Universities should be doing a better job of rethinking the culture of education, according to Freeman A. Hrabowski III, president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

Hrabowski hosted his lecture, titled “Institutional Culture Change: Fostering Inclusive Excellence and Academic Innovation,” at the McKimmon Center from 4 to 6 p.m. on Thursday. 

Hrabowski also serves as the chair of President Barack Obama’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans. In 2012, he was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World.

“We need to rethink the culture of teaching and learning,” Hrabowski said. “It is an assumption at many universities that a large number of students won’t succeed.” 

Hrabowski said this statement has caused controversy. He talked about how success with improving education is never final and said there is always more room for improvement. 

He said schools should be promoting students to take more ownership of their education. An example of this is for college faculty members to have focus groups with students to get to know the culture of their student body so they can better work with them. 

Hrabowski said when students are collectively not doing well in certain courses, the faculty members and administrators should look at the patterns of students that weren’t successful. They should then examine the teaching methods used in that course to improve how the students are being educated so they obtain what they need to succeed.  

“We want to prepare people to be educated citizens and to be able to work in the future with people from all over the world,” Hrabowski said. 

Hrabowski made all attendees of the lecture repeat the words he tells his students to encourage their success: “Thoughts become your words, words become your actions, actions become your habits, habits become your character and character becomes your destiny.” 

According to Hrabowski, many schools that provide incredible educations often receive attention for their sports teams when it should be the other way around. 

“I would like to see N.C. State do more to celebrate academic performance,” said Eva Feucht, the director of the Park Scholars program. 

Hrabowski also said public universities are more likely to be noticed for their sports teams and not their academic excellence and high-quality education.  

“We should celebrate the best thinking and best academic performances on campus like institutions celebrate ball games,” Hrabowski said. 

According to Hrabowski, his university is rethinking how to support students and make them want to do better. He said his institution has gained an atmosphere where students are excited about learning.

“I want students to feel really good about being smart and to want to be brilliant,” Hrabowski said. 

Feucht said the talk really gave people the chance to think about N.C. State’s institutional culture and how we can best support all of the students’ success. 

According to Feucht, what stood out to her was when Hrabowski said many Americans feel like college is a default activity for high school graduates and just the next step of what to do.  

“I’d like to think about how we can have a culture at N.C. State of college being more than just the next thing students do,” Feucht said. 

According to Hrabowski, in the past 25 years UMBC has worked with African-American students to find ways to better help them succeed. 

Hrabowski said all colleges should be working to find ways to help students of all different backgrounds, races and genders to make each group able to be more successful.

“We should continue to support bringing brain power from all different parts of the world,” Hrabowski said. 

Hrabowski talked about challenges UMBC faced with helping minorities be more successful. 

“Americans should be appalled at the decline of the number of women in science majors,” Hrabowski said. 

He said helping all minorities, including women, benefits everyone in academic communities.

Hrabowski was the first lecturer in the Contemporary Issues in Higher Education Series and spoke Thursday in an attempt to help faculty members and students learn new ways to improve N.C. State’s educational culture and environment. 

“Our hope is this seminar brings a series of thought leaders to this campus that challenge us to improve,” said Warwick A. Arden, provost and executive vice chancellor.  “We can think of no better start to this series than Dr. Hrabowski.”