November 2004

(Left to right) Marky Campbell, Marianne Lucien, Ken Pahl, and Mary Gall.

Adelphi Hosts First Worldwide Conference for the “Heart” of UMUC

By Chip Cassano

For many of UMUC’s military students, field representatives are more than representatives of the University; they are the University. More than 140 field representatives serve military students at 96 education centers in 22 countries, helping them with every facet of registration and enrollment and guiding them to the resources they need to begin or continue their education.

“They are really the tip of the spear,” said Jim Hanley, who oversees four stateside field representatives and serves as director of military outreach for Department of Defense Relations. “These are the people who are dealing with the soldiers and pilots and sailors when they first come through the door. We sometimes refer to [field representatives] as the face of UMUC, but our colleagues in Europe have been quick to point out that they are more than that—that they are the very heart of the University.”

One role that field representatives play is particularly vital—both to students and to the University—and involves helping military students as they make a transition between Europe, Asia, or the United States. Not only can registration processes differ, but the field representatives themselves may operate under different constraints. (In Europe and Asia, for instance, field representatives are bound by the contractual agreement with the Department of Defense, and cannot serve as academic advisors; stateside representatives can and do.) Students returning from an overseas deployment must be aware that they can continue their education with UMUC and how they should proceed.

The first worldwide field representatives conference—held October 4–6, 2004, at UMUC’s Adelphi, Maryland, headquarters—came as an outgrowth of concern over those and other challenges. More than a dozen individuals—field representatives and those who supervise and support them—traveled from around the world to share their perspectives.

Marky Campbell, director of operations in Regional Programs, was one presenter at the conference, and pointed out that while UMUC’s regional programs might not be quite as far from University headquarters, geographically, as many European field representatives are from theirs, they still share similar challenges.

“We get students at the beginning of their lifecycle,” said Campbell, “we enroll them, we admit them, we help them with financial aid and with anything else that we possibly can, and we sort of become the face of UMUC, exactly like a field representative in Europe does.”

“For me, as a field representative advisor from Europe, the conference was an eye-opening experience,” said Mary Gall. “I think the most important thing that I took away from the conference was a new understanding of the level of commitment to student service from all three divisions, from the president on down. Field representatives are UMUC and they face the challenge of providing service to students on a daily basis. Sometimes we neglect to give them the tools and knowledge they need to do their jobs most efficiently. This conference highlighted the importance of providing those resources on a worldwide basis.”

“My hat is off to J. J. Jones, Christina Dewey, and the DOD Relations staff for arranging and sponsoring the conference,” said Ken Pahl, who works in academic advising in Europe, credits J. J. Jones, Christina Dewey, and the DOD Relations staff for arranging and sponsoring the conference. “They really did a superb job,” said Pahl. “They spent a lot of time talking to field representatives and other staff members, and the conference addressed the biggest issue facing our field representatives—namely, the information gap that existed between Adelphi and Europe regarding the different registration procedures. At the end of three days, we all came out with a solid understanding of the enrollment management process in Adelphi and in a much better position to effectively point students in the right direction while they’re transferring.”