UMUC Bets on Student Success—and Wins

President Heeger speaks at a town hall meeting in June.

By Andrea Martino

President Gerald Heeger held his second town hall meeting this year on June 14, 2002, in the auditorium of the Inn and Conference Center in Adelphi, Maryland. He credited UMUC faculty and staff with the University's success, pointing to the near end of UMUC's "commencement season"—the Okinawa commencement would be the following day—saying, "We have every right to be proud of our success. We will graduate the largest number of students in our history and added U.S. ambassadors Howard Baker of Japan and Thomas Hubbard of Korea, Senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker, and Generals Gregory Martin and Thomas Schwartz to our cadre of distinguished commencement speakers and honorary degree recipients.

"We are a recognized world leader in distance education," Heeger continued. "This reflects a growing leadership but also myriad responsibilities and new and unique issues that we must address." Pointing to UMUC's complexity, the president said UMUC serves two states: "the state of Maryland" and "the state of military."

The State of Maryland

"Strangely, while we are more than 50 years old in Maryland, the sense that we are in Maryland is relatively new here," said Heeger. "Being so nontraditional, we were virtually unrecognized as a state university until a few years ago and need to continue seeking recognition by government and business leaders about our importance to the state so that we receive necessary resources to fulfill our mission of serving adult students.

"We have made great progress in the past year and have responded to state needs with teacher education programs and information technology initiatives. We have made a remarkable impact on increasing minority enrollments, which now represent 42 percent of our student body," Heeger said. "Our academic offerings are gaining recognition, and the recent National Security Agency designation is a particularly prestigious honor."

Heeger pointed to the irony that "nontraditional" students are becoming increasingly conventional. "Approximately half of all college students today are over age 25," he said, "and those who are not of that age are increasingly nontraditional to some degree, working full-time, for example, or taking online courses while living on campus. 'Nontraditional' students are becoming the most vibrant, most challenging, most significant group in higher education."

At the undergraduate level, he said, the University faces competition from every college in the country that is attracted to the new market of adult students. While we are competitive in this arena, it is best to focus regionally for the undergraduate market, since the mid-Atlantic region is where the Maryland reputation is already most visible. "It is here where we can capture and dominate the undergraduate nontraditional market," he said.

Heeger said that while the University has already surpassed its FY02 target of online enrollments—to date nearly 87,000—and should easily reach a projected 100,000 online enrollments next year, enrollment in the University's traditional-classroom courses has been in slight decline. For that reason, faculty and administrators are exploring opportunities to create regional service programs, in Howard County, for example, where there are more than 2,000 UMUC alumni and virtually the entire county government comprises UMUC alumni.

The "State of Military"

Service members would of course be considered nontraditional. In FY01, approximately 40,000 U.S. servicemembers were UMUC students. The majority of UMUC military students are undergraduates pursuing associate's and bachelor's degrees.

Staff enjoy a picnic lunch after UMUC's second annual town hall meeting.

"The military plays a very important role at UMUC, and after servicemembers leave active duty, the 'state of military' stays with them for a very long while," said Heeger. "To a remarkable degree, this state of being has contributed to our success and has made our name immediately recognizable among tens of thousands—not only for former UMUC military students, but for their family, friends, and professional contacts, as well. At this moment in history, our military relationship is especially important, as extraordinary young people are doing extraordinary things for our country."

The president pointed to the importance of the military contracts, due for renewal next year in both Asia and Europe, and the significance of this tuition revenue in the University's finances. "What has changed is the size and importance of the contracts. Because the educational paradigm appears to be changing in all of the military services, with online training gradually replacing classroom-based learning, competition for the contracts is much greater than ever before. The marketplace for online education today is much more complex than the marketplace was for universities that would physically offer services overseas—sometimes in war zones."

Heeger is pleased that the University's success in reaching servicemembers overseas is expanding stateside as well. Stateside military enrollments, he said, are now the fastest-growing segment of UMUC's student population.

In addition to UMUC's history of providing educational resources to U.S. servicemembers, the University's Department of Defense Relations office and the Graduate School have tailored UMUC graduate programs for military officers. Some examples are recent educational agreements with the Naval War College, the Army Signal Corps, and the Joint Forces Staff College.

One challenge, said Heeger, will be to design "new technology solutions" that will more easily enable UMUC programs to stay with military students as they are deployed, oftentimes mid-semester, to other countries.

"For most of our history, being global was represented by our relationship with the military," said Heeger. "Now, because of online education, we face competition from every college in the country—on every front—and need to create a set of new relationships that gives us new leadership on a worldwide scale and dominance in the adult education market here in the United States."

President Heeger concluded by touting that UMUC students and 2002 graduates are an illustrious group that reflect the University's success at being both an open institution and one of great opportunity.

"We have held fast to that commitment, and that's increasingly unique today," Heeger said, making reference to universities that boast of the number of student applicants the institutions do not admit. "That is not the mission of this university. If we have to bet, we bet on our students' success and not their failure. And we, like they, will win."