The Four Pillars of College Success - Part Two

UMBC, the college that he is the president at now, was founded the same year that he went to jail and formed his philosophy. Since he arrived at the University, the whole system and educating style has been an experiment. His leading question was “Is it possible to have a university where people from all backgrounds can come together and be leaders?” The programs that have been implemented have been answering that question with a yes. The problem was that black students were not succeeding, many people in general were not succeeding. The largest group was the African Americans and followed by the Hispanic population.

UMBC is now lead University in the country in producing African Americans that further their education by getting doctorates and phDs.

The first steps of his plan were to strengthen the k-12 system and then strengthen engineering and science courses. I only heard three steps so I listed those below.

1. Having High Expectations and Having and Understanding That it is Hard Work

He mentioned a student that earned a c in a science course but still wanted to go to med school. The University  told to him to retake the course. He became the first to graduate with phD and now works at Harvard

He mentioned another woman that never missed a day of school, went on to attend John Hopkins University,l and is now getting a patent on a second form of viagra

2.  Building a community among the students

The University tries to teach students to work in groups and with each other.

3. Idea that it takes researchers to produce researchers

He said that he required the faculty have to want to be involved with the students

There was a snow storm in Baltimore, the main researcher came back to work in lab after a couple of days, and students had refused to leave the lab. Each one focused on their work because they didn’t just see the project as just a school assignment

Near the end of the presentation, he siad that Universities need to think about redesigning courses (academic innovation) because students are bored in class and they need to be engaged to want to learn. It works well to not  just give theories but have the students struggle to figure them out.

He ended with a quote from Aristotle; “Excellence is not an accident.....and “Choice, not chance, determines your destiny.” He emphasized the importance of students wanting and loving to learn. (415)