FEARLESSLY FORWARD: IN PURSUIT OF EXCELLENCE AND IMPACT FOR THE PUBLIC GOOD 2026 Annual Report Presented by Jennifer King Rice, Senior Vice President & Provost University Senate Progress Report — April 21, 2026 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ INTRODUCTION Good afternoon, and thank you for the opportunity to be here and present to you today. This presentation is our official annual report for the Fearlessly Forward strategic plan — guiding the University of Maryland to pursue excellence and impact for the public good. It is not just about reporting on what we have done, but about reflecting on how far we have come, the momentum we have built together, and the opportunities ahead of us. The full report is available at: strategicplan.umd.edu This report reflects work across our entire university. The planning, implementation, initiatives, and outcomes reflect the work of many colleagues across divisions. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ BACKGROUND: OUR COMMITMENT TO ACTION When we launched Fearlessly Forward in 2022, we made a commitment to take action. We built a structure for accountability, brought together faculty, staff, students, and leaders to define what success would look like, and committed to measuring our progress in meaningful ways. Each year, we are able to report not just what we have done, but what difference it is making — on our campus, our culture, and our success — and the ways in which we are becoming more innovative, more inclusive, and more impactful in the world. Our implementation approach (2022–2026) includes: - Annual priority setting and initiatives - Community input and engagement - Investing in needed infrastructure and support - Assessing our progress More information: strategicplan.umd.edu/implementation ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ FEARLESSLY FORWARD IMPLEMENTATION AT A GLANCE - 25+ Fearlessly Forward Signature Initiatives - $389 million in total UMD investments since launch - All divisions and colleges engaged in implementation and data collection Investment breakdown: Nearly 80% of this investment is in people, including more than half going toward salary increases for faculty and staff, stipends for graduate assistants, and $80 million to the Terrapin Commitment need-based aid program. Other major investments include: - More than $10 million to modernize classrooms and learning spaces - More than $30 million in programs to support innovation in teaching and the research enterprise Full investment breakdown: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1wvxczaJjVgKWshY5iS0axgVe7Ehspoij/view ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ OUR FOUR STRATEGIC COMMITMENTS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ COMMITMENT 1: WE REIMAGINE LEARNING This commitment includes: - Leading in the development of innovative and inclusive approaches for teaching and learning - Expanding the use of high-impact experiential learning to ensure every student has the opportunity to learn through public service, civic engagement, internships, and project-based experiences - Creating opportunities for multidisciplinary collaboration that foster creative expression, discovery, and critical thinking Strategic initiatives under this commitment: - Learning Environment Modernization - Teaching Innovation Grants - Office of Undergraduate Research - TLTC Teaching Academy - Arts for All - Special Undergraduate Programs These initiatives are not standalone — they connect to a larger goal: ensuring every student has the opportunity to succeed during their time as a student and in life beyond. By aligning faculty development, student support, data, and more into a cohesive system, we are removing barriers, expanding access, and creating more pathways for success. --- GRADUATION RATE IMPROVEMENT UMD graduates more than 88% of first-time students within six years, and over 79% within four years. UMD's graduation rates are among the highest for public institutions in the Big Ten: - #3 — Four-year graduation rate - #4 — Six-year graduation rate We have also made improvements to four-year graduation plans to help students matriculate more seamlessly, and we are seeing students entering with more college credits than ever before. --- LEARNING ENVIRONMENT MODERNIZATION (Launched 2022) An initiative to develop and expand smart, accessible, and learner-centered environments. - Total investment, 2022–2025: $16.7 million - Nearly 180 projects completed, including new and renovated spaces - 113,250 student seats impacted - 2,841 instructors benefited These are not just physical upgrades — they enable more interactive, inclusive, and technology-rich teaching and learning experiences. Looking ahead: Twenty general purpose classroom renovations are planned for the coming year, including classrooms in the Atlantic Building, Toll Physics, Skinner, and Bio-Psychology buildings, all completing before Fall 2026. New informal learning spaces are also planned in Skinner Hall and Hornbake Library. --- TEACHING INNOVATION GRANTS (Launched 2022) A grant program to support innovative educational practices across disciplines, led by the Teaching and Learning Transformation Center. - Combined investment, 2022–2026: $4.5 million - 187 projects funded - 300+ courses impacted - All schools and colleges represented Grant focus areas: - Active and experiential learning - Intersection of education and technology - Inclusive and accessible teaching - Data-driven inquiry for student success (2026 cycle) This program reflects our commitment to ensuring all learners have equal access to high-quality instruction and the tools they need to succeed. --- OFFICE OF UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH (Launched 2023) A central resource to support undergraduate research culture, community, and opportunity. - 7,000+ students from nearly every school and college have participated in the FIRE, SPIRE, and IRIE programs - The ForagerOne app, connecting faculty and students on research opportunities, has doubled engagement in less than a year - A new partnership with the Clark School of Engineering has engaged nearly 200 students in Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) — multi-year, multidisciplinary research; projected to nearly double in Fall 2026 New courses launched: - OURS100: Entering Research - OURS308: Peer Mentorship — Supporting Students Entering Research --- TLTC TEACHING ACADEMY (Launched 2024) A professional development program to equip instructors with cutting-edge pedagogical strategies. - 1,733 faculty, staff, and students have participated in Teaching Academy sessions - Cumulative microcredentials awarded have grown from approximately 300 to more than 2,000 over four semesters - Most popular micro-credential: Harnessing Artificial Intelligence for Teaching (500+ awarded) - Most popular meta-credential: Course Design Practitioner (200+ awarded) --- ARTS FOR ALL The campuswide Arts for All initiative continues to grow, now including engagement with every UMD college. - 40 grants awarded, totaling $159,634; all schools and colleges engaged - NextNOW Festival: 50 events, 15 campus venues, 50 campus partners - Maryland Day: 2,000 participants in mural painting --- SPECIAL UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAMS - The Fellows Program announced new partnerships with the Do Good Institute and the Maryland Democracy Initiative, providing students with paid work with local organizations - The Honors College has seen growth in the Interdisciplinary Business Honors (IBH) and Honors Global Challenges and Solutions (HGLO) programs, both surpassing Honors' overall yield rate of 30% ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ COMMITMENT 2: WE TAKE ON HUMANITY'S GRAND CHALLENGES This commitment focuses on investing in multidisciplinary research, leveraging our location near the state and national capitals, and amplifying the impact of our work on people, communities, and society. Strategic initiatives under this commitment: - Grand Challenges Grants - Maryland Democracy Initiative - Artificial Intelligence Interdisciplinary Institute at Maryland (AIM) - Research Resilience Initiatives - PROGRESS - The 1856 Project - Climate Action Plan - xFoundry @ UMD --- GRAND CHALLENGES GRANTS (Announced April 21, 2022) A grants program to accelerate solutions to humanity's grand challenges locally and globally. GRAND CHALLENGES GRANTS 1.0 — Results: - 50 projects funded - $30 million in UMD investment - 450 partnerships created or expanded - 100% of Maryland counties benefited - 6,500+ students involved - $55 million in additional external funding secured (nearly doubling the original investment) - 94% of projects have provided experiential learning opportunities - 63,000+ stakeholders engaged Three institutional grants: 1. Global FEWture Alliance — projects include harvesting rainwater for urban agriculture, energy-efficient water treatment, and converting landfill waste into clean energy 2. Maryland Initiative for Literacy and Equity — working with schools and communities across Maryland to address disparities in reading 3. Climate Resilience Network — Mesonet and Hydronet programs monitor and provide early warning of severe weather and flooding across Maryland Projects that have grown into permanent campus infrastructure: - Maryland Democracy Initiative - Artificial Intelligence Interdisciplinary Institute at Maryland (AIM) - Center for Educational Data Science & Innovation Public impact examples: - Water Emergency Team (WET Lab): played a leading role in addressing the Potomac River sewage spill - Maryland Opportunity Project: partnered with the Maryland Comptroller to quantify the impact of decreased federal spending and workforce reductions on Maryland GRAND CHALLENGES GRANTS 2.0 — Announced January 2026: - Institutional Awards: up to three awards for teams representing three or more colleges; each project eligible for up to $1.5 million over three years - Team Awards: up to seven awards for teams representing two or more colleges; each project eligible for up to $600,000 over three years Infrastructure changes made to better support interdisciplinary, impact-driven work: - Center for Community Engagement and Office of Undergraduate Research embedded into the program's core - Updated sustainability planning for project leads - Changed campus fundraising approach to better support cross-college collaborative projects - Media training provided to project teams --- MARYLAND DEMOCRACY INITIATIVE (Launched 2023, supported by a $6 million gift from Marsha '64 and Henry Laufer) An initiative to strengthen civic engagement and democracy through research, teaching, and partnerships. Core work: - 25+ research projects - 15+ teaching and learning initiatives - 20+ civic engagement initiatives - 15+ publications - 15 major conferences, summits, and workshops - 20+ core faculty and students from 4 colleges - 25+ community and campus partners Engagement and reach: - 15,000+ people engaged - 500+ faculty and staff - 3,300 students - 11,568 external stakeholders - All 23 Maryland counties and Baltimore City - 40+ U.S. states, 7 countries Civic Engagement Across the Curriculum initiative: - Changes made to more than 30 courses to date, impacting approximately 3,000 students - Summer pilot program for K–12 educators planned --- ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE INTERDISCIPLINARY INSTITUTE AT MARYLAND (AIM) (Launched 2024) A central hub for AI education, research, partnerships, and collaboration across campus. - Faculty affiliates grew from 186 (2024) to 224 (2025), representing every school and college - 5 new distinguished AI scholars hired in philosophy, computer science, public health, bioengineering, and government and politics AI degree programs: - M.S. Artificial Intelligence - M.Eng. Artificial Intelligence - B.A. Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (in development) - B.S. Computational Structures for AI Systems (in development) AIM Research Seed Award Program: - 22 proposals awarded across 10 schools and colleges - Focus areas: Learning, Accessibility, Social Justice, Sustainability --- RESEARCH RESILIENCE INITIATIVES (Launched 2025) A funding program to sustain essential research and support early-career scholars. - 82 projects awarded a total of $5.25 million across 30+ disciplines - Preserve, Pivot & Grow Programs: - Strategic Institutional Investments: 7 awards, $2.4 million across 6 colleges - At-risk Faculty Members and Lab Groups: 18 awards, $900,000 across 8 colleges - MPower Early Scholars Investment Funds: - Junior Tenure-Track Faculty: 20 awards, $1 million across 9 colleges - Graduate Students: 31 awards, $750,000 across 7 colleges - Postdoctoral Fellows: 6 awards, $225,000 across 5 colleges Second round planned for FY2027. --- OTHER GRAND CHALLENGES HIGHLIGHTS The 1856 Project: Awarded a grant by the Maryland 250 Commission to contribute to events surrounding the 250th anniversary of the United States. PROGRESS: Expanded community engagement efforts, facilitating dialogues on Community Violence Intervention (CVI) data, analysis, and policy; also leading development of GeoAI analytics for gun violence prevention. xFoundry @ UMD: Hosted the School Safety Xperience Competition. Team DefenX from UMD secured a $250,000 investment from the University of Maryland College Park Foundation. Climate Action Plan: In 2025, UMD achieved carbon neutrality and continues to reduce carbon emissions from campus energy and transportation systems. Modernization of the campus district energy system began in 2025. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ COMMITMENT 3: WE INVEST IN PEOPLE AND COMMUNITIES This commitment includes advancing equity and inclusion, building a community of care, and aligning incentives with our values. Institutional success depends on the well-being and support of our people. Strategic initiatives under this commitment: Investments to support students: - Terrapin Commitment - Supporting Graduate Students - Unity Center Investments to support staff: - MVP Impact and Terrapin Innovation Awards - Excellence in Supervision Program - Family Care Benefits Investments to support faculty: - Faculty Supports, Evaluations, and Rewards Investments to support all Terps: - Mental Health and Well-being - TerrapinSTRONG --- TERRAPIN COMMITMENT (Announced October 24, 2022) A signature need-based financial aid program to support Maryland students. - More than 4,000 students served since launch - More than $53 million awarded to date - FY2023: 3,421 students served - FY2024: 3,863 students served - FY2025: 4,469 students served Expansion beginning Fall 2026: The Terrapin Commitment will ensure 100% of tuition and fees are covered for Maryland students with unmet financial need from families making $75,000 or less. This expands eligibility beyond Pell-eligible students only. --- INVESTING IN GRADUATE STUDENTS (Announced February 13, 2023) Discovery House: - New graduate housing facility nearing completion - Slated to serve approximately 750 individuals beginning in 2026–27 Grand Challenges Graduate Communities (GC²): - An accelerator for interdisciplinary research and professional impact - Designed to move past disciplinary silos and build lasting research networks - Small, curated cohorts from across campus to focus on a grand challenge - Student benefits: high-value collaborative research, expanded mentorship and committee access, tangible research support Additional graduate investments: - Minimum graduate assistant stipends increased 64% from Fall 2019 to Fall 2025, making UMD the fifth highest among BTAA public schools - Introduction of College Resolution Officers - Creation of Statement of Mutual Expectations process --- INVESTING IN STAFF Staff Fearlessly Forward Awards: - 256 nominations received — a 50% increase from the inaugural year (2023) - 25 staff members honored at the third annual MVP Impact and Terrapin Innovation Awards - 14 divisions represented Excellence in Supervision Program: - 275 faculty and staff have completed the program - 378 faculty and staff are currently completing the program --- FACULTY SUPPORTS, EVALUATIONS, AND REWARDS Faculty excellence highlights: - 108 memberships in the National Academies - 84 members of the National Academies - 119 AAAS Fellows - 5 NSF CAREER Awards in 2025 Supporting faculty excellence and success (announced December 2025): - Guidance and support resources for evaluation and promotion - Faculty Support Team - Research Resilience Initiatives - Advancing PTK administrative reforms - Launch of Leadership Development Programs - Grand Challenges Grants 2.0 - Formation of APT Working Group — considering revisions to the university's APT policy to better align promotion criteria with mission, values, and priorities --- MENTAL HEALTH AND WELL-BEING (Announced July 2022) - 65% increase in Terps reached through mental health and well-being programming in 2025 (totaling 17,231) - 30,000+ clinical visits to the health center supported - Average Counseling Center wait time reduced from approximately 10 days (2020) to 1.87 business days - xFoundry Mental Health Xperience Competition empowers student teams to develop solutions tackling real-world mental health challenges Website: mentalhealth.umd.edu --- UNITY CENTER AND TERRAPINSTRONG The Unity Center opened its doors to the UMD community in Fall 2025. The Center's design is grounded in the collective voices of our student body and honors the richness of our entire campus community. It is home to five lounges and a multipurpose room. TerrapinSTRONG: - Reached more than 9,000 Terps in 2025 alone (9,224 community members trained; 83% completion rate for all full-time employees) - Third annual TerrapinSTRONG Symposium hosted 175 participants; piloted a second virtual conference day with 45 participants - 2025 symposium theme: "Navigating Change" ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ COMMITMENT 4: WE PARTNER TO ADVANCE THE PUBLIC GOOD This commitment includes community engagement, innovation, and collaboration at local, state, and global levels. Goals: - Expand impact through strategic research partnerships with local, state, national, and global stakeholders - Catalyze innovation and entrepreneurship for inclusive economic development - Enhance the economy, educational outcomes, social justice, quality of life, and civic engagement of our neighbors and neighborhoods through relationship-building and ongoing commitment to partnerships Strategic initiatives under this commitment: - Center for Community Engagement - Do Good Campus - MPOWER Professorship Program - Capital of Quantum and Discovery District - Enhancing P-20 Education in Maryland --- CENTER FOR COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT (Announced 2023) A central hub to support impact-driven and community-centered research, teaching, and service. Recognition: UMD earned the Carnegie Foundation Classification for Community Engagement — one of the nation's highest recognitions for institutional excellence in community-engaged teaching, research, and service. Policy and practice impact: - Tracking community-engaged activities in Faculty Success system - Identifying community-engaged research in IRB process - Integration into APT process (in progress) Pathways Forward Resource Hub: Supporting Marylanders impacted by federal workforce layoffs, job transitions, and funding changes — has reached 14,239 users. Expanding capacity: - Staff hires supporting faculty engagement, the Do Good Campus, and community partnerships - New office and central location for the Center --- DO GOOD CAMPUS (Announced September 26, 2023) Vision: To empower students, faculty, and staff to apply their passions and ideas to make a social impact and change the world for good. - $460,000 in cumulative investment — a 10% increase from 2024 - 27 projects powered across all colleges and schools - Every UMD school and college is an active participant Do Good Campus Signature Initiatives criteria: - Mission centered - Identifiable social impact - Focused toward transformative change - Fosters collaborative partnerships - Catalyzes students for social impact - Longevity and sustainability April is Do Good Month at UMD. --- MPOWERING THE STATE A collaboration with the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) to strengthen and serve the state of Maryland and its citizens. MPower Early Scholars Investment Fund: - Protects and strengthens the next generation of researchers - Provides short-term funding for researchers impacted by federal cuts - Advances Maryland's future competitiveness - Secures UMB-UMCP Joint Research Enterprise UMB-UMCP Joint Research Enterprise — Engineering and Medicine Partnership: - Edward and Jennifer St. John Center for Translational Engineering and Medicine: brings together engineers from College Park and medical practitioners from Baltimore to address real-world health challenges - BS-MD Dual-Degree Pathway: first cohort enrolled in eight-year program University of Maryland Institute for Health Computing: - 135 faculty, staff, postdocs, and students engaged - 20 student interns and trainees (summer 2025) - 7 provisional patents, trademarks, or copyrights submitted - 1 faculty member spin-out company - 2 government agencies co-located on-site (National Institutes of Health; National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; and U.S. Food and Drug Administration) - 20+ industry partnerships in life sciences and biotech sectors --- QUANTUM AND DISCOVERY DISTRICT A region-wide initiative to solidify UMD's position as the Capital of Quantum. - $1 billion investment to support quantum research and training - 200+ quantum researchers engaged - 10 quantum-focused centers - #9 U.S. News Best Graduate Schools in Quantum New initiatives and announcements: - Capital of Quantum Benchmarking Hub - The ARLIS/UMD Institute for Quantum Applications - Microsoft's Quantum Research Lab Discovery District: - 60+ companies, federal agencies, academic research institutes, labs, and collaborative spaces - 10 startup companies - 2 million square feet of office, retail, residential, and research space - 25 UMD entities, research partners, and affiliates - Now home to the 110,000-square-foot Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security (ARLIS) headquarters --- P-20 EDUCATION PARTNERSHIPS Terrapin STARS: Supports prospective students from small town and rural areas of Maryland. 4,496 current undergraduate students are from STARS designated locations. Center for Community Engagement P-20 work: - Working across the university to identify 20+ tutoring and mentoring opportunities - Providing access to community-based learning courses - Developing early college, research, and professional learning opportunities focused on local schools ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ GLOBAL OUTCOMES AND RECOGNITION OUR RESEARCH ENTERPRISE Since 2021, research expenditures have increased by $177 million, reaching over $700 million annually. Annual research expenditures: - 2021: $536 million - 2022: $583 million - 2023: $641 million - 2024: $726 million - 2025: $713 million (slight dip due to federal funding landscape changes; only a $13 million decrease from 2024, far less than many peer institutions) Rankings: - #9 public university for R&D spending (combined with UMB) — NSF HERD - #10 top patent-producing U.S. public university — National Academy of Inventors - 65 patents issued in FY2025 EXCELLENCE IN ACADEMIA AND THE TERRAPIN EXPERIENCE - #10 America's Top Public Colleges (Forbes) - #16 Top Public Schools, National Universities (U.S. News) - #11 Learning Communities (U.S. News) - 79.6% four-year graduation rate - #23 Best College for Veterans (U.S. News) - #13 Public colleges with best 6-year Pell graduation rates (Chronicle Almanac) - #7 Undergraduate Entrepreneurship (Princeton Review and Entrepreneur Magazine) - One of America's Best Employers and Workplaces (Forbes and Newsweek) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ LOOKING AHEAD Our strategic plan is more than a plan — it is a commitment to sustaining momentum, scaling impact, and continuing to move Fearlessly Forward. We are not only launching new initiatives, but changing policies and building a culture to support the vision and values articulated in our strategic plan. The foundation we have built together positions us to go even further. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ For more information, visit: strategicplan.umd.edu