Maryland Business

Freeman Hrabowski’s innovative approach to education is what brought him in to The Daily Record for a Newsmakers interview in April.

But the University of Maryland, Baltimore County president grabbed a bit of a bigger spotlight Sunday evening, as he was interviewed by Byron Pitts on “60 Minutes.”

Pitts opened with a question that The Daily Record did not ask, but one that many may wonder: “How does a black man get a name ‘Hrabowski’?”

(Short answer: His grandfather’s grandfather was a Polish slavemaster in rural Alabama.)

The question wasn’t even finished by the time it was met with Hrabowski’s affable, hearty laugh.

Hrabowski and some UMBC students interviewed on the program affirmed his “It’s cool to be smart” mantra, which he also emphasized in The Daily Record’s office. He added, in both interviews, that he gets “goosebumps” from doing math.

But despite the slightly larger audience, Hrabowski’s message about education, and getting students interested in careers in science and math remained the same.

Watch the piece on “60 Minutes” below:

And below you can see Hrabowski’s Newsmakers interview from April:

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The transformation of a former convent in Fells Point has led to two things – a newly renovated Cristo Rey Jesuit High School and an award of excellence for Mullan Contracting Co. for its construction.

Mullan received the award this month from the Baltimore chapter of the Associated Builders and Contractors for work at the school, located at 420 S. Chester St.

Renovations totaled $7.4 million and included the overhaul of the former Holy Rosary convent as well as installation of an elevator system and a three-story breezeway to connect the existing school building to the former convent.

Cristo Rey now has updated classrooms, a computer lab and library for its students, who come from some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods to study under a thorough college prep curriculum. Students also work in part-time jobs in the community, and employers pay the school directly, which funds their tuition as part of the school’s unique model.

The school has an enrollment of 320.

Mullen was founded in 1904 as a general contracting firm that specializes in commercial office, retail, hospitality, healthcare and institutional industries.

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A new library. Suites for college counseling sessions. Updated classrooms. High-tech laboratory space for science studies. These are among the academic pluses awaiting students at Cristo Rey Jesuit High School in Fells Point as part of a $7.4 million renovation to be unveiled Tuesday night.

The school, a coed college-prep academy for low-income city students sponsored by the Maryland Jesuits, has an enrollment of 320 who pay tuition ranging between $550 and $2,500 based on family income. Cristo Rey has grown since first opening in 2007 with 121 students in 9th grade only, said Mary Beth Lennon, a spokeswoman.

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Five billboards created by students at Patapsco High School and Center for the Arts for the “Create, Don’t Hate” project will be on display throughout Baltimore from now through the end of the month.

The project is part of the national Design Ignites Change campaign. Last fall a group of 31 students at Patapsco High worked with members of the Baltimore Chapter of AIGA, an association of graphic designers and artists, to create slogans and logos to encourage citizens to stop crime, prevent violence, care for the community, and develop tolerance.

Here are the five designs and students selected as finalists:

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Walden University, a private, for-profit online university that’s part of Baltimore-based Laureate International Universities, has teamed up with the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives to offer discounted tuition to members for graduate and undergraduate programs.

NOBLE, founded in 1976, is an organization that works to eliminate racism in the law enforcement field.  Specifically for NOBLE members, Walden’s School of Public Policy and Administration has added six new certificate programs — five graduate and one undergraduate — in public policy, criminal justice, homeland security and nonprofit management.

NOBLE is holding its 2010 conference in Baltimore –- it began Saturday and goes through today — which Walden is partly sponsoring.  Two program directors in Walden’s School of Public Policy and Administration presented workshops on criminal justice and nonprofit board management.

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Yesterday I wrote about Money Magazine’s list of its best small cities to live. Eden Prairie, Minn., edged out Ellicott City/Columbia for first place thanks to attributes like “gently rolling hills,” “plenty of outer beauty” and other idyllic, Midwestern traits of the type long chronicled by writers like Garrison Keillor.

But consider:

1. The magazine says one of the headlining reasons the Minnesota town wins is because it has “a dynamite economy.”  But then it turns around and says not only does Ellicott City/Columbia have a jobless rate “just as enviable as Eden Prairie’s,” but it is an “economic powerhouse.”  I’m not sure how dynamite compares quantitatively with a powerhouse, but by Money Magazine’s standards, the difference is apparently a measly .1 percent.  Come on.  Negligible at best.

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The growing push to convince search engine giant Google to build an ultra-fast broadband network in Baltimore has picked up a high-profile backer: Andres Alonso, CEO of the Baltimore City Public Schools.

And as befits such an endeavor, Alonso is smartly making his pitch via a high-tech platform, in this case a slickly produced piece of Web video uploaded to YouTube and Vimeo. In the 1:51 clip, Alonso, seated in his office, makes a direct appeal to Google to help boost the pace of academic improvement in city schools.

In too many cases, he says, “home access to the Internet is a costly luxury that is financially out of reach for hardworking parents.”

Damian “Chip” Dizard of Absolute Presence, a Baltimore Web design and multimedia firm, shot and edited the video.

Baltimore is just one city hoping to be a test market for the high-profile project, which Google unveiled Feb. 10. The Mountain View, Calif.-based company is asking for a request for information, or RFI, to identify government organizations and other groups that would be a good fit for the trial. Its application deadline is March 26.

The network is expected to deliver Internet speeds on fiber-optic cables more than 100 times faster than the Web access enjoyed by most Americans, but Google yet to release other details, such as the cost to build the network and what it would charge customers.

What started as a grassroots push among local techies appears to now be spreading to Baltimore’s public sector, which organizers say will be critical to earning Google’s nod.

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…and the other half is filled with sour milk. The Conference Board’s latest consumer confidence ratings were released Tuesday, and the future for many Americans is far from bright.

The index remained relatively flat in March at 26, up from 25.3 in February. (In 1985, the rating was 100.) The Present Situation Index declined to 21.5 from 22.3 last month while the Expectations Index increased to 28.9 from 27.3 in February.

“The Present Situation Index suggests that the overall state of the economy remains weak and that more job losses are on the horizon,” said Lynn Franco, director of the Conference Board Consumer Research Center. “Apprehension about the outlook for the economy, the labor market and earnings continues to weigh heavily on consumers’ attitudes. Looking ahead, consumers remain extremely pessimistic about the short-term future and do not foresee a turnaround in economic conditions over the coming six months.”

I’ve been wondering if these super-pessimistic numbers and indicators are somewhat inflated from the era of over-consumption we enjoyed before 2008. Compared to a time of surplus, of course people are staying pessimistic now. I liken it to when I start complaining about a 55-degree day in April when I would have been ecstatic with that weather three months before.

And another thing to note is that while people still have a negative outlook about the economy, it hasn’t seemed to gotten any worse in recent months. Have we hit our bottom?

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PC Magazine just released its list of the “Top Wired Colleges” for 2008, and a local name makes an appearance: Loyola College in Maryland. The school - soon to be re-christened Loyola University Maryland - is number 12 overall, in contrast to 2006, when it wasn’t even ranked.

Done in connection with the Princeton Review, the list identifies the schools with the “most comprehensive technology offerings.” And Loyola has some interesting company. For example, I expect MIT to be on the short list, but I’d expect it to be a lot higher than 20. And I’m curious how it fell so quickly from its number 2 position in the 2006 rankings.

So congratulations to our local school. The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign was number 1, for the record.

JOE BACCHUS, Web Specialist

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The U.S. News & World Report’s 2009 college rankings are out, and Maryland schools performed pretty well.

Hopkins is 15th overall among national universities — no great surprise there. The University of Maryland at College Park came in at No. 53.

Maryland’s liberal arts colleges should be proud. In the Liberal Arts Rankings, we had: the U.S. Naval Academy, 22; St. Mary’s College of Maryland, 84; Washington College, 94; and Goucher, 111. I know my dad will be pleased for the state. “It’s important to have a good liberal arts education,” he always says.

Take a look at the various ranking categories and see where your alma mater fell. And be sure to use the info to start arguments throughout your office for the rest of the day.

JOE BACCHUS, Web Specialist (graduate of No. 18)

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