USM Student Success

Each year, USM students are recognized as being among the nation’s elite scholars, artists, athletes, and innovators. At both the undergraduate and graduate level,
they have earned some of the highest honors available.

USM is immensely proud of these students and their accomplishments in and outside the classroom. Through their hard work and dedication, these students power
forward our institutions, our communities, and our state.

Bowie State University

•  Gabriel Ajiwe ‘16 was awarded a $5,000 scholarship through the prestigious Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarship. Ajiwe will study abroad in South Africa, where he will teach life skills to children from rural areas.

Salisbury University

•  A team of Salisbury University marketing students took home top honors in the Direct Marketing Association of Washington Education Foundation (DMAWEF)’s annual Collegiate MAXI Award Program.
•  Salisbury University management and marketing students in the Franklin P. Perdue School of Business were recognized among the nation’s best, participating in this semester’s global Business Strategy Game simulation.

Towson University

•  Destiny Watford '17 won the Goldman Environmental Prize for her community leadership in derailing plans to build a trash incinerator in Curtis Bay, Maryland.
• Sydney Dinetz ‘16, Zachary Sierakowski ‘16, Hammad Imran ‘17, Sara Bittner ‘18 and Jarrett Booz ’18 won $5,000 scholarships from the Mid-Atlantic CIO Forum, which aims to foster excellence in business and information technology in an environment that promotes educational and networking opportunities for CIOs facing similar challenges and issues.

•  Towson men’s and women’s lacrosse teams won their respective Colonial Athletic Association championships, each qualifying for an automatic bid in the NCAA Division I tournament. This is the second consecutive year the men’s team has won this title.

University of Baltimore

• Dale McClinton, Randi Brown, Shaneik Downs, and Ida Jadali won cybersecurity scholarships courtesy of T.E.N., a technology and information security executive networking and relationship-marketing firm; ISE Talent, an information security recruiting firm; and ICMCP, the International Consortium of Minority Cybersecurity Professionals.
• Sonce Reese ‘17, won a  2016 Newman Civic Fellow award, established to honor student leaders dedicated to creating lasting change and building a better world.
•  Muhammad Owais received a merit scholarship from The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board.

University of Maryland, Baltimore County

• Daniel Ocasio ‘17, Naomi Mburu ‘18, and Andreas Seas ’17 received Goldwater Scholarships. Mburu will spend the summer at the CERN laboratory in Switzerland.
• UMBC received at least six Fulbright awards for the upcoming year, including English teaching assistantships and research/study awards in countries such as Malaysia, Mexico, Germany, and Moldova.
• Six UMBC students/alumni received NSF Graduate Research Fellowships, including senior Gaurav Luthria, bioinformatics, who will complete a Ph.D. in bioinformatics and integrative genomics at Harvard Medical School.
• UMBC's Mock Trial team won the inaugural Charm City Classic and advanced to the Opening Round Championships (national semifinal) for the second consecutive year.
• Sabah Muktar '17, biological sciences, delivered opening remarks during President Obama's historic visit to a Baltimore mosque.
• Imaging and Digital Arts students Jeffrey Gangwisch, ’18, M.F.A., and Christopher Kojzar, are finalists for the 2016 Baker Artist Awards, along with visual arts professor Vin Grabill and alumni Richard Chisolm '82 and Stephanie Schafer '00.
• UMBC’s men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams won conference championships for the second consecutive year. Emily Escobedo ’17, psychology, won bronze in the 200m breaststroke at the NCAA finals, and Alexander Gliese ’19, mechanical engineering, captured a national title at the Danish Open by winning the 200m backstroke.
• UMBC’s Cyberdawgs won top prize in the 2015 Maryland Cyber Challenge.
• A team of UMBC environmental engineering students won a national competition hosted by the Association of Environmental Engineering and Science Professors (AEESP) to explain, through a video for K-12 students and general audiences, how environmental engineers protect public and ecological health.
• UMBC Soccer Goalkeeper Billy Heavner ’17 received the top academic honor in U.S. college sports, being selected to the 2015 Academic All-America Division I Men’s Soccer First Team by the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA).

University of Maryland, College Park

•  Adam Berger, Katherine Cordwell, Yousuf Khan, and Mark Moretto received Goldwater Scholarships.
• For the second consecutive year, a UMCP team won the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s fourth annual Campus RainWorks Challenge, a national design competition to develop innovative green infrastructure systems.

University of Maryland University College
 President Obama awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor to UMUC graduate student Florent Groberg for his bravery in tackling a suicide bomber in Afghanistan.

Student Success Initiatives at USM
USM is committed to seeing its students succeed. It is delivering on this commitment in a variety of important ways:

• Establishing/maintaining strong K-12 relationships to improve college readiness
• Enhancing partnerships with community colleges
• Providing multiple pathways to degrees
• Improving affordability

At the same time, USM’s William E. Kirwan Center for Academic Innovation is working with institutions within and outside the system to transform the traditional academic model to better meet students’ needs.

These efforts are paying off. A 2015 study of course redesign across USM revealed $5.7 million in cost savings. It also found that course redesign improved course passage rates for more than 10,000 students.