(drilling).

BRYANT BEMO BROWN: We are in the Aviation School of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.

We really about to see how these hawks fly, for real.

You see these planes.

Let HBCU know, they got their own plane, they got their own plane.

Welcome to "HBCU Week" from the campus of University of Maryland Eastern Shore in Princess Anne, Maryland, I am your cultural correspondent, Bryant "BEMO" Brown.

This special presentation lays out what you can expect to see from "HBCU Week" on Maryland Public Television.

♪ BYRON JUANE: Oh no my guy, no don't you play yourself.

♪ ♪ Who the king with the crown, ♪ ♪ there ain't nobody else.

♪ ♪ Know I go pound for the pound, ♪ ♪ I'm looking for opps when they 'round, ♪ ♪ and know I'm the Don of this town, ♪ ♪ and it just turned back into day ♪ ♪ it ain't no thing to leave you done, ♪ ♪ just from a pop of the trunk, ♪ ♪ it ain't no team, it ain't no squads, ♪ ♪ it's just my dawgs in the cut.

♪ ♪ So now you hurt, now you cut, ♪ ♪ try Neosporin for bandage, ♪ ♪ bets turn your pain to advantage, ♪ ♪ and take that back as a lesson, ♪ ♪ I grabbed that trophy off shelf, ♪ ♪ I got that gold on me, ♪ ♪ oh see that boy, he got that drip, ♪ ♪ he got that storm, don't he?

♪ ♪ Storms coming, rain flooding, ♪ ♪ I couldn't be on the team opposing him, ♪ ♪ you stuck like being friends, ♪ ♪ I'm close like next of kin, ♪ ♪ got dream in my eye, ♪ ♪ for the team not just I, ♪ ♪ keep this in line like chiropractic, ♪ ♪ accounted it's being added... ♪♪ ♪ ♪ BEMO: Today, we stand on the vast land of opportunity, that is the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.

UMES, like all historically Black colleges and universities adheres to a doctrine that the finest institutions provide the highest quality and most applicable education for future generations.

Now, when you hear historic, I know you conjure up assumptions about things happening on campus from the late 1900s, that's no longer the case.

UMES, like all HBCUs are on the forefront of education, technology, and even innovation.

The University of Maryland Eastern Shore is hard at work providing a 94% first-pass rate for qualified pharmacists.

UMES touts a brand-new center of entrepreneurism funded by the government.

And as high school students are trying to figure out alternative ways to get into college, the University of Maryland Eastern Shore is busting at the seams with three consecutive years of growth in enrollment, including this year being the highest year for applications.

How are they doing it?

Well, my partner Tetiana Anderson, is gonna talk to the President of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.

And we're gonna hit campus to see if we can't find out what inspires these hawks to fly.

And later watch me crash the party with Tetiana Anderson and Dr.

Anderson, the Andersons.

♪ Welcome to my rodeo, ♪ ♪ welcome to my rodeo, ♪ ♪ welcome to my... ♪♪ BEMO: Welcome To "HBCU Week," I'm here with my friend Neima.

Neima, what's going on?

NEIMA: Hi, nice to meet you, how are you?

BEMO: Nice to meet you, I'm beautiful.

NEIMA: Good.

BEMO: It's so wonderful, it's so wonderful in here.

Just introduce yourself to me and the people.

NEIMA: Yeah, so my name is Neima, I'm a last-semester senior at UMES and I'm an aviation science student.

BEMO: Just a student?

That's not all... NEIMA: Well, I'm also a flight instructor here... BEMO: That's right, that's right.

NEIMA: At the aviation science.

BEMO: Yeah.

So tell me about your experience at UMES.

NEIMA: It's been amazing.

So I started off as a biochem student, actually, pretty nice.

BEMO: I gotta ask.

NEIMA: Yeah.

BEMO: Biochem?

NEIMA: What made me switch?

BEMO: Yeah.

NEIMA: Yeah.

BEMO: I had to, what happened?

NEIMA: That's the classic question I get anyway.

BEMO: Please.

NEIMA: Yes, so it was purely coincidental 'cause um, UMES is the only four-year degree program for aviation science in Maryland.

And the fact that I got to go here, um, choosing biochem, but then getting to switch was just luck.

BEMO: Luck?

NEIMA: Yeah.

BEMO: So you like tripped into a plane, is that what you're saying?

NEIMA: Basically.

BEMO: Really?

NEIMA: Um, so I had a math professor that I was just in and talking to, I knew I didn't wanna do biochem like a year in, and I was kind of just talking to her, kinda getting to know more about the other programs.

We kind of got to talking, I was like, yeah, I'm interested in aviation, and she's like, oh, there's actually an aviation program, let me introduce you to, um, the program coordinator.

BEMO: Yeah.

NEIMA: Yeah.

He showed me around, showed me the sims, and signed that form that, uh, change of major form right then and there.

BEMO: Right then and there.

NEIMA: It's just done.

BEMO: I'm, I guess I'm just, I'm bewildered by the idea... NEIMA: Yeah.

BEMO: That someone just says, "Oh, I think I want to fly."

NEIMA: As a kid, I kind of always had that, um, I had different toys, that were airplanes.

BEMO: Okay, oh, well, do me a favor.

NEIMA: Yeah.

BEMO: I know that you are a flight instructor now.

NEIMA: Mm-Hmm.

BEMO: We're in front of the sim.

NEIMA: Yeah.

BEMO: Can you show me?

As you see, I have the white shirt on, it means I'm a rookie, right?

NEIMA: The rookie shirt on.

BEMO: Can you show me what this is all about, walk me through it.

NEIMA: I can, sure.

So it's a, an exact replica of what is in the plane almost.

BEMO: Oh, snap.

NEIMA: There you go.

So then the air speed's coming alive and when it gets to 55 is when we start to rotate.

♪ ♪ (laughing).

BEMO: Okay.

Alright, Jacob, you ready man?

JACOB FOGAN: Absolutely.

BEMO: Jacob, what are we fittin' to do, man?

What are you taking me, where are you taking me?

JACOB: Yeah, so I'll just walk you through a couple things that we usually do on a normal flight, right, so we're gonna taxi out to the runway.

BEMO: Okay.

JACOB: Um, take off.

We'll head down to the south.

Um, I'll show you the campus from the air... BEMO: Really?

JACOB: Absolutely.

BEMO: Oh man, I'm so excited about that, man.

Thank you, Jacob, for taking us up, man.

♪ ♪ I'm in the plane!

The daily lineups this year are absolutely beautiful, from the bountiful sounds of the Bayou Classic to the majestic skies over the Chesapeake Bay, this is "HBCU Week" on MPT.

The University of Maryland Eastern Shore is the only public HBCU with an aviation program.

When the instructors and our pilot Jacob informed me that we would be doing a discovery flight while I'm experiencing the highest levels of my greatest fear, heights.

There is something comforting about the University of Maryland Eastern Shore assuring me that I was safe.

And I hear at the end of graduation there's an airline who is already supporting him with a direct pathway to career, I am astonished, I'm changed after this flight.

Whoo!

BEMO: Alright, y'all, we're heading out to the farm.

♪ Take over this, ♪ ♪ take over this, ♪ ♪ take over this city.

♪♪ BEMO: Alright, welcome back to "HBCU Week," I'm here with my friend Shamia, Shamia what's poppin'?

SHAMIA ONLEY: Hello, hello, nothing much, how's it going, hanging.

BEMO: It's going good?

SHAMIA: Yes, going good.

BEMO: If you could do me a favor... SHAMIA: Okay.

BEMO: Give us the HBCU intro, you know what I'm talking about.

SHAMIA: Hi, so my name is Shamia.

I'm a senior here at UMES, I am a general AG major with the concentration of poultry science.

So that means I'm a pre-vet major, and I also do some chicken studies too.

BEMO: Poultry science.

SHAMIA: Yeah, poultry science.

BEMO: That's lovely.

SHAMIA: Mm-hmm, it's really cool.

BEMO: Shamia, how did you get to University of Maryland Eastern Shore?

SHAMIA: Well, the funny thing is, I did not start here, I, I, I transferred.

BEMO: Where'd you come from?

SHAMIA: From, from Frostburg State University.

BEMO: Okay.

SHAMIA: FSU.

BEMO: Okay.

SHAMIA; Um, I'm, I am local so I wanted to take a chance and go somewhere far and then I was brought back here, I took some time off.

I met this really good connection and then I ended, I ended up being able to come here.

BEMO: That's awesome.

SHAMIA: Mm-hmm.

BEMO: From the engineering building of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, a special conversation between university President Dr.

Heidi Anderson and Tetiana Anderson.

TETIANA: Welcome to "HBCU Week," thank you for making time for us, we appreciate it.

DR.

ANDERSON: Mm-hmm, you are very welcome, and thank you for coming to our beautiful campus.

TETIANA: It is a beautiful campus, and speaking of it being a beautiful campus, this is a land grant... DR.

ANDERSON: Oh yes.

TETIANA: College, explain what that means and why that's important.

DR.

ANDERSON: It is not just a land grant, we are an 1890 land grant.

So for your audience's sake, I want to be able to help them understand what that really means.

1890 land grant means that basically we were formed and we had funding, funding that came from the federal government.

And that was by a senator named Morrill, almost 100, over 180-something years ago.

We are formed in 1886, and what it means is that our mission is about teaching, research, and service and giving back to the community.

So we focus on helping the community solve those problems that are unique to those areas.

The other reason it is so special is there are only 19, and I, I said that correctly, 19; 1890 universities in the country.

So you think about that we stand on the legacy of history here from the standpoint of being an 1890 land grant and working with our communities.

Here's where the catch comes, when Morrill gave funding, he gave funding first to the 1862s, those are what we call the PWIs.

And he gave them land, gave them money to build universities, to help educate people in those communities, and solve the research problems.

When it came 'round at that time, Black people could not enroll in those institutions.

And so instead, 30 years later, monies were getting set aside just for 1890 universities to enroll, enroll Black people, mostly farmers, engineers, um, mechanical engineers, and agriculture.

And so the base of an 1890 is meaning the connection with the agriculture, with the soil, with the people.

And here at UMES, and I have to look at the, look at the audience and tell them this, we are so proud to be the 1890 Land Grant Institution here in the state of Maryland.

TETIANA: This is, you know, um, um, late, late 1890s, uh, Land Grant University, the mission was research and service when it was founded, how has that mission carried over to today?

DR.

ANDERSON: Excellent question, and the, and so our founding mission was teaching, research and service.

The way that mission has carried on today is really looking and made being more involved with the community.

So for example, here in the Bay, we know that we have a problem with poultry and with the chickens and the poultry and their, and the litter that comes from chickens, it is destroying our, the environment and the soil.

So the other part we know is here in the Chesapeake Bay, we have, um, a lot of problems with the environment and what's happening with the crabs, the soft crabs, uh, the other marine animals that are in the Bay.

And so our job as an 1890 institution is to connect with those communities and try to make sure we're doing the research, the extension, the work that it takes to take care of those particular issues.

Helping farmers know how to farm in rural areas.

You know, helping them understand how to be more efficient with their farming.

But where we expand that now, and what has happened throughout history is now healthcare has been added as a fundamental part of this particular legacy as a fundamental part of our mission.

And I always love to brag in that as an HBCU, we have more health profession programs than any other HBCU in the country.

We have eight at the present time about to add a ninth, and our eight are high caliber, you're talking not technician-type programs, pharmacy, physician assistants, physical therapy.

And I could go on and on.

TETIANA: Well, you also focus on veterinary medicine and I know that this university holds a special place in the world of HBCUs when it comes to that subject.

What's going on here that's so unique?

DR.

ANDERSON: Excellent question, okay, what's going on with the vet program is that is our newest health profession program, and we don't have it yet, but we're about to, there's only one other institution in the whole country that, HBCU that is, that has a vet program and that's Tuskegee in Alabama.

So we will be the second HBCU, yes, to have an vet program.

Why is that so important?

Well, there's a shortage of veterinarians around the world, not just the country, but around the world.

And there's a shortage of diverse veterinarians, less than 3% of the vet, veterinarians out there are Black.

So think about that.

Tuskegee has produced all of the Black veterinarians who are in the country right now, and there's a shortage.

This will add because we will be able to bring in a class of 100 students every year and get them in here and out very, very quickly with a top-quality education to add to the workforce, to add to the economic development.

Tetiana, I don't know if you have a pet, but I have two cats, and when one of them gets sick, there's no place to take them because it is that kind of shortage.

And the farm animals, we need vets to be able to take care of the livestock and those particular, uh, things that happen on farms, and yet that shortage exists.

So where we are with this program right now is that we have gotten approval through our campus, we have now gotten approval all the way through our board of regions.

We have gotten the approval for the program through the Maryland Higher Education Commission, and now we are waiting for the approvals for the veterinary accrediting body, which who visited us just last month.

And so we are so excited because we're expecting to get a really good report from them in December and go to the next phase as to of that, of that approval process.

TETIANA: So, you know, the veterinary aspect of this is just one of many areas of health that you touch upon.

DR.

ANDERSON: Mm-Hmm.

TETIANA: I mean you know, I know that you have a passion for pharmacology.

Um, this is sort of your, your where you started, right?

DR.

ANDERSON: Yes.

TETIANA: And I know that you do a lot of that work here, tell us about the sort of pharmacy trainings for students, what, what they're doing.

DR.

ANDERSON: We'll be happy to, let's see, yes, I'm a pharmacist, uh, and practiced retail when I was a pharmacist and what we do is we train our students to become pharmacists in three years.

The program normally takes four, we do that with our physical therapy program, with our physician assistant program, and now we'll be doing it with our veterinary medicine program.

The reason that's so important is because that One Health, think about that, we will have students who will be able to work together in health professions.

So you can learn to take care of animals and you can learn to take care of people.

And that One Health approach is gonna be so critical to where we're going as a country with more and more people growing in the population, with more people having pets, with more animals on farms, that's going to be a unique feature that is only gonna be here at UMES.

What happens when you go look at healthcare from the standpoint of training as a pharmacist, it's a tough curriculum.

I can tell you I went through it.

(laughs) It will beat you up if you don't watch out for it.

And so you wanna make sure those students not only learn what the skill sets that they need to be able to work, whether it's a retail setting or in a clinical setting, but you want to be sure that they learn the skills to work with other health professionals together.

And so that's one of the attractions that we're gonna be able to have here and that we have now, is students working in an interdisciplinary health professional, uh, format.

TETIANA: And I know when it comes to students specifically, you've, um, your administration has increased enrollment dramatically.

DR.

ANDERSON: Ah, yes.

I'm so glad you asked that.

TETIANA: How, how, how hard of a task was that to really boost enrollment the way that you did?

DR.

ANDERSON: Extremely hard.

First of all, you have to understand nationally, the number of students going to high schools is decreasing.

Okay?

So typically schools like ours that take students all the way through undergraduate to graduate programs, you are looking at drawing them from the high schools, so you've gotta figure out a way to, what is that secret sauce?

What is that way you're gonna get students to come?

And what we learned when, when I got here seven years ago, we learned that we needed to look at a lot of our strategies.

We needed to regroup.

We needed to step back and look at our policies, look at how we can be a lot more efficient, getting students in, and more importantly, doing it in a way that attracts students in today's generation.

So that means text messaging, it's, uh, social media, uh, all sorts of, you know, quick things that they can get their hands on very quickly.

You can't just focus on just paper and sending them things back and forth, old phone calls, no, they don't do that anymore.

Going just to the high school and setting up a tent, so admit, being very creative.

So we started adding artificial intelligence.

Can you believe it?

Our students, if you're interested in coming to UMES, and they have a question and you've never and been here before, you can go on this chatbot and ask questions up, any 24 hours of the day.

And I've tried it, I've, I've dialed in at like 2:00 AM in the morning.

It says, "What are you doing this up early?"

The bot is smart too.

But that chatbot is in a way that we helped to increase our enrollment with a number of other tools.

We added recruiters, we had used our alumni, and I have to give a shout-out out there to any of our alumni watching this 'cause they were so helpful in helping us build a recruitment strategy that has now helped us go into the fourth year of high freshman enrollment.

And we're gonna rebuild those numbers after Labor Day because that's after census, and we'll know what that is, two years ago, 5%, last year was a 13% increase in freshman enrollment.

And this year we're expecting that number to be higher.

TETIANA: What is it that you're hearing from the students about, you know, the top things that really attracted them to this university?

DR.

ANDERSON: Good question, we, we, we collect the data on that all the time.

First, you have agriculture, okay, so we go back to the land and we go back to what's happening with students coming in learning agribusiness and where they're gonna go.

Uh, from undergraduate standpoint biology, because many of them want to go on to become medical doctors, and we train a number of students to go on to pre-med, to medicine from here, pre-pharmacy, pre-dent, pre any health that you can think of other top majors is criminal justice.

Now I think that's because they all wanna be CSI investigators... (laughter).

And we don't know how that's gonna turn out, but many of them go on to work in the political, uh, area.

And so we have a number of students that have gone through our criminal justice, uh, program that are now working in Annapolis with congressmen and with our senators.

Okay.

Other top majors, I said biology, agriculture, um, obviously criminal justice, so sports medicine has become a top for us.

And we just started that program not too many years ago.

And I'm trying, and digital media, I would, I would imagine that's your area of expertise.

TETIANA: Yes, that's, that's interesting.

DR.

ANDERSON: That we started that two years ago and it is now one of our top majors and growing.

I cannot leave out the fact that we have aviation sciences, and our aviation science program is the only four-year bachelor's program in the state of Maryland where students can come here to learn how to fly the planes.

And now we have a new program there, our aviation technician program where they can learn how to fix the plane.

So imagine that we can teach a student from fixing the plane all the way to flying the plane.

So all of that here at UMES and those are popular majors for us.

TETIANA: So you have so many different focus areas that students can concentrate in, um, you had mentioned entrepreneurship.

How does that tie all of this together and why is it so important to teach students who are coming to this HBCU, um, about creating, about owning, about growing your own business?

DR.

ANDERSON: Everything today, I think from a student standpoint is about being a business person.

You know, after you got Beyonce, you got Jay-Z whoever they're listening to, it's about entrepreneurship.

So think about it, our students who fly planes, they may one day want to own their business for that.

But I'll come down to a more tangible level.

The vet program, those individuals who will come out of that program, they'll be able to take business courses if they like and know how to create their own business when they leave here.

Our students who are in, uh, the agriculture area, looking at fashion merchandising, that's one of the majors where our students come out and they're already knowing how to really set up, you know, uh, whether it's um, makeup, whether it's hair, whether it's nails, whether it's dress.

They learn how to form, form their own business from that.

So I think entrepreneurship is critical to underlining every profession that we have for those students who have that interest.

TETIANA: Um, I, I wanna ask you a little bit about your education, 'cause you did go to predominantly White institutions.

DR.

ANDERSON: I did.

TETIANA: Purdue specifically, but you have come to lead an, an HBCU, why was that something that you wanted to make this switch into?

What is it about the HBCU experience that is so valuable, not only for students of color but for all students who come here because there's more than just students of color that are... DR.

ANDERSON: Yes.

TETIANA: That are a part of your community.

DR.

ANDERSON: It is, we have a very diverse population.

Yes, I grew up in Gary, Indiana and that was an experience in and of itself.

I'm a first gen, and so I didn't have anyone in the family that had gone to an HBCU, and coming out of state, that's what they looked at.

So what it meant for me was everything that I learned going to those PWIs and working in PWIs, I said, when I found... made the decision, I wanted to become a university president.

I wanna go where I can give back to a lot of students who look like me, who look like us, who make, who I can make a difference.

And so coming to an HBCU was a, a proud moment for me because it was like, almost like coming home, and my students, I wanted to be at a place where I get to know all of them.

TETIANA: That makes you emotional to talk about that, why?

DR.

ANDERSON: I think it makes me emotional because you want every student who comes in, we wanna make a difference in their lives.

And that's what we are here to do, transform them.

BEMO: Now let's hear from Dr.

Anderson to talk about the transition from an R2 to an R1 institution.

DR.

ANDERSON: The University of Maryland Eastern Shore became a R2 institution in 2018.

So let me tell you what that means, the Carnegie Organization has a classification scheme of all institutions in the country and they labeled them as Research 1, Research 2, or Research 3.

And so we became what's known as a R2, a Research 2 institution in 2018, and the transition means if you have the capacity from the standpoint, the number of faculty, the number of students who are doing research, the number of publications, the number of people you graduate, you can go through the ranks and rise up to the R1 status, and there's a number of other criteria.

I'm proud of our campus because it basically means we have a talented group of faculty, of staff who work with our students to help move them along on the research realm.

So let me give you an example.

We do quality research in the areas of agriculture science, things like looking at uh, poultry, looking at seafood, how we can do, make food crops a lot better, how we can have farmers grow things a lot more efficiently, grow to not only be efficient, but to be effective in feeding large numbers of people out there.

We look at healthcare disparities and we do research there.

So we have a student who's working on a project with a faculty member looking at hair products, especially those hair products that are in, um, African American women who have, who has caused uterine cancer.

And is that a problem?

But the whole point that I'm trying to get across is, as an R2 institution, we focus on making sure that our students work side by side with top-notch researchers to solve those problems that are impacting the Eastern Shore, more importantly, impacting Maryland and the world.

The transition from R2 to R1, first of all, I like to always say it's being driven by our faculty.

Many places you may have the leader come in and say, we wanna make sure we do this.

That's not what I did here.

Our faculty came to me and they said, we have the infrastructure in place, we have the people in place and we have the interest to go from becoming an R2 to an R1.

And that means bringing in more research dollars, solving those big research problems and those big issues out there, and making sure we have the number of students in the classroom to move the needle on where we happen to be as a research institution.

BEMO: I hope you love "HBCU Week" as much as I did, we'll see you next year.

Man, what a beautiful day here at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.

I cannot thank the people over here enough for having us, it has been a wonderful experience, I really don't know what else you could want from an HBCU, we have the forefront of education, of technology, of innovation.

I'm understanding the "hawk pride" now, right.

So thank y'all for joining us, thank y'all for coming to the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, where we soar above and beyond.

Thank y'all from "HBCU Week," we'll see you next time.