Sen. McCray addresses graduates, closing banner year for UMES

By Dr. Deborah Bailey
AFRO Contributing Editor 
dbailey@afro.com

Maryland state Sen. Corey V. McCray, who represents East and Northeast Baltimore in Annapolis, summarized the University of Maryland Eastern Shore’s banner year in a speech to the 319 graduates assembled May 15 in the William P. Hytche Athletic Center for the school’s 139^th spring commencement.

“Exposure creates opportunity, but opportunity only matters if you do something with your time. If you want a different life, you’re going to have to be uncomfortable,” said the second term senator who serves on the Legislature’s powerful Budget and Taxation Committee. 

McCray’s strongest message to graduates of Maryland’s land grant HBCU was offered in the story of his rise from the juvenile justice system, to becoming a certified electrical technician, and then moving forward to leadership in the House of Delegates and now the State Senate. 

McCray openly shared that serving in youth detention at Western Maryland’s Victor Cullen Youth Center during high school led him to a low point where he couldn’t see a future. “But my mother never gave up on me,” said McCray regarding his mother’s diligence in finding a practical option to divert McCray from life on the streets. 

McCray’s acceptance of an apprenticeship with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers was a lifesaving measure, he said to the graduates, leading to certification as an electrician and more than a decade of leadership in the Maryland General Assembly representing the modest communities of East and Northeast Baltimore. 

UMES spreads its wings across Maryland, the mid-Atlantic and the world

Now students from McCray’s East Baltimore community and others across the city, Maryland and even further represent a growing student population for UMES. The pastoral HBCU campus, spread across more than 1,000 acres in historic Princess Anne, Md., has extended its reach in recent years to students across the Eastern United States and to 40 countries, attracting both undergraduate and graduate students to an institution with research opportunities, experiential learning and the unique extra-curricular life of an HBCU. 

A contingent of Baltimore students receive an annual scholarship from the Ozzie Newsome Scholars program, underwritten by Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti and wife.

Maryland’s land grant HBCU and more

Others are attracted by unique academic offerings not seen at other universities across the state, like UMES’s iconic Aviation Sciences Program, several programs in agricultural and food sciences, and a unique hospitality and tourism program featuring the university’s own fully functional hotel and banquet facility. 

Students are also attracted to the break from the fast pace of city life. Students from smaller towns like David Martin, who received his degree in exercise management on May 16, enjoyed the close-knit relationships he forged and felt UMES was the right place to take a chance on his dreams.

“I am the little island boy who dared to dream,” said the Caribbean native. “I left Jamaica with nothing but faith, ambition and the belief that I could become more than what my circumstances suggested.”

Gabrielle English’s dreams of flight started as a child. Her military parents brought her to air shows and worked on planes while they served and for years afterwards. By the time she was in high school, English had experienced the thrill of enough air shows and seen enough pilots emerge from the cockpit after a successful flight, to become laser focused on aviation science. 

“Not only was it the only flight school in Maryland, but it was also a historically Black university. I found it important that as a Black woman working in a male-dominated field, I trained at a program that fostered both excellence and representation,” said the 2024 graduate, who now works as a flight instructor at UMES. 

Heidi Anderson, president of UMES, is finishing her eighth year at the school’s helm and has worked collaboratively with faculty and staff to grow UMES’ footprint in unique STEM programs and other distinct learning opportunities that fit well with Eastern Maryland’s needs. 

With the close of the spring semester, faculty will spend the summer making final preparations for a new College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) tentatively slated to start in fall 2026.

“We are now at the final milestone of what is needed for accreditation. We are the first veterinary medicine school in the state of Maryland,” said Anderson. “We are the first public HBCU that will have a veterinary medicine school. We partner with Tuskegee (a private HBCU).”

Under Anderson’s leadership, faculty are also working to restore accreditation to the physician assistant program, a profession especially needed in rural areas and sometimes in core urban areas, where shortages of licensed medical doctors are more prevalent. The school boasts a  summer transportation institute for middle and high school students, introducing them to related majors they can pursue in college.

McCray congratulated Anderson and her team for the fall 2025 gift of $38 million from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott. The gift, the largest in the university’s history, allows the campus to accelerate student success, research and community impact. The donation came after UMES received a $20 million donation from Scott in 2020, one of 384 institutions nationwide to receive pandemic funding from the donor. 

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