Pioneering educator Freeman Hrabowski to address Wheaton Class of 2007
January 24, 2007
Freeman Hrabowski III, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), and a leading advocate for high-achieving minority students in science, will address the Class of 2007 at Wheaton's 172nd Commencement on May 19, 2007.
Joining Hrabowski on the dais will be honorary degree recipients Deborah Bial, president and founder of the Posse Foundation; Robert Herbert, op-ed columnist for The New York Times; and Kathleen O'Donnell, a Massachusetts attorney and member of the Class of 1977.
President of UMBC since 1992, Hrabowski is also the founder of that university's Meyerhoff Scholars Program, which combines intensive study with hands-on research opportunities and mentoring, and which produces the nation's largest number of minority students who go on to graduate school in the sciences. His research and publications focus on science and math education, with special emphasis on minority participation and performance. Hrabowski is the co-author of two books, Overcoming the Odds: Raising Academically Successful African American Young Women and Beating the Odds: Raising Academically Successful African American Males.
Hrabowski serves as a consultant to the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and universities and school systems nationally. He sits on several corporate and civic boards, including those of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Urban Institute.
His recent awards and honors include election to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the American Philosophical Society; receiving the prestigious McGraw Prize in Education, the U.S. Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring, and the Columbia University Teachers College Medal for Distinguished Service; and being named a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
A child-leader in the Civil Rights Movement, Hrabowski was featured in Spike Lee's 1997 documentary, Four Little Girls, based on the racially motivated bombing in 1963 of Birmingham's Sixteenth Street Baptist Church.
At the age of 19, he graduated from Hampton Institute with highest honors in mathematics. He went on to receive an M.A. in mathematics and a Ph.D. in higher education administration and statistics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Honorary degree recipient Kathleen O'Donnell '77 is a civil attorney with the Albert J. Marcotte Law Firm of Lowell, Mass. She was named one of the 12 most influential attorneys in Massachusetts by the National Law Journal and in 1992 she received the Lawyer of the Year Award from the Greater Lowell Bar Association. The first woman president of the Massachusetts Academy of Trial Attorneys, O'Donnell is also past president of the Massachusetts Bar Association.
Deborah Bial directs the Posse Foundation, which trains student leaders from public high schools to form multicultural ''posses.'' These teams are then prepared for enrollment at top-tier colleges and universities, including Wheaton College. Over the past 17 years, the program has placed more than 1,500 students at institutions of higher learning, where they have pursued academic study and helped to promote cross-cultural communication and build community.
Prior to joining The New York Times, Robert Herbert was a national correspondent for NBC, where he reported for ''The Today Show'' and ''NBC Nightly News.''
Located in Norton, Mass., Wheaton is a selective co-educational college of the liberal arts and sciences with a student body of 1,550. Wheaton students have won more than 50 prestigious academic awards since 2001, including three Rhodes Scholarships, four Watson Fellowships and numerous Fulbrights.