Qualla: University of Maryland, Baltimore County

University of Maryland, Baltimore County: Introduction

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Scott218, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Warfield Commission, appointed by Maryland Governor J. Millard Tawes in 1960, returned with a plan to add three new university centers to the state. The 1963 Maryland Legislature approved the proposal, and by year's end the state had purchased 435 acres from Spring Grove State Hospital, a psychiatric facility in Catonsville. The new campus opened to students in 1966 with seven hundred undergraduates, a handful of faculty, and an entirely undeveloped sense of identity. The University of Maryland, Baltimore County was sited on free land taken from a state hospital, surrounded by no political constituency, and given a county name that made it sound like a two-year community college rather than a doctoral institution. It was, in nearly every respect, set up to fail. Sixty years later it is a Carnegie R1 research university, the leading producer of Black students who go on to earn MD-PhDs in the country, and the institution where the Retrievers basketball team became the first 16-seed to beat a 1-seed in the NCAA tournament's history.

Image: Scott218 | CC BY-SA 3.0

University of Maryland, Baltimore County: An Unlikely Founding

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Scott218, CC BY-SA 4.0. The early years were precarious. UMBC opened in 1966 as a commuter campus with no clear mission beyond absorbing overflow from the College Park flagship. Its first chancellor, Albin Owings Kuhn, was an administrator from College Park who arrived without political backing. The 196...

Image: Scott218 | CC BY-SA 4.0

University of Maryland, Baltimore County: Hrabowski's Three Decades

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NASA Goddard Photo and Video, Public domain. Freeman A. Hrabowski III became president in May 1992 and stayed for thirty years. Hrabowski, who had been arrested at age twelve during a 1963 civil rights march in his hometown of Birmingham, came to UMBC with a specific theory of the case: a public university could become worl...

Image: NASA Goddard Photo and Video | Public domain

University of Maryland, Baltimore County: The Retrievers

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Alantheodoresherman, CC BY-SA 3.0. On March 16, 2018, in the first round of the NCAA men's basketball tournament, the UMBC Retrievers - a 16 seed in the East region - beat the University of Virginia, the 1 seed and overall top seed in the tournament. The final was 74-54. It was the first time in 136 attempts since...

Image: Alantheodoresherman | CC BY-SA 3.0

University of Maryland, Baltimore County: Research Themes

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Scott218, CC BY-SA 3.0. UMBC's research portfolio focuses on areas where its location and partnerships have given it specific advantages. Three Joint Centers operate in collaboration with NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, twelve miles east in Greenbelt - the Joint Center for Earth Systems Technology, th...

Image: Scott218 | CC BY-SA 3.0

University of Maryland, Baltimore County: A Campus Built In

Mon, 01 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Scott218, CC BY-SA 4.0. UMBC's 500-acre campus sits in southern Catonsville, three miles outside the Baltimore city limits but using a Baltimore mailing address - the university successfully lobbied for that designation in its early years to compensate for the inconvenient county name. Academic Row runs...

Image: Scott218 | CC BY-SA 4.0