Faculty Excellence at UMUC

Interviewer:

Please tell us about yourself—what made you decide to teach at UMUC? What kind of work do you do when you are not teaching at UMUC? What life experiences have influenced your teaching at UMUC?

Joan Berkowitz:

My thesis advisor wrote in a letter of recommendation many years ago, "She would have a distinguished academic career if she were not a woman." I took his advice, which was sound for its day, and have been doing technical and management consulting ever since—first as an employee of Arthur D. Little, Inc., then as president of Risk Science International, and most recently as managing director of Farkas Berkowitz & Company.

Consulting as a profession has been very kind to me. It allows me to pursue my lifetime love of learning. I get to help clients solve problems that they are unable to solve on their own. The problems are cutting-edge. They change as the times change. My initial assignments at Arthur D. Little were in high temperature chemistry related to solid rocket propellants and rocket nozzle materials. When that declined as an area of business, I applied my Ph. D. in physical chemistry to assist government and commercial clients in the control of discharges to air, water, and soil.

My horizons broadened when Arthur D. Little sent me to the Senior Executive program at MIT's Sloan School of Management. After graduation, I assisted clients engaged in treatment and disposal of hazardous wastes with improving the growth and profitability of their operations. When I left Arthur D. Little, I was Vice-president of their world-wide environmental practice.

At the recommendation of a former client, I was invited to join an advisory committee being formed by the Environmental Management Department at UMUC. Shortly after the first committee meeting, the department chairman contacted me about joining the faculty as an adjunct. With my thesis advisor's comment still ringing in my ears, I jumped at the chance.

The essence of consulting is a combination of teaching and learning. I learn as much from my clients as they learn from me. I can say the same for my students.

Interviewer:

Please tell us if you teach face-to-face, online, or both and explain what made you choose that format of teaching.

Joan Berkowitz:

I taught face-to-face in my first years at UMUC. For the past five years or so, I have been teaching on line. The choice was not mine. The courses I teach are no longer offered f2f. I cannot say enough in praise of the Web Tycho training UMUC provided before setting me off on my own.

Interviewer:

What do you find most satisfying about teaching in your chosen format(s)?

Joan Berkowitz:

Teaching on line has two distinct benefits. (1) It enables me to interact with every student in accordance with his or her own level of interest and experience. (2) The class very quickly becomes student directed. I establish the framework, but within that, the students ask questions, provide comments, and offer examples that enhance the relevancy of the course material to their own lives.

Another benefit of on-line classes is that they are color blind, age blind, blind to physical attractiveness, and sometimes even gender blind. Would any of that make a difference? Of course not. But how certain can we be that we know our own biases?

I enjoyed teaching on line from the very beginning, but UMUC's recently articulated mission increased my satisfaction still further. To paraphrase, UMUC is an open university dedicated to serving the needs of the non-traditional student. Many of my current clients are engineering consulting firms. None of them has a mission statement that is as clear, unique, and memorable as UMUC's. Our mission statement codifies for me why I am proud to be a member of the UMUC faculty, as opposed to any other university. Our mission statement also guides how I teach.

Interviewer:

What do you find challenging about teaching in your chosen format(s)?

Joan Berkowitz:

Around mid-semester, I get an eerie feeling that I could trip over one of my students and not know it. In face-to-face classes, I always hosted an end-of-semester party. I miss being able to do that.

More to the point, the Environmental Risk Assessment course I teach is quantitative. Teaching quantitative concepts to student with varied backgrounds in math is always challenging, but more so on line. In a face-to-face class, I look out over a sea of glazed eyes as I begin a lecture. When those change to Aha! looks, I know I have gotten through. I can't get Aha! looks in on-line classes.

Interviewer:

Please tell us about your chosen discipline—how long have you worked in or taught it? What made you interested in the area? What keeps you interested in the area?

Joan Berkowitz:

My chosen discipline is environmental management in all its aspects. I have worked in the field for 34 years and taught in it for ten. I became interested when a colleague at Arthur D. Little needed someone to write a report on waste generation in the tanning industry, and to do it between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I found myself on the shores of the Mississippi at a Wolverine Worldwide tannery. (They make Hush Puppies.) That was the first time I had seen the mighty river. The day was foggy, the river boats were cruising back and forth, and I fell in love with hazardous waste.

What keeps me interested is that the field is constantly changing. New environmental hazards are discovered. New regulations are promulgated. Existing regulations mature and new approaches to compliance emerge. Technologies that were once pioneering become commodities and businesses seek new applications for their core competencies.

Interviewer:

What joys do you experience in teaching in this area?

Joan Berkowitz:

The character I relate to most closely in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is the Clerk of Oxenford: "And gladly wolde he lerne, and gladly teche."

I enjoy passing my knowledge and experience on to a new generation. I enjoy seeing my students grow and helping them build confidence in themselves. That applies particularly to the many with math phobia. I enjoy learning from my students as a result of examples they provide from their own experience, relevant Web sites that they find on their own, challenging questions that they ask which send me scurrying to the library, and the excellent suggestions that they offer for improving the course. I enjoy earning my student's trust as evidenced by the personal concerns and joys that they share with me. I can only hope that I will make a difference in their lives, as my most beloved teachers have made in mine.

Interviewer:

What challenges do you experience in teaching in this area? Please describe any special challenges you face if you teach online in comparison to teaching in a face-to-face classroom.

Joan Berkowitz:

I know you won't like this, but my greatest challenge is conforming to UMUC's grading policy. I am not as comfortable as many of my colleagues are in distinguishing between A- and B+. I still find it difficult to understand why a good teacher can not, as a matter of policy, inspire A work from more than 50 percent of a class of graduate students who are there on their own volition, who incur significant opportunity costs to be there, and many of whom are paying their own way. The fact that the policy is not made transparent to the students adds to the challenge. Instructions to faculty are far more explicit than the hazy, "B is the standard of the graduate school..." that the students read. Maybe the rubrics will help, not so much in teaching but in justifying low grades.

Teaching on line is different from teaching f2f, better in some respects and not as good in others as noted above. In an f2f class I try to hit it down the middle. At the break, some students will walk out saying, "She doesn't know anything about this subject. I could have done a better job." Others will walk out of the same class saying, "What was she talking about? I didn't understand a word she said." In an on-line class, I know which group each student belongs to. I provide the first group with greater challenges. I work with the second group to help them master the fundamentals.

In face-to-face classes, I give power point lectures and e-mail the slides to the students in advance. In on-line classes, I write out lecturettes. While I allow plenty of time for discussion in face-to-face classes, the quality of discussion is far better in on-line classes. I think of on-line classes as a revival of the ancient art of letter writing, an art that was lost with the advent of the telephone. But it's letter writing in a new form. In Jane Austen's Mansfield Park, responses to letters took two weeks. In Web Tycho, it's more like 24 hours, with the discussion thread extending over a week or more.

On-line classes require much more faculty time than face-to-face classes, even taking into account the time required for commuting to face-to-face classes. Many students have commented that they would not be able to continue their education at all were it not for on-line classes. But distance education is not just a convenience for the non-traditional student. It is the wave of the future and UMUC is a pioneer. Professors are no longer the font of all knowledge. More information can be obtained with the click of a mouse than is in any professor's head. Whether we teach face-to-face or on line, our role has changed from imparting information to helping students distinguish the wheat from the chaff, and interpreting what they read.

Interviewer:

How would you describe your teaching style or philosophy? What experiences or person(s) have influenced your style or philosophy?

Joan Berkowitz:

My goal is to create a learning community in which all class members, students and professor alike, band together to delve into the subject matter of the course. Last semester I got it for the very first time. I'm not sure how it happened, but you know it when it does, and it is unbelievably exciting. Maybe the little story I told the class about my physics professor at Swarthmore helped. Dr. Wright said that the difference between the textbook and the professor is that the textbook only explains concepts in one way. The professor should be able to explain them is a sufficient number of different ways to reach every member of the class. I said I would make every effort to do that and added that I could use a little help. I suggested that the explanation from a student who had already grasped the material might just possibly be clearer to others who were still struggling than one of mine. It worked. The quicker students shared their understanding selflessly. The slower ones went from total frustration to joy as they began to see the light. I was ecstatic.

Interviewer:

Please explain if you do something special or unique in your approach and how you developed that approach. What do you think it is about your approach that appeals to students?

Joan Berkowitz:

I am not sufficiently familiar with other classes to be able to judge whether my approach is in any way special or unique. The feedback I get from the students is as follows:

They appreciate my being flexible. I keep the Conference discussions open all semester. I do not deduct points for late submission of assignments. I know that the students are well-aware of the perils of falling behind. I know that because when I have a first time Web Tycho student, I ask the "veterans" to offer advice. The first thing all of them write is, "Don't fall behind."

I give the impression of being well-organized. All 15 weeks of the course are set up and accessible to the students from Day 1. I encourage getting assignments in early rather than late if a student knows he or she will be away.

I am accessible. I visit the classroom at least once a day to answer questions, respond to comments, correct errors or misconceptions, and offer additional thought-provoking questions or comments. I respond to e-mails promptly. I am open to telephone calls almost 24/7. The students have both my work and home phone numbers. I invite students to visit my office, which is on the Red Line.

I participate in Chat Room discussions and teleconferences on group projects when I can.

When students turn in a totally unsatisfactory assignment, I try to figure out why and give them the opportunity to try again.

Interviewer:

What suggestion would you give to students who are interested in majoring or working in your discipline?

Joan Berkowitz:

Give serious thought to the following questions and write down your answers.

What do I most like doing? What aspects of your job, courses you have taken, and extra-curricular activities have you enjoyed most?

What do I do best? Research? Writing? Quantitative analysis? Interviewing? Managing people? Other?

What do I want to accomplish in the next five years?

What do I need to do to achieve my goals?

Who can help me and how can I reach them?

Acquiring expertise in the discipline is necessary but not sufficient. Start building a network. Get active in professional societies. Write papers for journals and trade publications. Make presentations at professional society meetings.

Interviewer:

What suggestion would you give to new faculty who are interested in teaching in your discipline at UMUC?

Joan Berkowitz:

Take advantage of the orientation seminars and Web Tycho training offered by UMUIC. Read and understand the mission statement. Teaching non-traditional students in an open university means that the students bring a wide variety of backgrounds and experience to the classroom. It means that they may be a little rusty on pre-requisites for the course. It means that they are serious about learning. You need to design your courses accordingly. That presents both challenges and opportunities.

UMUC is a large university. Like any large organization, it can be somewhat bureaucratic. One of the great things about teaching at UMUC is that the administration goes to enormous lengths to shield the faculty from the bureaucracy and to support excellence in teaching.