About Us

Mission and Core Objectives

The University of Maryland FIRST program is a partnership between the University of Maryland School of Medicine and University of Maryland Baltimore County. Our overarching goal is to create a comprehensive model dedicated to ensuring a diverse, scholarly environment and encouraging outstanding individuals to enter the academic profession through a commitment to diversity and inclusive excellence.

Within the FIRST program, diversity is defined as including all the individual and multidimensional differences in our identities and backgrounds.

"We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value." - Maya Angelou, "Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now" (1993)

Increased diversity amongst physicians, scientists, and educators improves access to care, increases academic discourse, advances intellectual engagement amongst a broad spectrum of students, and leads to higher impact research aimed at reducing health disparities among underserved communities. Thus, UM FIRST's aim is to enhance the scientific workforce by hiring a cohort of ten promising early-stage investigators in the areas of neuroscience, cancer biology, and microbiology/immunology/infectious disease who are committed to inclusive excellence including the alleviation of health care disparities experienced by disadvantaged populations.

Dedicated faculty development and cohort building programs modeled after the key aspects of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program related to academic & social integration, monitoring & advising, support & motivation, and knowledge & skill development will ensure the success of these hires as tenure-track faculty. We will evaluate the policies and models that are used during the FIRST program to determine our successes and failures. We will seek to implement successful policies and practices across our institutions to achieve our goal of fostering sustainable institutional change that codifies the importance of a diverse faculty. Further, faculty hired under UM FIRST will serve as exemplars and leaders for institutional change, as well as role models for the next generations of scientists.

UM FIRST Diversity Mission Statement

UM FIRST at the UMSOM and UMBC seeks to build and leverage a diverse and inclusive workforce and workplace by promoting a culture of belonging among our UM FIRST cohorts at our universities and within our participating academic programs, departments, and university-wide.