St. Mary’s College of Maryland is pleased to announce that Mayor of Baltimore and St. Mary’s College alumnus Brandon M. Scott ’06 will be the College’s 2021 Commencement speaker. The virtual Commencement celebration will be held on Saturday, May 8, beginning at 9 a.m., to coincide with the first of three in-person Grad Walks at the Jamie L. Roberts Stadium.
Scott is the 52nd mayor of Baltimore, Maryland. He was unanimously elected president of the Baltimore City Council by his colleagues in May 2019. As Council President, Scott developed and released the first-ever City Council President legislative agenda, focused on building safer, stronger communities, cleaning up city government, investing in Baltimore’s young people, and centering equity. Previously, Scott served on the City Council representing Baltimore’s 2nd District. He was first elected in 2011 at the age of 27 and is one of the youngest people ever elected to the Baltimore City Council.
During his first term, Scott emerged as a leading voice in reducing violence in Baltimore and reinstated Council oversight of the Baltimore Police Department by holding quarterly hearings. He believes that reducing violence will require a holistic, all-hands-on-deck approach, one that recognizes violence is fundamentally a public health issue. Scott led legislative initiatives that created extensive crime data sharing and online reporting of crimes by the Baltimore Police Department. In 2016, Scott introduced and passed legislation creating an open data policy in Baltimore.
In early 2018, then-Councilman Scott introduced and passed legislation on equity in Baltimore. His equity assessment program law requires all city agencies to operate through a lens of equity and require all operating budgets, capital budgets and proposed legislation to be weighed through an equity lens. That legislation is in the early stages of implementation.
Scott was a member of the Young Elected Officials Network and served as the secretary of Housing and Urban Development for YEO’s America’s Cabinet. He also served as the chair of the National League of Cities’ Large Cities Council.
Scott is a lifelong resident of Baltimore City. He is a graduate of MERVO High School and St. Mary’s College of Maryland. He lives in Baltimore’s Frankford neighborhood in Northeast Baltimore.
Scott recently joined a St. Mary’s College of Maryland Student Government Association meeting where he discussed his years as an undergraduate at the College. He shared how his campus involvement helped to prepare him for future leadership roles and his participation in campus traditions.
“My friends and the people who were there when I was at St. Mary’s will tell you long ago, I knew I wanted to be the mayor of Baltimore because for me, serving and making my city a better place is the only thing that I ever really wanted to do with my life. I will tell you, that would not have happened, if I did not go to St. Mary’s. My degree is in political science, but really, my activism and my service really blossomed at St. Mary’s. Being the president of Black Student Union, being on the SGA programs board and many other things are how I learned about coalition building and [this] is where I learned to work for things greater than oneself and worked to improve the lives of all people.”
