UMUC Achiever Magazine Spring 2017

UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND UNIVERSITY COLLEGE | 2017

BUILDING ON A TRADITION OF

ACADEMIC INNOVATION

70 YEARS U N I VE RS I T Y OF M A RY L A N D UNIVERSITY COLLEGE

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CONTENTS

70 YEARS U N I VE RS I T Y OF M A RY L A N D UNIVERSITY COLLEGE

FEATURES

NEWS AND UPDATES

10 FROM STRENGTH TO STRENGTH: BUILDING ON

70 YEARS OF ACADEMIC INNOVATION

BY GIL KLEIN Three university leaders share their perspectives on weathering a perfect storm in higher education and creating a sustainable path forward for UMUC.

70 YEARS

BYUGIL N I VKLEIN E RS I T Y OF M A RY L AN D U N I Vof E Rthe The stories six SIT C O L L E G Eand presidents who have led UMUC, and Y chancellors the ways each has helped shape the university.

BY CHIP CASSANO Thanks to two dedicated employees, the University Archives is helping to preserve UMUC’s history—and make it accessible online.

34 MISS USA: COMBAT READY AND ARMED WITH

A UMUC DEGREE

BY GIL KLEIN U.S. Army Reserve Lieutenant Deshauna Barber talks about growing up in a 1 that led to her being crowned Miss USA 2016. military family and the journey

40 HIDDEN TREASURES

BY GIL KLEIN The UMUC Arts Program oversees a large and growing collection of work by Maryland and international artists—and patrons are taking notice.

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5 UMUC Wins Contract to Continue Teaching in Middle East and Africa 5 Kalb Report Features Presidential Debate Moderators 6 UMUC Provost Named to Adult Continuing Education Hall of Fame 6 UMUC Hosts Cybersecurity Seminar for Journalists 7 UMUC Provost Emeritus Retires 8 UMUC Honored by Military Times, NUTN Network

28 INSTITUTIONAL MEMORIES

3 UMUC Celebrates 25 Years in Russia 4 In Memoriam: Gen. John W. Vessey Jr.

20 THE LIVES OF LEADERS

2 Cybersecurity Road Trip

8

9 A Letter from Former President Barack Obama BACK OF THE BOOK 46 Class Notes 48 Faculty Kudos

MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT

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20

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Dear Friend: I AM PLEASED AND PROUD to introduce this special issue of Achiever magazine—commemorating our university’s 70th anniversary and highlighted by a letter from former president Barack Obama.

University of Maryland University College (UMUC) was founded in 1947 in response to the unique needs of adult students—women and men, many of them veterans returning from the Second World War, who turned to higher education in search of brighter futures, better jobs, and more fulfilling lives.

Today, UMUC remains committed to the same unifying mission, offering a high quality education that is affordable and accessible, while meeting critical workforce needs and accommodating the busy lifestyles of adults in the 21st century and the modern U.S. armed forces.

I count it a privilege to lead this remarkable institution as we mark this historic milestone—and find it fitting that we should highlight our legacy of innovation at a time when all of higher education is facing the prospect of change. Our cover story explores the way that legacy will guide us in the 21st century.

In this issue, you will also find a cross-section of the people and ideas that have shaped our university. You will read the stories of six UMUC chancellors and presidents, and learn how each has left his or her unique imprint on UMUC, both past and present. And you will meet U.S. Army Reserve Lieutenant Deshauna Barber, who holds a master’s degree from UMUC—and the title of Miss USA 2016.

You will find features on our University Archives and our Arts Program, as well as news updates on our 25-year history in post-Soviet Russia and the coast-to-coast adventures of three young travelers exploring the world of cybersecurity in a bright green RV. In this issue, we also bid farewell to our most distinguished alumnus—the first chair of our Board of Visitors and the 10th chair of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. John W. Vessey Jr., who passed away in August 2016 at his home in Minnesota at the age of 94. Gen. Vessey, who rose from the ranks of the enlisted, was a lifelong advocate of education and established the General John W. Vessey Jr. Scholarship Fund at UMUC. His life of service reminds us of the importance of our mission and underscores the words of President Obama, who wrote of UMUC, “. . . schools like yours help ensure the doors of opportunity continue to open wide for all who are willing to dream big.”

I thank you for your interest and belief in our university and our mission.

Sincerely,

Javier Miyares President University of Maryland University College

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NEWS & UPDATES PRESIDENT Javier Miyares SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, COMMUNICATIONS, AND EXECUTIVE EDITOR Michael Freedman EDITOR Chip Cassano ART DIRECTOR AND PHOTO EDITOR Cynthia Friedman CONTRIBUTING WRITER Gil Klein PRODUCTION MANAGER Scott Eury Call 301-985-7200 with comments and suggestions, or e-mail chip.cassano@umuc.edu.

University of Maryland University College subscribes to a policy of equal education and ­employment opportunities.

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Using this combination of papers saves the following: ­TREES: 43

Road Trip!

TOTAL ENERGY: 20,000,000 BTUs

BY GIL KLEIN

PURCHASED ENERGY: 1,000,000 BTUs

Three young adults who had only recently met for the first time boarded a bright green RV at the UMUC Academic Center at Largo on December 2, 2016, to officially launch a coast-tocoast trip in search of answers about the sometimes-mystical world of cybersecurity.

When their journey ended 26 days later, they had covered 3,600 miles, stopped in eight cities, and talked to more than a dozen industry leaders. In the process, they had developed a better idea of the vastness of the cybersecurity industry along with a better understanding of what motivates some of its legendary leaders.

Two videographers also made the trip, and Roadtrip Nation will

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produce a one-hour documentary to air on public television later this year, during UMUC’s 70th anniversary. For 15 years, Roadtrip Nation has conducted and recorded similar journeys to help people of different ages and backgrounds make life decisions through its career guide, documentary series, and classroom curriculum.

UMUC, a national leader in online cybersecurity education at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, helped to underwrite this project as a public service to draw attention to the opportunities in this fastgrowing industry.

“Innovation is part of our culture, and Roadtrip Nation embodies that innovation, turning a bright green RV into a powerful tool for education, research, and community

building,” UMUC President Javier Miyares said during the kickoff ceremony.

Mike Marriner, Roadtrip Nation co-founder, said he was excited to collaborate with UMUC because “cybersecurity is an often misunderstood field.”

The program, he said, challenges stereotypes and “reveals the many opportunities” available for careers.

For UMUC graduate student Antwan King, the highlight of the trip came on the final day, when the group visited Microsoft in Seattle. King, 32, is finishing a UMUC master’s degree in digital forensics and cyber investigation.

“It was the first time I could try out some forensic work,” he said.

“We had a mock demo to test out new software and try to pinpoint what happened. Out of the three

(Left, from top to bottom) Road trippers Mansi Thakar, Emily Cox, and Antwan King in the trademark green Roadtrip Nation RV. (Inset above, from left) King, Cox, and Thakar.

of us, I was the only one who actually solved the case, and that was pretty exciting,” For Mansi Thakar, 24, the trip was an opportunity to meet legends in the cybersecurity business and to learn how willing they were to help her get started in the industry. She is finishing a Master of Science in cybersecurity operations and leadership at the University of San Diego in August.

“What blew me away was that each leader we interviewed was so humble and open,” she said.

Already since the trip, she has been on the phone with Lisa Jiggetts, founder of the Women’s Society of Cyberjutsu, about starting a chapter in southern California.

The society is a nonprofit organization committed to advancing women in cybersecurity

and empowering the next generation.

And when she attended the RSA Conference on cryptography and information security in San Francisco, she ran into several industry leaders she had met on the road trip, who treated her like an equal, including Emma GarrisonAlexander, program chair for UMUC’s Master of Science in Cybersecurity. Kristina Laidler, whom she met at Microsoft, spent two hours roaming the expo floor with her.

“It shows that when we were on the road trip, our connection with these individuals was not a one-time thing,” she said. “They all were saying, ‘Let me be an instrument to expand your vision.’”

Emily Cox, 26, from Bloomington, Illinois, was the third student on the trip. Her higher education path was rocky until she discovered cybersecurity, and she hopes that what she learned on the trip will give her the direction she needs to finish her degree.

While still in Largo she had a chance to talk with two of the industry experts who helped shape UMUC’s cybersecurity program—Rear Admiral Elizabeth “Betsy” Hight (U.S. Navy, Ret.), who is now vice president of the Cybersecurity Solutions Group; and Marcus Sachs, senior vice president and chief security officer at the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC).

“I wanted to know what these leaders did when they had doubts, what they are most proud of, and where cybersecurity is going,” Emily said. “I was in murky waters.

I needed some direction.”

Perhaps most challenging for the road trippers was getting used to being recorded at every stop, knowing that what they said and did would appear on national television.

“It was nerve racking,” King said. “You have the world looking at you and you don’t want to let everyone down.

Now that we’re back, there’s more pressure on us to get out there and find that job

[we] are aiming for and make [our] mark.”

UMUC Celebrates 25 Years in Russia

BY GIL KLEIN In the waning days of the Cold War and the Soviet Union, UMUC created partnerships with two Russian universities.

Now, those partnerships have marked their 25th anniversaries after educating more than 1,000 Russian students in Western-style business management and finance.

“This was the very first dual-degree program between Russia and the United States,” said Muriel Joffe, UMUC’s executive director of International Programs.

“Despite all the ups and downs in the political relationship between Russia and the United States, since its founding in 1991, this partnership remains, has expanded, and may expand even more.”

With the opening of the Soviet Union to the West under Soviet Premier Mikhail

(Clockwise, from center front) T. Benjamin Massey, UMUC president; Vladimir I. Kurilov, rector, Far Eastern State University (now FEFU); Vida Bandis, UMUC vice president for administration; Vladimir N. Saunin, director, Baikal Educational Center (now Baikal International Business School), Irkutsk State University; and Fyodor K. Schmidt, rector, Irkutsk State University.

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Gorbachev, Julian Jones, director of UMUC’s Asian Division, reached an agreement in January 1991 with his counterparts at Irkutsk State University in eastern Siberia and the Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU) in the Pacific-coast city of Vladivostok to offer a Westernstyle bachelor’s program in business management.

“It was a visionary move on both sides,” Joffe said. “It was also a lot of luck. At that time, there was no management education in Russia. UMUC had the opportunity to introduce something that simply didn’t exist.”

Irkutsk is the oldest university in eastern Siberia, and as a federal university, FEFU is heavily subsidized by the Russian government. Vladivostok had been a closed city, meaning no foreigner could go there. Opening up FEFU to a Western-style education was a huge breakthrough, Joffe said.

The primary goal then and now is to prepare Russian university students to be business managers in the emerging market economy of Russia. Students take the first one or two years of their college education in regular Russian academic courses with the addition of intensive English language training. For their second two years, they begin to take courses with UMUC professors in English.

At first, as many as seven UMUC professors pioneered the program by teaching at the universities. They appreciated the Russians’ intellect, enthusiasm, and initiative in overcoming the cultural differences to pursue an American university degree. By the end of the 1990s, in-country UMUC professors were replaced by online courses. Now, Russian students are taking the same

UMUC classes as students around the world.

“American and Russian students are exposed to each other,” Joffe said. “The professors like to have Russians in the class. There are so many benefits of the international educational experience.”

Now the program has expanded beyond just a management degree to a bachelor’s in finance, as well as a Master of Science in management studies in marketing, finance, or project management. For the future, Joffe said, UMUC and the two universities are exploring expanding beyond business.

The benefits to students have been striking, she said.

“Our graduates are able to get jobs in Moscow and St. Petersburg,” she said. “Our students have been successful in getting into graduate programs in Europe and North America.

They have been very successful in getting jobs with international companies, including in Russia, because they have studied the western form of business management and finance.

But most important, they also have the English, which is the language in which most international companies operate.”

In Memoriam: Gen. John W. Vessey Jr. Gen. John W. Vessey Jr. (U.S. Army, Ret.)—a 1963 graduate of UMUC, the first chair of the UMUC Board of Visitors, and the 10th chair of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff—passed away August 18, 2016, at his home in North Oaks, Minnesota. He was 94.

Gen. Vessey’s career and service to our country are legendary. He purposely mis-

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Gen. John W. Vessey Jr. (U.S. Army, Ret.)

represented his age in order to enlist in the Minnesota National Guard at 16 years old and received a battlefield commission in World War II. He went on to earn his bachelor’s degree in military science from UMUC— then still a branch of what is now University of Maryland, College Park—as a 41-year-old lieutenant colonel, and graduated as a colonel in 1970 from Army Helicopter School, its oldest student by 15 years.

In 1976, he achieved the rank of general, and in 1982 became the country’s highest ranking military officer when President Ronald Reagan appointed him chair of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff—the rarest of honors for one who began his career as an enlisted man. When he retired in 1985, after 46 years of service, he ranked as the longest-serving member of the U.S. Army.

Gen. Vessey continued his legacy of service well into retirement, returning to Vietnam repeatedly as a special envoy of Presidents Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, to investigate the fates

of American servicemembers who were listed as missing in action or prisoners of war. His negotiations with Hanoi in 1988 led to Pentagon teams being granted permission to search in country, retrieving the remains of some 900 military personnel over the space of two decades.

A lifelong advocate of education, Gen. Vessey said that he tried to pattern his own life after a lecture—entitled “The Five Evidences of an Education,” by the American philosopher, diplomat, and educator Nicholas Murray Butler—that he first heard discussed in a UMUC classroom. The lecture praised the correct use of language, refined and gentle dealings with fellow human beings, the power and habit of reflection, the power to grow, and the power to act with efficiency and effectiveness.

Today, the General John W. Vessey Jr. Scholarship Fund awards scholarships to degree-seeking students of UMUC’s Undergraduate School, with preference given to Purple Heart recipients, active-duty military personnel and members of their immediate families, military personnel who are currently transitioning to civilian life, and students with demonstrated financial need.

Said UMUC President Javier Miyares, in a message to the

For the latest news and updates about UMUC, visit the Global Media Center at globalmedia.umuc.edu.

university community, “Gen. Vessey will long be remembered as UMUC’s most distinguished alumnus, and rightfully so. His life of service and commitment to the men and women who wear the uniform of our country stand as a reminder of the importance of our mission, of the power of education to change lives, and as an inspiration to women and men everywhere who aspire to lead with integrity, courage, and grace. He will be deeply missed.”

In a special ceremony on November 10, 2017, in observation of Veterans Day, UMUC will rename its Potomac Ballroom in honor of Gen. Vessey.

UMUC Wins Contracts to Continue Teaching in Middle East and Africa

BY BOB LUDWIG University of Maryland University College (UMUC) will continue educating U.S. military troops in the Middle East and Africa after being awarded a new 54-month contract by the U.S. Department of Defense.

The contract calls for UMUC to offer undergraduate and graduate instruction at military installations across the region.

Faculty will teach at U.S. military installations in Afghanistan, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt (Sinai), Jordan, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates. In addition to undergraduate liberal arts programs, active duty military personnel for the first time can take classes and earn a Master of Business Administration (MBA) at the naval base in Bahrain.

“UMUC continues to be the primary education service provider for U.S. military

personnel deployed around the world,” said Maj. Gen. Lloyd “Milo” Miles (U.S. Army, Ret.), senior vice president for Global Military Operations at UMUC. “The awarding of this contract is clear affirmation of the dedication of our faculty and staff abroad and a university-wide commitment to those who serve and sacrifice to protect us.”

The new Middle East and Africa contract extends through academic year 2020–21. UMUC also holds contracts to offer instruction in Europe through 2023 and in Asia through 2022.

UMUC, which is celebrating its 70th anniversary this year, first began sending faculty overseas in 1949 and has continuously served the higher education needs of active-duty military and their families since.

“No other university in the country has had a longer, continuous relationship with the military,” said UMUC President Javier Miyares. “As I have often said with great pride, serving the military is in our DNA.”

UMUC-sponsored The Kalb Report were two debate moderators—ABC’s Martha Raddatz and Fox News’ Chris Wallace—as well as Republican Frank Fahrenkopf and Democrat Mike McCurry, the co-chairmen of the U.S. Presidential Debate Commission.

“If you know that the candidate is saying something that is inaccurate, . . .” Kalb asked, “is it your responsibility as a moderator to tell the American people what you just heard is wrong?”

Both Raddatz and Wallace shied away from shouldering that responsibility.

Once a moderator starts calling out lies, asked Wallace—who moderated the third and final debate— where does he stop?

“You have what you consider an outrageous whopper,” he said, “but how about that kind of medium whopper?

two presidential candidates.”

Raddatz agreed.

“I don't think that’s my responsibility to say, ‘What you just heard is wrong,’” she said. “It’s not me debating Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. It is me trying to get answers from the candidates and [letting them] debate.”

A moderator can come back with follow-up questions to probe more deeply into the candidate’s answer, she said, but the moderator shouldn’t say, “You’re wrong about that.”

In preparing for the 2016 debates, Fahrenkopf said the Presidential Debate Commission explored the idea of fact checking in real time—even to the point of having a trailer at the bottom of the television screen reporting whether a particular assertion was factual.

“Our view [is that] that’s not the job of the moderator,” he said. “The moderator’s job is to facilitate the discussion and get out of the way. If one of the

Kalb Report Features Presidential Debate Moderators

BY GIL KLEIN In a presidential debate, what is the moderator’s respon(From left) Mike McCurry, Frank Fahrenkopf, Marvin Kalb, Martha Raddatz, sibility if a candidate and Chris Wallace. lies outright? That was the central question when candidates says something that’s I don’t want to sound like host Marvin Kalb questioned wrong, it’s a debate. The other Burger King here, but at what the moderators and organizers candidate is supposed to be the level do I intervene and at of 2016 presidential debates. one who corrects them.” what level do I not intervene?

Joining Kalb Dec. 5 at the At a certain point, it stops McCurry said his main probNational Press Club on the being a debate between the lem with the debates was not

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what was asked, but what was not asked. The moderators have complete discretion over what questions they will pose in the time limit they have. Global climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing the world, he said, but it never came up in this year’s debates—or, for that matter, in the 2012 debates.

Wallace said there were several substantive topics he would have liked to have raised, but many of them are hard to tackle in the allotted time.

“I’m not sure climate change is the best 15-minute debate topic,” he said. “I think it either gets technical fast or it gets general fast.

Talking about climate change is a little bit like grasping at clouds.”

Now in its 23rd season, The Kalb Report is a joint project of the National Press Club’s Journalism Institute, UMUC, the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs, Harvard University’s Shorenstein Center, and the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland, College Park. It is underwritten by a grant from the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation. Michael Freedman, UMUC’s senior vice president for Communications, and Heather Date, vice president for Communications and Engagement, serve as executive producer and senior producer, respectively.

UMUC Provost Marie Cini Named to Adult Continuing Education Hall of Fame UMUC Provost Marie A. Cini was inducted into the International Adult and Continuing Education (IACE) Hall of Fame in a special ceremony November 15, 2016, in Orlando, Florida, in conjunction with the annual

conference of the Online Learning Consortium.

The Hall of Fame honors leaders in the fields of continuing education and adult learning, and each year, leaders from around the world are selected for induction. The IACE Hall of Fame is located on the campus of the University of Oklahoma in the Oklahoma Center for

Marie A. Cini

Continuing Education, in Norman, Oklahoma.

In her biography for the Hall of Fame, IACE cited Cini as one of the few leaders in adult education to have a background in liberal arts, counselor education, and social psychology, noting that, “This strong academic background has provided her with unique tools in practice and research in the adult education field and also supports her highly acclaimed leadership and management skills.”

Cini is not the only leader from UMUC to be listed in the Hall of Fame. Previous inductees include former UMUC administrators Dr. Joseph J. Arden (2001), Dr. Gary E. Miller (2004), and Dr. Paula Harbecke (2008); former Chancellor Ray

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Ehrensberger (2004); and former President Gerald Heeger (2005).

UMUC Hosts Cybersecurity Seminar for Journalists

BY GIL KLEIN The United States is losing the war in the cyber world, the Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security told journalists gathered for a one-day UMUC-sponsored cybersecurity seminar for reporters on January 11, 2017.

“It’s going to get worse before it gets better,” said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas.

“If anything comes out of the [Russian] election system attack, it will be to make people aware of this issue and how we should make this a priority.”

McCaul’s remarks were part of a luncheon keynote interview conducted by Sarah Sorcher, deputy editor of Passcode, a section of the Christian Science Monitor that focuses on privacy and cybersecurity, which co-sponsored the event at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. More than 35 journalists attended, seeking to learn more about cybersecurity issues and how to better cover them in the news.

McCaul’s interview capped a series of sessions for reporters featuring UMUC cybersecurity professors, including Emma Garrison-Alexander, vice dean of UMUC’s cybersecurity graduate programs and the former chief information officer of the Department of Homeland Security’s Transportation Safety Administration.

Presenters explained the fundamentals of how American computer systems are subject to attack, the threat to national security, the state of defense against hackers, and the

PHOTO COURTESY OF MICHAEL BONFIGLY/THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

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hidden black market economy of cyber commerce and innovation.

Many journalists were startled at how easily an attack could be accomplished after they watched Jesse Varsalone, an associate professor of Computer Networks and Cybersecurity, show them exactly how it can be done.

Varsalone offered the example of his nine-year-old son, who won more than 30 prizes from an arcade video game just by watching a YouTube video explaining how to hack the game.

More importantly, he said, many computer systems that control critical infrastructure and corporate sites still have default passwords set, which anyone can find. He showed a website that listed IP numbers of devices that are unprotected and vulnerable to attack.

“You click on the IP and you are into their device,” he said.

“It’s unethical that all of that information is on the Internet, but it is there, and you need to know about it.”

Journalists can play a crucial role by finding and reporting on unclassified cybersecurity documents, said Merritt Baer, a senior cybersecurity official in the Department

Sara Sorcher interviews Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas.

of Homeland Security and a UMUC adjunct professor.

“If you read open-source intel reports,” she said, “you can say or speculate on things that government employees or people who have to account to their boss can’t explicitly say.”

Not too long ago, “cybersecurity used to be a game,” said Bruce deGrazia, a UMUC program chair and collegiate professor. Hackers saw it as a challenge to see if they could break into a system. But now, he said, people with a lot of money and talent are exploiting cyber vulnerabilities to get into systems that are critical to national security.

So many computer systems have been compromised that credit card numbers can be purchased on the “dark web” for less than 50 cents, he said, and one investigator bought Kim Kardashian’s credit history for $5.

But the real danger is in national security, deGrazia said.

“Just as we have military forces that protect our physical assets, we need a strong cybersecurity presence to protect our virtual assets. Cyber is being seen more as a weapon of war to be considered the equivalent

to physical types of weapons.”

McCaul said the Obama administration has not responded adequately to cyber attacks by the Chinese and Russian governments.

After federal investigators discovered that the Chinesebacked infiltration of the federal Office of Personnel Management computer system resulted in the theft of millions of federal employee documents, including security clearance information, the administration responded by meeting with Chinese leaders.

The response to the Russian hacking of the presidential election should be met with a greater response than what President Obama has done so far, McCaul said. While he said the Russian attacks did not change the outcome of the election, he urged President Obama and President-elect Trump to do more to make the Russians pay for the intrusion.

“It was the Russians, and there should be consequences,” McCaul said. “I think they need to know that if there is evidence that a nation state is either undermining our political process or trying to damage our critical infrastructure that there will be a response,” he added. “It will be equal to the attack on the United States.”

Calling the theft by hackers on private industry “the greatest transfer of wealth in human history,” McCaul said he will propose a new cybersecurity agency within the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

“Right now, they [DHS] don’t have the priority and focus to defend the nation,” he said.

“By creating this primary cyber agency, DHS will have a greater capability to do that.”

scholarships should be avail Making the Department of Homeland Security the lead able for people willing to work agency in working with the in the federal government, private sector makes more he said, and perhaps even sense than using the FBI, NSA, a National Guard of cyberor the Department of Defense security experts should be (DOD), McCaul said. created to be called up for “The role of DOD is to service when needed. defend the nation in times of war,” he said. “The NSA UMUC Provost is to advise our intelligence Emeritus Retires community. The FBI is to Dr. Nicholas H. Allen, UMUC’s prosecute. So, when it comes provost emeritus and long to information sharing, we part of the university’s senior thought the best sector to do leadership, retired September 1, that would be a civilian agency 2016. He served previously that can be a true partner to as interim president of the assist the private sector to university after President defend from these attacks Gerald A. Heeger stepped rather than an entity that can down in 2005. prosecute or spy on you.”

Allen joined UMUC’s The private sector needs Graduate School (then to take more responsibility in the Graduate School of defending itself, McCaul said.

Management Studies) in 1987 As CEOs see that they are as a senior faculty membeing held responsible for the ber and director of General theft of their customers’ priManagement and Executive vate information, their interest Programs. In 1991, he became in this is shifting. dean of The Graduate School But the United States does and saw it emerge as one of the not have enough qualified largest schools of management people to fill the positions on the East Coast, with more necessary to provide for cyber than 7,000 students. defense, McCaul said. And gov During his tenure as UMUC's ernment offices are competing chief academic officer—a posiwith higher paying private position to which he was appointed tions for the available talent.

“We should focus on retraining, but the fact is we are not producing enough in our schools and universities,” he said.

“There has to be more of a discussion about this being a national priority.”

Even the NSA, the premier organization in cybersecurity, is having trouble finding qualified people to work for Nicholas H. Allen, UMUC provost it, McCaul said. More emeritus, addresses graduates in 2007.

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in 1998—Allen provided leadership and strategic direction to UMUC‘s academic units and oversaw UMUC’s emergence as one of the world’s largest virtual universities, with online enrollments reaching more than 140,000 in 2005.

Prior to joining UMUC, Allen served for 23 years with the U.S. Coast Guard where,

among other assignments, he commanded two cutters and served as a program manager at the Coast Guard Institute, responsible for professional qualification courses and service-wide promotion examinations for the Coast Guard enlisted workforce.

He received his bachelor’s degree from the U.S. Coast

OUR LEGACY OF SERVICE This map dates back to UMUC’s historic first decade in Europe and marks U.S. military installations and embassies at which UMUC has held classes in Europe, North Africa, and Russia.

It was designed in the 1950s by Dr. Rose Beyer, a senior European Division administrator and supervisor of the mathematics department. European Division Director Mason G. Daly kept it on display in his office in the 1960s, and as the division evolved over the decades, color-coded flags were added to track the continuously shifting locations at which UMUC offered courses. Over time, pins were added to reflect such far-flung locations as Keflavik, Iceland, and Vladivostok, in the former Soviet Union. Today, the map serves as a tangible reminder of UMUC’s 70-year commitment to bringing education to the troops, no matter where in the world they are stationed.

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Guard Academy, a Master of Business Administration from Oklahoma City University, and Master of Public Administration and Doctor of Public Admin-istration from the George Washington University.

Said UMUC President Javier Miyares, “Nick Allen has been part of the very fabric of UMUC for some 30 years, and we are deeply indebted to him for his leadership and vision. He will be deeply missed, and we wish him all the best in retirement.”

UMUC Honored by Military Times, NUTN Network For the third consecutive year, University of Maryland University College (UMUC) has been listed among the nation’s top universities for military veterans by Military Times— ranking seventh of some 175 schools on this year’s list of “Best for Vets: Colleges.”

“We are proud that our quality academic programs and comprehensive student support for our veterans and active-duty military students and their families have been recognized by this widely respected ranking,” said Gen. Lloyd Miles (U.S. Army, Ret.), UMUC’s senior vice president for Global Military Operations.

“We . . . [celebrate] our 70th anniversary in 2017 and the university has been honored to serve military veterans since Day One. In fact, UMUC was created specifically to address the educational needs of nontra-

ditional students, including veterans returning from World War II.” The “Best for Vets: Colleges” 2017 ranking evaluates the many factors that help make colleges and universities a good fit for servicemembers, military veterans, and their families. More than 500 colleges took part in this year’s detailed survey.

The National University Technology (NUTN) Network—a consortium of higher education institutions that provides networking and professional development opportunities to advance teaching and learning—also honored UMUC for its trailblazing Master of Science in Data Analytics program and cited President Javier Miyares for distinguished achievement.

“As president of UMUC— an institution that has long embraced technology and nontraditional modes of delivery as critical to its mission of serving adults in the workforce—it makes this honor even more meaningful,” said Miyares, who received the award at NUTN’s annual conference in Clearwater Beach, Florida, in September 2016.

UMUC graduate student John Cook, in the data analytics program, received the 2016 Student Achievement Award.

“It is a great honor to receive this award,” said Cook. “I didn’t consider myself a good student prior to graduate school, so this is validation that finding the right focus area and working hard can achieve extraordinary results. I had some great professors, and the courses were structured to help us learn by doing.” G

j Ba ra ck O ba ma i

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FROM STRENGTH T0 STRENGTH:

ACADEMIC

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Three university leaders share their perspectives on the importance of harnessing the power of new technology and embracing innovation to weather a perfect storm in higher education and create a sustainable path forward for UMUC

BUILDING ON 70 YEARS OF

INNOVATION

BY GIL KLEIN

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“

We operate in an

environment of constant

change,” said UMUC President Javier Miyares, “and by embracing it—rather than shrinking from it—we have turned BORN OF A NEED TO RESPOND TO A NEW GENERATION OF ADULT LEARNERS following World War II, University of Maryland University College was an innovator from the start. Distance learning options, compressed and flexible course schedules, workforce-relevant curricula—all served the unique needs of older students, many of whom had full-time jobs, families, and military responsibilities.

Now, as the university commemorates its 70th anniversary, innovation remains central to its core—and critical to its ability to survive and thrive.

“We operate in an environment of constant change,” said UMUC President Javier Miyares, “and by embracing it—rather than shrinking from it—we have turned disruption into a positive force on a path to sustainable future success.”

Miyares has called the challenges facing higher education “a perfect storm,” encompassing factors such as rising costs, increasing competition for students, reductions in public funding, and changing student demographics.

Because of its history of innovation, UMUC is uniquely positioned to succeed and lead, said Peter Smith, the university’s Orkand Endowed Chair and Professor of Innovative Practices in Higher Education in The Graduate School. Smith—the first president of the Community College of Vermont and founding president of California State University Monterey Bay—has long advocated for innovation in higher education and calls himself a “friendly critic” of new education models under development.

“Academic innovation here goes back to Day One,” Smith said, adding that no other institution is like UMUC, committed entirely to adults, committed to distance learning, operating as an accredited institution within a state university system, and serving learners all over the world who might not otherwise have access to education.

Now, as online and distance learning become the norm in higher education, he added, UMUC does not have to play catch up. It already is the leader. But it cannot rest on its laurels.

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disruption into a positive force on a path to sustainable future success.”

“The rate of change is not going to recede,” Smith said.

“If anything, it will accelerate. A new universe of learning is emerging. We have to stay up and determine how we use those elements of change to improve the teaching and learning experience.”

THREE BIG IDEAS

Three “big ideas” have shaped and guided UMUC in its first 70 years.

The first and perhaps most central concept is that higher education—and the opportunities that come with it—should be available to anyone with the motivation to pursue it. This was born in the era of the post-World War II GI Bill, when the federal government provided funding to returning veterans who wished to pursue an education.

These individuals represented a new breed of student within higher education—adults with considerable life skills and ambition who had already assumed career and family responsibilities.

The traditional four-year, residential campus experience was simply not a practical option.

In response to their needs, the University of Maryland established the College of Special and Continuation Studies, providing off-campus, evening, and weekend courses for part-time students across the state. The response was so enthusiastic and the demand so great that within a decade it became a separate, degree-granting school of the University of Maryland.

A second and related idea involved the expansion of the university overseas when the University of Maryland accepted a Defense Department call to provide higher education to troops stationed at U.S. bases first in Germany, then across Europe, then into Asia and the Pacific and to war zones from

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Vietnam to Iraq and Afghanistan. The concept of the “Overseas Marylander” was born as professors hopscotched from country to country.

“UMUC was the first to go overseas,” Smith said. “In 1947, the idea of veterans going to college was brand new. The idea of taking education to military personnel wherever they were in the world on DC-3s, flying around professors with book bags, that was revolutionary. Every step of the way since then has been a step in this ongoing revolution in learning opportunity.”

The third idea involved offering coursework online. UMUC had become a separate university within the University of Maryland system in 1970, and it provided far and away the nation’s largest and most comprehensive program of distance education. With the advent of new technologies, doors were opened to people who could not be served by a professor standing at the front of a classroom.

The university launched a Bachelor’s Degree-at-a-Distance program in 1993 for students located anywhere in the United States. Students communicated with teachers and each other by mail, teleconference, voice mail, computer conference, audio conference, and e-mail. Instruction by Interactive Video Network allowed students in multiple sites to see and hear their instructors and classmates alike.

In September 1997, with almost 15,000 students enrolling in distance education courses each year, UMUC developed its own online learning platform, named Tycho after the 16th-century Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. Using Tycho, students around the world could participate in computer conferences, access online tutors, submit assignments, work through computer-based multimedia courseware, access electronic library resources, and participate in online study groups.

The Virtual University was born, and UMUC was the midwife.

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Two decades later, online education is no longer a novelty; it is the norm, and having been a pioneer is no guarantee of continued success. The competition from for-profit institutions and other large state university systems comes as the number of potential college students is declining and the cost of higher education is increasing.

That is the perfect storm to which Miyares alludes.

A BIG IDEA FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

To weather the perfect storm, UMUC is embracing a fourth big idea—the use of data collected from online education to identify new strategies and approaches that will help students learn more effectively even as costs are reduced.

As a school offering open admission, UMUC does not restrict access based on test scores. Its mission is to accept any qualified student who applies and find ways for her or him to succeed.

“In the past it was, ‘You go to college, and if you can’t cut it, too bad,’” UMUC Provost Marie Cini said. “What we have said from the beginning is that the potential to learn—to learn well, to learn thoroughly—is not owned by the few. It is pos-

“

UMUC was the first to

go overseas,” Smith said.

“In 1947, the idea of veterans going to college was brand new.

The idea of taking education to military personnel wherever they were in the world

on DC-3s, flying around professors with book bags, that was revolutionary.”

sessed by the many.

We are going to find those people and help them get to the table of opportunity that America promises for every person.”

Miyares, who came to the university 15 years ago as vice president for Planning, Research and Accountability, still refers to himself as a “data guy.” And now, the data the university has amassed on student behaviors and success is ready to be used to improve educational performance for all.

Working with outside vendors, the university developed “a model that can predict with greater than 80 percent accuracy on the first day of class whether a student will pass or fail the course,” Miyares said. “This allows us to target our retention efforts on those students at highest risk and reach out to them before they are beyond the point of help.”

Finding out how to act on that information is not easy, Cini said.

“We can do a lot of little interventions, but that is not going to be helpful,” she said. “You have to find out where the big levers are. It could be a policy change, a redesign of certain courses. It could involve giving students different direction on how to go through the course.”

For example, she said, data on an individual course can be collected as the students move through it. If students do well in the course but crash on one assessment, the university can know instantly that there is a problem in the way that part of the course was presented.

And given enough data, she said, the university can reach down to individual students to assess how they learn best.

“We can know, say, that every time this student looks at videos, he seems to do better on a task than when he reads stuff, so we are going to recommend that he use more videos,” she said.

“It can be at that level.”

This will require certain changes in the way faculty teach courses.

Most universities are faculty-centric, Cini said. They hire the professors and give them free reign in how to teach their courses. But UMUC aspires to a student-centric model, starting with student needs and crafting courses that meet them.

“If you start from the student, education looks very different,” Cini said. “We shouldn’t be afraid of that. We believe we

“

Most universities

are faculty-centric, Cini said. They hire

the professors and give them free reign in how to teach their courses. But UMUC aspires to a studentcentric model, starting with student needs and crafting courses that meet them.” owe our students an on-ramp to success. They still must work hard and be motivated. But there are ways to redesign curriculum to provide students with support. It certainly will be the wave of the future.”

One example of how to achieve this is through “gamification”—integrating gaming elements like point scoring, competition, and achievement levels into a curriculum, all in the interest of increasing motivation and engagement.

“Sometimes people hear ‘gamification,’ and they think students are just going to be playing games,” Cini said. “It’s really about how people learn and are engaged. You turn it into something that is engaging and fun, and, guess what, people will learn more.”

Another student-centric strategy that UMUC has embraced involves eliminating costly textbooks and finding online resources for all classes. This has multiple benefits, reducing costs for students while providing them with the latest information in their subject area.

Smith called textbooks “a trap,” because a student goes only there for information, while open resources with assignments found on the Internet allow students to explore topics that stimulate their curiosity. The student can be directed to videos, speeches, TED talks, or Google citations.

“You immediately get a high quality, targeted resource that is spot on to what it is you need to know at that point in time,” he said. “Instead of looking for the nugget in a book, we can bring the nuggets to you based on the questions you’re asking.”

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UMUC TIMELINE 1940s 1947 UMUC’s precursor, the College of Special and Continuation Studies (CSCS) is established to coordinate the expanding off-campus offerings.

The Pentagon exceeds its capacity to accommodate the number of officers who wish to register.

Registration lines begin forming at increasingly early hours; some determined registrants even camp overnight in the Pentagon concourse.

1949 At the behest of an enthusiastic and determined Pentagon student, Col. William C. Bentley, the U.S. Air Force Command issues a proposal for off-campus programs overseas.

When only two universities apply, University of Maryland is chosen for Europe; University of California, for the Pacific.

1950 Thanks to the persistence of Claire Swan, a recent high school graduate whose father is the Community Commander of McGraw Kaserne, Maryland opens it “Munich Branch” (later known as the Munich Campus) in October. It allows military dependents to begin their college education without returning to the United States. It remains a major part of the UMUC program until it closes in 2005.

1951 In April, at a special Convocation in Bonn, Germany, University of Maryland President H. C. Byrd confers honorary degrees on Konrad Adenauer and Theodor Heuss (Germany’s first post-war chancellor and president, respectively), the rectors of the Free University of Berlin and the University of Bonn, and on the U.S. High Commissioner for Germany.

1951 In May, the first bachelor’s degree in Europe

1949 In August, the first CSCS Dean, George J. Kabat, travels to Europe to confer with military leaders and visit potential sites.

1949 Convinced of the viability of a European program, Dean George Kabat locates seven faculty members who, with one week’s notice, board a plane on October 2 to teach at six sites in wartorn Germany—Wiesbaden, Frankfurt, Berlin, Munich, Nürnberg, and Heidelberg.

1950s 1950 Dr. Ray Ehrensberger arrives in Germany in February as the first European Director of a rapidly expanding program.

is awarded to Air Force Colonel William C. Bentley, who started his studies at the Pentagon.

1952 Ray Ehrensberger is appointed dean of the CSCS and quickly earns the designation “The Flying Dean” as he

circles the globe overseeing the existing programs and continually sizing up new opportunities.

1953 An Atlantic Division is added with classes in Bermuda, Greenland, Iceland,

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With the average price of a textbook at $55, he said, this represents a huge saving for students.

“No other university has done this at this scale,” Cini said, noting that UMUC has become a national model for the change. “We have learned how to do this well, and we are going back to continually improve our resources.”

A NEW APPROACH TO LEARNING

Even more innovative is a new approach to teaching that is currently being explored at UMUC. Generally referred to as ELM—for Enhanced Learning Model—it challenges the traditional model of online instruction in which students read, post to a discussion board, write papers, and take exams, replacing it with project-based education.

“You could have taken that old model and put it in a traditional classroom,” Cini said. “It was the same thing. That is not the most engaging way. You want active learning, engaged learning. You want students to be working immediately on real-world problems.”

In traditional instructional approaches, Cini said, a student interested in cybersecurity who loves playing with a computer and hacking and guarding against hacking would first be required to read a book before being allowed to actually do the work.

“We’re flipping that,” she said. “We want the students to immediately get into an engaging problem. ‘You have been hired by a company to stop the hackers. Here’s some information to get you started.’ The learning becomes exciting because you have to stop the hackers. You have to learn to accomplish that goal.”

Five UMUC graduate programs—the MBA and Master of Science programs in Cybersecurity, Cybersecurity Management and Policy, Digital Forensics, and Learning Design and Technology—were launched this past fall with a curriculum built around project-based learning.

The programs offer real-world problems and projects that allow students to master the high-level competencies needed in today’s knowledge economy. This can be accomplished online, Miyares said, but it requires that students be active learners, involved with projects, rather than passively sitting back and listening to lectures, reading texts, and taking tests.

“We are collecting more learner data, so that when students encounter difficulties, we can intervene more quickly and at the same time improve the curriculum in terms of learning outcomes,” Miyares said.

The 1,600 students enrolled in these programs are being closely monitored so that the university can learn from their experience even as it expands the number of courses using this approach. Eventually, undergraduate courses will be redesigned to fit this format, as well.

borrowed from British usage to describe an institution that offers courses and programs to all students regardless of gender, social class, or religion.

1960s It all fits together, said Smith. “Instead of selling courses, you are selling learning projects. You are selling things that create evidence that can be stored in a portfolio and evaluated. Then you use the open resources to drive that learning.”

With these unambiguous learning paths, he said, students know where they are in the process, where they are going, how they can get there, and why they are doing it.

“If you can answer those four questions with every learner, you’re going to hang onto them, and they are going to get a great education,” Smith said.

Newfoundland, Labrador, and the Azores. The European Division expands not only to France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, and the Netherlands, but also to non-European countries like Ethiopia, Morocco, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia.

1953 In Maryland, courses expand to Baltimore, Bethesda, Hancock, Hagerstown,

A CHALLENGING CULTURE OF INNOVATION

All these changes can represent a challenge for faculty, who are being asked to assume new and sometimes significantly different roles.

As a traditionally trained PhD herself, Cini said she understands why faculty might be leery of these changes. Throughout the 20th century, she said, faculty were expected to develop the curriculum and serve as the experts in how to teach it and assess its effectiveness. For the most part, they were left alone in their classrooms, whether brick-and-mortar or online.

“I don’t think [faculty] are pushing back because they don’t want change,” Cini said. “All of us don’t like change. This is what they have known as quality. It worked for them. So it’s a little frightening to think about something new.”

That underscores the importance of having the university’s full-time faculty—program chairs and teaching collegiate faculty—become more deeply involved in what is happening across higher education, she said.

“Our program chairs need more time and energy to focus on what [represents] quality in this new world,” Cini said, adding that faculty can get so busy running their programs that they don’t have time to network with peers and colleagues who are exploring new ideas and approaches in their respective fields.

This is not unique challenge to UMUC, and in fact, Smith said, because UMUC is a “nontraditional” university, its faculty may actually have an easier time getting up to speed on new methods of teaching. Most are adjunct instructors who work in the fields they teach, and having focused on adult learners, they are already ahead of the learning curve when compared to faculty at more traditional universities.

“You can’t wave a wand and have everyone in a new place,” Smith said. “Nor can you ask them to go by themselves. Part of the planning here is to make sure as we move a program into the new space, we are training faculty and staying with them, because they are going to have to learn how to do it. And it’s going to take real work. But we start with a huge advantage.”

UMUC already uses some of higher education’s most sophisticated technology to power its worldwide education programs.

1960 University College enters the decade offering courses at 275 military and civilian sites around the world, including 70 in the United States, 137 in Europe, six in Africa, five in the Middle East, 48 in the Far East, and nine in the Atlantic Division, from the Arctic Circle to the Azores.

1963 The first classes are held in Saigon as the university extends into a war zone in Vietnam. By the 1969–70 academic year, enrollments in Vietnam reach 11,000 at 24 military installations. To be accepted as an overseas faculty member, every new professor has to agree to teach in Vietnam. In 1968, Dr. Joe Arden becomes

Salisbury, and Silver Spring, as well as to the Maryland State Penitentiary. Chinese language courses are offered at the Pentagon, along with graduate programs for scientists and technicians at the Patuxent Naval Air Test Center.

1956 Following the withdrawal of the University of California’s program in Asia, Maryland takes over and offers courses for troops at 42 education centers in Japan, Okinawa, and South Korea, launching the Far East Division with headquarters in Tokyo. Among its early innovations is the creation of the Far East Network, which broadcasts interviews of visiting Americans, including playwright Tennessee Williams and author James Michener.

1957 The first two graduates in the Far East Division are both Army officers, Lt. Col. John M. Cole and Capt. Henry Richarde.

1959 Dean Ray Ehrensberger convinces the University of Maryland Board of Regents to change the college’s name to University College, a term

the first full-time faculty member assigned to Vietnam.

1964 University College opens its new Center of Adult Education in Adelphi, Maryland, designed both to house the administrative offices of University College and to accommodate its rapidly expanding schedule of conferences and institutes.

1966 French Prime Minister Charles DeGaulle withdraws from the military party of NATO, effectively closing more than 30 locations where Maryland classes are held and forcing staff to relocate to bases in other countries. Base openings and closing—mostly in response to international events—became commonplace, although none are as extensive as the French move.

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1970s

1980s

1970 The University of Maryland is reorganized, and University College becomes one of five separately accredited institutions. Its name is changed to University of Maryland University College—the name that UMUC bears to this day.

Ray Ehrensberger is appointed as its first chancellor.

1980s The Far East Division expands to Subic Bay and Cubi Point in the Philippines and to the remote Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, accessible only by military aircraft. It reopens courses in Guam and expands into such remote spots in the Australian outback as Woomera and Alice Springs and to remote atolls in the Marshall Islands.

1975 As North Vietnamese troops close in on Saigon, the number of university students dwindles to a handful. Robert

Schoos holds his last class on April 27 as mortar fire rattles the windows. On April 30, Schoos hears Far East Network Radio play Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas,” the secret code that signals the start of the final pullout. Schoos makes his way to the American Embassy in time to be airlifted out by helicopter.

1975 Ray Ehrensberger retires as chancellor, ending his influential 38-year career, and his colleague, Dr. Stanley J. Drazek, takes over as chancellor.

1977 As the Far East Division reorganizes following the end of the Vietnam War, it expands to Australia, adding a fifth continent to the UMUC empire.

1978 Stanley Drazek steps down and Dr. T. Benjamin Massey, a seasoned overseas administrator since 1960, becomes UMUC’s third chancellor.

1979 The Far East Division adds graduate-level coursework to its curriculum, and by the end of the 1979–80 academic year, almost 150 master’s degrees in counseling are awarded on Okinawa.

1980s With the military build-up during the Reagan administration, the European Division sees growing enrollments and increases in the number of countries where courses are offered. Total course enrollments reach 130,000 by the end of the decade, up from 80,000 at its beginning. During the decade, faculty teach at more than 260 locations in 17 countries as far flung as Moscow, Cairo, and Bahrain.

1982 The Far East Division is renamed the Asian Division as Far East comes to be viewed as an outmoded term that defines Asia strictly from a Western perspective.

1986 The Asian Division exceeds the peak enrollments it had reached during the Vietnam War and continues to grow, providing education to American

military personnel scattered over 10 million square miles of Asia and the Pacific.

1987 For the first time, UMUC allows Japanese nationals to enroll in courses, initially in Okinawa and later on the main island of Honshu.

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Managing the associated data and delivering these online resources requires something even more sophisticated.

“If you were to look at our infrastructure, what is most important about this university isn’t bricks and buildings,” Cini said. “It’s this incredible mapping of servers and software.

It’s like a spaghetti diagram.”

There are two components to technology, Cini said. On one side is what many think of as IT—servers, software, and the like. That capacity must expand as the university grows in size and sophistication. At the same time, a second component must be strengthened as well, employing experts in academic technology who understand the new systems and products and can work with the IT staff to bring them all into harmony.

“We need to mash up the best of these technologies,” she said. “The students won’t know it’s a mash up. They will see a nice user interface that takes them through a learning process that is intuitive, [with] easy access to what they need.”

Nobody yet has built the exact model UMUC seeks, Cini said. But if UMUC can perfect it, the university will serve its students better than any other.

WHERE PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE CONVERGE

Where do the past, present, and future meet?

Smith pointed out that, not too long ago, the concept of the MOOC—Massive Open Online Course—was all the rage.

Elite universities like MIT, Harvard, Stanford, and Duke put their courses online, and anyone in the world could learn from them at no cost.

But those elite institutions, which depend on $60,000-a-year tuition, couldn’t afford to offer degrees for $10,000, he said. They had to maintain their exclusivity. UMUC—which has always embraced a vision of affordable, accessible education—can.

“What is tremendously important about UMUC is that the game of innovation has come to us,” Smith said. “We are where we always were: serving adults in the most appropriate up-to-date and qualitative ways. When you shine a light on that space, there we are where we always were. We have new innovations and new opportunities, but we’re an old hand at that.”

He contemplated that for a few seconds.

“It’s like Cinderella’s slipper. A perfect fit.”

For Miyares, embracing innovation today extends the same opportunity to all of higher education.

“As technology is recognized, not as a threat to the status quo, but as a powerful tool to advance learning and learning opportunities, the Holy Grail of higher education—the nexus of access, affordability, and quality—is finally and fully within our reach.” G

1989 The Berlin Wall falls, and with the end of the Cold War, UMUC’s enrollments in Europe begin to decline. As U.S. bases

close and troops are withdrawn, enrollments drop from a high of 130,000 in 1989–90 to 79,000 in 1996–97.

1990s 1991 UMUC pioneers business management instruction in Russia by opening two programs at Russian universities—Irkutsk State University, the oldest institution of higher education in Eastern

Siberia, and Far Eastern State University in Vladivostok.

1991 The eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines causes widespread destruction on U.S. military bases, leading to abrupt evacuations of military personnel. Bases are closed permanently under pressure from the Philippine government and the U.S. military transfers personnel to Singapore and Guam.

1992 Guam is hit by five typhoons and an earthquake in one year, but classes continue to meet, sometimes lit by flashlight.

1992 The overseas graduating class is the largest in the history of the European Division as military personnel rush to complete programs and upgrade their skills before they are withdrawn from Europe and separated from the military.

1992 At the invitation of the mayor of Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany, UMUC establishes an international four-year residential campus for traditional-age students in the vacant Kaserne

that had housed U.S. Pershing missiles. The campus operates for 10 years.

1993 UMUC officially launches its “virtual university,” offering students across the United States the opportunity to complete a bachelor’s degree by computer conferencing and e-mail. At the same time, distance education courses are offered by computer for the first time in the Asian Division, tailored to military students whose assignments do not allow them to enroll in regular classes.

1994 UMUC begins offering undergraduate classes via computer, with course material supplied to students on diskettes.

1994 Distance education expands UMUC’s reach to Antarctica when Ensign Ron Parks, of the Naval Support Force at McMurdo Station, enrolls.

1994 At the request of the U.S. embassy in Montevideo, Uruguay, UMUC opens its first South American program, enrolling 40 students.

1996 European Division faculty learn a new military expression—downrange—as U.S. troops are stationed in war zones and UMUC opens programs in Bosnia, Croatia, Hungary, and later in Iraq and Afghanistan. Faculty live on base with the soldiers and are not allowed to venture off base.

1997 UMUC offers its first web-based courses, and other forms of distance learning are phased out. The IT department develops WebTycho as its electronic teaching platform. Growth of online courses is so rapid that, within a decade, 80 percent of all stateside undergraduate enrollments are for online classes.

Because of online learning, the university’s total headcount grows by 15,000 in the next decade, effectively reversing the post-Cold War decline.

1998 T. Benjamin Massey retires and Dr. Gerald Heeger— a dean at New York University— accepts the presidency the following year.

2000s 2004 UMUC adds a 100,000square-foot addition to its Inn and Conference Center in Adelphi, more than doubling the number of guest rooms and making it the 12th largest conference space in the Washington, D.C., metro area— and one of the first LEED-certified “green” conference centers in the country.

2006 UMUC opens its Dorsey Station Center near Baltimore to be a major stand-alone satellite location in Maryland.

2012 Javier Miyares is appointed UMUC president following Susan Aldridge’s resignation.

2013 UMUC closes its Heidelberg offices and moves to the Ramstein area, where the largest concentration of remaining U.S. troops are located. Among the last graduating class in Heidelberg was Lauren Bentley, the great granddaughter of the first UMUC graduate there.

2014 President Miyares announces a new business model for UMUC that gives it more flexibility in competing with other online universities, allowing it to be more entrepreneurial in finding new revenue streams.

2014 UMUC’s Cyber Padawans, the university’s cybersecurity competition team,

2006 Gerald Heeger steps down and Dr. Susan Aldridge becomes the first woman to serve as president of UMUC. 2009 UMUC opens its Academic Center at Largo by renovating what was once the corporate headquarters of the Hechinger Company. The new center becomes the 232,000-squarefoot home for all of the university’s academic units with classrooms, offices, an auditorium, and a cafeteria.

The U.S. Green Building Council cites it for innovation, design, and water efficiency.

2010s 2010 Building on its established reputation as a leader in information assurance education, UMUC launches some of the first online bachelor’s and master’s degree programs in cybersecurity.

win the Global CyberLympics in Barcelona, Spain.

2015 UMUC spins off its Office of Analytics into HelioCampus, a for-profit company offering business intelligence products and services to universities nationwide. The company’s profits will help support scholarships for UMUC students.

2016 By the fall term, UMUC becomes the first major university to replace publisher textbooks with free online resources in all undergraduate classes. The move saves students an estimated $17 million in the first year alone.

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THE LIVES OF

LEADERS Since 1947, six chancellors or presidents have led UMUC or its predecessor, the College of Special and Continuation Studies. Each has helped shape the university in different ways. Here are their stories.

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ILLUSTRATION BY JASON SEILER

THE PROGRAM THAT WOULD EVENTUALLY GROW TO BECOME UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND UNIVERSITY COLLEGE—one of the largest public universities in the United States—began in the summer of 1947 as part of the University of Maryland (now University of Maryland, College Park).

With military veterans flocking to the university after World War II under the GI Bill, University of Maryland President H. C. “Curley” Byrd began establishing off-campus programs to serve nontraditional students who, because they were working and raising families, could not live or attend classes full time in College Park.

The new operation began as a program within the College of Education, with George G. Kabat serving as director. As it grew, it was soon renamed the College of Special and Continuation Studies, effectively separate from the College of Education, and Kabat was promoted to serve as dean. The new college offered classes in Baltimore, at business and industry sites, at military bases in Maryland and the Pentagon, and in communities around the state, including Cambridge, Cumberland, Hagerstown, Salisbury, and Westminster.

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Described by his colleagues as “high energy, a dynamo,” Kabat

in mid-August 1949 traveled to Germany for 16 days at the invitation of the Defense Department to assess the possibility of establishing an overseas Maryland program. With just a few weeks of lead time, he managed to launch the program that fall. The eight-week term was first introduced to accommodate the large numbers of troops transferring in and out of Europe.

By the time Kabat stepped down in 1950, many of the fundamental constants that would guide UMUC—a commitment to providing educational opportunities for nontraditional students and to educating U.S. military personnel overseas—were already in place.

Joseph Ray replaced Kabat as dean and led the program for another two years, successfully advocating for changes in the military science program offered overseas, which had previously been available only to commissioned officers. By broadening the program to accommodate noncommissioned officers, enlisted personnel, and civilians, the stage was set for some of the college’s most dynamic growth—and the rise of one of its most dynamic leaders, William Raymond “Ray” Ehrensberger.

Serving as its first chancellor, Ehrensberger shaped UMUC geographically and philosophically, oversaw its national and international growth, and guided its transformation into an institution independent from the University of Maryland, College Park.

The biographical sketches that follow tell the stories of five men and one woman who have served UMUC as chancellor or president throughout its 70-year history.

1952–1975 WILLIAM RAYMOND “RAY” EHRENSBERGER THE LEGEND OF WILLIAM RAYMOND “RAY” EHRENSBERGER began to grow long before he became the leader and architect of University of Maryland University College, long before he was dubbed “Big Daddy” and “The Flying Dean” as he circled the globe in search of new opportunities.

Born in Indiana in 1904, he came from humble stock. For two years after graduating high school, he worked as a railroad fireman, shoveling coal into steam engines on the Monon Railroad.

Even as an undergraduate at Wabash College, he continued shoveling coal during the summers and later financed his master’s degree at Butler University by working nights on the railroad while attending class during the day.

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forensic contests and debate competitions. After completing his master’s degree, he taught at two small Midwestern colleges while coaching orators and debate teams and staging student plays.

Some of his students went on to Hollywood careers.

His penchant for travel began early, and in July 1935 he traveled to the Soviet Union to attend a summer session at Moscow University. He hoped to study with Pavlov, and when he determined that he had been misled about the program, he demanded his money back.

He headed east on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, happy to show the Soviets that an American academic could still shovel coal.

Crossing into Japanese-controlled Manchuria, he was detained briefly by Japanese officials before taking an armed train to Beijing and Shanghai, by way of territories still controlled by Chinese warlords.

From there, he took a boat to Japan to visit Tokyo and Kyoto and climb Mount Fuji. Finally, he returned to San Francisco in steerage aboard a Japanese liner.

Returning to academia, his momentum never slowed. In the space of a year, he completed the coursework for a PhD at Syracuse University, then joined the faculty of the University of Maryland in the fall of 1936 as an assistant professor in the speech department.

Two years later, he became a full professor; one year after that, he was appointed chair. He founded the University Theater and the Speech and Hearing Clinic and even convinced CBS News to set up a full radio studio on the College Park campus.

In 1950, the university president—H. C. “Curley” Byrd—sent Ehrensberger overseas for several months to create an administrative structure for the College of Special and Continuation Studies (CSCS), which had established a fledgling program in Europe. When he finished, Byrd offered him the position of dean.

Ehrensberger declined, requesting a leave of absence to work for a U.S. State Department cultural program in Turkey in 1951.

When he was ready to return, Byrd made it contingent on his accepting the deanship of CSCS.

“

He had an engaging style and was a

man of ideas, a deal maker, a program builder.

On the road for months at a time, he traveled the world meeting with military brass and educators as well as with students, faculty, and staff from Iceland to Ethiopia, from Thailand to Taiwan.

“

Dr. Drazek’s leadership in adult higher

educated resulted in greatly increased opportunities for a group of individuals who used to

Ehrensberger was described as handsome, extroverted, and irrepressible, and a close associate characterized him as a man “blessed with indefatigable energy and a fertile mind; a raconteur with a vast store of stories . . . ribald tales . . . laced with language that was hardly housebroken; and a true nonconformist and iconoclast.”

He had an engaging style and was a man of ideas, a deal maker, a program builder. On the road for months at a time, he traveled the world meeting with military brass and educators as well as with students, faculty, and staff from Iceland to Ethiopia, from Thailand to Taiwan. Even when he was working hardest for the university, he knew how to have fun.

He received three of the top awards bestowed on civilians by the military—one from the Air Force, one from the Army, and one from the U.S. Department of Defense.

By the time he retired as chancellor in 1975, UMUC had become the second-largest institution in the University of Maryland system in terms of the number of students enrolled.

He is credited with influencing the direction and progress of adult higher education in the United States during the postWorld War II era.

He died in 1997 at the age of 92 in College Park.

1975–1978

STANLEY DRAZEK EVEN THOUGH STANLEY J. DRAZEK WAS THE POLAR OPPOSITE OF HIS PREDECESSOR—the colorful and high-flying Ray Ehrensberger—the two of them worked so well together that they were able to expand UMUC into a true force in adult higher education.

When Ehrensberger retired in 1975, Drazek immediately took over as chancellor. But his work with the university dated back almost to its inception.

Born and raised in Hagaman, New York, Drazek earned a bachelor’s degree in 1941 from the State University of New York at Oswego before enlisting in the Army Air Corps during World War II. After the war, he came to the University of Maryland on a research fellowship, earning a master’s degree in 1947 and a doctorate in industrial education in 1950.

George Kabat—then dean of the College of Special and Continuation Studies—hired Drazek in 1948, while he was

be considered nontraditional students,” said Massey. “As a result of those efforts, we have seen a shift in the definition of a college student, and today adults who study part time are the majority. Stan Drazek made that possible.”

still working on his doctorate, to serve as the first full-time director of the college’s Baltimore division. He administered programs in and around the city, including the Aberdeen Proving Ground, Army Chemical Center at Edgewood, and the United States Naval Academy Graduate Program.

Joseph Ray—who took over as dean of CSCS when Kabat stepped down—brought Drazek back to College Park to help administer the new and growing program as assistant dean.

When Ehrensberger took the helm, he promoted Drazek to vice chancellor.

In personality and management style, Drazek and Ehrensberger were stark opposites. Ehrensberger was the visionary and socializer, but Drazek was the anchor. While Ehrensberger traveled the globe, Drazek handled day-to-day operations.

Quiet, soft-spoken, and meticulous about details, Drazek was known as an excellent organizer who established a good rapport with university administrators and education professionals across the country.

In 1957, the CSCS newspaper, the Marylander, headlined Drazek as, “One of the college’s main workhorses.”

Stepping into the chancellor’s position upon Ehrensberger’s retirement, Drazek was able to maintain his predecessor’s momentum. In his own low-key way, he was as responsible as his more flamboyant compatriot for shaping the university.

When he retired three years later for health reasons, he and Ehrensberger were lauded as giants of UMUC’s formative years, and his departure signaled the end of an era as a new leadership team stepped in to replace the founding generation.

T. Benjamin Massey, who succeeded Drazek as president of UMUC, summarized his contributions to the university and to all of higher education.

“Dr. Drazek’s leadership in adult higher educated resulted in greatly increased opportunities for a group of individuals who used to be considered nontraditional students,” said Massey.

“As a result of those efforts, we have seen a shift in the definition of a college student, and today adults who study part time are the majority. Stan Drazek made that possible.”

Drazek died in 1996.

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“

Even when the Internet was new to most,

Massey moved quickly to incorporate it into distance learning, and later said that, “The

1978–1998 T. BENJAMIN MASSEY LIKE HIS PREDECESSOR, STANLEY DRAZEK, T. BENJAMIN MASSEY DEVOTED ALMOST HIS ENTIRE ACADEMIC CAREER to University of Maryland University College, first as an administrator in Europe, Asia, and Maryland before assuming the role of president in 1978.

A soft-spoken Southerner, Massey was born September 5, 1926, in Charlotte, North Carolina. He earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology at Duke University—taking time off to serve in the U.S. Navy during World War II—then completed a master’s degree at North Carolina State University.

He served as Georgia Tech’s associate dean of students before moving to England as a civilian Education Services Officer at U.S. Air Force bases before joining UMUC in 1960. He completed his PhD at Cambridge in 1968.

“In those days, we moved every eight weeks so that we taught an eight-week term in this location and then moved to teach in another location for eight weeks,” Massey recalled in a 2014 interview. “What made it great was you had the opportunity to see a number of places and to move to places you had never seen.”

He was teaching in Germany when the Berlin Wall went up in 1961, and he recalled how classes served as a kind of release for soldiers during those tense times, offering a setting where they could shed their worries and focus on learning about subjects that interested them.

Massey was soon appointed European Division director for the United Kingdom, then director of the entire division, then director of the Asian Division, headquartered in Japan.

Known for his work ethic and attention to detail, Massey was thoroughly familiar with UMUC’s stateside programs as well as the university’s military and international components when he assumed the presidency in 1978.

Interested in new ideas, he was quick to see the possibilities of new technologies and their application to higher education, which positioned him to modernize the institution and lead it in new directions.

While UMUC already had a well diversified set of programs when he assumed the presidency, Massey diversified it even more.

The university became known not just for the scope of its programs, but also for the creative ways in which those programs responded to societal and individual needs.

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single achievement of which I am most happy is moving into online learning.”

at some 250 locations in 22 countries. In the United States alone, courses were offered at 20 locations across Maryland, the Washington metropolitan area, and at distance education sites across the country.

Under Massey’s leadership, the university established its experiential learning program, its cooperative education program, and its Graduate School. It continued to innovate with popular distance education programs in fields like fire science and nuclear science, and broke new ground with a historic joint degree program with Irkutsk State University and Far Eastern State University in post-Soviet Russia.

Even when the Internet was new to most, Massey moved quickly to incorporate it into distance learning, and later said that, “The single achievement of which I am most happy is moving into online learning.”

Massey retired in 1998 and moved back to North Carolina, where he died in December 2015.

1999–2005

GERALD HEEGER GERALD HEEGER WAS A NEWCOMER TO UMUC when he was tapped in the summer of 1999 to lead the institution.

Born in Ohio in 1942 and raised in Omaha, Nebraska, Heeger earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of California at Berkeley and both his master’s and PhD in political science from the University of Chicago.

He was a specialist in south Asian political development and studied in India on a Fulbright scholarship, later serving as a Fulbright-Hayes senior faculty research fellow in Pakistan.

After teaching in the Woodrow Wilson Department of Government and Foreign Affairs at the University of Virginia, he was appointed dean of University College at Adelphi University in New York in 1980, rising to provost and executive vice president before stepping down in 1987.

His next stop was the New School of Social Research in New York, where be became dean before accepting the position of dean of the School of Continuing and Professional Studies at New

York University in 1991. There, he oversaw an enrollment of 60,000 students and established NYUonline—the first for-profit subsidiary of a major university—to market online education.

In accepting the presidency, Heeger acknowledged that UMUC was the “international leader” in online education— at the time, some 6,000 students were enrolled in online classes—and he explained his interest in UMUC in the context of the changing demography of higher education.

“There are more and more adults, nontraditional students, in the ages of 30, 35, 40 pursuing master’s degrees,” he said.

“UMUC has been a major leader in providing this education.

Demands for this kind of education are only going to grow.”

Heeger took a corporate approach to running the university, with the goal of modernizing and streamlining its structure for the 21st century.

Since its inception, UMUC had in effect operated as three universities—one in Europe, one in Asia, and one in Maryland. Recognizing the inherent inefficiencies in that structure in the age of online classes, Heeger envisioned restructuring UMUC as one university with one academic identity, a centralized administrative system, a single academic calendar, standardized curricula and course syllabi, and a seamless transfer of course credits from one division to another.

“We are everywhere,” Heeger said in describing how UMUC differed from a standard research university. “We’re geographically dispersed; we’re dispersed on the Internet; students can gain access from any place. We select our faculty on the premise that expertise is now society-wide. We identify expertise and work with intellectual leadership where it is.”

In 2004, he instituted a five-year strategic plan, built around the premise that the university must continue to grow to preserve its fiscal viability. In order to grow, it must differentiate itself through the excellence of its academic offerings, student services, and innovative use of technology. In the mission statement, Heeger said UMUC “is the open university of the state of Maryland and the United States.”

“

His legacy at UMUC included not only

rapid expansion of distance education around the world, but also the improvement of UMUC’s reputation at home and repositioning its image both nationally and internationally as a high-quality educational institution.

The plan called for assessing student learning outcomes and improved online services for students to accompany the academic programs. He established the office of provost to oversee faculty employment and the undergraduate and graduate schools. Focusing on stateside programs, the number of parttime and full-time faculty teaching in the United States more than doubled, to almost 1,600.

In 2005, Heeger announced he was leaving UMUC to head an initiative at a private equity firm to create a new for-profit international university system.

His legacy at UMUC included not only rapid expansion of distance education around the world, but also the improvement of UMUC’s reputation at home and repositioning its image both nationally and internationally as a high-quality educational institution.

In 2006 he was named to the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame at the University of Oklahoma.

2006–2012

SUSAN C. ALDRIDGE TO SUCCEED GERALD HEEGER, THE UNIVERSITY APPOINTED THE FIRST WOMAN to hold the top position at UMUC—Susan C. Aldridge.

Like Heeger, Aldridge was a newcomer to UMUC, although not to higher education. She assumed the presidency in 2006 after serving most recently as vice chancellor of University College and the eCampus at Troy University (formerly Troy State University) in Alabama—the second-largest distance learning program at a public university. Only UMUC was larger.

As vice chancellor at Troy, Aldridge had served as chief executive officer of the university’s graduate and undergraduate programs outside of Alabama, operating in 17 states and 14 countries. She had come to Troy in 1995 as an adjunct professor, teaching graduate courses in business, health administration, health policy, and organizational behavior and theory.

Aldridge began her academic career as an undergraduate at the Colorado Women’s College, where she completed her bachelor’s degree in sociology and psychology in 1977.

While completing a master’s degree and PhD in public administration at the University of Colorado at Denver, she worked for the Denver Regional Council of Governments WWW.UMUC.EDU | 25 | ACHIEVER

“

When Aldridge stepped down in 2012 . . .

the university had grown statewide enrollment by 7 percent, reversed declines in overseas enrollments, won Defense Department contracts to provide higher education to U.S. troops in Central Asia and the Far East, introduced cybersecurity programs, advanced com-

Said Kirwan of the UMUC that Aldridge left behind, “[It is] very much at the leading edge of online education, which is the fastest-growing area of college education in America. [It is] already the largest not-for-profit online education university in the United States, and I see no reason that should change.”

munity college alliances, and launched new graduate education programs in teaching.

as a planner and division director. She also served as vice president of World Marketing, Inc., a firm engaged in developing and managing national and international education programs.

After completing her PhD in 1991, Aldridge joined the faculty at the National University of Singapore and lectured on organization, management, and policy at Hong Kong University before joining Troy University.

As she rose through the ranks at Troy, she pursued her interest in global education and distance learning by serving on the Alabama Governor’s Distance Learning Task Force and the Alabama World Trade Organization Board; on the board of the International Association of Business Disciplines; as U.S. chair of the 2006 U.S–China Forum on Distance Education; and as co-chair of the 2005 U.S. Department of Defense Task Force on Distance Learning Standards.

After accepting the UMUC presidency, Aldridge faced a number of challenges, including significant budgetary shortfalls and operating deficits that underscored the importance of recruiting. The university needed to enroll some 9,000 new students to meet growth targets set by the governor, state legislature, and the University System of Maryland Board of Regents.

Aldridge responded by mobilizing a university-wide enrollment drive among employees and alumni in 2006, meeting and exceeding that year’s enrollment targets in the space of six months—and meeting the following year’s goals, as well.

When Aldridge stepped down in 2012, University System of Maryland Chancellor Brit Kirwan noted that during her administration, the university had grown statewide enrollment by 7 percent, reversed declines in overseas enrollments, won Defense Department contracts to provide higher education to U.S. troops in Central Asia and the Far East, introduced cybersecurity programs, advanced community college alliances, and launched new graduate education programs in teaching.

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2012– PRESENT

JAVIER MIYARES WITH SUSAN ALDRIDGE’S DEPARTURE, UNIVERSITY SYSTEM OF MARYLAND CHANCELLOR WILLIAM E. “BRIT” KIRWAN AND THE BOARD OF REGENTS TURNED TO JAVIER MIYARES—UMUC’s senior vice president for Institutional Effectiveness and a mainstay of Maryland higher education for more than 30 years—to lead UMUC. He assumed the presidency at a tumultuous time. In addition to the challenges of a leadership transition, the university was facing what Miyares called a “perfect storm” across all of adult higher education.

Declining enrollments, a challenging economy, fewer eligible college-age students, a shrinking military, and increasing competition from schools in both the public and private sectors meant that UMUC would have to adjust in order to maintain its position at the forefront of adult higher education.

Fortunately, Miyares was comfortable with change. Born in Cuba and educated in Jesuit schools, Miyares was in a high school seminary during the Cuban revolution. When his father was taken as a political prisoner by Castro’s government, Miyares was spirited off the island nation by his Jesuit teachers on July 4, 1961, at the age of 14. He would later become part of the rescue effort known as “Operation Pedro Pan.” “To a 14-year-old, this was a great adventure,” he recalled. “We were supposed to be back by Christmas. From my perspective, I thought that every child is separated from his parents. Of course, I never made it back.”

He ended up in Miami, where he graduated from a Jesuit high school. Entering a seminary in the Dominican Republic, he witnessed another revolution and saw American troops storm ashore to intervene.

“I was fascinated by those troops,” he said, “but never in my wildest dreams did I think I would be the president of a university that is the premier institution serving the higher education needs of the American military.”

Leaving the seminary, Miyares landed in Baltimore to live with his brother and to attend college.

“I came to College Park and, literally ever since, I have been part of Maryland higher education,” Miyares said. “For me, fitting into higher education allowed me to find my niche in this experience we call America.”

He finished his bachelor’s and master’s degrees and completed all but the dissertation for a PhD in educational measurement and statistics. His studies had set him on the path to becoming what he terms “a data guy.”

He joined UMUC in 2001 as vice president for Planning, Research, and Accountability.

In recommending Miyares for the presidency, Chancellor Kirwan said, “His vision and commitment and his ability to build consensus make him the ideal person to lead UMUC at this time.”

As president, Miyares has maintained his commitment to datadriven decision-making, pushing to standardize online course terms at eight weeks instead of 12 to better accommodate adult learners and supporting the university-wide initiative to replace costly publisher textbooks with open-source online resources, thus saving UMUC students millions of dollars annually.

Under his leadership, enrollment figures rebounded, as the university used data analytics to streamline its recruiting and retention efforts, and his initiation of generous scholarship support for Maryland community college graduates expanded access and attracted more students.

The university broadened its corporate and institutional alliances, including an agreement with the federal Office of Personnel Management to help fill identified skills gaps in the 2.7 million person federal workforce.

“

As president, Miyares has maintained

his commitment to data-driven decisionmaking, pushing to standardize online course terms at eight weeks instead of 12 to better accommodate adult learners and supporting the university-wide initiative to replace costly publisher textbooks with open-source online resources, thus saving UMUC students millions of dollars annually.

He spearheaded a successful effort to improve operations and efficiencies by aligning the university’s three divisions—Europe, Asia, and stateside—under a single administrative umbrella while eliminating redundancies in its online operations.

Miyares also sought changes in the university’s business model to make it more competitive in the challenging 21st-century marketplace of adult higher education.

In 2015, the USM Board of Regents approved a UMUC plan to spin off its highly successful Office of Analytics into a new company, HelioCampus, that offers business intelligence products and services, for a fee, to institutions nationwide. The university will use the profit it generates to further reduce the cost of an education for Maryland community college graduates.

Building on that success, UMUC established a nonprofit supporting organization, UMUC Ventures, to serve as a holding company for HelioCampus and other nonacademic university endeavors with the objective of increasing flexibility and agility and of generating outside revenue.

Acknowledging the university’s ongoing commitment to the military on his watch, the Department of Defense signed new contracts with UMUC to continue educating U.S. troops in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, thus maintaining the proud tradition of serving U.S. armed forces overseas dating back to 1949. In 2015, UMUC’s service to veterans was cited by Military Times, which ranked the university #1 in its “Best for Vets: Colleges” list.

The university has received numerous other honors during Miyares’ tenure, including the 2015 President’s Award from the Open Education Consortium for its exceptional leadership in adopting open-source material in all classes. The university’s competitive cybersecurity team, the Cyber Padawans, won the 2014 Global CyberLympics in Barcelona, Spain, along with other state and national championships.

Miyares’ vision and leadership led to a number of appointments, including his current roles as a commissioner on the Middle States Commission on Higher Education (MSCHE) and as a board member of the American Council on Education (ACE).

In 2016, Miyares was honored with the NUTN (National University Technology Network) Distinguished Service Award for “his principled and visionary leadership in higher education, his unwavering focus on the future, and his steadfast commitment to the success and wellbeing of students in Maryland and abroad.”

From the beginning of his presidency, Miyares said his goal was to leave UMUC in a strong, competitive condition for the next president to enter “this plum of all plum jobs in online higher education.” And looking back, he savors how far he has come since fleeing Cuba in 1961.

“Both of my parents were educators,” he said. “So I feel a particular sense of pride in being appointed to lead UMUC.” G WWW.UMUC.EDU | 27 | ACHIEVER

INSTITUTIONAL

Memories FOR AN INSTITUTION LIKE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND UNIVERSITY COLLEGE (UMUC)—with an international footprint and a track record of agility, innovation, and constant change—maintaining historic, archival records can be daunting.

For UMUC’s University Archives, the challenge is compounded by its own lofty goals. Its stated mission is to “collect, arrange, describe, preserve, and make accessible University College records of permanent, historical, and administrative value and to disseminate information about the holdings of the Archives through research, campus publications, exhibits, and online resources,” with the ultimate objective of creating “a permanent, living record of the historical heritage of the University’s unique role in the development and evolution of continuing and adult education.”

Now, as the university celebrates its 70th anniversary, progress is being made, thanks in large part to the commitment of two individuals—Renee Brown, an associate in Library Services who acts as university archivist, and Dr. Rosemary Hoffmann, who draws on her considerable institutional memory as she helps catalog the institution’s archival holdings.

Brown, a self-described “pack rat,” said that she came to her current role quite by accident, but found it a perfect fit.

“I love books, I’ve always loved libraries, and I had the opportunity to start out in a library,” said Brown. “I’ve worked in special collections, acquisitions, preservation, reference, and something called monographic retrospective conversion—which basically means taking a card catalog and making it digital, then figuring out what happened to any books that got lost in the transition.”

“In my heart of hearts,” she said, “I just love old things as much as anyone could.”

Hoffmann is similarly invested. “It’s my passion for the overseas programs and my institutional heart that I bring to the work with the Archives,” she said.

When she joined the university’s European Division in 1972,

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students overseas outnumbered those stateside by two-to-one. By 1985, the ratio had increased to three-to-one. As the Cold War ended, though, troop drawdowns in Europe and Asia led to enrollment declines, and today—with more civilian students enrolling stateside and more military students choosing to study online—the trend has reversed dramatically, and stateside students now outnumber overseas students by more than eight-to-one.

The university has adjusted accordingly, but the transition has been predictably painful. Many longtime faculty and administrators—some of whom had spent most or all of their professional careers overseas—faced the choice of retiring, relocating, or finding new employment.

Hoffmann left UMUC in 1984 to pursue other endeavors, then returned to the stateside operation in 1995 to help recruit faculty to teach overseas. As overseas enrollments declined and her professional focus shifted, she maintained her passion for UMUC’s overseas operations, working to nurture the Overseas Marylanders Association (OMA)—an independent organization of former overseas staff and faculty that had been established by President Ben Massey.

Hoffmann says that OMA’s continued enthusiastic growth and her current work with the Archive help her feel less like a “voice in the wilderness.” Coming to the Archives, she said, “I almost expected someone to say, ‘Well, yes, we had all these boxes, but it was just old stuff from Europe, so we got rid of it.’”

Fortunately, that wasn’t the case. Brown actually apologized that the Archives wasn’t a higher priority.

“I can’t imagine how devastating it must have been for someone like Rosemary, someone dedicated to UMUC’s history, to hear, ‘Well, we have all this stuff, but we don’t have a clue what’s in it,’” said Brown.

Together, she and Hoffmann are working to catalog the Archives’ holdings and to begin referencing the connections between individuals and eras that will help researchers, historians, and others with an interest in UMUC and the history—and future—of adult higher education.

Thanks to two dedicated employees, the UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES is helping to preserve the physical history of a truly innovative institution— and to make it accessible online.

BY CHIP CASSANO

In the process, Hoffmann’s institutional memory has proven invaluable. In one noteworthy case, she discovered that a student worker had tagged former University of Maryland President Wilson Elkins as 1964 presidential candidate—and five-term Arizona senator—Barry Goldwater.

“He did look a little bit like him,” Hoffmann admitted.

Now, with Hoffmann shouldering some of the workload, Brown is also able to focus on expanding the Archives’ online presence, as well.

“I feel that it is so important to have this available online,” Brown said. “The more accessible we make archival materials, the more people will use and see them.” That, in turn, will lead more people to donate items of historical significance.

“Like Rosemary always tells people, “Before you throw it away, give it to Renee,’” Brown said, laughing.

For more about the University Archives and to review the online resources already available, visit http://sites.umuc.edu/library/libresearch.

HONORARY DEGREES

Beginning in October 1949, the University of Maryland operated—at the invitation of the U.S. military—in war-torn Europe. As a gesture of respect, the first honorary degrees were conferred upon Konrad Adenauer and Theodor Heuss, chancellor and president, respectively, of the fledgling German Federal Republic.

(The U.S. High Commissioner, along with the rectors of the University of Bonn and the Free University of Berlin, also received honorary degrees.) These simple and dignified invitations announced the event, which was held at the University of Bonn, with University of Maryland President H. C. “Curley” Byrd presiding. The invitations and printed formal speeches were provided in both English and German.

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THE HONEY BUCKET

University Chancellor Ray Ehrensberger was known for his colorful, largerthan-life personality and charismatic leadership. Awarding the wooden “honey bucket” was one of many traditions that Ehrensberger introduced, with the trophy going to the member of his Far East division faculty who faced the most hazardous problem of the year.

In 1964, for example, instructor Hugh D. Walker received the award when, in Saigon, a Vietnamese terrorist threw a can of TNT—which fortunately failed to explode—into the military bus in which he was riding.

COL. WILLIAM C. BENTLEY JR.

This photograph shows then-Dean Ray Ehrensberger congratulating Col. William C. Bentley Jr., the first graduate of the European Division, in a ceremony in the Rose Hotel in Wiesbaden, Germany, on March 6, 1950. The photograph would later appear alongside an article in Newsweek, reporting on the university’s programs for military servicemembers.

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READER’S DIGEST ILLUSTRATION

A portrait of then-Dean Ray Ehrensberger for a 1965 story in Reader’s Digest hints at the growing popularity of the University of Maryland’s overseas operations. The article dubbed Ehrensberger “The Flying Dean” and called the effort a “brilliantly unconventional program.” At the time, Reader’s Digest boasted a monthly circulation of some 25 million and was published in more than a dozen languages, including Braille.

LUCY IN THE SKY

Visitors to UMUC’s administrative headquarters in Adelphi, Maryland, often comment on a brightly colored log cabin structure positioned on a small hill near the staff entrance to the parking garage. A 1994 sculpture by Maryland artist Mike Shaffer, the structure is entitled Lucy in the Sky and is now part of the UMUC Arts Program permanent collection. This photograph shows the aftermath of a September 24, 2001, tornado, one of the most damaging in Maryland history. The storm tore a path through Adelphi and College Park and into neighboring Beltsville and Laurel, causing some $70 million in damage and claiming two lives. While UMUC’s Adelphi headquarters sustained little damage, Lucy in the Sky was directly in the path of the tornado. The sculpture has since been rebuilt.

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INN AND CONFERENCE CENTER GROUNDBREAKING CEREMONY

A photograph by a university staff member shows UMUC President Gerald Heeger (third from left) breaking ground in 2002 on a 100,000-squarefoot addition to the university’s Inn and Conference Center, managed by Marriott. The building adhered to green building guidelines and, in 2005, received LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification, ranking it as North America’s first “green” hotel and conference facility.

THE REPORT OF THE PRESIDENT'S COMMISSION ON THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT KENNEDY

Quite by coincidence, UMUC was donated a copy of the original 888-page report of The President’s Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy— popularly known as the Warren Commission report—along with the full 26-volume accompanying set of hearings and exhibits. The full collection is extremely rare, and UMUC is the only university on the East Coast to have a complete set.

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MEETING POPE JOHN PAUL II

As Rosemary Hoffmann began cataloging European Division materials that had been submitted to the Archives, archivist Renee Brown offered some guidelines, and jokingly said that if Hoffmann found any photographs of the pope, she should certainly alert Brown. Much to Brown’s shock, six months later Hoffmann approached her and said, “I found those pictures of the pope that you were looking for.”

As it happened, a legendary UMUC professor—the late Dr. Chris Mooney—had studied at the Vatican and conducted a popular study tour of Rome entitled “The Popes and the Papacy.” Described by faculty and students alike as brilliant, charming, charismatic, and multilingual, Mooney regularly used his connections and insider’s knowledge to arrange private tours and access to sites that might otherwise have been off limits. This photograph shows UMUC students and faculty members on a 1983 study tour greeting Pope John Paul II outside the Vatican.

Thanks to Mooney’s guidance, they had been able to arrive early and position themselves where they would have the best chance to meet the pope face-to-face. G WWW.UMUC.EDU | 33 | ACHIEVER

U.S. Army Reserve Lieutenant Deshauna Barber talks about growing up in a military family and the journey that led to her being crowned Miss USA 2016.

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MISS USA:

Combat Ready and Armed with a UMUC Degree Deshauna Barber is crowned Miss USA 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Inset) Barber on the job as an officer in the U.S. Army.

BY GIL KLEIN

GIVEN HER FAMILY HISTORY, IT SHOULD BE NO SURPRISE THAT DESHAUNA BARBER—a UMUC graduate with a Master of Science in computer information—became an officer in the U.S. Army.

“My parents met at Fort Benning when they were super young and first entered the military,” she said. “My Mom was in transportation, and she hopped out of a big LMTV [light medium tactical vehicle].

My dad looked over at a friend and said, ‘I’m going to marry her.’”

How Barber came to be crowned Miss USA—the first military officer to hold the title—is another story altogether.

Her parents married at Fort Benning and went on to have a son and two daughters. With three children to care for, her mother left the Army to become a full-time homemaker while her father served as a noncommissioned officer for 24 years, deploying more than 10 times.

“Ever since then, it has been an Army hooah family,” Barber said.

They lived a typical nomadic military lifestyle, moving from Georgia to North Carolina, Nebraska, Minnesota, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. After the terrorist attacks of September 11, her father was deployed three times to Afghanistan and Iraq.

Barber, her brother, and her sister all decided that they would join the Army after high school.

“My parents pushed us to understand how important it is to serve this country in some capacity,” said Barber, “whether it’s as a police officer, firefighter, soldier, or serving in community service—some way, shape, or form to help serve and provide for this nation.

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(Above) Deshauna Barber’s parents, Cordelia and Darrell Barber; (above right) Barber visits the Steve and Marjorie Harvey Foundation–Girls Who Rule the World Mentoring Camp.

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“Joining the Army was our way of thanking them,” she said, “and saying we know we are inspired by what you all did.”

Unlike her brother and sister, who enlisted immediately out of high school, Barber decided to go to college as an ROTC student to become an officer. Living in Woodbridge, Virginia, at the time, she chose to attend Virginia State University, a historically black institution.

“Most of my grade school education had been in majoritywhite suburban schools,” she said. “I really wanted to learn more about me, my background, and my family’s background.

I wanted to learn black history. Virginia ... is soaked in African American history.”

That decision also helped build her confidence, she said— confidence that served her well when she reentered what she terms “the real, integrated world.”

Barber had always envisioned herself as a career woman, and she majored in business management with the aim of someday running her own business. After she graduated, she landed a series of jobs in government consulting with the U.S. Department of Defense, the Department of Transportation, the Department of Navy, and finally as an IT analyst for the Department of Commerce.

But Barber wanted more, which led her to UMUC in pursuit of her master’s degree.

“I was looking around for a university that does a good job of accepting veterans,” she said. “I looked at their student ratings online. My best friend started a semester ahead of me, and she told me how awesome the school is, how great their online classes are, how awesome the teachers are. After I did some research, I decided the school would be good for me.”

She took classes online, face-toface, and a combination of the two, finishing her master’s degree in December 2015.

“I think [UMUC is] an amazing school and very convenient for students who have full-time jobs or families—especially veterans and active duty,” she said. “The teachers are very accessible. The lesson plans are amazing. It’s a very active course where you have chat groups and ways to livestream what teachers are doing

“

and watch their lesson plans. It shows how innovative the university is, because not everything needs to be done face-to-face.”

Life was going well for Barber. She had completed her UMUC master’s degree, she was working for the Department of Commerce in IT management, she was an Army reserve first lieutenant commanding a logistics unit out of Rockville, Maryland, and she was looking forward to a promotion to captain.

And there was more—a parallel, almost secret chapter of her life that began with a strange twist of fate in 2009 when Barber was just 19, attending college, and working as a sales associate at Target.

“A lady approached me and asked if I was a citizen, if I had any kids, if I was married, how old I was,” Barber recalled.

“She was giving me the third degree, and I was just trying to fold clothes. I said, ‘Look, Ma’am, can I help you find something?’ She said ‘I think you are absolutely stunning. Have you ever considered pageants?’”

Barber said the closest she had ever come to a pageant was watching the 2001 Sandra Bullock movie Miss Congeniality, one of her mother’s favorites. She had never seen a pageant.

The woman introduced herself as Leslie Morton and managed to persuade Barber to meet her at a nearby coffee shop the next day.

“She brought a foot-tall stack of pageant books,” Barber said.

“She went through them and said, ‘There’s an interview portion, a swimsuit portion, and an evening gown event.’ She told me to consider it, and I said, ‘Okay, that will work.’ The next week, she helped me pick out my first pageant dress, and she became my coach.”

Three months later, Barber entered her first pageant—and placed in the top 10. She kept competing in state pageants until she won.

And that was how she came to be in Las Vegas in June 2016. Now 26 years old and in the final year of eligibility to compete, Barber had won Miss District of Columbia USA and was headed for the 2016 MISS USA® competition.

“I woke up having an anxiety attack,” she said, of the final day of the event. “I was so scared…. You work so hard to get to that point [and] you just never know what’s going to happen.”

My parents pushed us to understand how important it is to serve this country in some capacity whether it’s as a police officer, firefighter, soldier or serving in community service—some way, shape or form to help serve and provide for this nation.

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Her roommate—Vicky Wiggins, the reigning Miss Kansas USA—helped calm her down.

The day began at 4 a.m., with the contestants lining up by 4:45 a.m. Next came rehearsal with the Backstreet Boys, hair and makeup, and a full dress rehearsal. By 4 p.m., all 52 contestants were on stage.

The preliminaries had been held four days earlier, but the results had not been announced. As soon as the event went live, 37 contestants were eliminated, leaving 15 finalists.

“D.C. had not made the top 15 in over 10 years,” Barber said.

“I told myself I would be satisfied with making the top 15. That was kind of my goal. Then I made top 10, and I thought, ‘Wow, I’m doing pretty good.’ Then I made top five; I was shocked.”

Next came the interview portion of the contest, one of Barber’s strengths. And when she heard the question, she knew she could hit it out of the park.

“The Pentagon recently made the decision to open up all combat jobs to women,” the moderator said. “Now, some have questioned whether this has put political correctness over our military’s ACHIEVER | 38 | UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND UNIVERSITY COLLEGE

ability to perform at the highest level.

What are your thoughts?”

Later, Barber said that when she heard the question, she thought, “This is done. This is so done. This is going to be great.” And she was right.

“As a woman in the United States Army—” she began, but had to pause as the cheers from the audience drowned her out. She smiled and continued. “I think it was an amazing job by our government to allow women to integrate into every branch of the military. We are just as tough as men. As a commander of my unit, I am powerful, I am dedicated, and it is important that we recognize that gender does not limit us in the United States Army.”

Again the audience roared, and within minutes, Barber was among three finalists—and her answer was already well on its way to going viral.

Onstage, though, standing next to Miss Hawaii, Barber still wasn’t sure of the outcome.

“She is a very intimidating person to stand next to,” Barber said.

“She’s gorgeous. I said, ‘Thank you, God, for letting me make it to first runner up. I’m happy.’ Then they called Miss District of Columbia, and everyone was clapping. And I thought, ‘Oh, I might have just won this.’ And that was the end of it. It’s been fireworks ever since.”

So how do pageants fit with military service and an IT career? Barber has been happy to explain.

“I wouldn’t say I had a very girly childhood, and pageantry gives me the opportunity to really indulge in being a woman,” she told Fox News as part of the media onslaught following the pageant. “So wear your heels, wear your swimsuits, overdo your makeup, have big curls and lots of hairspray. It just gives me a chance to be really girly, and I think that’s what fascinates me about it.”

One of the few downsides involves negative stereotypes about pageants and contestants.

“That’s one thing I hate,” said Barber. “It’s the total opposite. I’ve met doctors, I’ve met rocket scientists that work for NASA. I’ve met women who compete in pageants who are some of the smartest and sweetest women I have met in my life. So that’s a misconception I would like to break.”

(Left) Barber reacts after hearing that she has made the Top 3 at the 2016 MISS USA® competition; (above) reigning Miss USA 2015 Olivia Jordan crowns Barber Miss USA 2016; (right) 2016 MISS USA® contestants congratulate Barber on her new title.

At the same time, she hadn’t gone out of her way to advertise this other side of her life.

“The military went crazy, because none of them—except a couple in my unit—knew that I was Miss D.C.,” she said.

“The same thing for my full-time job. Only my boss and my boss’s boss knew that I was Miss D.C. Nobody at Commerce knew that I was competing for Miss USA. I was crowned on Sunday, and when I was on Good Morning America Monday morning, I guess they found out that I wasn’t coming back to work.”

But she didn’t quit the Army. The guys in her reserve unit went wild when she showed up at the next training. Everyone wanted pictures with Miss USA. “After a couple of pictures, I said, ‘I love you guys and thanks for your support, but let’s get back to training.’”

And it is with the military that she wants to focus her time as Miss USA. “I know a lot of people suffering from PTSD,” she said. “I have had to deal with it directly. I have known soldiers who have committed suicide.”

The need, she said, is to provide more evaluation for vets returning from combat, especially for those who have encountered a lot of casualties. A couple of weeks isn’t enough. And veterans have to understand, she said, that it is not weakness to seek help.

“Soldiers are taught to be strong and to not think about the mental trauma [they may have] faced over-

“

seas,” she said. “And that’s not a bad mentality, because they need to be tough. But at the same time, they have to understand that it’s okay if they have something going on mentally and emotionally.”

Her goal, she said, is to work with the Army reserves to increase the amount of time for evaluations and to help get the word to returning veterans and their families that help is available and they must seek it.

As for herself, she believes winning Miss USA opens new career pathways she might not otherwise have considered.

“This has confused my next plan of action,” she admits.

“If I can combine what I have learned in pageantry with what I have learned about IT at UMUC, perhaps I can take advantage of both career paths—kind of merge them together.”

At the same time, she marvels at the path her life has taken.

Leslie Morton, her pageant coach, died just six months before Barber won the Miss District of Columbia USA pageant.

“She opened that door to my life when I was 19, and she wasn’t there to see it,” Barber said. “But I know she’s looking down on me and is at my side all the time.”

She paused and thought for a moment.

“It’s crazy,” she said. “What if I hadn’t gone to work that day? What if she had walked down a different aisle? I wouldn’t be Miss USA now. I would have never experienced a pageant.” G

If I can combine what I have learned in pageantry with what I have learned about IT at UMUC, perhaps I can take advantage of both career paths—kind of merge them together.”

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HIDDEN

TREASURES The UMUC Arts Program oversees a large and growing collection of work

by Maryland and international artists— and more patrons are taking notice.

BY GIL KLEIN

Eric Key

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“GYPSY CARAVAN,” BY BALTIMORE ARTIST RAOUL MIDDLEMAN, covers an entire wall, floor to ceiling, and teems with characters that look as though they came from a traveling carnival run amok.

“I look at [Middleman’s] paintings, and they are so whimsical, so historical, and the brush strokes he uses just look like plenty of fun,” said Eric Key, director of UMUC’s Arts Program. “He makes his works accessible so that you either want to get up on it, or you are going to laugh at it, or at least you are going to say, ‘Hmmm ... that’s interesting.’”

“Gypsy Caravan” and 193 other Middleman paintings are recent acquisitions of the UMUC art collection, which is gaining recognition both for its quality and for its support of and commitment to Maryland artists. In addition to aiding in community outreach, the collection serves to increase public awareness of UMUC.

“The Arts Program is something that gives the university another dimension,” said Anne Maher, a Takoma Park art collector who now chairs the university’s Art Advisory Board.

“It helps make local people aware of it, and it’s a terrific boon to local artists, especially in Maryland.”

Baltimore gallery owner Myrtis Bedolla of Galerie Myrtis co-chairs the board and says the collection is rich in beauty and diversity, helping preserve the visual legacy of many artists, particularly those from Maryland.

“There are works which convey stories about the artists’ life experience—preserve the history of our state, depict its beautiful waterways and cityscapes, or take us to foreign lands,” she said.

Now with 2,800 works of art—up from some 600 when Key joined the university in 2008—the UMUC galleries at the university's administrative headquarters in Adelphi, Maryland, are quickly becoming a destination point for art lovers—even in a

Raoul Middleman, "Gypsy Caravan," oil on canvas, 1992, UMUC Permanent Collection.

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metropolitan area with as many museums as Baltimore and Washington, D.C. But don’t ask Key which piece is his favorite. As he walks through the gallery spaces, he stops every few feet to exclaim about one work or another—what makes it unique, the story behind it, the artist, and the techniques used.

Sometimes he reflects on how he managed to get it into the UMUC collection.

“What’s my favorite piece?

All of them,” he said.

The 59-year-old Key himself has a remarkable backstory.

Growing up in “The Yard,” a tightly knit black community in Smithfield, Virginia, on a street that included his grandmothers, great grandmothers, aunts, uncles, and plenty of cousins, he knew that the two options for most everyone were to join the military or go to work in a meatpacking plant.

Key chose a different path, becoming the first in his family to attend college. After he was accepted into Hampton

Andy Warhol, “Endangered Species (Giant Panda),” 1983, screen print on Lenox Museum Board, UMUC Permanent Collection, gift of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc.

Institute, he did take a job in a meatpacking plant to save money for his first semester. Just a few weeks making sausage convinced him he had made the right decision about college.

He entered Hampton as a political science major. But then he discovered the university’s art museum and all that it could teach him about the African American experience—history he had never encountered in his high school textbooks.

“The light came on,” he said. “I fell in love with it.”

His career took him from one museum to another until he joined UMUC almost a decade ago. Even then, innovation

At its foundation is the Doris Patz Collection of Maryland Artists, which Patz donated and endowed from her private collection.

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“

There are works which convey stories about the artists’ life experience—preserve the history of our state, depict its beautiful waterways and cityscapes, or take us to foreign lands,” she said.

figured prominently in the story of the Arts Program.

The Asian art collection includes Japanese woodblock UMUC’s Adelphi headquarters are attached to a hotel prints and Chinese scroll paintings, ceramics, and sculpture and conference center, built in 1964, expanded in 2005, representing all of the Chinese dynasties but one. Most of the and managed by Maryland-based Chinese collection was donated by Marriott International since 1988.

Mr. and Mrs. I-Ling Chow, Mr. and When Dr. T. Benjamin Massey Mrs. Thomas M. Li—whose father became chancellor—and later spirited the artwork out of revolupresident—of UMUC in 1978, he tionary China—and most recently by and his wife, Bylee, arrived from Mr. Iver Nelson, a major collector of the university’s Asian Division headChinese art from Chicago. quarters in Japan.

UMUC’s collection even includes a “Bylee came through this building few works by Andy Warhol, donated and there were just blank walls,” Key by the Warhol Foundation. said. “Overseas, she was used to Asian “We have done exhibitions on Latin art and having a lot of art around her.

American, contemporary American, Right when she walked in the door, she contemporary African, Asian, and said, ‘Something needs to be done.’”

Chinese art,” Key said. “We want to But she had no ambition of startreach all of these communities that ing a significant art collection, Key make up Maryland, and we have done said. All she knew was that art would it successfully.” brighten the walls. She reached out But the heart and soul of the colto Doris Patz, an art collector and lection is the selection of work by musician from a prominent Baltimore Maryland artists—more than in any family, as well as to Herman Maril, gallery or museum anywhere. a prominent University of Maryland, At its foundation is the Doris Patz College Park, artist and professor.

Collection of Maryland Artists, which She also solicited the help of Julian Patz donated and endowed from Jones, another administrator in the her private collection. Separately, in Asian Division, who worked with 1983, the university established a galBylee Massey to establish the univerlery showcasing the widely acclaimed sity’s Asian art collection. work of Herman Maril, and UMUC’s “They [brainstormed] how to incorHerman Maril Collection now includes porate art into this building,” Key said, more than 70 individual pieces. “and from those conversations came “No one else was collecting ideas to present exhibitions and then Maryland artists,” Key said. “We enter collecting in a serious way.” still have a lot of work to do because The idea of uniting a university, we have not collected many of the an art collection, and a hotel conferdeceased artists from the 1930s and ence center may have been unique to ’40s. But contemporary artists have UMUC at the time, Key said, but all been very generous to us. They look three entities have profited from the to us because they know we are serious relationship. about what we are doing in preserving “This is not a traditional museum, and presenting what we have.” but we operate like a museum,” Key Thirteen years ago, the university said. “We have a built-in audience. We opened its first permanent display of conhave students, faculty, and staff. We temporary abstract art—a gallery devoted have visitors who come here for conto Baltimore artist Gladys Goldstein. ferences. Now we are reaching out to “I met Gladys the day I got to Gongshou Hu, “Three Friends in Winter,” 1866, ink on draw in the community as a whole.”

UMUC,” Key said. “Later, I went up paper, UMUC Art of China Collection.

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The main gallery in the Leroy Merritt Center for the Art of Joseph Sheppard.

feel the impact of the players as they make the tackle on the field.” to her home in Baltimore. She was a very delightful woman The main Arts Program Gallery hosts about five exhibitions and a committed artist. a year that are professionally organized, with full-color catalogs “We got to talking about her art, her career, and her and web presentations that leverage the power of technology to insight into the Maryland arts community,” he said.

“As a result, we formed a friendexpose the art to a wider audience. ship.On her death, she bequeathed One of the gallery’s most celebrated another body of her works exhibitions is the Biennial Maryland [to UMUC].”

Juried Art Exhibition, in which local In 2010, the university marked artists compete to be chosen. The winner of the President’s Award gets another milestone, opening the a solo exhibition. $5.5 million Leroy Merritt Center To support the university’s arts for the Art of Joseph Sheppard, faculty, the Arts Program also hosts a showcasing sculptures and paintings “Faculty Art Invitational” that offers from another giant of Maryland art. instructors a chance to participate in Sheppard is renowned as a master a major show and let their students of a realism that recalls the style of and visitors hear their voice through the Renaissance masters. their artwork, Key said.

Many of Sheppard’s paintings Even as the Arts Program and its are so realistic “that you want to Clayton Lang, “Reds III, Dialogue in Red,” 2008, leather galleries gain prominence, a primary participate in the action,” Key said, collage, UMUC Maryland Artist Collection. (Opposite page) challenge for Key is getting word out pointing to a work that shows Gladys Goldstein, “Foliage of the Fall,” 1955, oil on canvas, clashing football teams. “You almost to a broader audience and promoting UMUC Maryland Artist Collection.

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“

This is not a traditional museum, but we operate like a museum,” Key said. “We have a built-in audience. We have students, faculty, and staff.

We have visitors who come here for conferences. Now we are reaching out to draw in the community as a whole.” the fact that the collection is free and open to the public. Smaller galleries have been established at UMUC locations in Largo and Quantico, and works from the UMUC collection are on display at the University System of Maryland chancellor’s home and in the Maryland Comptroller’s office. Maryland members of Congress are also offered art for their offices. “[Relatively] few people are aware this extraordinary art collection exists,” Bedolla said.

“It’s celebrating Maryland, [and] we need to share it with all Marylanders, because we see them as our extended family and our collection as part of their legacy.”

The Arts Advisory Board is also working to promote its exhibitions through outreach to other Maryland schools.

“I want UMUC’s Art Program in the schools so the students become familiar with the name UMUC early on,” Key said. “Hopefully that will attract more students while we expose them to the finest works of their home-state artists.” G

Thirteen years ago, the university opened its first permanent display of contemporary abstract art—a gallery devoted to Baltimore artist Gladys Goldstein.

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CLASS NOTES

Walter R. Somerville Jr. ’70, of

Washington, D.C., recently released My Autobiography: A Legacy of Public Service (lulu.com, 2016), highlighting his 54 years of public service.

Mike Pafford ’81, of College Park,

Maryland, was named the 2016 presidentelect of the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE) Chesapeake Chapter. He is currently an instructor of software systems engineering at the Johns Hopkins University Whiting School of Engineering.

Donna Belt ’83, of Crownsville,

Maryland, was inducted into the Glen Burnie High School Wall of Fame. Belt served her country for nearly 40 years at the U.S. Department of Defense in various technical, managerial, and executive roles.

Vice Adm. Luke McCollum ’89, of

Bentonville, Arkansas, is a three-star Navy admiral. He was selected as the 14th Chief of Navy Reserve and Commander Reserve Forces, a group that encompasses nearly 60,000 service members.

Karin McQuade ’90 & ’99, of Crownsville, Maryland, was appointed controller for Anne Arundel County, Maryland,

by County Executive Steve Schuh.

McQuade previously served as vice president of accounting for CYREN, Ltd., a publicly traded internet security technology company, and before that as vice president and corporate controller for SecureNet, LLC, of Rockville, Maryland.

Stephen Moore ’90, of Bethesda, Maryland,

co-authored his fourth book, Cerphe’s Up: A Musical Life With Bruce Springsteen, Little Feat, Frank Zappa, Tom Waits, CSNY, and Many More (Carrel Books, 2016) with radio

broadcaster Cerphe Colwell. Moore recently celebrated his 40th anniversary as an employee of Georgetown University, specializing in research support.

Christopher Busky ’93, of Springfield,

Virginia, was named chief executive officer of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. He was previously executive vice president and chief operating officer at the Washington, D.C., based Heart Rhythm Society.

Mark Gerencser ’93, of McLean, Virginia, was named to the board of directors of Alion Science and Technology.

He has had a distinguished career in the federal solutions and technology industry.

Mark Hernick ’93 & ’02, of Shady Side, Maryland, was appointed chief financial officer and vice president of Administration at the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering.

Dr. Peggy Naleppa ’93, ’09, & ’10, of Salisbury, Maryland, was named among Maryland’s 26 Most Admired CEOs for 2016 by The Daily Record. She received the same award in 2014 and 2012 and joins the elite Circle of Leadership as a three-time honoree.

Cmdr. Michael Kemper ’94, of Olney, Maryland, was frocked to the rank of Navy captain. He is currently the commanding officer of the Navy Expeditionary Medical Support Command.

Susan Davis ’96, of Suffolk, Virginia,

joined the Norfolk office of S.L. Nusbaum Realty Co. as a controller.

She also serves on several boards in the Hampton Roads area of Virginia.

John O'Neal ’96, of Fairfax, Virginia, was named chief of the City of Fairfax Fire Department.

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James Steven Wright ’96, of Abington,

Maryland, was appointed as the Maryland Insurance Administration’s new Fraud Division associate commissioner. He has three decades of law enforcement, military, and emergency management experience.

Alicia Montgomery ’97, of Greenbelt,

Maryland, was selected to lead WAMU’s regional news operation as editorial director. She was the longtime supervising senior editor of NPR’s popular Code Switch initiative on race.

Nancy Slomowitz ’98, of Darnestown, Maryland, is an entrepreneur who recently launched her second business, Tseneh—a line of high-end career clothing.

David Swift ’98, of State College,

Pennsylvania, was appointed chief human resources officer for the the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and associate vice president for Human Resources for Health Affairs at Penn State.

Sharon Tanner ’98, of Silver Spring,

Maryland, was inducted into the International Nurses Association and listed among the 2016 Worldwide Leaders in Healthcare. Tanner currently works at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C.

Valerie Giles ’99, of Elverson,

Pennsylvania, was recognized by Continental Who’s Who as a Pinnacle Professional in the field of healthcare.

She is currently the office manager for Syandus, Inc., in Exton, Pennsylvania.

Christina Fanning ’02, of Leesburg, Virginia, was appointed senior vice president of Finance and Operations at the RV Industry Association. She joined the association with more than

25 years of related experience in the public and private sectors.

Adam Thiel ’03, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was named commissioner of the Philadelphia Fire Department. He previously served as the deputy secretary of Virginia’s Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs Department.

Chrystina Giorgio ’04, of Brookeville, Maryland, was named president and CEO of ICBA Bancard, the payment-services subsidiary of Independent Community Bankers of America.

Peggy Sherry ’06, of Fairfax, Virginia, was appointed deputy chief financial officer for the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. She previously served at the National Credit Union Administration as deputy chief financial officer.

Christine Ross ’06 & ’08, of Annapolis, Maryland, was named president and CEO of the Maryland Chamber of Commerce. She was previously the president of the Bonita Springs Chamber of Commerce in Florida.

Kevin Lovell ’07, of Chicago, Illinois,

retired from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers after 21 years of service and joined Stanley Consultants as a senior project manager in the Federal and International Program Group, focused on Department of Defense projects.

Kelisa Wing ’08, of Fort Mitchell,

Alabama, was selected as the 2017 Department of Defense Education Activity Teacher of the Year.

Heidi O’Connor ’09, of Valdosta, Georgia,

received the 2017 Meritorious Service Award from the American College Counseling Association for her efforts to promote and support campus mental health, student development, and counseling center teams across the nation. After graduating from UMUC, she went on to earn a Master of Science in psychology from Valdosta State University (VSU) in 2013 and serves as a licensed associate professional counselor in VSU’s Counseling Center.

Kevin Burton ’10, of Glenn Dale,

Maryland, was appointed training director of the Joint Apprenticeship Training Committee (JATC), the official electrical apprenticeship program of the District of Columbia. She is the first woman to lead the committee in its 75 year history.

James Potter ’10, ’13, & ’14, of Baltimore, Maryland, was honored with the 2016 Distinguished Alumni Award from Morgan State University.

Dr. James Henderson ’11, of Bossier

Jerry Thomas ’07, of Centreville,

City, Louisiana, was appointed president of the University of Louisiana system.

He previously served as the president of Northwestern State University.

Robert Alonso Jr. ’08, of Glen Burnie,

Dr. Steven Meneses ’11, of San Jose, California, was named director of the San Jose Evergreen Community College Foundation, which is charged with fundraising for scholarships, curriculum enhancement, and alumni relations.

Maryland, was named Vanguard Realty Group’s chief operating officer. He is a senior business executive with broadbased expertise in sales, operations, finance, and business development.

Maryland, was named director of finance at the National Association of States United for Aging and Disabilities.

Eunice Mosley ’11 & ’13, of Baltimore,

Maryland, writes an entertainment

column, “The Pulse of Entertainment,” which is now featured in the Washington Informer.

Joshua Miles ’13, of Raeford, North

Carolina, was elected for promotion to the rank of master sergeant in the U.S. Army. He has served in the military for 12 years.

Paula Pitcher ’13, of Boston, Massa-

chusetts, was named the senior advisor to the commissioner at the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education in Boston, Massachusetts.

Maria Roat ’14, of Frederick, Maryland,

was selected to serve as the Small Business Administration’s chief information officer. She previously served as the chief technology officer for the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Deshauna Barber ’15, of Alexandria, Virginia, won the 2016 MISS USA® competition. She is currently an Army Reserve officer and an IT consultant in the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Vanessa Michener ’15, of Atlanta, Georgia, was initiated into Phi Kappa Phi, the nation’s oldest and most selective collegiate honor society for all academic disciplines.

Christine Osazuwa ’15, of Baltimore, Maryland, was honored by The Daily Record as one of Maryland’s “20 in their Twenties” for 2016. The list recognizes Maryland up-and-comers who are in their 20s.

Dr. Sheila Quirk-Bailey ’15, of Huntley, Illinois, was selected unanimously

by Illinois Central College to serve as its fifth president. She is the first female president in the history of the university.

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FACULTY KUDOS

Amy Ackerberg-Hastings, who teaches in The Undergraduate School, published “Early Modern Computation on Sectors” in M. Zack’s and E. Landry’s (eds.) History and Philosophy of Mathematics (Proceedings of the Canadian Society for History and Philosophy of Mathematics, 2015). She published “Online Collections of Mathematical Objects” in the Canadian Mathematical Society’s CMS Notes, Vol. 47, No. 2, (March–April 2015).

James Backus, who teaches in The Undergraduate School, was promoted to deputy director of the Joint Military Intelligence Training Center.

Abby Bardi, who teaches writing and literature in The Undergraduate School, published The Secret Letters (Impulse Australia, 2015), Double Take (Impulse Australia, 2016), and a chapter in Bram Stoker and the Gothic: Formations to Transformations (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), entitled “‘Labours of Their Own’: Property, Blood, and the Szgany in Dracula.”

Lisa Bernstein, who teaches in The

Undergraduate School, chaired the panel on “Contemporary Representations of Mother-Daughter Relationships” and presented “‘The Story of Our Most Incurable Wounds’: Elena Ferrante’s Mother-Daughter Narratives” at the 46th Annual Convention of the Northeast Modern Language Association, April 30–May 3, 2015, in Toronto, Ontario.

Georgia Berryhill, who teaches art history

in The Undergraduate School, received a Fulbright award for the 2016–17 academic year to teach and study in Sofia, Bulgaria, as part of her project, “Preserving Cultural Heritage in Bulgaria: Conservation, Restoration, and Presentation.”

Richard Bilsker, who teaches in The

Undergraduate School, published a

review of Y. Moulier Boutang’s Cognitive Capitalism (Malden: Polity Press, 2011), entitled “What Is This Thing?

Critiquing Corruption: A Turn to Theory” in Ephemera: Theory and Politics in Organization, Vol. 15, No. 2 (May 2015). He published a chapter, entitled “A Different Voice: Mister Rogers and the Ethic of Care,” in Kathy Merlock Jackson’s and Steven M. Emmanuel’s (eds.) Revisiting Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood: Essays on Lessons About Self and Community (McFarland, 2016).

Romana Cortese, who teaches in The

Undergraduate School, published a chapter, entitled “The Quest for Meaning in Pan’s Labyrinth,” in Guillermo del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth: Studies in the Horror Film (Centipede Press, 2016).

Stanley Dambroski, who teaches in The

Undergraduate School, won an APEX 2015 Award for speech and script writing in the 27th Annual Awards for Publication Excellence.

John DeRosa, who teaches in The Under-

graduate School, published “Revising the Battle of the Narrative” in Small Wars Journal (July 2015). In 2015 he was promoted to and served for one year as deputy chief of the Joint Capabilities Division in the Joint Staff’s Force Structure, Resource, and Assessment Directorate.

Maryann DiEdwardo, who teaches in The

Undergraduate School, published American Women Writers, Poetics, and the Nature of Gender Study (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2016) and The Legacy of Katharine Hepburn: Fine Art as a Way of Life (AuthorHouse, 2006).

Heidi Evans, who teaches in The Under-

graduate School, authored two family guides for the National Gallery of Art, “American

ACHIEVER | 48 | UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND UNIVERSITY COLLEGE

Art at the National Gallery of Art” (2011), and “French Paintings at the National Gallery of Art” (2013), with Barbara Moore.

Colleen Fitzgerald, who teaches in The

Undergraduate School, is an assistant professor of photography at the Memphis College of Art and helped spearhead the Memphis installation of the INSIDE OUT Project, a participatory global art project transforming images of personal identity into works of art through largeformat street “pastings.”

Charlene Gibson, who teaches in The Undergraduate School, helped organize the keynote presentations for an adjunct faculty conference at the College of Southern Nevada, which grew into the documentary project No Greater Odds, by Patrick Wirtz.

Gibson served as co-creator and associate producer of the movie.

Rosemary Hartigan, associate vice dean and program chair in The Graduate School, published (with Paula O’Callaghan, also of UMUC) “Regulation of Workplace Gossip: Can Employers Mitigate Potential Liability Without Violating the NLRA?” in the Northeast Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 34 (2015).

Richard Hough, who teaches in The Undergraduate School, published (with Kimberly D. McCorkle), American Homicide (SAGE Publications, 2016), which explores why and how people kill and how society reacts.

Stephanie Jacobe, who teaches in The Undergraduate School, presented “The Life, Work, and Mysterious Death of Catholic Writer Eugenie Uhlrich” as part of a panel on “The Lives of American Catholic Women, 1850–1920” at the 95th Annual Meeting of the American Catholic Historical Association, January 2–5, 2015, New York, New York.

Daniel Karanja, who teaches in The

Undergraduate School, published a chapter, entitled “Ethnocentrism First and Nationalism Second: Colonial/ Postcolonial Constructions of Conflict in Kenya” in Fonkem Achankeng’s Nationalism and Intra-State Conflicts in the Postcolonial World (Lexington Books, 2015).

Amber Lancaster, who teaches in The Undergraduate School, was named a Rotary Peace Fellow at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand.

Arthur Liberty, who teaches in The Graduate

School, presented “Teaching Ethics in HD/ HD and EM Programs” at the 9th Annual Homeland Defense and Security Education

Summit, September 25–26, 2015, in Orlando, Florida.

Mary Lind, who teaches in The Graduate

School, published (with Sylvestre Ngoma Ngoma) “Knowledge Transfer and Team Performance in Distributed Organizations” in the International Journal of Knowledge-Based Organizations, Vol. 4, No. 2 (April 2015). continued

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FACULTY KUDOS

CONTINUED

Marianne Matzo, who teaches in The Undergraduate School, published (with Sandi Troup, Kamal Hijjazi, and Betty Ferrell) “Evaluating a Sexual Health Patient Education Resource,” in the Journal of the Advanced Practitioner in Oncology, Vol. 6, No. 3 (May–June 2015). She published (with A. M. Wilkinson) “Nursing Education for Disaster Preparedness and Response,” in the Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing, Vol. 46, No. 2 (February 2015). She edited (with Deborah Witt Sherman) Palliative Care Nursing: Quality Care to the End of Life, 3rd Ed. (Spring Publishing Co., 2009).

Katherine McCord, who teaches in The

Undergraduate School, received the 2015 Betty Gabehart Prize in Creative Nonfiction for a memoir excerpt, And One More Thing About the CIA.

Samantha McDermitt, who teaches in The

Undergraduate School, is the founder and executive director of The Law Theater Project, a collaboration of individuals in law, theater, performance, education, and other disciplines, who are “dedicated to the encouragement and promotion of dramatic performance, authorship, and educational programs in law, ethics, history, philosophy, politics, economics, natural sciences, and related fields, and to the exploration of the intersections of the theatrical, social, and legal worlds.”

Joe Moffett, who teaches in The Undergraduate School, published Mysticism in Postmodernist Long Poems: Contemplation of the Divine (Lehigh University Press, 2014).

online newspaper, including “Cybersecurity: Assessment and Authorization” (November 12, 2014), “Cybersecurity: Audit and Accountability” (May 28, 2014), Cybersecurity: Awareness Training and the 90/10 Rule” (February 20, 2014), “Cybersecurity: Access Control” (February 4, 2014), and “Cybersecurity: Understanding the Online Threat” (December 17, 2013).

Christopher Nank, who teaches in The Undergraduate School, presented “Florida’s Invasions and Occupations: A Cultural Record,” at the Florida College English Association’s 2016 Annual Conference, October 13–15, 2016, in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Maria Plochocki, who teaches in The

Undergraduate School, chaired the panel discussion “Detective Fiction: What IS New?” at the 39th Annual Conference of the New Jersey College English Association, April 16, 2016, at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey. She served as moderator for the panel discussion “Strategies for Responding to Student ‘Feedback,’” at the 38th annual conference the year before.

Ding Ren, who teaches in The Undergraduate School, published “The Elegance of an Empty Room” in Facing Forward: Art and Theory from a Future Perspective (Amsterdam University Press, 2015). He published “Phantoms of Lost Time” in Papersafe Magazine, Vol. 4 (2015).

Jorge Santiago-Blay, who teaches in The

Undergraduate School, published (with J. Haug, C. Labandeira, and S. Brown) “Life Lisa Mullenneaux, who teaches in The Habits, Hox Genes, and Affinities of a 311 Undergraduate School, published “Hilda Million-Year-Old Holometabolan Larva,” Morley: Lost on Black Mountain,” in the in BMC Evolutionary Biology, Vol. 16, New England Review, Vol. 36, No. 4 (2015). No. 1 (December 2016); (with T. Gao, C. Shih, C. Labandeira, R. Dong, and Y. Yao) “Convergent Evolution of Ramified Antennae Sam Musa, who teaches in The in Insect Lineages from the Early Cretaceous Undergraduate School, published a series of articles on cybersecurity in The EvoLLLution of Northeastern China,” in Proceedings of the

ACHIEVER | 50 | UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND UNIVERSITY COLLEGE

Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, Vol. 283, No. 1839 (September 2016); and (with J. Lambert and Y. Wu) “High-Resolution Solid State NMR Spectroscopy of Cultural Organic Material” in Modern Magnetic Resonance (Springer, 2016).

Cord Scott, who teaches in The Undergraduate School, published “Educational Comics,” in the Salem Press Encyclopedia of Literature (Salem Press, 2016).

Murray Skees, who teaches in The Undergraduate School, published “Memories Standing Outside of the Self: The Commodity, the Collector, and Walter Benjamin’s Theory of Experience,” in Research in Consumer Behavior, Vol. 17: Consumer Culture Theory (Emerald Group Publishing, 2015).

Peter Smith, the Orkand Endowed Chair and Professor of Innovative Practices in Higher Education in The Graduate School, was elected to the Board of Directors of the Open Education Consortium (OEC) for a two-year term.

The consortium is a global network of educational institutions, individuals, and organizations that support an approach to education based on openness, including collaboration, innovation, and collective development and use of open educational resources. Smith was also elected to the board of directors of the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (NC-SARA), whose purpose is to alleviate the administrative burden for schools that offer distance education programs in multiple states, ultimately helping to reduce costs for institutions and expand access to educational offerings for students.

Kamille Stone-Stanton, who teaches in The

Undergraduate School, published (with J. Chappell) Spectacle, Sex, and Property in Eighteenth-Century Literature and Culture:

The Idiom of a Modern Era (AMS Press, Inc., 2016).

Hinako Takahashi-Breines, who teaches in The Undergraduate School, published “The Loss of a Heritage Language in the Name of Globalization,” in News from Somewhere: A Reader in Communication and Challenges to Globalization (Wayzgoose Press, 2015).

Patricia Valdata, who teaches writing and

literature in The Undergraduate School, won the 2015 Donald Justice Poetry Prize for her collection, Where No Man Can Touch (The Palette & The Page, 2014).

Shungbao “Paul” Wang, who teaches in the cybersecurity program in The Graduate School, published (with William Kelly) “in Video—A Novel Big

Data Analytics Tool for Video Data Analytics,” in 2014 IT Professional Conference Publications (May 22, 2014). He presented “HSPO—A Novel Threat Assessment and Risk Mitigation Approach to Prevent Cyber Intrusions,” at the 19th Annual Colloquium for Information System Security Education, June 15–17, 2015, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

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To realize my American dream, it had to be UMUC.”

ANDRE MENDES

Master of Business Administration

Are you ready to make a difference? As part of our dedicated team of scholarpractitioners, your innovation and inspiration would help provide our students with an exceptional learning experience. Long recognized as a pioneer in online instruction, UMUC is transforming the field on a global scale, creating a powerful new model for adult education.

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ALUMNI

ASSOCIATION

Your UMUC Alumni Network Join a community that is 200,000 strong and growing In today’s global economy, networking is an essential tool for every professional.

And that’s where the UMUC Alumni Association comes in. Tap into the power of your alumni community around the globe!

What You Gain No matter where you are in your career— advancing within your current organization, transitioning to a new field, making plans to start or expand a business, or wrapping up active-duty service and seeking civilian employment—the UMUC Alumni Association can help you expand your professional horizons. As part of our vast and growing network, you have access to professionals with similar

Get Connected . . . Stay Connected

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The UMUC Alumni Association can help you

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Get involved by joining My Volunteer Program •

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You Gain More When You Give UMUC alumni like you consistently make valuable contributions to the industries and communities in which they work and live.

Through My Volunteer Program, you can also give back to the university that nurtured your development in a very personal way.

You can choose from six ways to serve as a volunteer: •

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