2023: Senate President Bill Ferguson

Senate President Bill Ferguson is a lifelong resident of Maryland and staunch advocate for public higher education. He participated in Teach for America as a high school teacher in Baltimore City Public Schools before attending law school and furthering his service to the state by running for the Maryland Senate in 2010. For over a decade he has represented the constituents of Baltimore City as a Senator and in 2020 was elected by his peers to be the Senate President. In addition to his work to ensure funding for state of the art academic buildings on our campus, he sponsored SB 1052: University of Maryland Strategic Partnership Act of 2016 and subsequent funding for the MPower program. MPower continues to be transformative for the University of Maryland’s research enterprise and has led to the university being a Top 10 public university in research and development spending.