UMD: Incentive Awards Program Celebrates Two Decades Of Helping Underserved Students Succeed

Press release from University of Maryland - College Park:

May 14, 2021

    Launched in 2000, IAP provides a full scholarship and additional support to exceptional students who demonstrate academic ability, uncommon persistence, and maturity in overcoming challenges. Originally designed for students from Baltimore City, the program has grown to include Prince George’s and Montgomery Counties.    Each year, a group of students become part of a cohort that enters college as a close-knit unit to share information, collaborate, and learn from each other over the course of four years. After they graduate, they serve as role models and mentors, and many also hold positions at non-profits, schools and research institutions. This leadership is crucial to raising the aspirations of many young people in Maryland communities to include college in their future plans.   “The Incentive Awards Program is a vital part of our mission, providing opportunities for some of the most talented and dedicated students in our community to excel,” said UMD President   IAP has grown from nine students in its first cohort to the 22 students who will enter the university in August. Today, over 40 schools in Baltimore city, Prince George’s and Montgomery counties have sent students to UMD through IAP. Applications have soared from 35 to 214 as alumni have fanned out across the country in myriad careers, said Jackie Wheeler Lee, director of IAP.   “Since the inception, the program has grown exponentially,” said Lee. “I think this demographic is really critical. These students bring important experiences to campus––stories of perseverance, resilience, and triumph.”   Half of IAP Scholars have studied abroad and several have been inducted into honor societies. In addition to an 84 percent graduation rate, about 40 percent of IAP graduates have completed or are pursuing graduate studies at institutions such as Cornell University, Georgetown University and Johns Hopkins University.   The program, modeled after a similar one at the University of California, Berkeley, was created by former UMD President C.D. Mote, Jr., who saw that in the 1998’s incoming class of 4,000 freshmen only 40 were from public high schools in Baltimore City.   “In a scholarship program, students just get money to help pay their bills but there’s no attempt by a scholarship program to change the culture of the student’s experience,” said Mote. “That’s what inspired me to create the Incentive Awards Program.”    Recently, the program was boosted by a $6.8 million gift from a Chicago couple, who made the largest gift to IAP and to the Maryland Promise Program, created by a 2017 investment from the A. James and Alice B. Clark Foundation.

This press release was produced by the University of Maryland - College Park. The views expressed here are the author’s own.