This is the slow part of my morning—sitting, thinking, waiting for something worth typing. Often, I just start typing, like I just did, to see where the words lead. After all, I’m always thinking… just not always about anything interesting. Right now, my thoughts circle the question: What shall I write?
I glance at the sweatshirt draped over the back of my office side chair. It’s gray, with blue and white lettering across the chest: UMUC, and beneath that, in a white oval, the phrase “Since 1949.” It’s more than a chairback cover—it’s a quiet emblem of a place I once worked. UMUC stands for University of Maryland, University College, a campus rooted in University Park, Maryland. It still exists, though now it’s called the University of Maryland Global Campus.
Back in the day, UMUC offered degrees overseas for military members and their families, mostly taught in classrooms scattered across Europe and Asia. I worked for them for a while in an administrative capacity after retiring from the Army, accompanying my wife to Germany as her spouse—which I was… and still am, of course.
They had just begun offering some courses “on-the-line,” as we used to say. At the time, students could take a limited percentage of classes online, but most were still required to be face-to-face.
Now, the University of Maryland Global Campus seems to cast a wider net. I’m guessing, but I suspect they offer nearly all courses online. It’s an effective way to deliver education, no doubt. Still, I believe some courses deserve the presence of a room. You can’t quite replicate the experience of standing in front of a class to present the results of a project—not in any online format I’ve seen.
“Online learning is not the next big thing, it is the now big thing.” - Donna J. Abernathy
“Online education enables people to learn without borders, limits, or excuses.” - Daphne Koller
