The Meyerhoff Scholars Program is a program at the

University of Maryland, Baltimore County The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) is a Public university, public research university in Catonsville, Maryland named after Baltimore County, Maryland, Baltimore County. It had a fall 2022 enrollment of 13,991 students, 61 un ...

(UMBC) designed to prepare minority students for academic careers in the

science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

technology Technology is the application of Conceptual model, conceptual knowledge to achieve practical goals, especially in a reproducible way. The word ''technology'' can also mean the products resulting from such efforts, including both tangible too ...

engineering Engineering is the practice of using natural science, mathematics, and the engineering design process to Problem solving#Engineering, solve problems within technology, increase efficiency and productivity, and improve Systems engineering, s ...

and

math Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

(

STEM Stem or STEM most commonly refers to: * Plant stem, a structural axis of a vascular plant * Stem group * Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics Stem or STEM can also refer to: Language and writing * Word stem, part of a word respon ...

) disciplines. The program has served as a model for developing and supporting minority students pursuing academic careers.

History

The program was founded at the UMBC in 1988 with a $500,000 grant from the Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Foundation, under the guidance of future UMBC President Freeman A. Hrabowski III. In the program's first year, it admitted only male

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

students; female African American students were admitted in the program's second year. In 1997, the program opened to students of all races who were interested in supporting the advancement of minorities in academia, following the 1995 U.S. Supreme Court decision ruling the Benjamin Banneker Scholarship Program, another UMBC scholarship which had been only open to African American students, unconstitutional.

Education Research

The Meyerhoff Scholars Program is noted for its success in increasing the representation of minority students in STEM. In an attempt to determine whether this model can be replicated at large universities, two scholarships were founded at other universities in 2013: the Chancellor's Science Scholarship at the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC, UNC–Chapel Hill, or simply Carolina) is a public university, public research university in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States. Chartered in 1789, the university first began enrolli ...

, and the Millennium Scholars Program at

Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsyl ...

Notable alumni

Jerome Adams Jerome Michael Adams (born September 22, 1974) is an American Anesthesiology, anesthesiologist and a former Vice admiral (United States), vice admiral in the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, U.S. Public Health Service Comm ...

: anesthesiologist and the 20th

surgeon general of the United States The surgeon general of the United States is the operational head of the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (PHSCC) and thus the leading spokesperson on matters of public health in the federal government of the United States. T ...

Kizzmekia Corbett Kizzmekia "Kizzy" Shanta Corbett (born January 26, 1986) is an American viral immunologist. She is an Assistant Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Shutzer Assistant Professor a ...

: viral immunologist at the

NIAID The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID, ) is one of the 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. NIAID's mis ...

(

NIH The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in 1887 and is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Service ...

) who helped develop one of the COVID-19 vaccines *

Kafui Dzirasa Kafui Dzirasa (born 1978) is an American psychiatrist and Associate Professor at Duke University. He looks to understand the relationship between neural circuit malfunction and mental illness. He was a 2019 AAAS Leshner Fellow and was elected Fe ...

: psychiatrist and professor at

Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...

* Lola Eniola-Adefeso: Chemical Engineer and the University Diversity and Social Transformation Professor at the

University of Michigan College of Engineering The University of Michigan College of Engineering (branded as Michigan Engineering) is the engineering school of the University of Michigan, a public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan. History The college was founded in 1854, with co ...

* Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman: activist, writer, economist, and co-founder and former CEO of the Sadie Collective * Crystal C. Watkins Johansson: neuroscientist, psychiatrist, and professor at

Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine (JHUSOM) is the medical school of Johns Hopkins University, a Private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Established in 1893 following the construction of the Johns Ho ...

References

External links

The Meyerhoff Scholars Program 30th Anniversary CelebrationChancellor's Science ScholarshipPenn State Millennium Scholars Program

Meyerhoff Scholars Program records, 1989-2008
at the

{{UMBC University of Maryland, Baltimore County Student financial aid in the United States Scholarships in the United States

History

Education Research

Notable alumni

References

Further reading

External links