- November 17, 2025
- By Karen Shih ’09
Steve Leonard ’78 was just looking for a way to pay for his room and board when he got behind the wheel of a Shuttle-UM bus during his sophomore year. But he soon found himself enjoying the hours he spent driving students around campus—and intrigued by safety and logistics as he took on more responsibility.
He wanted to delve deeper into these topics, and found that the civil engineering and business departments each had relevant classes. But neither on its own encompassed his imagined major. Through the new Individual Studies Program (IVSP), he made it real.
“When people look at me and say, ‘This is the way we do it,’ I always question it,” he said. “Are there other ways to have a better outcome?”
Launched 50 years ago this fall, the program has given hundreds of students the tools to design their own course of study under the guidance of staff and faculty, drawing from classes across campus. Leonard created a traffic safety management major and went on to become Shuttle-UM’s first general manager. Today, he’s a successful entrepreneur who owns multiple businesses, including a dealership for school and transit buses.
Photos courtesy of Steve Leonard
Steve Leonard, second from right, with fellow Shuttle-UM employees in 1979.
“We’re a quiet little corner of campus with really good alumni outcomes in many different fields,” said Assistant Director Lori Praniewicz, who has worked for IVSP since 2011, supporting 30 to 60 students per year.
Over the past five decades, they’ve included Grammy winners and television stars, surgeons and attorneys, and more—including multiple Forbes’ “30 Under 30” honorees.
Students come to IVSP, housed in the Office of Undergraduate Studies, for a variety of reasons: Some hope to combine aspects of multiple majors, others want to expand a minor, some envision something completely unorthodox. Many are in pre-professional programs like pre-law or pre-med; an aspiring physician may examine health outcomes in marginalized communities, or a future entertainment lawyer may take film and music classes to better understand their clients.
The reason for IVSP student success, said Praniewicz, is because “this is not a program you just slide into. You have to work for it, but in the end you have a major tailored to your unique interests and goals.”
Students can apply for the program after they’ve earned 30 credits, giving them time to explore existing majors, which cannot be replicated through the program. IVSP staffers, including Director Jay Arasan and Praniewicz, work one-on-one with students to define goals and see if IVSP is the right fit before starting the student on the proposal process. This includes writing a personal statement and developing a plan of courses under three interdisciplinary concentrations.
In addition, students have to propose ideas for a final capstone project, such as building an app, writing a research paper or creating a work of art, under the guidance of a faculty mentor they’ve found in a related field. Finally, the student goes before a board of four to seven faculty members with varied areas of expertise to defend their proposal before they can get approval.
“To this day, going before that board is one of the most accomplished things I’ve ever done,” Leonard said. Today, he regularly gives back to UMD and the IVSP program, supporting students as they pursue professional development opportunities like conferences, internships and study abroad. “IVSP turned around my college career. It’s not for everybody, but for those who are unique in their thought process, I want them to find their path.”
IVSP students and alums share why they chose the program and how it’s led to success:
Ann Langis ’96 (child advocacy)
Photos courtesy of Ann Langis
Ann Langis teaches as "Mrs. Noughty" at her Noughty Wasters makerspace in Auckland, New Zealand.
Transforming children’s lives was always Ann Langis’ passion—but “something wasn’t clicking” as she took traditional education courses at UMD. Then she discovered IVSP, where she added classes on economics, political science, sociology and law, all to pursue her passion for equity for children in education. “I adored the feeling of empowerment,” she said. “I didn’t have to be a passive recipient of education. I could be an active shaper of my education.”
Today, she lives in Auckland, New Zealand, where she’s served as a board member and president of PlayCentre, an organization that provides free early childhood and parent education for 14,000 families, and guided it through the challenges of incorporating Indigenous Maori perspectives and approving a new constitution. In addition, she’s built multiple businesses, including her latest called “Noughty Wasters” (a pun on the British word for “zero,” “nought”), which teaches children about consumption and reuse in a makerspace located in a local recycling center.
“I have a passion for play and creativity and independence of learning, fostered through IVSP,” she said. “I’ve created my own classroom outside the school system.”
Shade Pratt ’15 (design and the built environment)
Photos courtesy of Shade Pratt
Shade Pratt shows off one of the many shoes she's designed for Nike.
The first time Shade Pratt saw a person on the street wearing a shoe she had designed, she had to resist the urge to run up to them and shout it to the world.
Now, her Nike footwear is everywhere, from lifestyle sneakers to wrestling shoes to cleats for American football—even a shoe for tennis superstar Serena Williams—thanks in part to the unusual education she pursued at UMD.
The Terp played sports nearly year-round at the university, starting with soccer in the fall and transitioning to indoor and outdoor track in the winter and spring. To create a major that worked for her, she turned to IVSP, where she combined architecture, art, engineering and sustainability, marrying creativity and problem-solving. “It’s made me a well-rounded designer, rather than someone who specialized in something very specific.”
While she played professional soccer for five years in the U.S. and Europe after college, she kept up with her design skills, attending sessions at Pensole, a footwear academy then located in Oregon, between seasons. “My motto in life is, ‘Once you hang up your jersey, leave the game in a better place,’” said Pratt, who now focuses on global soccer. “I love knowing there are athletes out there sweating and performing each day in shoes I’ve designed.”
Sam Drozdov ’18 (product design and software innovation)
Philosophy and art classes might not seem like a natural fit for a tech founder. But for Forbes’ “30 Under 30” honoree and entrepreneur Sam Drozdov, taking those courses as part of his IVSP degree gave him the tools he needed to deeply critique and challenge ideas throughout the process of creating his product.
“When you start a company, you throw yourself in the deep end and have to rapidly learn while simultaneously making many challenging decisions,” said Drozdov, who also took business, human-computer interaction and computer science courses. “IVSP helped build that skill set and muscle.”
Add the valuable connections he made at the Startup Shell, UMD’s student-run incubator where he met co-founder Ben Khakshoor ’18, and soon, Bloxbiz, the first 3D ad platform in Roblox, was born. Drozdov credits the critical thinking skills he gained at UMD for some of its success.
To an outsider, the way we talk might seem jarring,” said Drozdov. “But we are always questioning each other and ourselves to make sure we’re making the right decisions. I learned how to question and talk through ideas in philosophy class. In art class, I learned to critique a piece from one foot away, then from 10 feet. That’s a great framework for reviewing product and business decisions.”
Georgia Hammond ’26 (biomimicry designs for sustainable design; double major with bioengineering)
“Nature has evolved to be so efficient and sustainable,” said Georgia Hammond, who was homeschooled growing up and chose UMD specifically because the IVSP program was an option. “We can learn so much from it.” She’s examining everything from extinct organisms to present-day viruses to develop new technologies, like plant burr-inspired Velcro fasteners to humpback whale fin-inspired wind turbine blades.
Georgia Hammond with her pet duck
Bhavika Buddi ’27 (sustainability informatics and modeling; double degree with computer science)
Bhavika Buddi spent her childhood outdoors in lush green forests of the Pacific Northwest. “My love for the environment translated into me wanting to do whatever I can to protect it and understand it more,” she said. Now, she’s pulled together classes from geographical sciences, environmental science and technology, data science and communication for her unique major. She’s eager to use her skills to build better prediction systems for natural disasters like wildfires that threaten her home state of Oregon.
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