University of Maryland Eastern Shore
Princess Anne
Groups that gather at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore in Princess Anne “get a college experience, if only for 10 minutes by walking on our campus, and it’s a beautiful campus,” said La Fabian Marshall, general manager of the Richard A. Henson Hotel and Conference Center.
Although it’s a smaller school in a smaller community, UMES has plenty of options for meetings and conferences. The Student Services Center has a ballroom that can accommodate about 500 attendees for seated meals. The center also has conference rooms that can each hold about 50 people, a multipurpose room for about 100 attendees and a theater with fixed seating for 500, said Dwayne Robinson, with the university’s event management team.
The Henson is on campus and is the university’s hotel and dedicated conference center. The hotel reopened in May 2017 following a yearlong closure during a renovation that completely redid the 25 guest rooms, refreshed the lobby and updated meeting space.
The conference center has several meeting rooms and boardrooms for groups of 12 to 50 people. For seated meals, groups of up to 250 guests can reserve the grand ballroom, which can also be divided into three rooms.
The campus green in front of J.T. Williams Hall works well for receptions, Marshall said, and the school’s Ella Fitzgerald Performing Arts Center can seat more than 1,000.
Bowie State University
Bowie
Bowie State University is the oldest historically black college in Maryland and in the Washington, D.C., area, and one of the 10 oldest in the nation.
The university sits on more than 350 acres just off Maryland Route 175, nearly halfway between D.C. and Baltimore.
The school has been investing in its facilities and boasts several new venues, some of which planners can use. Bowie State opened the $71 million Fine and Performing Arts Center in 2012, and the new $42 million student center was completed in 2013.
The new student center, which replaced the former Wiseman Center, has the Wiseman Ballroom that can seat 320 guests for banquets or be broken into three rooms for smaller events. The center also provides five additional conference rooms and a theater with fixed seating for 250 people.
Planners can reserve the 400-seat main stage theater in the performing arts center for presentations or speakers, book the recital hall for up to 200 people and use a black-box-theater space for 120 guests.
Other spaces include a 147-person auditorium in the library and a 1,000-seat auditorium in the Martin Luther King Communication Arts Center, which also offers two lecture halls and several classrooms.
