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Being Articulate at the University of Maryland University College (UMUC)

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A significant number of students have taken courses at other post-secondary institutions that need to be looked at and credit given which can count towards achieving a UMUC degree. The process of doing this examination as you might imagine is sufficiently important enough to UMUC to result in a formal effort. The result of each review is what we call an articulation agreement defining how the earlier course ‘articulates’ to its UMUC equivalent.

Being Articulate at the University of Maryland University College (UMUC)

Springtime in Largo

After a big gap, which I will try not to allow to repeat, I am back and focused on my day job at the University of Maryland University College (UMUC).

My role as the Program Chair of the Information Systems Management (IFSM) Undergraduate Degree program means I have both academic responsibility for the quality of the content of our current 13 courses as well as owning logistical responsibilities associated with staffing and dealing with classroom issues. It is not always easy to spend as much time as I would like on the Academic concerns. Over the last couple of days I spent time assigning faculty for our Spring, 2017 classes which will start in January, 2017. The numbers involved will give you some idea of the logistic challenges.

The UMUC Undergraduate school runs multiple eight week on-line sessions each semester. After we begin the first session of the semester, two to three weeks later the second session starts. We hold four such sessions each Fall and each Spring, and three during the Summer. We cleverly refer to them as OL1, OL2, and OL3 (and OL4 for the fall and spring). The OL stands for on-line. We also hold overlapping hybrid sessions. Hybrid sessions include one three hour in-person class plus the rest is on-line, thus hybrid. We hold two of these in the Fall and Spring, and one in the Summer. We call these US1 and US2.  On reflection, I am actually not sure what the US stands for, I’ll need to check. The hybrid classes are held all around the country. Making sure we have enough faculty to staff hybrid locations takes a great deal of time, since in effect all of the on-line courses are one big queue. We also have face-to-face classes, given all in person, in Europe and Asia. While I am responsible for the academic content for them also, I do not have any logistical responsibilities.

Springtime in Largo

Pondering Educational Provisioning

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On my white board in my office at the University of Maryland University College (UMUC), I have written down three big questions which I hope at some point during my time here to be able to answer:

  • Why are we here? I am interested in answering that question for both the school itself and for the program/major I am responsible for, Information Systems Management (IFSM).
  • How do we help faculty to make a difference?
  • How do we reduce barriers to student success?

Pondering Educational Provisioning

Adaptive Learning in the On-line Classroom

I started working full-time at the University of Maryland University College (UMUC) in January of this year when I accepted the position of Program Chair for Information Systems Management (IFSM) within the Undergraduate school (cleverly named The Undergraduate School, TUS).

As the Program Chair, I have responsibility for both:

  • logistics issues: hiring adjunct faculty, ensuring classes have assigned faculty, dealing with problems/complaints that come up during each semester, and
  • academic results: how to ensure we provide the best and most valuable experience within the IFSM major.

Adaptive Learning in the On-line Classroom

My Advice for Career Advancement

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I recently was asked to provide advice relating to career advancement for the UMUC Alumni association (some would argue that perhaps I am not the best source for such advice), but in any event as a proud UMUC Alumni (and current UMUC employee), I wrote up the following which appeared here and which is copied below:

My Advice for Career Advancement

UMUC’s 2015 Commencement

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While I attended my two daughter’s college commencements as well as a niece’s college commencement I had never been to one directly related to me until this last weekend.

I was at Fort Dix when my University of Maryland College Park class graduated, to explain this would require telling a long story about breaking up with my then college girlfriend and having to submit final papers two months after the end of the semester, which I will not bore anyone with the retelling.

I did not attend my commencement when I received my Masters in International Management (MIM) from the University of Maryland University College (UMUC) for reasons I am not sure I can articulate, chalk it up to my anti-social attitude which sometimes (most times?) comes to the surface.

However, after attending the UMUC 2015 Commencement this last weekend, I regret having missed those earlier events, something I will have to keep in mind going forward.

UMUC’s 2015 Commencement

My Political Theory Class

This semester I am not only teaching classes, two IT related classes at the University of Maryland University College (UMUC), but also taking graduate classes, two Government and Politics graduate classes at the University of Maryland College Park.

So every Tuesday afternoon and evening I attend two almost three hour classes, the first focusing on Political Institutions (which I will talk about in a later post), and the second focusing on Political Theory, specifically about human rights. These are both seminars associated with getting a PhD, so in large part I am surrounded by young people, almost all of whom are younger than my two daughters, who are extremely bright and already know the difference between positive and negative rights, natural law, the implications of the Enlightenment, and so on, all of which I had to look up to understand when I came across all of these terms in the weekly readings.

My Political Theory Class