- September 08, 2026
- By Jessica D. Wilson
Close friends Jasmine Drummond ’17 and Nabreyia Scott ’17 applied for the same full scholarship at the University of Maryland knowing only one would be given to a student at their high school. Then came the twin phone calls that changed everything.
“We both found out that we were able to go—that Chuck Daggs was going to pay for both of us,” said Drummond, “[it was] celebration to the infinite degree.”
Charles “Chuck” Daggs ’69 and his wife, Rebecca, have funded the education of 10 students—including Drummond and Scott—through gifts to UMD’s C. D. Mote, Jr. Incentive Awards Program (IAP). Recently, the couple has made a new $1 million bequest to endow their IAP scholarship, ensuring that their commitment to opening doors for talented students will continue for generations to come.
The gift supports Forward: The University of Maryland Campaign for the Fearless, the $2.5 billion fundraising initiative to widen access to education, spur groundbreaking discoveries and build stronger communities.
“I can say without hesitation that my wife’s and my personal involvement with the Incentive Awards Program has been the most rewarding and inspiring time of our lives,” said Daggs, who is also a member of the University of Maryland College Park Foundation Board of Trustees. “These are disciplined young people that have worked very hard to get where they are, and you don't want the financial side of it to get in the way of their success.”
Since its founding in 2000, IAP has focused on promising students from selected high schools in Maryland who have excelled in difficult circumstances, pairing full tuition, room and board with a comprehensive community and support system designed to help them thrive at UMD and beyond.
The goal, said Founding Director Jacqueline Wheeler Lee, is for students “to support one another, build one another up, share successes, failures, mishaps, words of wisdom with each other as a way to get them through school.”
Wheeler started with a cohort of nine students; in Fall 2026, she will welcome 26 IAP scholars, for a total of 118 students enrolled. Nearly 300 have graduated; the one-year retention rate is 100% and the six-year graduation rate is 86%.
“Because it's a scholarship program, a huge part of it is maintaining your grades and being a good academic student,” said Drummond. “But one thing I really love and treasure about IAP is that they also took a great amount of time to pour into us as individuals, to bring us together as a community.”
Lee said the gift from the couple will provide more than financial support: “Donors are affirming these students and tacitly conveying confidence in their ability to be successful.”
For his part, Chuck Daggs understands the power education has to change a life. He was the first in his family to go to college. “Everybody deserves the opportunity to lead a choice-filled life with dignity, no matter what their background or where they live, and this is all about creating that opportunity and leveling the playing field,” he said.
Rebecca and Charles “Chuck” Daggs ’69