The first students at UMBC were 750 pioneers who arrived on September 19, 1966 and found three academic buildings, a campus still under construction, and a lot of mud. Some of the pathways they found were wooden boards. The Loop Road that would eventually encircle campus was years from completion yet. This first UMBC class laid a foundation of hard work and determination that continues almost 50 years later.

According to the second issue of UMBC News (the student newspaper that was later renamed The Retriever Weekly), Gabija Brasauskas Blotzer ’70, English, was the first student to register for classes and obtain her student identification card.

Read more at http://magazine.umbc.edu/umbc-magazine-fall-2015/histories-and-mysteries/first-student/