This leadership series features University of Maryland, Baltimore County President Valerie Sheares Ashby in conversation with Tyrone “Doc T” Taborn. The series explores legacy, inclusive excellence, and the future of higher education through the lens of values-driven leadership.
In the first two parts of this series, we examined the forces that shaped Valerie Sheares Ashby—the legacy she inherited and the foundation that formed her.
What becomes clear in conversation, however, is that she is far less interested in looking back than she is in defining what comes next. When asked about the future of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Ashby does not begin with rankings, funding models, or even institutional competition. She begins with purpose.
“The future isn’t something we wait for,” she says. “It’s something we build.”
She says it plainly, without emphasis, as if it were obvious. But in a moment when many universities are reacting to external pressures—political, economic, cultural—her framing suggests something different. It suggests agency.
Ashby sees UMBC not as an institution trying to hold its place, but as one positioned to extend its reach. The university’s standing—now among the top five percent of research institutions in the country, with both Carnegie R1 designation and recognition for community engagement—does not signal arrival. In her view, it signals readiness.
“Those designations matter,” she acknowledges. “But they’re not the goal. They tell us we have the capacity to do more—and to do it in a way that connects research to real-world impact.”
That connection, she believes, will define the next phase of higher education. For Ashby, the traditional boundaries between research, teaching, and public engagement are no longer sustainable. The future requires integration.
“If our work doesn’t extend beyond the campus,” she says, “then we’re not fully meeting our responsibility. The question is how what we discover, what we teach, and how we partner all reinforce each other.”
It is a shift in emphasis—from accumulation to application. From producing knowledge to ensuring that knowledge matters. In that context, Ashby is careful about how she uses the word “excellence.” It is a term that appears often in higher education, sometimes without definition. She pauses slightly when asked what it should mean going forward. “I think we have to be honest about that,” she says. “Excellence can’t just be about output anymore. It has to be about relevance. Are we solving problems that matter?"
Are we preparing students for the world they’re actually going into?
That question brings her quickly to students—not as a talking point, but as the center of the institution’s future. “The students we’re educating today are going to inherit challenges that don’t fit neatly into one discipline,” she explains. “So we have to think differently about how we prepare them. They need to be able to move across fields, to work with people who think differently, to approach problems that don’t have clear answers.”
At UMBC, that translates into expanding undergraduate research opportunities, strengthening pathways into graduate education, and creating environments where students are not waiting until their final year to engage deeply with their fields.
But just as important, she adds, is something less tangible.
“Students have to understand that they belong in these spaces,” she says. “Not later. Not after they’ve proven something. They belong now. And part of our responsibility is to make that real for them.”
That emphasis on belonging is not framed as a separate initiative. It is embedded in how she defines educational quality. A university cannot claim to prepare students for leadership, she suggests, if those students do not see themselves as capable of leading.
The conversation then turns to place—something Ashby returns to often, though not always directly. UMBC’s location, situated in Maryland with proximity to Washington, D.C., federal agencies, and a strong technology corridor, is not incidental to her vision.
“We’re in a unique position,” she says. “We’re connected to government, to industry, to communities. The opportunity is to make those connections more intentional.”
She speaks about partnerships not as transactions, but as ecosystems—relationships that allow research to move more quickly into application, and students to engage with real-world challenges before they graduate.
“That’s where a lot of innovation is going to happen,” she notes. “Not in isolation, but at the intersections.”
It is a perspective shaped as much by her scientific background as her administrative experience. As a chemist, she understands systems. As a leader, she applies that understanding to institutions.
Still, the broader landscape of higher education cannot be ignored. Universities today face increasing scrutiny, shifting public expectations, and, in some cases, political pressure. Ashby does not dismiss those realities, but she is deliberate about how much space they occupy in her thinking.
“The environment will change,” she says. “It always does. But the institution has to be clear about its values. If you start there, you can navigate change without losing direction.”
It is not a defiant stance. It is a disciplined one.
Rather than reacting to every external signal, she focuses on internal clarity: what UMBC stands for, what it produces, and who it serves. From there, strategy follows.
As the conversation draws to a close, Ashby shifts naturally to a longer horizon. She does not measure success in semesters or even in strategic plans. She talks about the students who have not yet arrived, the discoveries that have not yet been made, the partnerships that have not yet been formed.
“The work we’re doing now,” she says, “should matter long after we’re gone.”
It is a simple statement, but it carries weight. It reflects a view of leadership not as a moment, but as a continuum—one that extends beyond any single presidency.
Across this three-part series, a consistent picture emerges. A leader shaped by expectation, grounded in discipline, and guided by a clear sense of responsibility. In this final chapter, what becomes evident is her orientation toward the future—not as something uncertain, but as something that can be shaped with intention.
Valerie Sheares Ashby is not attempting to redefine UMBC in a single move. She is positioning it—carefully, deliberately—for what comes next. And in that approach, there is a quiet confidence. Not in what the institution has been. But in what it is capable of becoming.
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Standing on the Shoulders of Excellence - President Ashby on Freeman Hrabowski and Leading UMBC Forward
This first installment of a three-part series begins not with transition, but with continuity—because no conversation about UMBC’s present or future can begin without reckoning with the legacy of the man who transformed the institution and redefined what excellence looks like in American higher education.
When Dr. Valerie Sheares Ashby speaks about excellence, she does not speak in abstractions. She speaks with conviction, clarity, and lived experience—grounded in a belief that excellence and inclusion are not competing ideas, but inseparable truths. That belief did not originate with her presidency. At UMBC, it has a name: Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski III.
To lead UMBC is to inherit one of the most respected and consequential presidencies in modern higher education. Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski III did not merely grow a university—he changed the national narrative about who belongs in STEM, who succeeds in research, and what public universities owe the students they serve.
President Ashby does not speak of that legacy lightly.
“Freeman Hrabowski didn’t just lead UMBC,” she says. “He changed lives at scale. He proved—without question—that talent is universal and opportunity must be intentional.”
Under Hrabowski’s leadership, UMBC rose into the top tier of American research institutions while simultaneously becoming a national model for student success, particularly for students from underrepresented and underestimated communities.
“There are presidents who manage institutions,” Ashby reflects, “and then there are presidents who move the country. Freeman is the latter.”
What distinguished Hrabowski was not rhetoric, but execution. Programs like the Meyerhoff Scholars Program did more than increase participation in STEM—they demonstrated what happens when excellence is pursued without exclusion.
“What Freeman understood better than almost anyone,” Ashby notes, “is that brilliance shows up everywhere—but systems don’t always know how to recognize it. UMBC became a place that learned how.”
The Meyerhoff Legacy: Proof, Not Promise
Recently, UMBC celebrated the birthday of Robert Meyerhoff, whose vision—realized under Hrabowski’s leadership—became one of the most impactful STEM initiatives in the nation. After earning a civil engineering degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1944 and serving as an officer in the U.S. Navy Civil Engineers Corps, Meyerhoff established the Meyerhoff Scholars Program at UMBC in 1988. His goal was clear: increase the participation of promising and outstanding students in science, technology, engineering, and math.
Today, that vision is reflected in results. According to the program, more than 1,400 alumni are working in STEM fields across the United States, and more than 300 graduates are currently pursuing graduate and professional degrees in STEM disciplines.
For Ashby, the Meyerhoff Scholars Program represents the clearest articulation of Hrabowski’s philosophy.
“That’s not accidental success,” she says. “That’s intentional excellence.”
Following on from Freeman Required Preparation
Ashby is clear-eyed about what it means to lead after a president of Hrabowski’s stature.
“I don’t see myself as following Freeman,” she says. “I see myself as standing on his shoulders.”
That framing matters. UMBC did not need reinvention. It needed stewardship—someone capable of protecting, extending, and defending a hard-won legacy.
Ashby’s background helps explain why the University System of Maryland Board of Regents saw her as that leader.
A President Forged for Stewardship
In April 2026, it will be four years since the Board of Regents named Valerie Sheares Ashby UMBC’s sixth president and the first woman to hold the role.
Her presidency has coincided with continued institutional ascent. UMBC was recently recognized as one of only three institutions in Maryland to earn both Carnegie R1 research status and designation as a Carnegie Community Engaged Campus. This distinction places UMBC among the top five percent of research universities in the United States.
The Community Engagement Classification, renewed for another six years, honors institutions that collaborate with public and private partners to share knowledge, support research and creative work, and advance the public good.
For Ashby, the recognition reflects Hrabowski’s blueprint in action.
“Research excellence and community engagement are not opposites,” she says. “That’s something Freeman demonstrated long before it was fashionable.”
A Scholar-Leader Who Understood the Mission
Before coming to UMBC, Ashby served as dean of Duke University’s Trinity College of Arts & Sciences beginning in 2015. Earlier, she spent more than a decade at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, joining the faculty in 2003 and chairing the Department of Chemistry from 2012 to 2015.
At UNC, she also led the National Science Foundation Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate, helping expand pathways to doctoral degrees and faculty careers in STEM and the social, behavioral, and economic sciences.
Ashby earned both her bachelor’s degree and doctorate in chemistry from UNC Chapel Hill and completed postdoctoral research at the University of Mainz in Germany. A polymer chemist with more than ten patents, she was nominated by Career Communications Group in 2022 for Technologist of the Year, recognizing the societal impact of her scientific and leadership contributions.
Yet credentials alone do not explain her alignment with UMBC.
“Freeman built a culture where excellence was expected and humanity was non-negotiable,” Ashby says. “That’s the kind of institution I wanted to lead.”
Why Baltimore—and Why UMBC
Ashby’s decision to come to Baltimore was deliberate.
“Baltimore is honest,” she says. “It’s a city with challenges, yes—but also with brilliance, resilience, and deep humanity.”
She saw in UMBC a university deeply connected to its place and deeply committed to its students.
“If you believe education transforms lives,” she explains, “you have to be willing to lead where that transformation matters.”
UMBC’s location—anchored in Maryland, connected to Washington, and globally engaged—mirrors the mission Hrabowski advanced for decades.
Protecting the Light
As Part One of this three-part series, this article establishes the foundation: Freeman Hrabowski’s legacy and the responsibility it confers.
Ashby is unequivocal about that responsibility.
“Freeman showed us what was possible,” she says. “My job is to protect it, extend it, and tell the truth about why it works.”
The truth, she believes, remains simple and urgent.
“He gave UMBC a soul,” Ashby says. “My job is to make sure it continues to shine.”
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The Shoulders She Stands On Before the Presidency, Before the Patents — There Was Home
Raised with steady expectations, she learned competence over status. Long before Valerie Sheares Ashby became president of a Carnegie R1 university, long before she chaired a chemistry department or held patents in polymer science, there was a house where excellence was not debated. It was assumed.
The kind of home where report cards were examined carefully, not for praise, but for possibility. The kind of home where discipline was quiet and consistent, where effort was noticed, and where expectations were not announced — they were lived. Her parents did not raise her to chase status. They raised her to be prepared.
“They didn’t tell me I might do well,” she once said in a tone more reflective than declarative. “They expected that I would.”
Expectation is a powerful inheritance. It leaves little room for self-doubt to take root.
The Architecture of Confidence
Some leaders develop confidence in boardrooms. Others develop it in classrooms. Ashby’s confidence was constructed much earlier, in the daily rhythm of being held accountable by people who loved her without condition but not without standards.
Her parents did not romanticize hardship. They understood it. They had navigated systems that were not always built to include them fully. They had learned, sometimes the hard way, that preparation was not optional.
So they prepared their daughter. Not for applause. For competence. Not for symbolic firsts. For sustained excellence. There were rules. There was structure. There were expectations about effort. But there was also something less visible: steadiness. In many families, children absorb anxiety about the world. In Ashby’s, she absorbed resolve. That difference matters.
Curiosity Was Not a Distraction
Science entered her life not as a career strategy but as permission.
Permission to ask why.
Permission to experiment.
Permission to fail and try again.
Her parents did not dismiss questions as precocious. They did not discourage ambition as unrealistic. They did not shrink her curiosity to fit anyone else’s comfort.
They cultivated it.
By the time she arrived at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to earn her bachelor’s degree in chemistry, she was not intimidated by rigor. She had been trained for it.
By the time she completed her Ph.D. and postdoctoral research in Germany, she was not surprised by complexity. She had been conditioned to engage it.
That conditioning did not happen in a laboratory.
It happened at home.
Discipline and Dignity
There is something distinct about leaders who were raised with both discipline and dignity. They do not confuse authority with volume. They do not equate visibility with value.
Ashby’s parents modeled resilience without bitterness.
They taught her to work twice as hard — but never to apologize for occupying space.
They insisted on excellence — but not as performance. As integrity.
That combination shaped the scientist and later shaped the administrator.
When she chaired the chemistry department at UNC, colleagues noticed her calm decisiveness. When she became dean at Duke University’s Trinity College of Arts & Sciences, she was described as collaborative without being passive, firm without being rigid.
That balance is rarely accidental. It is usually inherited.
The Moral Frame
Faith and community were not decorative elements of her upbringing; they were structural.
Her parents made clear that leadership was not about elevation above others. It was about obligation to others.
If you have access, you widen it.
If you have influence, you use it responsibly.
If you achieve, you reach back.
That ethic later surfaced in her leadership of the National Science Foundation Alliance for Graduate Education and the Professoriate, where she worked to expand doctoral pathways in STEM and related fields. It surfaced again when she accepted the presidency of UMBC — an institution deeply committed to both research excellence and public engagement.
But the moral instinct did not originate in policy documents.
It originated in example.
“They taught me that what you do matters,” she has said. “But who you are matters more.”
That sentence contains an entire upbringing.
Becoming the First
When the University System of Maryland Board of Regents named her the sixth president of UMBC — and the first woman to hold the position — the milestone carried symbolic weight.
But symbolism was never the point.
The deeper story was preparation meeting opportunity.
In 2022, the same year she assumed the presidency, Career Communications Group recognized her as Technologist of the Year, honoring her work as a polymer chemist and innovator. The distinction acknowledged her patents, her research, her measurable impact.
Yet when asked what grounded her for the presidency, she does not begin with awards or administrative accomplishments.
She begins with her parents.
The steady enforcement of homework.
The insistence on accountability.
The normalization of excellence.
The belief — unwavering — that she was capable.
“They believed in me before the world had proof,” she has said.
That is generational strength. The kind that does not appear in résumés but shapes every line of them.
The Quiet Inheritance
Public leadership can appear solitary. A president stands at a podium alone. A scientist publishes under her own name.
But no one arrives alone.
Ashby stands on parents who navigated their era with composure. On ancestors who endured with resilience. On family who did not confuse humility with smallness.
She carries their lessons into every strategic decision, every speech, every negotiation.
The steadiness in her voice — the absence of theatrics — feels inherited.
Before she stood at the head of a research university ranked among the top five percent nationally, before she signed institutional agreements or spoke about community engagement, she stood in a household that made excellence ordinary.
That may be the most powerful inheritance of all.
The presidency is visible.
The formation was private.
And it is the private formation — the kitchen table, the discipline, the dignity — that explains the public leader.
Those are the shoulders she stands on.
And those are the shoulders she carries forward.