University of Maryland University College Wins Prestigious National Award for Excellence in Online Education

UMUC Contact: Andrea C. Martino, APR
Phone: 301.985.7779
E-mail: amartino@umuc.edu

UMUC’s MBA Program Named “Most Outstanding Online Teaching and Learning Program” by the Sloan Consortium

(ADELPHI, Md.) – University of Maryland University College’s (UMUC) Master of Business Administration (MBA) has been named the “2005 Most Outstanding Online Teaching and Learning Program” by the Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C), a national consortium of institutions and organizations committed to quality online education. The 2005 awards will be presented during the Sloan-C Awards Banquet at the 11th Sloan-C International Conference on Asynchronous Learning Networks in Orlando, Fla., November 17-19, 2005.

The award serves to recognize an institution that offers the most outstanding individual online certificate, degree, or continuing education program. UMUC’s MBA program was chosen from a field of national entrants for its proven record of excellence, as demonstrated by its success in providing expanded access, learning effectiveness, and high levels of student and faculty satisfaction, in a cost-effective manner.

“This award is a much-deserved recognition of the amazing programs offered by UMUC, one of the world’s preeminent institutions of higher education for adults in the workforce,” said UMUC Interim President Nicholas H. Allen, DPA. “Our renowned MBA program combines current management theory and relevant research with the real-world experiences of students and faculty to address the major competitive challenges of the 21st century.”

UMUC’s MBA program, which can be completed in 32 months without interrupting the student’s career, is designed to meet the demands of working professionals with a wide range of academic and organizational backgrounds. This award-winning program is offered in two formats: fully online and in a combination of online and face-to-face instruction. The program explores the evolving nature of corporations while teaching students to blend leadership with change management, better measure an organization’s intellectual assets, merge product development with entrepreneurship, and foster new approaches to measuring the economic performance of organizations.

“We are pleased that UMUC has been recognized for having the strongest online MBA program, which is designed to be interdisciplinary, integrated, and applied,” said Lawrence E. Leak, PhD, acting provost and chief academic officer. “The program provides an excellent forum for students and working adults to explore organization and management processes in the context of a global business environment.”

In addition to being known worldwide for its breadth of degrees and quality of programs, UMUC is noted for providing online education asynchronously, meaning students in online courses are not required to participate in class discussions simultaneously, allowing them to study at their convenience at any time of day. In fact, students studying together in a single online course are often from completely different time zones.

“The award signifies the importance of UMUC’s decision to surround its MBA and other online academic programs with a full array of online student and faculty services,” said Salvatore J. Monaco, PhD, vice provost and dean of the Graduate School of Management and Technology at UMUC. “These services contribute greatly to the overall educational experience of our online students.”

The purpose of Sloan-C is to help learning organizations continually improve quality, scale, and breadth according to their own distinctive missions, so that education will become a part of everyday life, accessible and affordable for anyone, anywhere, at any time, in a wide variety of disciplines. Created with funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Sloan-C encourages the collaborative sharing of knowledge and effective practices to improve online education in learning effectiveness, access, affordability for learners and providers, and student and faculty satisfaction.

For more information about UMUC’s Graduate School of Management and Technology and the MBA program, call 301-985-4617 or 800-888-UMUC, or e-mail mbaonline@info.umuc.edu. Students may also visit http://www.umuc.edu/grad/mba/.