The Meyerhoff Scholars program at the University of Maryland Baltimore County has been a huge success in increasing the number of Black and other minority students in STEM disciplines. More than half of all students enrolled in the program are African Americans.
Over the past 20 years, more than 900 Meyerhoff Scholars have graduated from the university and gone on to earned 423 graduate degrees in the sciences and 107 medical degrees. Freeman A. Hrabowski III, president of the University of Maryland Baltimore County, has been the driving force behind the success of the program.
Now the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase, Maryland, is allocating $7.75 million over the next five years in an effort to replicate the success of the Meyerhoff Scholars program at the University of Maryland Baltimore County at Pennsylvania State University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The funding will create a roadmap for success for the two additional universities to follow in an effort to achieve similar results.
The Meyerhoff program includes a summer bridge program for incoming students, hands on research opportunities, peer counseling, mentoring, and close monitoring of academic progress of the participating students.
