Peter Angelos Donates $1 Million to UBalt Law's Baltimore Scholars Program to Increase Diversity
The University of Baltimore School of Law is proud to announce a $1 million gift from Peter Angelos, LL.B. '61, to strengthen the school's Baltimore Scholars program, an intensive, one-on-one approach to enhancing diversity in legal education and in the wider legal community.The five-year-old initiative will be renamed the Fannie Angelos Program for Academic Excellence. Both Peter and his sister, Fannie Angelos, LL.B. '51, are graduates of the University of Baltimore School of Law. The formal announcement was made during a brief ceremony on Monday, June 10 in the garden level of the new John and Frances Angelos Law Center, Mount Royal Avenue and Charles Street in Baltimore.
The Baltimore Scholars program, directed by Professors Michael Higginbotham and Michael Meyerson and administrator Lenora Giles, is a unique partnership with Maryland’s four historically black colleges and universities, or HBCUs: Bowie State University, Coppin State University, Morgan State University and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.
Said 2012 Scholar Keon Eubanks, who is a member of the University of Baltimore School of Law 2013 entering class: "My grandfather retired from UBalt's custodial staff. … It would mean the world to him for me to win a scholarship to the school he worked for but never attended."
Since 2008, the program has helped 30 HBCU students enter the University of Baltimore School of Law, Columbia Law School, University of Southern California Gould School of Law, University of Minnesota Law School, University of Maryland School of Law and North Carolina Central University School of Law.
The program has two parts:
Boot camp: Eight undergraduate HBCU juniors and seniors are selected as “Baltimore Scholars” to take part in a two-week "boot camp." The students, who stay in a downtown hotel, are immersed in a rigorous law school experience – attending classes, reading cases and writing assignments for review by full-time law school faculty members. The scholars also meet with law students, visit law firms and talk with lawyers and judges.
After boot camp, the scholars enroll in the semester-long Princeton Review LSAT preparation class, paid for by the University of Baltimore School of Law. Each scholar is assigned a law faculty adviser and a law student mentor who communicates with them throughout the LSAT preparation and law school admission process.
Baltimore Scholars are not required to attend UBalt Law, but those who complete the program successfully, maintain a cumulative undergraduate grade point average of 3.5 and score 152 or higher on the LSAT receive a full, three-year tuition scholarship to the University of Baltimore School of Law.
Law School Admission Test Preparation, or LSAT Prep: About 80 HBCU juniors, seniors or graduates and the selected Baltimore Scholars are admitted annually to this program, which provides comprehensive LSAT preparation facilitated by the Princeton Review. Classes meet twice a week during the spring semester on the HBCU campuses. Students then sit for the June LSAT.
For more information, contact Hope Keller, UBalt School of Law's director of communications, at 410.837.5648 or hkeller@ubalt.edu.