Remarks by William R. Brody, President
The Johns Hopkins University Announcement of
Baltimore Scholars Program
Wednesday, June 2, 2004
Dunbar High School - 1:30 p.m. Good afternoon. My name is Bill Brody, and I am president of the Johns Hopkins University. I would like to thank all of you for joining us this afternoon. We intend this to be a brief program, followed by the opportunity to talk individually with some of the key people responsible for implementing this new scholarship effort. In particular, we hope the Baltimore City high school principals and guidance counselors here with us will obtain all the information they need to begin spreading the word about this effort. We have brochures and a Q&A sheets, and we hope each of you will take as many of these as you need. What we are announcing today is exciting for us, it's exciting for the city of Baltimore, and it's very, very exciting for the parents of talented and bright students in our city schools. I am delighted and honored that Mayor O'Malley has chosen to make time in his busy schedule to participate in this announcement. And we are all gratified that city schools superintendent Bonnie Copeland is here to lend her support and encouragement for this effort as well. We'd like to thank Paul Laurence Dunbar High School, and principal Roger Shaw, for allowing us to make this announcement here. Dunbar High School is not only home to the Poets. It is also a city school focused on the health sciences, and for more than a decade Johns Hopkins has worked collaboratively with the teachers here at Dunbar to introduce students to the many career opportunities available in health care. Two of our Johns Hopkins students currently enrolled -- sophomore Lord Robinson and junior Theophilis Ugheghe -- are Dunbar graduates and recipients of the Price Waterhouse Cooper/Johns Hopkins Hospital Achievement Scholarships. We also have some special guests I would like to acknowledge this afternoon. With us are several of the Johns Hopkins University and Health System senior administrators: Ron Peterson, president of the Johns Hopkins Health System and the Johns Hopkins Hospital; provost Steven Knapp; Ralph Fessler, dean of the School of Professional Studies in Business and Education; Sandra Angell, Associate Dean of the School of Nursing; Bob Sirota, Director of the Peabody Institute; Dan Weiss, the James B. Knapp Dean of the Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences; and Andrew Douglas, interim dean of the Whiting School of Engineering. We are pleased and gratified at this wonderful turnout. Today we are announcing the Baltimore Scholars program. Starting with the class entering Johns Hopkins in the fall of 2005, we intend to provide full-tuition scholarships to all graduates of Baltimore City public schools who are accepted into, and enroll, in the university's undergraduate programs in arts & sciences, engineering, music or nursing. In addition, up to three Baltimore Scholars annually will be selected from applicants for the part-time undergraduate programs in business or information systems at the university's School of Professional Studies in Business and Education. Baltimore Scholars in the School of Professional Studies will typically begin their Johns Hopkins studies after completing the equivalent of 60 undergraduate credits elsewhere, often by earning an associate's degree from a community college. Baltimore is Johns Hopkins' home, and the city's future is our future. We already partner with the city in a very large number of programs, ranging from public health to education at all levels. Today, when our city schools are most in need of our support, we want to step up to the plate once again and demonstrate our commitment to the city and its school children. We want to do this in the most public way possible, to show that we recognize the city's future is inextricably tied to the success of its public schools. Currently, a year's tuition in the Johns Hopkins Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, and in the Whiting School of Engineering, costs slightly more than $30,000. So a four year full-tuition scholarship is potentially valued at more than $120,000 per student. We consider this to be an enormous financial incentive for the best and brightest students in Baltimore to attend city schools. Each of these scholarships will renew automatically each year, provided the Baltimore Scholar recipient continues to meet academic and course load requirements. Furthermore, these scholarships are not tied to financial need, but are based solely on the criteria that recipients accepted into Johns Hopkins have attended Baltimore City High School for at least the past three years, and their parents have been city residents throughout that time. In addition, full-time Baltimore Scholars may apply for additional need-based financial aid to cover room, board and expenses. We are able to make this unique opportunity available through a combination of internal and external scholarship sources, including scholarships endowed by the Goldseker Foundation and other scholarships specifically designated for city residents. It is our hope that, as this program expands over the years, additional civic- minded businesses, foundations and individuals will step up and join in this effort. In the past several years the Baltimore City Schools have made measurable progress, as shown by the annual testing of city school children. Mayor O'Malley reminded us all of the progress that has been achieved and the promise of what can still be done when he announced in March that the city would step in to stabilize the financial crisis in the school system. We are delighted that he has joined us this afternoon, and I am very pleased to ask him to offer remarks at this time. Mayor O'Malley? | 
