diego and UC Berkeley. Earlier replication efforts at Pennsylvania State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, have already yielded tremendously impressive results.

Growth thrives in community

As alumni lined up on stage to share their stories, Kamili Jackson Shaw M5, ’97, M.S. ’99, mechanical engineering, talked about her first impressions of the program as an entering student.

“The Meyerhoff Scholars Program was the first time I had ever been around a critical mass of high-achieving African Americans, and it was extremely important to my growth as an individual,” said Shaw. Today, she leads the safety, quality, and management systems division for the NASA Stennis Space Center. “It gave me confidence and humility at the same time,” she says. “For the first time, I was able to simply ‘be.’”

Paying it forward

The night ended with what program alumni called a “Gesture of Gratitude”—the announcement of a $500,000 gift made by alums from across the decades to support the program. As impactful as the gift will be, it was also symbolic, matching Robert Meyerhoff’s original gift to UMBC. And they have no intention of stopping there.

“Sometimes you don’t understand legacy until you see the fruit of it, and 25 years later, I see the magnitude of the program,” says Felicia Sanders M4, ’96, chemical engineering. Sanders, a, leadership-level supporter of the program, says giving back “is a responsibility. It’s a necessity.”

“If someone hadn’t given to us,” she asks, “where would we be?”

Kellie McCants-Price M2, ’95, interdisciplinary studies, was in the first Meyerhoff class that included women, one year after its founding. “I didn’t realize how significant it was until about 10 years out,” says McCants-Price, who holds her Ph.D. in psychology. “I saw how prolific it was—how many women were graduating—and realized that we held the door open for them.”

Alums took to social media to share their memories and thoughts on the celebration, including U.S. Surgeon General Jerome M. Adams M4, ‘97, biochemistry and molecular biology.

I’ve shared that the first time I met a black doctor was when I was in college at @UMBC. That’s why I was so proud to attend the 30th anniversary celebration of the Meyerhoff program tonight. A ballroom packed full of minorities with MDs and PhDs. #RepresentationMatters pic.twitter.com/M8AcSwzQea

— U.S. Surgeon General (@Surgeon_General) June 2, 2019

The family connection

After Friday’s formal event, alumni gathered in the Event Center on Saturday for a family-style reunion. Many of them brought their children to enjoy a day of food, cohort cluster game competitions, networking, and campus tours. Later that evening, many also enjoyed a dance party hosted by the Meyerhoff Alumni Advisory Board.

Alumni left feeling re-connected as friends, as scholars—and ultimately, as part of a family.

Kafui Dzirasa M8, ’01, chemical engineering, summed up this sentiment as he thanked Robert Meyerhoff on Friday night. “What has increasingly become obvious to us—which you have known all along—is that the power of this community is us, working together as a family.”

 

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It was a great weekend celebrating #Meyerhoff30 and Bob Meyerhoff! Thank you to everyone who made it such a memorable celebration! @meyerhoffalumni

A post shared by UMBC (@umbclife) on Jun 4, 2019 at 6:41am PDT

Visit meyerhoff.umbc.edu/30th for more photos and information about the program.