Savoy Magazine’s new “Power 300” summer issue highlights UMBC’s “inclusive excellence and STEM innovation at 50” in a vivid five-page education feature. UMBC is “a campus deeply committed to pushing America to change the culture of STEM to be more inclusive,” notes writer Meta Mereday, who describes how, over the past 50 years, UMBC has become “an innovation hub for STEM education and entrepreneurship” in the U.S.

As UMBC President Freeman Hrabowski describes in the article, UMBC’s commitment to inclusive excellence can be felt across the university. “We are a national model that shows how people of all races can work together and solve problems of humankind,” he shares. “Students of all backgrounds here at UMBC work together to address global challenges — from economic development and environmental research to cybersecurity and health disparities.”

Read the full story on the UMBC News site.

Nine women’s basketball team members visited New Era middle school in South Baltimore to play ball with students in the Higher Achievement program. This is the second summer the Retrievers have spent time with Higher Achievement students. Andi Goodwin, a Higher Achievement mentor and academic advisor at UMBC, forged the connection, which is a powerful example of UMBC’s commitment to community partnerships.

Warren Wiggins, manager of instruction for Higher Achievement at New Era, says that when UMBC visits, the middle schoolers “get excited about college. They learn that student-athletes are students first.”

The benefits go both ways. Working with younger students encourages the athletes to “step outside of themselves for a moment,” says Goodwin. “It affords them a chance to see what doors their talent opens up for them.”

During a question and answer session after drills and a scrimmage, the youngsters quizzed the UMBC players about college life as varsity athletes. “It’s one thing to play basketball with them,” says point guard Emily Russo ’17, biology, “but we’re more than just basketball players.” She hopes she and her teammates made that clear to their new mentees.

“I feel like you build a relationship,” says power forward Pandora Wilson ’17, health administration and public policy. “If they’re listening, they’re applying what they’ve learned here and maybe they’re taking away something that’s more than just the usual words.”

The New Era principal has invited the UMBC team return this fall to meet with the school’s basketball team—a request they’ll happily oblige.

UMBC participating teammates: Laura Castaldo, Chukwuma Chiamaka, Amanda Hagaman, Kayla Hinderlie, Allison McGrath, Tyler Moore, Te’yJah Oliver, Emily Russo, Pandora Wilson

Learn more in The Baltimore Sun: UMBC women’s basketball players share more than their sport

Image: UMBC women’s basketball players practice with middle school students in the Higher Achievement program at New Era Middle School; photo UMBC Athletics.

Sitting across from Sylvia Nathanson ’71, social work, it’s hard not to see the spark that propelled her in her late forties to become one of UMBC’s first returning students – and led her to a prominent role in educating thousands of social workers as the longtime dean of admissions at the University of Maryland School of Social Work.

She is 98 years old now, but Nathanson’s memories of the university’s formative years remain vivid. “It was a time of great protests,” she says. “There were many speeches all the time. I remember my first biology class, and the head of the protestors was my lab partner.”

Nathanson began taking classes at the age of 46 at Baltimore Junior College (now Baltimore City Community College). In 1968, she was encouraged to transfer to UMBC. She found the university “a wonderful place to be. People were warm and accepting. Helpful. The older student was welcomed.”

Juggling her roles as a mother to two daughters and as a student took discipline and focus, UMBC was accommodating. “I never took a class before nine o’clock or after two o’clock,” she says.

Nathanson did participate in a formative experience for many UMBC students: study abroad. In the 1969 January session (dubbed the “minimester” in that era), Nathanson accompanied Walter Sherwin – now emeritus professor of ancient studies – and a group of her fellow students on a trip to London, Paris, and Rome.

Nathanson recalls hearing about the three-week study course a few months before the trip. “I looked over at the person sitting opposite me, and I said, ‘Golly, that’s a wonderful idea! Why don’t you do it?’ And she looked me square in the eye and said, ‘Why don’t you?’ And I did.”

The trip pushed the first-time traveler in unexpected ways. “We had a flat front bus, and we were riding down a narrow road [in Italy], and everybody took a turn riding in front to see the water below,” Nathanson remembers. “Now I was someone who didn’t like the water and didn’t like heights. But one of the students piped up and said: ‘Everyone’s had a turn. But Sylvia hasn’t had a turn.’ And they put me right up front. And I grew. It sounds ridiculous. But I grew tremendously during that experience.”

Sherwin remembers the minimester trips and their beneficial effects on students. “It expanded the horizons for a lot of people,” he says.

Nathanson soon put the growth she experienced as a student and world traveler to even more beneficial uses. She says she found her calling when Ruth Young, the legendary dean of the University of Maryland School of Social Work, came to UMBC to recruit students. “Dean Young came to campus to explain how she envisioned a bachelor’s degree in social work,” she recalls. “She was really explaining social work that day. After that, there was never a question.”

Young’s advocacy helped created a powerful new program at UMBC. “Once it got going,” says Nathanson, “the [social work] program became tremendously popular. Because there was such a need for it.”

After graduating cum laude from UMBC, Nathanson worked as a social worker at Baltimore City Hospitals (now Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center). “UMBC had given me a sense of community and organization,” she says. “And being older, I was able to render a social work service and pulled the community in.”

After five years, however, Nathanson went back to school again, this time to get her master’s degree in social work at the University of Maryland School of Social Work. “The master’s people had something different,” she says. “They had something I wanted. So I took a leave of absence and went to the master’s program.”

Nathanson was a fixture at the School of Social Work after obtaining her advanced degree, eventually becoming the dean of admissions. She encouraged and enrolled many graduates of UMBC in the school and helped them on in their social work careers.

“I followed the UMBC alumnae,” Nathanson recalls. “I have a particular skill. I never forget a name, and that comes in handy.”

—Richard Byrne ’86