The University of Baltimore is having a “Rock the Block” party on Saturday, April 12, to celebrate its 100th anniversary.
Gordon Plaza, at the northeast corner of Mount Royal and Maryland Avenues, will be the main setting for the free festival, which will offer live music, food and drinks, artists, makers and interactive games from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Some activities will be open to everyone, including opening remarks by University President Kurt Schmoke; a spoken-word performance by Maryland poet laureate Lady Brion; a 360-degree photo booth and a cupcake giveaway. A student-only section will feature activities such as Mason jar glass etching, airbrush tattoos and caricatures.
An anchor of midtown, the University of Baltimore, or UBalt for short, is a public institution that was founded in 1925 by local business professionals to provide educational opportunities to working men and women. It was created from the merger of a night law school and a night business school, and its first home was a four-story row house on Saint Paul Street.
From 1925 to 1975, UBalt was a private university. In 1975, the State of Maryland assumed ownership and it became a public institution. In 1988, the state merged UBalt into the University of Maryland System, now called the University System of Maryland. It has colleges of Arts and Sciences and Public Affairs and schools of Business and Law.
Year-long celebration
The block party is the second of three events that the university’s Centennial Committee has planned to mark its 100th anniversary throughout the year. On Jan. 23, the university looked at its past, with the opening of a Centennial Exhibit about its history at the Robert L. Bogomolny Library, 1420 Maryland Ave., and a panel discussion about the university’s effectiveness as an urban institution and role within the city and region.
The Centennial Exhibit is on view until the end of April in the exhibition gallery at the Bogomolny Library. Researched, designed, and installed by Lexzander Ernst, a UBalt history major who graduated in 2024, it highlights changes that have shaped the university since 1925, both in the social climate and on the physical campus. Drawing on historical records, publications and photographs from the university’s archives, it weaves together the themes of physical and social transformation.
This weekend is about the present, a chance for current students, faculty, administrators and alumni to come together with residents and stakeholders from the surrounding area. On Nov. 13 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., the university will have a “Centennial Grand Celebration” that will focus on its future. It will be held at the M&T Bank Exchange at the France-Merrick Performing Arts Center, 401 West Fayette St.
Looking ahead
Led by Schmoke since July 7, 2014, the university has been moving administrative offices to a new UBalt Welcome Center created inside the former headquarters of The Associated: Jewish Federation of Baltimore at 101 W. Mount Royal Ave. It has also put signs and banners all around its midtown campus that call attention to its 100th anniversary.
Starting this summer, the university’s Academic Center at Mount Royal Avenue and Charles Street will become the temporary home for Baltimore City College high school, while that school undergoes a three-year renovation. Work is underway to prepare the Academic Center for its new use.
A 10-year facilities master plan approved in November by the University System of Maryland Board of Regents recommends that UBalt’s Academic Center be torn down and replaced with a more efficient “Center for Learning” after City College moves back to its renovated campus at 3220 The Alameda. The target date for completion is sometime in the early 2030s.
More information about the block party and other university events is at 100.Ubalt.edu.
