The University Educates for the Future

The University serves the people of the State of Maryland. It provides students with accessible, affordable higher education that ranks among the best in the nation. Our graduates are highly skilled workers and leaders in Maryland’s labor force, well-equipped with the knowledge and skills to address the challenges and changing demands of the workplace and larger society. The University’s education and outreach programs prepare students and State citizens for healthier, more productive and more rewarding lives.

Our living-learning programs, specialized research opportunities, study abroad, facilitated transitions from community colleges and internships in government and industry are a few unique components of the Maryland experience. As a member of the Maryland Campus Compact, the University also serves the wider community with its commitment to civic engagement. It creates a space for gathering and debate about pressing social issues, and teaches students about the value of democracy and its processes. Finally, the University serves Maryland citizens with the latest advances in health and education, research on social and political topics, and business and economic development services.

Competitive Excellence

Our 10-year strategic plan promises to attract more of Maryland’s exceptional undergraduate and graduate students. The University’s upward trajectory is reflected in its record number of applicants in Fall 2008: over 28,000 for about 4,000 first-year spaces. The University is ranked 37th in the world and 28th in the nation by the Academic Ranking of World Universities. U.S. News & World Report ranked the University 18th among U.S. public universities. In its rankings of Top 25 Public Universities, U.S. News cited four University initiatives as “Programs to Look For”: our First-Year Experience, Undergraduate Research/ Creative Projects, Learning Communities, and Service Learning. U.S. News also ranked Maryland at #9 for “Best Colleges” for Entrepreneurship.

Consistent with the University’s primary goal of building a great university with affordable access, which blends cost and educational quality, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance ranked the University #9 nationally in “Best Values” among public institutions. (Three other Maryland universities were also ranked as Top 100 “Best Values”: St. Mary’s College, #32; Salisbury University, #68; and Towson University, #90).

The University is not resting with this progress. There is much to do. Its vision of superlative undergraduate education, a pillar of the new strategic plan, sets ambitious goals and clear benchmarks over the 10-year plan. A Task Force on General Education has been convened to examine the entire Undergraduate General Education program. Top faculty members from across campus are considering how well the University manages two critical goals: exposing students to a breadth of subject matter, while also engaging them in interdisciplinary topics that are critical to our future as a society.

STEM Education

The University continues to play a vital role as a source of K–12 teachers of science, technology, and mathematics. A recent study by the National Council on Teacher Quality lauded the University for the quality of its STEM teacher-preparation in mathematics. Nine other universities across the nation received this distinction. The American Mathematical Society also honored our Summer Program In Research and Learning (SPIRAL) for increasing the number of minority students who go on to graduate school in mathematical sciences. Praised as a “Math Program that Makes a Difference,” SPIRAL has drawn 86 students to participate in its six-week summer program, and 15 of its minority graduates have already enrolled in graduate programs in mathematical sciences.

The University was recently appointed to the Leadership Collaborative of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges (NASULGC) Science and Mathematics Teachers Imperative. This national initiative, supported by the National Science Foundation, aims to substantially increase the number and diversity of high-quality mathematics and science teachers in K–12.

Faculty Achievement

A diverse, world-class faculty is the heart of a research university. There is no substitute. Five faculty members were elected Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Also awarded this year were two Guggenheims, one Carnegie Scholars award and a National Science Foundation Presidential Early Career Award for Science and Engineers. In Astronomy one faculty member received the Kuiper Prize, and another’s research on binary asteroids was named by the science magazine Astronomy as one of the top 10 stories of 2008. Additionally, University faculty won four Fulbright awards, two Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, one Sloan Foundation fellowship, and three National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator awards.

The University also continued its efforts to create a more welcoming climate for minority and female faculty. The average percentages of new hires over the past three years who were female (46%) or minority (34%) far exceed the percentages of female (24%) and minority (19%) faculty members currently at the University. A demographic shift is under way.

Student Achievement

This year student teams won several prestigious national and international competitions. The Academic Quiz Team won the 2008 National Academic Quiz Tournament championship for the first time, defeating more than two dozen teams in a fast-paced test of academic subjects and general knowledge. The University Mock Trial team won the American Mock Trial Association’s national championship for an unprecedented fifth time, testing its best students in mock criminal trials before a panel of state and federal judges.

Engineering students also won first place in the Formula Society of Automotive Engineers competition, designing, building, and driving their own formula-style racing car, which defeated 80 other vehicles from colleges and universities around the world. In its second year of competition, a team of undergraduates called Robotics at Maryland won the annual International Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) Competition in San Diego. The team competed against 25 other teams from across the United States, India, Canada and Japan in designing and building an AUV that navigated realistic underwater missions autonomously. A team of aerospace engineering students took first place in the American Helicopter’s Design contest, a race to design an energy-efficient future helicopter. Another team of aerospace engineering students won first place in the undergraduate division of NASA’s Revolutionary Advanced Systems Concepts - Academic Liaison, a student design competition. The team’s submission included a full-scale cabin mockup for the lunar pressurized rover to assess its functionality and habitability.

Individual University of Maryland students also excelled in prestigious national scholarships in 2008, winning a Truman Scholarship, a Goldwater Scholarship, and a 2008 Thomas R. Pickering Foreign Affairs Fellowship. A record number of seven Maryland School of Public Policy students were named 2008 Presidential Management Fellows.

Law School Success

The admission rates for University of Maryland graduates going to law school have soared in the last four years from 63% (2003–04) to 73% (2007–08). The number of University graduates going to top 10 law schools has more than tripled over this time period. Eighty- three percent of University senior applicants to law school in 2007–08 were accepted, 8% higher than the national average.

Living-Learning Communities

Small undergraduate communities with common academic or political interests are frequently cited by students as positively shaping their experiences at the University. To promote a vision of undergraduate education that builds on the value of living-learning programs on campus, the University is undertaking a comprehensive review of honors and living-learning communities. Expanding programs that support recruitment of high-achieving students is an important strategy of the strategic plan.

Internships

Federal Semester expanded this year to enhance undergraduates’ experiences beyond the classroom. Students take policy courses in the Fall and work at federal internships in the Spring. Enrollment in the program has tripled over two years and expanded to address three timely topics: Federal Health Policy, Federal Homeland Security Policy, and starting in Fall 2009, American Middle East Policy.

Students across the University are completing internships at laboratories, schools, federal, and State government agencies, nonprofits and think tanks. Forty-six percent of University students who accepted a job in Maryland had held an internship prior to graduation. The University Career Center is dedicated to providing internship opportunities for all students who seek them. Many students take on more than one over the course of their studies.

Graduate Student Training

The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded Maryland its first Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship program (IGERT). The $3M grant was awarded to the new Biological and Computational Foundations of Language Diversity program, an innovative, interdisciplinary program that will educate young scientists and engineers to understand language diversity by combining the tools of behavioral, computational, and biological research.

Graduate Education

In support of our strategic plan goal to provide graduate education of the highest caliber, the doctoral program experience across the University is being carefully reviewed. Departments are submitting detailed plans to improve their programs with the goal of recruiting and attracting the most talented graduate students by ensuring that they have appropriate mentorship, support, and opportunities while studying and following graduation.

In Fall 2008 a major revision of Policies for Graduate Assistants, including a robust grievance procedure, was approved by the Graduate Council, Graduate Student Government, and the University President. To sustain the quality of our graduate programs, the University increased Graduate Assistant stipends in 2008–09 by an average of 7% through a combination of State and other funding sources. The average graduate stipend is $19,400.

Affordable and Accessible Education

Making higher education affordable is a primary objective of the strategic plan. In FY08 $32.5M in campus financial aid, including $10.7M in need-based aid, was distributed. The Pathways Program awarded $3.2M in need-based aid to about 1,000 students in FY08, addressing the unique financial circumstances of undergraduates through three programs. Pathways I provides a “zero-debt-at-graduation” opportunity for students from poverty-level circumstances (Expected Family Contribution of $0), covering the costs of tuition, room, board, and other expenses for four years. Pathways II enables students to contribute to their own educational expenses by working, and provides scholarship support to students who lose Pell Grant eligibility because of their earnings. Pathways III caps the accumulated debt at graduation to the cost of one year for rising seniors who started as freshmen and are from moderate-income families. Through these debt reduction strategies the Pathways programs enable graduating students to consider graduate study and to take important service jobs, which may not be high paying, but are vital to our communities.

The University also employs large numbers of students. Approximately 9,600 students took on 12,200 jobs on campus: over 7,500 jobs went to undergraduates and 4,570 to graduate students. These earnings are not counted as financial aid. Students on work-study programs are not counted in these figures.

Climbing Undergraduate Graduation Rates

Graduating students in a timely manner is a primary measure of university success. Fostering student achievement in an environment rich in diversity is another University priority. With 41% of entering students from minority backgrounds, the University is dedicated to bolstering its graduation rates and the academic success of all students. Over time there have been significant increases in the six-year graduation rates of students from all racial and ethnic groups—about 20% over eight years.

Minority Student Outreach

The University continues its efforts to recruit talented minority students. It invited nearly 1,700 gifted high school students of color to the University Honors Portz Summer Program in 2008, up from about 1,000 in 2007.

The Maryland Incentive Awards Program added three new schools in Prince George’s County to its program: High Point, Parkdale, and Oxon Hill, bringing the total to 17 schools in Baltimore City and Prince George’s County. Twenty-four Incentive Awards students have already earned their degrees and six more will graduate in the spring. New pledges of support by private donors in 2008 totaled $1.5M. The new gifts bolster support from generous donors, including the Prince George’s County Council, and a first-time donor, the Baltimore City Council.

Minority Student Success

A record number of African Americans earned Ph.D. degrees from the University of Maryland in the last two years. Forty Ph.D.s were awarded in 2007, the largest number in the University’s history, and 38 in 2008. The University of Maryland ranks first among Association of American Universities (AAU) members for Ph.D. degrees to African Americans, and eighth among all universities.²

African American science and engineering undergraduate students at Maryland are more likely to go on to earn Ph.D. degrees than those from nearly all other institutions, according to the National Science Foundation. Only Harvard (73 Ph.D. recipients) eclipsed Maryland (72) among traditionally white universities for the number of African American graduates who earned doctorates in science and engineering from 1997 to 2006. Maryland was the only public research university that was not a Hbcu to make the Top-10 listing.³

Asian American undergraduates are 14% of the undergraduate population. Our institution was identified as a minority serving institution for Asian Americans and related groups in 2008, which is a gateway to targeted federal support for scholarships and the growth of academic programs. This designation grants $2.4M to the University over two years from the U.S. Department of Education as one of only six universities nationwide and the only public research university to be funded under this program.

Rise in Graduate Degrees

The number of graduate degrees awarded has increased for minority and majority students alike. In 2008, the University conferred ²,100 Master’s degrees, a 17% increase from 2003. Over the same five-year period, the number of doctoral degrees awarded increased 56% from 420 in 2003 to 655 in 2008.

The knowledge and skills acquired in graduate programs increases students’ earning potential. A well-educated citizenry contributes to economic, intellectual, and social strength of Maryland communities, as well as to opportunity for the individual.

Economizing on Textbooks

A new textbook adoption policy supports the University commitment to affordable higher education. This policy makes it easier for students to shop comparatively for the lowest-priced books for their classes. In partnership with USM and other sponsors the University hosted a Textbook Summit in November to examine textbook costs. Now textbook information, including ISBN numbers, must be filed with the University Book Center and are posted on the Web as soon as the books are adopted.

Veterans Task Force

In its second year Terp Vets, a veteran student organization, continued its efforts to enhance services and programs available to veteran students. The University established a new Veterans Program Office to assist veterans in dealing with admissions, financial aid, residence life, and counseling services. A new Web site, www.veterans.umd.edu, offers information about University services. Support for campus veterans is growing with the establishment of the Willcher Family Veterans Initiative Fund, the Maryland Military Veterans Scholarship Fund, and the Veterans Initiative Fund. Fifteen events were organized during Veterans Week this year to recognize the contributions of all veterans on campus.

^2. Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, July 10, 2008 vol. 25, #11.

^3. “Role of HBCUs as Baccalaureate-Origin Institutions of Black S&E Doctorate Recipients.” Study by National Science Foundation, Division of Science Resources Statistics. Aug. 2008