Learn about the strategic roadmap for student achievement and growth.
Strategic Plan
Mission
The mission of UMGC is to inspire hope, empower dreams, and transform lives . . . one student at a time. We accomplish this by:
- Operating as Maryland's open university, serving working adults, military servicemen and servicewomen and their families, and veterans who reside in Maryland, across the United States, and around the world
- Providing our students with affordable, open access to valued, quality higher education
- Serving as a recognized leader in career-relevant education, embracing innovation and change aligned with our purpose, and sharing our perspectives and expertise
Vision
UMGC will set a new global standard in higher education, defining success in terms of lives, families, and communities transformed. We will
- Meet students where they are and wrap them in the service and support they need to succeed
- Offer tailored, workforce-relevant learning experiences that are accessible and deliver proven results
- Foster an agile, efficient, data-driven operation that responds swiftly to market trends and demands
Values
- Our diversity differentiates and drives innovation
- An inclusive, global community creates lasting connections
- Success results from collaboration and clear expectations
- Data and curiosity power continuous improvement and purposeful transformation
Quality Education/Student Success
UMGC will provide innovative, affordable, career-relevant education that aligns with accreditation standards and leads to the achievement of desired competencies, helping students earn the degrees or certificates they seek and, ultimately, reach their professional goals.
Excellent Student Experience
UMGC will offer an intuitive, integrated, and supportive experience throughout the student lifecycle, beginning with first contact and continuing through application, enrollment, admission, learning, employment, and engagement as alumni.
Increased Market Agility
UMGC will pursue additional legislative flexibility and seek to develop new revenue streams that, together, position the university to continue to respond promptly and thoughtfully to shifts in the competitive landscape and emerging trends in education by adapting programs and services, refining operations, and deploying staff and faculty as warranted by market conditions.
Streamlined Organizational Capacity/Operational Excellence
UMGC will build its professional capacity by investing in its people, processes, and technology; leveraging its diversity to innovate and improve; and acting as a responsible steward of all assets and resources.
Sustained Growth
UMGC will grow enrollments and refine its global operations through efficient recruiting and improved retention, by pursuing strategic alliances and corporate partnerships, by bidding aggressively to retain its contracts with the U.S. Department of Defense, and by nurturing its culture of quality and commitment, which earns the trust and confidence of stakeholders, thus protecting and enhancing its reputation.
Employ innovative strategies and technologies to ensure and enhance academic quality and support student success.
To ensure that students are prepared for the evolving demands of the workplace, we will expand our competency-based learning model by deploying personalized and adaptive learning modalities, with an emphasis on enhancing academic quality and learning outcomes. In addition, we will realign the undergraduate and graduate schools into three schools organized by discipline—focused on fields related to cybersecurity and information technology, business, and arts and sciences, respectively.
Leverage technology to enhance the student experience.
UMGC will partner with AccelerEd and HelioCampus to provide students with an intuitive and seamless experience from first contact through alumni engagement. With AccelerEd, the university will implement a new Student Information System (SIS) that integrates systems and processes, offering students a clear and intuitive portal and seamless service interactions. The expansion of HelioCampus capabilities promises greater capacity for the continuous improvement of curricula and an innovative learning experience.
Expand credit for prior learning.
UMGC will become a leader in recognizing and awarding credit for prior learning gained in academic, corporate, military, and other settings. The university will streamline its curriculum and catalog to clear paths to degree completion, evaluate processes for assessing military credit and joint degree pathways, and make it easier for students to predict and plan for the costs of their chosen degree programs.
Recruit and retain expert faculty.
UMGC will continue its efforts to recruit, train, evaluate, support, and retain its strong cadre of full-time and part-time faculty who are distinguished by their professional experience, academic achievements, and ability to foster student learning.
Protect academic integrity.
The university will seek to lead higher education in protecting the academic integrity of its curriculum, nurturing a culture of integrity across the learning environment, and developing technological tools and strategies, as appropriate, in response to the known and emerging tactics of deceptive operators.
Ensure affordable access.
UMGC will develop a pricing and scholarship strategy that ensures its tuition is within reach for Maryland residents, military students, and adult learners across the United States. The university will expand its use of open educational resources (OERs), empowering faculty to improve the quality, currency, and accessibility of learning materials.
Scale operations to accommodate growth through expansion.
UMGC will prepare its operations to support a larger and more diverse student population by creating a more nimble and efficient organization, adopting additional technologies to streamline processes. At the same time, the university will work to maintain its position as the premier provider of education to U.S. troops overseas.
Increase organizational flexibility and agility.
UMGC will aggressively seek additional statutory and regulatory flexibility from the state to support more competitive positioning against other large online institutions, for-profits, and new entrants in the education market. We will explore strategic alliances and articulation agreements with corporate, government, and academic partners and, where appropriate, transition non-academic functions to the Ventures organization to reduce costs, increase agility, enhance the quality of the student experience, and create products and services that generate new revenue streams to help secure UMGC's future.
Strengthen and differentiate our brand while burnishing our reputation.
UMGC will articulate a unique and compelling value proposition for students, alumni, and prospective employers—further distinguishing our university from the competition—by emphasizing our focus on career readiness, our commitment to personalized attention to students and their needs, and our history of integrity and service to military students and veterans. We will encourage staff, faculty, students, and alumni to serve as "brand ambassadors" who advocate on behalf of our university, and we will continue to champion educational innovation, testing, tracking, and reporting on the effectiveness of new approaches to adult learning.
Invest in employees.
UMGC will continue to provide a supportive and inspiring environment to faculty and staff, seeking out cost-effective avenues for professional growth and development, conducting periodic engagement surveys to track progress, and exploring new platforms with the potential to bolster internal communications overall and information-sharing across departments, divisions, and managerial strata.