UMUC is always striving to ensure education excellence and quality in its academic programs. Your gift can help provide critical financial assistance to one of the following UMUC initiatives designed to enhance and increase its global educational presence.

Development of Assessment Instruments in Core Competency Areas

The UMUC Assessment Project will develop a series of standardized assessments for higher education in the areas of scientific literacy, technology fluency and information literacy. There is a need to develop examinations in these critical competency areas that would not be tied to specific academic courses and/or institutions, but could be administered independently within a student’s academic career to track student achievement. These exams would be outcome-based and would provide national benchmarks in core areas. With a headcount of more than 90,000 students worldwide and a diverse academic population, UMUC is the ideal environment in which to develop such an assessment system. Your gift can play a crucial role in this important academic endeavor.

Data Mining to Predict Student Success

Recently, significant national attention has been focused on increasing the number of Americans who obtain a college degree, especially those students who transfer into institutions with previous credits and academic experience. In response to this challenge, solutions such as easing the transfer process and using data-based approaches in retaining students has been strongly supported by educational experts. In an effort to address this problem and directly assist its students, UMUC has developed a project to establish a predictive modeling system. This system will utilize a data-mining approach that will result in the identification of vulnerable students, those students who have a greater likelihood of not succeeding and provide them with tools to succeed as soon as they are registered. This project will enable UMUC to provide essential academic support services to ensure that students complete their education goals.

The Teacher Model Certification Project

In an effort to meet the nation’s need for highly qualified teachers, UMUC has assembled a panel of key educational stakeholders to develop critically needed, cutting-edge certification models aimed at improving K-12 teaching and learning, especially in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) areas. Your gift to this project will enable UMUC to continue to improve education on all levels for its students.

The Center for Student Success

In August 2008, UMUC took an innovative and proactive approach toward student success by creating the Center for Student Success. The mission of the Center for Student Success is to provide students with a foundation for academic success, and opportunities for engagement, and responsibility for their own learning and lives. Understanding that our students come to UMUC from a variety of backgrounds, we believe it is important to reach out to students early, before they confront academic obstacles, and to build connections to UMUC. Your gift to this Center will provide mentoring and tutoring services to ensure that students fulfill their educational potential.