University of Maryland, Baltimore


The University of Maryland, Baltimore is a public university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1807, it comprises some of the oldest professional schools of dentistry, law, medicine, pharmacy, social work and nursing in the United States. It is the original campus of the University System of Maryland and has a strategic partnership with the University of Maryland, College Park. Located on 60 acres on the west side of downtown Baltimore, it is part of the University System of Maryland.
In 2012, the University of Maryland, Baltimore and the flagship University of Maryland, College Park united under the MPowering the State initiative to leverage the strengths of both institutions. The University of Maryland Strategic Partnership Act of 2016 officially formalized the partnership as it has successfully created more innovative medical, scientific, and educational programs in Baltimore, as well as being awarded greater research grants and joint faculty appointments. In 2018, UMB was awarded $667 million in extramural grant funding, and ranked #1 in Maryland, and 15th in the country, in average salary of alumni, based on College Scorecard data released by the U.S. Department of Education.

History

The University of Maryland at Baltimore was founded in 1807 as the Maryland College of Medicine. In 1812, it was rechartered as the University of Maryland and given the authority to establish additional faculties in law, divinity, and arts and sciences. The faculty of law was founded in 1816, though it operated intermittently until 1868. The faculty of arts and sciences known as the Baltimore College for undergraduates also operated intermittently in the early 19th century. From 1907 to 1920, St. John's College in Annapolis functioned as the University of Maryland's faculty of arts and sciences; this loose federation was dissolved in 1920 when the Maryland State College,, founded 1856, as the state's land grant college, became part of a larger University of Maryland with the graduate level professional schools on the westside of downtown Baltimore. In 1970, the General Assembly of Maryland established a five-campus University of Maryland network comprising the
with a system-wide president located in College Park and a chancellor in charge of each campus; in 1988 this institution was merged with the State University and College System of Maryland to form the new University System of Maryland.

Professional schools

University of Maryland School of Dentistry

The University of Maryland School of Dentistry was the first dental school in the world. Founded in 1840 as the Baltimore College of Dental Surgery, it was chartered by an act of the Maryland General Assembly. Its principal founders were Drs. Horace H. Hayden and Chapin A. Harris. It was the first school in the world to offer a science-based curriculum in dentistry. It currently ranks among top 10 in the nation to receive NIH research funding. The school moved to a new building in October 2006. The new building, located adjacent to the old one on Baltimore Street, offers some of the newest facilities and technologies in the world for education and patient care. The cost of construction and equipment was over US$140 million, the highest spent by the state of Maryland on an academic building.

University of Maryland School of Law

The University of Maryland School of Law opened in 1816 as the "Maryland Law Institute" "in a spacious and commodious building on South Street, near Market street." It is the third-oldest law school in the nation. It was founded by
David Hoffman, who authored a comprehensive course of legal study that had a lasting influence on other law school programs around the country and led to the development of legal ethics programs and responsibilities. The law school moved to a new building of English Tudor Revival architecture replacing its earlier modernistic structure on the same site at the northwest corner of West Baltimore and North Paca Streets in 2002, adjacent to the site to the north of the old Westminster Presbyterian Church and old Western Burying Grounds facing West Fayette and North Greene Streets, the cemetery where the famous poet and writer Edgar Allan Poe is buried. It is the only law school in the United States with a famous author buried on its campus. The former restored church building, now known as Westminster Hall is used for campus events and lectures and is often requested for wedding and other social ceremonies.
The University of Maryland School of Law was ranked 48th among law schools according to the 2017 edition of U.S. News & World Report law school rankings and was also ranked among the top 10 programs for health law, clinical law and environmental law. The School of Law's students' undergraduate median GPA is a 3.47 and median Law School Admissions Test score is a 158. It admits 52.4% of applicants. The law school takes about 225 full-time day students and about 50 evening students per year.
The current Dean of the School of Law is Donald Tobin, one of the nation's leading experts on the intersection of tax and campaign finance laws.

University of Maryland School of Medicine

Established in 1807 as the College of Medicine of Maryland, University of Maryland School of Medicine was the first public medical school in the United States and it is the fifth oldest medical school in the country. The campus includes Davidge Hall, designed by Robert Cary Long, Sr. in the style of the Pantheon in Rome, which was built in 1812 at the northeast corner of West Lombard and South Greene Streets, on the west side of downtown Baltimore, and is the oldest building in continuous use for medical education in the Hemisphere. UMB SOM was ranked 34th in U.S. News and World Report magazines 2021 rankings of "Best Medical Schools: Research" and 12th in "Best Medical Schools: Primary Care".
The School of Medicine is closely affiliated with the University of Maryland Medical Center and Medical System. It houses the Department of Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Sciences, the Department of Medical and Research Technology, and two research institutes, the Institute of Human Virology and the Institute for Genome Sciences. It also offers PhD programs through the Graduate Program in Life Sciences and several combined degree programs: the MD/PhD MSTP, the MD/MPH, and an MD/ in Public Health.
In a 2011 article in Forbes magazine, Steven Salzberg criticized the school's inclusion of pseudoscientific subjects such as homeopathy in the curriculum. According to Salzberg, the school is "mis-training medical students" by teaching courses in integrative medicine.

University of Maryland School of Nursing

The University of Maryland School of Nursing, founded in 1889 by Florence Nightingale-trained nurse Louisa Parsons, is one of the oldest and largest nursing schools in the United States. In the magazine, the University of Maryland School of Nursing was ranked 6th nationally.
The UMSON building, which opened in November 1998, shares an urban campus on the west side of downtown Baltimore with five nearby professional schools — Dentistry, Law, Medicine, Pharmacy and Social Work — as well as the University of Maryland Medical System and the U.S. Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The campus is a national leader in health sciences research, with $256 million in grants and contracts in fiscal year 2001.
UMSON has pioneered a variety of innovative educational programs, including the first nursing informatics program in the world and the nation's first nursing health policy program. More than 20 specialties are offered at the graduate level, including trauma/critical-care, oncology, gerontology, psychiatric/mental health nursing, and nursing administration. In 1999, the School of Nursing became the only school in Maryland to offer a midwifery program, pre-accredited by the American College of Nurse Midwives. Nurse practitioner options are also offered in family, pediatrics, women's health, neonatal intensive care, adult primary care, acute care and geriatrics.
A variety of flexible and combined programs are offered to accelerate degree completion. These include the second bachelor's degree option, the RN to BSN online program, the RN to MS program, the post-baccalaureate entry option into the PhD program, and the MS/MBA and PhD/MBA programs offered in conjunction with the University of Baltimore; Frostburg State University; and the Robert H. Smith School of Business, at the University of Maryland, College Park. Partnership programs for BSN completion join the School of Nursing with the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, the University of Maryland, College Park, Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay, as well as all of Maryland's community colleges.
To provide clinical programs for students, UMSON maintains affiliations with more than 300 hospitals and health care agencies throughout Maryland. In addition, within the School of Nursing building are clinical simulation laboratories for hands-on training in a real-life setting.
UMSON offers a wide range of courses at off-campus locations. Students can enroll at numerous outreach sites throughout the state, permitting residents in remote, educationally under-served areas to complete undergraduate and graduate degrees in nursing. Linking regional, national and international audiences, the School incorporates the most advanced classroom and laboratory design, as well as modern distance learning communications technology, to provide a state-of-the-art education experience.
The University of Maryland School of Nursing Living History Museum, which opened in October 1999, examines the history of the nursing profession from its earliest days to present day.

University of Maryland School of Pharmacy

The University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, founded in 1841, is the fourth oldest school of pharmacy in the nation and was the first pharmacy school established in Maryland. The School of Pharmacy comprises three departments, Pharmacy Practice and Science, Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Pharmaceutical Health Services Research. The school admitted 11.4% of applicants for the 2006-2007 school year. According to the most recent pharmacy school rankings, The University of Maryland School of Pharmacy was ranked 9th among pharmacy schools in the 2016 edition of U.S. News & World Report.

University of Maryland School of Social Work

The University of Maryland School of Social Work is a top program in social work education. Graduates of the School of Social Work have become policymakers at all levels of government, from the U.S. Senate to the state and federal courts, to the State Department and departments of social services. Graduates also work as educators and researchers at universities across the country and have become therapists, community organizers, and managers. According to the most recent rankings, The University of Maryland School of Social Work was ranked 18th among schools of social work in the 2008 edition of U.S. News & World Report and 16th in 2012.

University of Maryland Graduate School, Baltimore

The Graduate School was founded in 1918. It offers 43 degree programs in total and oversees the partnership between UMB and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County with additional programs that span across both institutions.

Libraries

The University of Maryland, Baltimore has two main libraries on its campus: the Health Sciences & Human Services Library and the Thurgood Marshall Law Library.
UMB's Health Sciences & Human Services Library was founded in 1813 from the collection of Doctor John Crawford, a former British naval surgeon. Dr. Crawford's initial donation of books remains within the library's Historical Collections department as the Crawford Collection. The first location of the library was the Provost's Office within the original medical school building, now known as Davidge Hall. Under the leadership of its first official library, Dr. Eugene F. Cordell, the library grew rapidly, incorporating book collections from the schools of pharmacy and dentistry, and moving into its own building, a former church on the southeast corner of Lombard and Green Streets. The church was later razed in 1957 to make way for a new library that began construction in 1958 and opened in 1960. The library has since moved, in 1998, into a large modern building. The HS/HSL offers 45 group study rooms, 3 computer classrooms, several conference rooms with the web conferencing capability, and the Presentation Practice Studio, in addition to many study carrels and a number of public computers in a five-story building. In March, 2015, it opened the new Innovation Space designed for innovative and collaborative hands-on learning experience with 3D printers and 3D scanners.
The Thurgood Marshall Law Library, named for Baltimore native and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, is the law library for the University of Maryland School of Law. The Marshall Law Library is found inside the law school's building, accessible through the main entrance. The Thurgood Marshall Law Library contains over 400,000 volumes of Anglo-American legal materials as well as outstanding international and foreign law collections. Extensive collections of both primary sources and secondary materials such as treatises are available. The library is open to all faculty, staff and students on the campuses of the University System of Maryland; University of Maryland School of Law alumni; attorneys; and members of the general public.

Name of the institution

The professional schools housed at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, may also simply use the name "University of Maryland" when describing themselves even though the University of Maryland, College Park, also refers to itself simply as the University of Maryland. There is relatively little confusion resulting from the shared name because the University of Maryland, College Park, offers largely research-oriented graduate programs and houses fewer professional schools. The University of Maryland, Baltimore, does not offer NCAA sports. Although this university mainly offers graduate and professional study, it also offers a few undergraduate courses, which include nursing, dental hygiene, and medical technology. By law and tradition, each school is entitled to use the "University of Maryland" name in recognition of their shared history. While both schools are institutions which belong to the University System of Maryland, neither is a part of the other.
The University of Maryland, Baltimore is also often mistaken for the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, which is a separate University System of Maryland institution located in the town of Catonsville, outside the City of Baltimore.

Campus

The campus is composed of 58 buildings located near Camden Yards, the Baltimore Convention Center, and Baltimore's famous Lexington Market. Construction on a new campus center began at the start of 2007 and opened in August 2009 as the Southern Management Corporation Campus Center. The SMC ` Center contains dining facilities, meeting locations and the campus's gymnasium and recreation facility, URecFit. UMB has also recently undertaken a vast west campus expansion. This project, known as BioPark, created ten new buildings containing a total of of classroom, lab, and office space. In addition, University of Maryland Medical System cleared a downtown site for the construction of a $329 million ambulatory care center.
The university is served by the University Center/Baltimore Street station of the Baltimore Light Rail system, which is at the eastern edge of campus. The Orange Route of the free Charm City Circulator provides service to both the BioPark and through the UMB campus to the Inner Harbor and points east. The university is also served by Camden Station, which connects the campus by MARC Train to the University of Maryland, College Park and Union Station in Washington, D.C.
Starting with the 2012-2013 school year, the University launched a new shuttle bus service for university students, staff, and faculty and University of Maryland Medical Center employees free of charge. The shuttle runs 3 routes from the university to West Baltimore, Federal Hill, and Mount Vernon. The shuttle will discontinue its current service after summer 2019; the university is currently exploring transportation alternatives.

Campus police

The university is protected through the University of Maryland, Baltimore Police Department. The UMB Police department is a state- and nationally accredited police agency providing law enforcement services to the UMB campus and surrounding communities. Through an agreement signed between the UMB Police Department and the Baltimore Police Department, UMB Police officers have the same jurisdiction and authority as Baltimore Police officers throughout the campus of the university. The UMB police force is composed of both sworn officers and unarmed security guards who are located in university-owned buildings to control access to the buildings and for other security purposes. The UMB Police force also provides escort services to students and university personnel throughout the campus, either through an escort vehicle or a walking escort by an officer.

Notable alumni

Governors
U.S. Senators
U.S. Congressmen
State Senators
State Delegates
Judges
Others