University of Maryland University College Adelphi, MD 20783
by
A Team Representing the
Middle States Commission on Higher Education Prepared After a Small Team Visit to the Institution on:
August 23-24, 2012 The Visitors:
Dr. John C. Cavanaugh, Chancellor Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education
Harrisburg, PA
Dr. Mary Ellen Caro, Vice President for Enrollment Management and Learner Services Thomas Edison State College
Trenton, NJ
Dr. Marjorie W. Lavin, Vice Provost for Academic Development SUNY Empire State College
Saratoga Springs, NY Working with the Visitors: Dr. Debra G. Klinman, Vice President Middle States Commission on Higher Education
At the Time of the Visit: Javier Miyares, Acting President
Dr. Marie Cini, Acting Provost and Chief Academic Officer Mark Gerencser, Chair of the Board of Visitors
Dr. William E. Kirwan, Chancellor University System of Maryland James L. Shea, Chair, Board of Regents
INTRODUCTION
The team offers its sincere appreciation to the University of Maryland University College (UMUC) for hosting this small team visit. The team notes that considerable effort went into the production of the supplemental report, and we thank the members of the UMUC community for their honesty, openness, and commitment to the processes of self-appraisal and self-improvement.
I. Institutional Overview
As stated in the documents provided to the Visiting Team, UMUC was originally founded as the continuing education division of the University of Maryland (now the College Park campus) (UMCP). In 1970, UMUC separated from UMCP and held its own accreditation. In 2005, the Maryland General Assembly recognized UMUC’s status as an open university and defined non-traditional students as the population to be served. UMUC’s mission statement, as approved by the USM Board of Regents and by the Maryland Higher Education Commission, is derived directly from the charter:
The mission of University of Maryland University College is to offer top-quality educational opportunities to adult students in Maryland, the nation, and the world, setting the global standard of excellence in adult education. By offering academic programs that are respected, affordable and accessible technologically and through a variety of face-to-face formats, UMUC broadens the range of career opportunities available to students, improves their lives, and maximizes their economic and intellectual contributions to Maryland, the nation, and the world.
This mission is rooted in UMUC’s institutional purpose as stipulated by State statute (Md. Education Code Ann. § 13-101(2012)); specifically that the university shall:
(1) Operate as Maryland’s open university, serving nontraditional students who reside in Maryland, the United States and around the world;
(2) Provide the citizens of Maryland with affordable, open access to higher education;
(3) Continue as a leader in distributed education.
UMUC awards associate’s, bachelor’s, master's and doctoral degrees, as well as undergraduate and post-baccalaureate certificates in the arts and humanities, behavioral and social sciences, business and management, health-related fields, computing, education and technology, including degrees in fields facing critical shortages, such as cybersecurity, information assurance and graduate level teacher training in STEM areas.
UMUC has over 250 global locations, with headquarters in Adelphi, MD. In FY2011, UMUC had more than 234,000 course enrollments.
UMUC experienced a presidential transition early in 2012. That transition generated questions in the Washington media about admissions policies and educational rigor; the situation also garnered some interest in the U.S. Senate Committee on Health,
Education, Labor and Pensions.
At its session on April 19, 2012, the Executive Committee of the Middle States
Commission on Higher Education acted to request a supplemental information report, due August 1, 2012, documenting evidence of
(1) the implementation of admissions policies and procedures that support and reflect the mission of the institution; and
(2) the institution's ongoing assessment of student success, including but not limited to retention, that evaluates the match between the attributes of admitted students and the institution's mission and programs, and reflects its findings in its recruitment, admissions, remediation, and other related policies (Standard 8). In addition, the supplemental information report should provide evidence of (3) undergraduate and graduate educational offerings that are congruent with the institution's mission, which include areas of academic study of sufficient content, breadth and length conducted at levels of rigor appropriate to the degrees offered;
(4) the provision of comparable quality of teaching/instruction, academic rigor, and educational effectiveness of the institution's courses and programs
regardless of their location or delivery mode;
(5) the implementation of policies and procedures to assure that the educational expectations, rigor, and student learning within any accelerated degree program are comparable to those that characterize more traditional program formats; and (6) the ongoing assessment of student learning and program outcomes relative to the goals and objectives of all educational programs, and the use of results to improve student learning and program effectiveness (Standard 11).
A small team visit occurred on August 23-24, 2012. The team was chaired by Dr. John C. Cavanaugh (Chancellor, Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education), with Dr. Mary Ellen Caro (Vice President for Enrollment Management and Learner Services at Thomas Edison State College), and Dr. Marjorie W. Lavin (Vice Provost for Academic Development at SUNY Empire State College). The team was supported by Dr. Debra G. Klinman (Vice President , Middle States Commission of Higher Education).
III. CONDUCT OF THE VISIT
During their visit, the small team met with a number of individuals and groups, including:
Dr. William E. Kirwan, Chancellor, University System of Maryland Mark Gerencser, Chair of UMUC Board of Visitors
Javier Miyares, Acting President
Dr. Marie Cini, Acting Provost and Chief Academic Officer
Jim Selbe, Senior Vice President for Enrollment Management, Marketing, and Partnerships
Joseph Adams, Vice President for Marketing
Sean Chung, Vice President for Enrollment Management Dr. Marcia Watson, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Dr. Scott van Tonnigen, Vice Provost for Academic Services
Sharon Biederman Brosch, Associate provost for Instructional Services and Support Kimberly Scott, Executive Director for Teaching and Learning
Anna van Wie, Director for Learning Outcomes Assessment, School of Undergraduate Studies
Joellen Shendy, Worldwide Registrar
Carla Jones, Director of Research Information Wei Zhou, Director of Institutional Research
Dr. Cynthia Davis, Acting Dean of The Undergraduate School Robert Goodwin, Acting Dean of the Graduate School
Faculty Advisory Council representatives (in person and by conference call) Global Staff Advisory Council representatives (in person and by conference call) Student Advisory Council representatives (in person and by conference call) University Advisory Council representatives (in person and by conference call) Staff from the Provost Office
Staff from the Undergraduate School Staff from the Graduate School
Staff from Enrollment Management, Marketing, and Partnerships Directors of Undergraduate Programs
Directors of Graduate Programs
Faculty and staff worldwide (in person and by conference call) IV. TEAM FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS
The team had extensive discussions with Acting President Miyares, Chancellor Kirwan, and Board of Visitors Chair Mark Gerencser regarding the issues at hand as well as institutional governance. Several changes have been made. These include, but are not limited to, increased internal audits, process redesign, and increased engagement of the Board of Visitors. Acting President Miyares has instituted greatly improved avenues of communication with faculty and staff that both groups applauded. Board of Visitors Chair Gerencser noted that meeting agendas are now set by the Board, and they are taking a much more active role in discussions with UMUC leadership. Chancellor Kirwan described additional steps the System office has taken to ensure that all
policies and procedures are followed. Additionally, there is strong support for the Acting President and his team as expressed by all major governance entities. Based on these discussions and specific steps, the team is satisfied that the appropriate controls are in place to avoid a repetition of the issues leading to the leadership transition.
Standard 8 (Student Admissions and Retention)
The institution seeks to admit students whose interests, goals, and abilities are congruent with its mission and seeks to retain them through the pursuit of the students’ educational goals.
University of Maryland University College meets this standard. Fundamental elements reviewed:
1) the implementation of admission policies and procedures that support and reflect the mission of the institution; and
2) the institution’s ongoing assessment of student success, including but not limited to retention, that evaluates the match between the attributes of admitted
students and the institution’s mission and programs, and reflects its findings in its recruitment, remediation and other related policies.
Given the nature of the mission of UMUC as an open, adult focused institution, marketing and recruiting are primarily targeted at adults in the workplace and military services. In an effort to reach qualified prospects, UMUC has continued to refine its recruiting approach, shifting from the purchase of leads to advertising through mass media and electronic media.
In recognition of the needs of adult students, UMUC has documented admission policies and practices that offer flexibility and support. Examples of this are:
Admission applications remain open for a period of two years.
Alliance agreements with community colleges, including credit transfer agreements for up to seventy credits.
Reverse-transfer programs with community colleges. Stateside military support services.
Provisional status for transfer students with GPA of 2.0 or less.
UMUC provides its prospective students with a broad range of information, self -servicing tools, and advisory support to assist them in determining if UMUC is the “best fit” for them. Given the nature of open enrollment institutions, UMUC
experiences a wide range of student abilities and experiences.
UMUC is making progress on the implementation of several key initiatives aimed at improving recruiting and marketing. Examples include:
A new Enrollment Management, Marketing and Partnerships unit was created, including the recently hired Vice President for Marketing.
An RFP process is currently underway for a new institutional marketing agency. Implementation of increased management oversight of search engine marketing
efforts, including vendor meetings every two weeks to review results.
The initiation of a Strategic Enrollment Plan, to be co-developed with Academic Affairs, targeted for completion in 2013.
Development of a comprehensive market assessment program eliciting student feedback and perceptions.
At the core of the ongoing focus on serving students is the creation of the Advisement and Service Center. This multi-year project, targeted for full implementation in 2014, is in the first phase of completion. The project has documented milestones and is
progressing according to plan. To date, consolidation of a multi-vendor service approach to a state-of-the-art single vendor center co-located with internal student services has been completed. This change provides for an integrated servicing approach involving a single vendor for initial call receipt and handling. Complementing the changes in servicing is a quality assurance program underway which will be enhanced as the center is fully implemented.
One of the key initiatives in supporting students is the development of the advisement model that works with the Service Center. Advisors will be UMUC employees trained to:
“assess individual competencies of new students, and
help them acquire an enhanced set of competencies…so that they can achieve the full set of competencies necessary to reach their goal.”
Inherent in the model is a two-tiered set of student support assessment criteria and individual student life cycle focus. The model calls for the inclusion of career services to be more fully defined over the next 18 months.
Essential to the success of the new approach will be effective monitoring of the single vendor providing the service center support to students and the integration of the center processes with those provided by UMUC such as more complex academic requests. The advisement model contained within the Service Center introduces a student life cycle framework of student support, including intervention to provide students assistance in progressing to their goals. There is a comprehensive customer relationship technical infrastructure supporting the model.
The profile of adult students pursuing higher education typically involves part-time study and the presence of “start and stop” patterns of enrollment. Traditional metrics of student success, retention, and graduation rates are not appropriate. UMUC has
developed an approach to the assessment of student success that recognizes these differences. Using their model, which defines a retained student as “one who re-enrolls in any of the three terms following initial enrollment,” UMUC has developed a multi-year analysis of retention. The analysis demonstrates increasing retention rates since 2006 and favorable comparisons with external benchmarks. In addition, UMUC monitors graduation rates annually following initial enrollment for up to ten years using a cohort methodology. While direct comparison benchmarks do not appear to exist, UMUC is committed to improving the retention and graduation/completion rates. UMUC demonstrates their commitment to providing prospective students with robust self-servicing tools to assess their readiness for online education. The institution has developed a well-organized and appropriate array of services to support students in the context of the college mission. This effort is supported by sound policies and procedures. In addition to providing advisors and web based information, UMUC provides a free of charge online course to “test drive.” This one week course provides the prospective
student with the opportunity to experience the online learning environment and interact with students, alumni and faculty. The visiting team commends UMUC for their continuous improvement and focus on student support services that align with their mission to serve adult students.
The next two years should be critical in the culmination of key initiatives targeted at improving marketing and recruiting. The development of the Strategic Enrollment Plan, implementation of a new CRM, implementation of a new marketing agency and development of the associated quality assurance plans are targeted for completion in this timeframe. The visiting team commends UMUC for their focus on student service and the development of plans for ongoing improvement. Execution of these plans linked to a robust quality assurance culture will be essential for success.
Recommendation
The timeline for the completion of the implementation of the new Service Center and supporting infrastructure is 2014. Given the complex aspirations of the new approach, the visiting team recommends that the institution’s next self-study specifically include a focus on the results of the key servicing initiatives.
Standard 11 (Educational Offerings)
The institution’s educational offerings display academic content, rigor, and coherence that are appropriate to its higher education mission. The institution identifies student learning goals and objectives, including knowledge and skills, for its educational offerings.
University of Maryland University College meets this standard.
The small team visit focused on four of the fundamental elements of Standard 11 Educational Offerings.
Undergraduate and graduate educational offerings that are congruent with the institution's mission, which include areas of academic study of sufficient content, breadth and length conducted at levels of rigor appropriate to the degrees offered; Consistent with the institutional strategic plan, UMUC’s academic programs meet the goals of its adult student population and respond to emerging workforce needs. A longer-term academic plan and revised program proposal and approval processes are under development. Both the current and projected academic program development processes include an environmental scan and consideration of need for the proposed program and congruence to institutional mission.
There is a well-established program review process that incorporates external reviewers to assure that curriculum and quality meet national standards. Where appropriate, the institution seeks program accreditation; its business programs, for
example, are accredited by the International Assembly for Collegiate Business Education (IACBE).
Each academic program is outcomes-focused with course outcomes aligned with program and college-level learning goals. In 2010, UMUC undertook a comprehensive project, Supporting Educational Goals for Undergraduate Education (SEGUE). In this 18-month process, faculty and academic administrators reviewed all programs and courses. Learning outcomes were articulated for every course and course outcomes were aligned with program-level and institutional learning outcomes. There is special
emphasis in graduate courses on assessing learning outcomes through application of knowledge to the discipline rather than through traditional exams. These outcomes are now required as part of the syllabus of each course.
Proposals for both undergraduate and graduate programs go through a rigorous review process for alignment with mission and articulation with other offerings. New programs currently under development represent emerging areas that build on current expertise. The college has defined and published standards of academic rigor that guide grading and define learning objectives and learning activities appropriate to introductory, intermediate and advanced courses. Faculty are provided with these standards as well as teaching expectations for graduate or undergraduate level courses that address academic quality and monitoring of student progress.
The provision of comparable quality of teaching/instruction, academic rigor, and educational effectiveness of the institution's courses and programs regardless of their location or delivery mode;
UMUC has extraordinary dispersion of its students and faculty along with an extensive online program. The institution is structured to assure consistency across locations and modes of delivery. Course outcomes are defined for each course and built into the
syllabus of each section.
A common set of learning outcomes and assessments of those outcomes is defined for each course. At the end of each term course-embedded assessments are collected and analyzed. The attainment of a course’s learning outcomes can be assessed at the section level. Assessment results are provided to faculty and academic administrators and course improvements are developed. These assessments are done across all locations, in the US, Europe and Asia, and across online, classroom and hybrid delivery modes. The institution provides a variety of supports to faculty to assure that defined course outcomes consistently form the basis for teaching and assessment of student learning. All new faculty participate in an orientation course. The undergraduate and graduate schools define teaching expectations and guidelines for effective teaching. Reviews of faculty performance for reappointment consider whether these expectations are met. As a result of the SEGUE process, course guides were created for every course.
Undergraduate faculty receive the teaching guide for each course they teach. The guide focuses on the outcomes for that course and appropriate methods to assess attainment. . The implementation of policies and procedures to assure that the educational
expectations, rigor, and student learning within any accelerated degree program are comparable to those that characterize more traditional program formats
UMUC recently instituted eight-week terms as the standard calendar for
undergraduate online courses. This accelerated format had been used for many years previously in classroom-based courses. The decision to move to eight-week terms in the online environment in undergraduate courses was based on both national research on student success and consideration of their students’ needs. With the introduction of the new calendar, all undergraduate faculty participated in a week-long online workshop on course re-design. The effectiveness of the new calendar was assessed through reviews of grade distributions and withdrawal rates, student and faculty surveys. The results of the assessment of the Fall 2011 change raised issues about course design and optimal class size, but overall the new calendar seemed to have a positive impact on course completion but generally led to outcomes similar to that of the loner calendar of prior terms. In the coming academic year, there will be a formal study of the impact of different class sizes on student learning and faculty workload.
At the graduate level, course terms have varied in length for many years. The team heard no concerns about equivalent learning outcomes across these terms. Also, course formats emphasize online delivery; again, the team heard no concerns regarding rigor or quality of graduate offerings.
The ongoing assessment of student learning and program outcomes relative to the goals and objectives of all educational programs, and the use of results to improve student learning and program effectiveness
UMUC has a mature program of student learning outcomes assessment that “closes the loop” with assessment results leading to policy changes, course revisions, changes to program requirements and refinement of assessment methods.
The institution has defined institutional level outcomes, program-level outcomes for all undergraduate and graduate courses, and course-level outcomes for every course, with outcomes at each level aligned to those at the next higher level. Assessment methods have been identified for each outcome. The attainment of institutional-level outcomes by undergraduates, for example, is assessment through a commercially available test administered to samples of entering students and students nearing graduation. For many programs, program-level outcomes are assessed through examination of a research paper or project completed in a capstone course.
Assessment results are made available to all faculty by course or program in a online discussion space that enables all faculty, whether full-time or part-time and regardless of location, to review findings and propose course and program improvements. Course,
program and institutional-level assessment results and improvements derived from findings are published regularly. Improvements made as a result of “closing the loop” reviews include course revisions, changes in pre-requisites, provision of additional writing support, and improved faculty development.
V. CONCLUSION
The team again thanks the institution, and we hope that the University will be open to the ideas and recommendation contained in this report, all of which are being offered in the spirit of collegiality and peer review.
