Creative Alliance is delighted to honor two transformative luminaries at the Marquee Ball on April 23rd. Margaret Footner, co-founder of Creative Alliance, and Dr. Freeman Hrabowski, III, President of UMBC, will be recognized for their unparalleled commitment and innovation to the arts, education, and culture.
Margaret Footner will be presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award and Dr. Freeman Hrabowski will be presented with the Golden Formstone Award to commemorate their achievements.
Margaret co-founded the Creative Alliance at her café/gallery in Fells Point and served as Executive Director from 1995-2018. She co-led the redevelopment of The Patterson movie theater into Baltimore’s premier multi-arts center. Creative Alliance built The Patterson to champion Baltimore’s artists of all media, spearhead Greater Highlandtown’s revival, and build community through excellent, accessible arts and education programs. As founding Executive Director, Margaret led the organization’s growth from a small group of visionary volunteers into a transformative cultural force. After transitioning from executive leadership, Margaret continued as a volunteer to help develop the new Creativity Center to improve facilities and opportunities for education and community arts programs. She now lives on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
Freeman Hrabowski, PhD
Dr. Freeman A. Hrabowski, President of UMBC since 1992, is a consultant on science and math education to national agencies, universities, and school systems. In 2012, he was named by President Obama to chair the President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans. He leads a university that has been recognized as a model for inclusive excellence by such publications as U.S. News, which has recognized UMBC as a national leader in academic innovation and undergraduate teaching for the past 10 years. In 2012, he was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World by TIME, and more recently he received the American Council on Education’s Lifetime Achievement Award (2018), the University of California, Berkeley’s Clark Kerr Award (2019), and the University of California, San Francisco’s UCSF Medal (2020). His most recent book, The Empowered University, examines how university communities support academic success by cultivating an empowering institutional culture.
