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Montebello

The Alameda

July 18, 2011

9. Old School

Baltimore City College graduated its first coed class the same year Cindy Harcum, the school’s new principal, started junior high. In love with literature and the humanities, she wanted to go to the school known as The Castle on the Hill. Not that it would be easy.

There were admission standards and, even worse, the commute from West Baltimore to Waverly.

“It took three buses and an hour and a half,” Harcum recalls. “If the No. 22 went by twice and it was full, I took the subway downtown and went up from there.

“I wasn’t going to let distance stop me, but that wasn’t new,” she adds. “After Gwynns Falls Elementary, I’d gone to Roland Park Junior High. I’d been doing it since I was 11.”

Founded in 1839, City College counts three current Maryland Congressmen as alumni: Rep. Elijah Cummings, Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, and Sen. Ben Cardin. Mayors William Donald Schaefer and Kurt Schmoke, philanthropists Joseph Meyerhoff, Morris Mechanic, and Zanvyl Krieger, and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Russell Baker are also City alumni, along with dozens of judges, state legislators, scientists, educators, and journalists.

Harcum’s grandparents immigrated to Baltimore from the West Indies. Her father finished high school in the city six years before desegregation and moved from job to job—until, at 40, he earned a degree from Morgan State, landing a position with the federal Department of Transportation.

“He always stressed education,” says Harcum, noting her sister and older brothers also earned college degrees. “It was understood that you would do well in school.”

With her English literature degree from the University of Maryland, Harcum returned to City College to teach in 1997. Eventually, she ran writing seminars at several city high schools, developed curricula, trained teachers, and oversaw SAT readiness preparation at City. In 2004, she began coordinating the International Baccalaureate and Advanced Placement programs. A year later, she was named an assistant principal.

Last August, amid declining test scores and national rankings and the arrest of a City College staffer on sexual abuse charges, Baltimore City schools CEO Andrés Alonso reassigned principal Tim Dawson and asked Harcum if she’d take the job on an interim basis.

As an alumna, she brings a natural connection with the students to her new position. Open and direct, she also brings the credibility of having walked in their shoes.

“If they tell me they’re late because of a bus, I tell them to get up earlier,” Harcum says. “Nothing will be given to you here.”