Ivy League and from other elite, brick-and-mortar institutions, and it has become so highly sought after by recent graduates that, according to program spokesperson Elora Tocci, it accepted only 15 percent of this year’s 44,000 applicants. However, the profile of students who join the program is changing, said Tocci. “About a third of our incoming corps members joined with professional experience rather than straight out of undergrad. We look for people who have a strong record of achievement in their jobs, who are leaders in their current roles, who work well with others, who have a demonstrated interest in volunteering and serving communities, and who have prioritized education throughout their lives.” Ali, who earned a psychology degree from UMUC in 2013, came to Washington, D.C., from Saudi Arabia—where her husband teaches at King Saud University—to fulfill her twoyear Teach for America commitment. She believes that her unique background figured in her successful application. “I was born in the West Indies, raised in America, and am ethnically Indian and a Muslim who wears a veil,” she said. “I feel like all of those things made me a very different kind of candidate.” Goines, who is teaching in South Orlando, Florida, also came from a less-traditional background. A veteran of the U.S. Capitol Police Department, he earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from UMUC in 1989 and a second bachelor’s in psychology in 1991. He went on to earn a master’s in forensic psychology from the Chicago School of Professional
In Memoriam Dr. T. Benjamin Massey—a 38-year veteran of UMUC who served as the third chancellor and president of the university from 1978 until his retirement in 1998—died December 10, 2015, in North Carolina. He was 89. Massey, who held a bachelor’s degree from Duke University, a master’s degree from North Carolina State University, and a PhD from Oxford University, is described in UMUC’s history book as a soft-spoken southerner, renowned for his work ethic and attention to detail. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, worked as a civilian education services officer at U.S. military bases in England, taught for several years in UMUC’s European Division, and served as the area director for the United Kingdom. He later served as director of both the European and Far East divisions and as vice chancellor of the university. When Massey assumed the role of university chancellor in 1978, he brought with him a thorough understanding of UMUC’s stateside and overseas operations and the foresight to recognize how new technologies and approaches to learning might apply in higher education. Under his leadership, the university established its experiential learning program (EXCEL), its cooperative education program, and its Graduate School; continued to innovate with popular distance education programs in fields like fire science and nuclear science; and broke ground with a historic joint degree program with Irkutsk State University and Far Eastern State University in post-Soviet Russia. Massey was a true pioneer and visionary in adult higher education. Of the university’s student-centric approach, he said simply, “We value our students. Every decision we make results from recognition of their determination to pursue their education while they juggle other major responsibilities. We know we must be where they need us, when they need us. . . . Serving part-time students is our full-time job.”
Psychology, while focusing at work on active shooters, seeking to better understand their motivations and how to intervene and prevent them. He was planning his retirement and a move to Orlando after 30 years with the Capitol Police when a notice about Teach for America popped up in his e-mail. “They seemed to be impressed with the work I had done with kids on the street in D.C. and at the Oakhill Juvenile Detention
Center,” Goines said. “They were just opening a new program in Orlando.” Schlag, like Goines, is recently retired following a 31-year career with the U.S. Army. He completed a bachelor’s degree in social science from UMUC in 2013. “I noticed around the world in a lot of the places where I had served that there were a lot of educational inequities in a lot of
countries,” Schlag said. “That led me to look at some of the inequities in our country. I was appalled at what I saw—the illiteracy rate and the access to education, or lack of access for people of color or lower socioeconomic status.” Now Schlag teaches sixthgrade special education at Kory Hunter Middle School, a charter school that is part of Alliance College Ready Public Schools in Los Angeles,
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