UMUC Hosts First Transatlantic Alliance Between U.S. and EU

By Andrea C. Martino

UMUC hosted the first transatlantic alliance on distance education between the European Union (EU) and the United States at the University's headquarters in Adelphi, Maryland, May 30–31, 2002. Currently under the presidency of Spain, the European Union organized the conference primarily through the Spanish Embassy to the United States and Spain's Universidad Nacional de Educacion a Distancia (National University of Distance Education, or UNED), Madrid, Spain. UNED was established in 1972, and today, with more than 200,000 students, is one of the 10 largest universities in the world.

The Ambassador of Spain, Javier Rupérez

In his welcome address, His Excellence the Ambassador of Spain Javier Rupérez expressed his great satisfaction with UNED. "Our distance learning university is an extremely important reference for our education system," he said. "Distance learning has become very much the future of education.

"Since the development of the European Union, we have been developing a commonality not only among ourselves, but a commonality between Europe and the United States of America," said Ambassador Rupérez. ". . . Media lead you to believe we are very different on the two sides of the Atlantic. Nothing is less true than that. Those things that unite us are far more powerful, far more meaningful, far more fundamental than those that divide us. We are pleased to continue upon this very promising path of cooperation in technology and education."

UMUC Provost Nicholas Allen said he was struck by the pace of change that occurred during the past decade in higher education.

"I think it's fair to say that there are more opportunities to provide more people with quality education than ever before," he said. "But we are all faced with even greater and formidable challenges." Using UMUC as an example, Allen explained that since the University's founding, it has always been a leader in finding a way of delivering education to students, whenever and wherever they needed it.

UMUC Provost Nicholas Allen addresses the audience.

"But basically we were a university that delivered education in face-to-face settings," said Allen. "We found many ways to do that, but life was rather simple in those times. Technology issues revolved around the issue of traditional classroom multimedia, getting overheads to faculty, the construction of fixed computer labs where our students were located. Faculty members were largely in control of the intellectual content of their courses and how it was to be delivered to their students. The regulatory environment was complicated but understandable.

"But in 1993 things began to change for us. We began work on a delivery platform that would permit us to deliver some of our courses over the Internet to a distributed student body. . . . We thought we would reach students who couldn't come to us. This past academic year, we enrolled more than 84,000 students online worldwide.

"Today we indeed face a much different, more complicated world in higher education," continued Allen. "The goal is to deliver quality education to more people around the world so they can lead better lives and work cooperatively. It's a tall challenge and I think it's a worthy goal."

Luis Rodriguez-Rosello

According to Luis Rodriguez-Rosello, in Europe there is more of a "digital delay" than a digital divide. "Most [European Union] member states lagging behind are catching up with Internet access and usage," said the head of Unit Multimedia Applications for Education and Training in the Directorate General Information Society of the European Commission. "The main challenge is global, with a kind of emergence of a new Fourth World of people at the center of our developed societies who will be even more marginalized if they don't have access to new technologies and lack proper training to reap the benefits of the Information Society. Education is to be the main instrument to help close this divide."

While EU–U.S. alliances in education and technology may be relatively new, there is a marked interest on both sides of the Atlantic in pursuing such alliances. "When it comes to education, the U.S. is a kind of loose alignment of 50 sovereign nations," said Brian Lekander, coordinator of the U.S. Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education Learning Anytime Anywhere Partnerships (LAAP), a federal grant program that supports project initiatives devoted to Internet-based distance education. "While 80 percent of our projects have been regional or national in scope, these projects have dealt with the kinds of challenges that arise when dealing across borders. The approach taken by LAAP would be a useful model for stimulating U.S.–EU partnerships and possibly more involvement in having partners participate in existing programs in other countries."

"Distance education has always taken place within an international and global community," agreed Erwin Wagner, president of the European Distance Education Network. "International partnerships could help us broaden our knowledge and perspectives even more."

Patrice Laget

But there is work to be done. "This gathering is proof that we have a lot to do," said Patrice Laget, head of science, education, and technology for the Delegation of the European Commission in Washington, D.C. "We are at a crossroads in education and both Europe and America face the challenges of new education practices. Due to the challenges we face, it is unlikely anyone will find the answers in his own backyard."

High-ranking representatives in the ministries of education, science, and technology from most of 15 EU member-countries attended the conference at UMUC and many offered presentations on their successful projects and alliances in distance education and issues related to the use of technology in education. You may hear talks and see Power Point slides from the presentations on the Web.