University of Md. UC, Cal State agreement increases education

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Jun 24, 2008 by Anne Riley

Although it served nearly 90,000 students last year, with no football team, no basketball team and, well, no campus, the University of Maryland University College is often overshadowed by its more visible peer schools in the University System of Maryland. UMUC, an institution dedicated to what it calls "distributed education" or distance learning, not only enrolls more students than any other school in the state system, but is one of the largest educators of the U.S. military worldwide, serving some 60,000 military personnel, veterans and dependents last fiscal year alone.

In order to expand educational opportunities for U.S. service members, UMUC has recently signed a memorandum of understanding with the California State University system that aims to allow students to more easily transfer credits between UMUC and any of the CSU campuses. California supplies about 10 percent of all U.S. military personnel, according to a California State University press release, and therefore has a heightened commitment to helping service members complete their educations.

"It made sense for the largest campus providing education to active duty worldwide to pair up with the state with the largest active duty population," said Allison Jones, assistant vice chancellor of academic affairs for the California State University.

Although the agreement includes all 23 of the CSU's campuses, UMUC is the only school to be included from the University System of Maryland.

"I think it's because UMUC is the one who serves the military," said Cynthia Davis, associate dean of academic affairs at UMUC. "California's concern was really students who are in the military overseas and come back and settle in California, or the other way around, students from California who go abroad. I think the California system was really looking at issues of serving the military and UMUC was a natural partner."

According to Davis, UMUC has been dedicated to the education of soldiers since its inception in 1947.

"In post-war Europe, there was a concern about education for the troops," Davis said. "At that time, it was an extension of the University of Maryland, College Park that went overseas to serve the military. That was really one of the main things that generated UMUC as an institution."

Today, UMUC has contracts with the Department of Defense for military education in Europe and Asia, and was recently awarded the first contract to teach troops on the ground in Iraq.

Although UMUC has always taught by distributed education, or "taking our classes to students where they are," according to Davis, much of UMUC's education now takes place over the Internet.

"We offer online to our students as well, since sometimes they are places where the classrooms aren't practical. It's not unusual for students to be taking classes from inside a tank or whatever," she added.

However, face-to-face classroom instruction continues to be an important element of the college's distributed learning strategies as well. Faculty and staff man many of the school's some 150 military instillations worldwide.

"We basically deploy faculty when we need to offer large classes," Davis said. "We offer classes in Afghanistan and they teach out of tents or whatever, and we are about to deploy faculty to Iraq."

For U.S. Army 1st Sgt. Mark McKaig, who is working on a graduate degree in telecommunications management, a traditional graduate school setting would have been impossible between deployments in the Netherlands, Germany and around the United States.

"Everywhere I've been in the army for 21 years, UMUC's been there. They generally have a representative at every army education center worldwide," said McKaig, who is stationed at Fort Belvoir, Va.

The agreement between UMUC and the CSU is seen by McKaig as a positive step forward.

"I think anything that can benefit the solider and make it easier to transfer credits and eligibility is phenomenal," he said.