Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski III, the renowned president of the University of Maryland Baltimore County who has built a national reputation for educating minority students in the sciences, has been named by Time magazine as one of the most influential leaders in the world.
On Wednesday, Time magazine released its 2012 Top 100 Most Influential People list, which included foreign heads of state, celebrities, activists and others.
“I accept this as a wonderful award on behalf of the whole campus,” Hrabowski said, according to the Baltimore Sun. “My success and the campus’ success are the same. People appreciate what we’ve done at the university, and I enjoy telling the story.”
Hrabowski, a 61-year-old mathematician, has led the UMBC campus for more than two decades. He is best known as a co-founder of the Meyerhoff Scholars programs, which has been responsible for catapulting hundreds of minority STEM undergraduates into Ph.D. and medical programs.
Dr. William E. Kirwan, chancellor of Maryland’s university system, told the Baltimore Sun that Hrabowski’s leadership in the STEM disciplines and educating minority students has been innovative not only in Maryland higher education but across the nation.
“You can hardly think of a better positive force for advancing educational opportunities in America than Freeman Hrabowski,” Kirwan told the Sun.
“There’s just so many dimensions to his influence. You have a person who has had a direct impact on the lives of thousands of students, but he’s also had a profound influence on countless tens of thousands of others just by his charismatic, powerful message and his commitment to quality and inclusion,” Kirwan said, according to the Sun.
Editor’s Note: Dr. Freeman Hrabowski was the cover story subject of Diverse: Issues In Higher Education magazine in the November 10, 2011 edition. The cover story can be read here.
