The University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC), formerly known as the University of Maryland University College from 1959 to 2019, is a public university in College Park, Maryland, United States. Established in 1947 as the College of Special and Continuation Studies of the University of Maryland, College Park, UMGC is dedicated to serving working adults, military service members, veterans and their families. UMGC offers online, hybrid, and face-to-face instruction at education centers across the Washington–Baltimore metropolitan area, throughout Maryland, and around the world. It is the largest institution in the University System of Maryland.
UMGC is open to all applicants for undergraduate and graduate programs, and is among the top 10 recipients of the federal G.I. Bill benefits. The university offers 135 academic programs in online, hybrid and face-to-face classes, including bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees, as well as undergraduate and graduate certificates. UMGC is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.
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History
UMGC is an outgrowth of the evening program for adults at the University of Maryland, which began in the 1920s. In 1947, the College of Special and Continuation Studies (CSCS) was established. In 1959, The CSCS became the University of Maryland University College (UMUC). In 1970, UMUC became an independent institution, and was a founding member of the University System of Maryland in 1988.
UMUC formerly had an international campus in Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany, until 2002. It also ran a two-year residential campus in Munich, from 1950 to 1992, which then moved to Augsburg, from 1993 to 1994, and then to Mannheim, in 1995 until it finally closed in 2005. The residential campus offered a two-year associate degree and mainly served high school graduate children of U.S. military and government personnel stationed in Europe.
In 2023, UMGC has more than 175 classroom and service locations on military installations and other education centers throughout the U.S., Europe, the Middle East, as well as in Asia. In 2004, UMUC shared the ICDE Prize of Excellence from the International Council for Open and Distance Education.
University name
Known as University of Maryland University College until 2019, it was a college in the traditional American sense of the word. However, the college was associated with a university; hence, it was a "University College." The "University of Maryland" prefix indicated the historical entity to which the college belonged originally. In the university's name, "University College" represented "the specialized concentration on professional development," while "University of Maryland" represented the affiliation of the university with the University System of Maryland.
When UMUC first opened in 1947, the school was named College of Special and Continuation Studies within the University of Maryland, College Park. In 1953, Raymond Ehrensberger, chancellor of the institution at that time, wanted to change the name to something more meaningful and less cumbersome for people to say and remember. Early suggestions for the name included College of General Studies, College of Adult Education and University College.
In 1959, Chancellor Ehrensberger persuaded the University of Maryland's Board of Regents to change the name to University of Maryland University College. The name "University College" was adopted from the British university system to depict an educational institution offering "courses and programs from all academic departments outside the university's walls and normal class times." Therefore, UMUC was not a division of the University of Maryland, College Park, but rather a separate institution within the University System of Maryland.
In 2019, the university announced that its name would change to "University of Maryland Global Campus." The name change request was submitted as SB 201 and HB 319 in the 2019 regular session of the Maryland General Assembly. The name change was enacted into law on April 18, 2019 when the bill was signed by Maryland Governor Larry Hogan.
Academics
UMGC is one of the largest online public universities in the United States. Courses are delivered in online, hybrid and face-to-face formats. Even before the advent of online education by way of the World Wide Web, UMGC was a distance education pioneer and offered distance learning using its WebTycho interface by way of dial-up access. UMGC later adopted the use of the Web for connectivity to its online classrooms, as well as using television and correspondence courses to deliver course content.
The university has three schools:
School of Integrative and Professional Studies
School of Business
School of Cybersecurity and Information Technology
UMGC offers more than 30 bachelor's degree programs and undergraduate certificates, awarded in cybersecurity, biotechnology, business management, computers/information technology, communications, criminal justice/legal studies, and social sciences. Undergraduate students can earn credit through coursework and prior-learning programs, which recognize professional and workplace experience, including military service.
UMGC offers more than 55 master's degree programs, graduate certificates, and doctoral degrees. Most graduate programs are available in online and hybrid formats.
U.S. military locations
UMGC offers face-to-face courses and support for students at U.S. military locations in Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Australia, Guam, Japan, Okinawa, Singapore, South Korea, Diego Garcia, Spain, and Italy.
Campuses
Headquarters / main campus
The headquarters for UMGC is located in Adelphi, Maryland near the campus of the University of Maryland, College Park. Until late 2000, the UMGC headquarters was listed in College Park, Maryland. To establish its own identity as an independent university, UMGC changed its postal address to Adelphi, an unincorporated community that borders College Park. The address change with the U.S. Postal Service involved no physical move of people and facilities. The marketing decision to change its postal address was one of many undertaken by UMGC to distinguish the university as one of the largest distance-education centers, with over 248,000 students enrolled worldwide in FY 2015.
UMGC Headquarters
UMGC retrofitted its headquarters in Adelphi, Maryland, to meet "green" building requirements for LEED certification. UMGC followed the same process as it did to achieve LEED certification in 2005 for its Inn & Conference Center, which became the first hotel complex in the United States to achieve certification as a green building.
In the greater Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area, classes are held at 20 locations, including on the campus of University of Maryland, College Park. The satellite campuses offer varying academic services, including advising and computer labs.
UMGC operates a facility in Dorsey Station (Md) adjacent to the Dorsey MARC Train Station. In partnership with Maryland community colleges and other University System of Maryland institutions, UMGC offers courses and degree programs at several higher education centers throughout the state. It also offers classes and advising services at the College of Southern Maryland. A consortium of universities led by Anne Arundel Community College, including UMGC, operates a higher education center adjacent to Arundel Mills mall in Hanover, Maryland. In addition, the University offers courses at the Universities at Shady Grove and University System of Maryland at Hagerstown, which are part of the University System of Maryland.
In Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, UMGC offers courses on military bases for service members, contractors, Federal employees, and their families. In addition to distance learning via the Web, the university offers on-site, instructor-led classes and/or services at 175 overseas US military bases in 20 countries throughout the world. Overseas instruction is coordinated through its Europe Division, which covers USCENTCOM installations in the Middle East, and Asia Division. UMGC divisional headquarters are located in Kaiserslautern, Germany (following the closure of United States Army Garrison Heidelberg) and on Yokota Air Base, Tokyo, Japan, respectively.
Students
UMGC specializes in distance learning for adult, non-traditional students in Maryland, across the country, and around the world by operating education centers and offering online instruction. In FY 2023, the university enrolled almost 53,000 military-affiliated students from around the world. In FY 2023, more than 32,000 Marylanders attended UMGC.
About three-quarters of the undergraduate students attend part-time. Over 92% of UMGC students are employed full-time. The majority of undergraduate students are female. The median age of stateside undergraduate students is 31. Almost two-thirds of the graduate MBA students are married, half are female, and over a third are minorities. Over a third of UMGC's stateside students were African-American, and this minority group earned over a third of the degrees awarded by the university.
Rankings and awards
UMGC was ranked #1 in The Military Times “Best for Vets: Colleges 2015” list of top online and nontraditional schools in 2015. Military Times “Best for Vets” is one of the most respected and comprehensive rankings for veterans who are considering higher education. The publication looked at U.S. Department of Education statistics on student success and academic quality, as well as areas such as university culture, student support, and academic policies in evaluating hundreds of schools.