The University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) is pleased to have the opportunity to testify before the Governor’s Commission on Technology in Higher Education. UMBC was founded as the "Information Age" was just beginning to take shape and technology has been one of the key forces that shaped UMBC. As such we feel that many of the lessons we have learned will be of interest to the Commission.
The remainder of this document will highlight the following:
Appendix 1 includes a copy of the approved UMBC Mission Statement. The academic program emphasis of UMBC is stated in section III:
"UMBC’s liberal arts and sciences core provides the foundation for the undergraduate educational experience. UMBC’s primary programmatic emphasis is within selected areas of the sciences and engineering; mathematics; information and computer sciences, and public policy.
Scholarship is central to the University’s mission. Particular research priorities are linked to the economic needs of the region and include biochemistry, molecular/cell biology, and bioprocess/biomedical engineering; mathematics, information and computer sciences, and digital imaging; photonics, signal processing, and applied physics; robotics, biomechanical, and manufacturing engineering; social sciences, international affairs and public policy studies."
In support of its mission UMBC has developed an outstanding faculty, the technology infrastructure upon which to support programs in technology, and a reputation for high quality students.
Appendix 2 has three tables that list: 1) the breakdown of undergraduate enrollment by major for 1993 – 1997; 2) the breakdown of graduate enrollment by program for 1993 – 1997; and 3) the combined total enrollment for 1993 – 1997.
For 1997, the total enrollment at UMBC was 9863. Of that number 3855 students were in science or engineering programs. In addition, 668 students were in Visual Arts (undergraduate) or Imaging and Digital Arts (graduate). While listed under humanities, these two programs have essential technology components and should be classified as technology programs. The combined total including the Visual Arts enrollment, is 4523 and signifies that 46% of our students would be classified as science or technology majors.
Three programs at UMBC make extensive use of information technology, Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, Information Systems Management, and Visual Arts. These three programs have a total of 2514 students and contain over 25% of the students. These three programs have grown by 30% over the last five years.
Appendix 3 is a report compiled by the Maryland Department of Business and Economic Development on 1996 graduates in the fields of computer science and information technology. This data indicates that among four-year institutions 1247 degrees were awarded in these fields. UMBC awarded 323, the largest number of any institution and represented 25% of the total degrees awarded.
While data for 1997 is not yet available we anticipate that UMBC is still the primary producer of information technology degrees in the State and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future given the growth in these programs at UMBC. We want to impress upon the Commission the significance of UMBC in producing information technology graduates and we hope that UMBC is the cornerstone upon which the Commission builds technology education in Maryland
UMBC has developed a computing and network infrastructure that is widely recognized as being one of the best in the region. This was done through careful planning and priority setting and is described below.
In December of 1993, UMBC’s President Hrabowski established a task force to examine Information Technology and Transfer (ITT) at UMBC. The task force consisted of a steering committee and four sub-committees: Instruction, Research, Administrative Applications, and Networking. The charge of the task force was to review all aspects of information technology usage at UMBC and develop consensus for a multi-year plan. The task force issued its final report in early 1995. President’s Council approved the report in the spring of that year. Work began shortly thereafter. This broad-based planning process was instrumental to the success UMBC has had building technology programs in recent years.
The overarching principles developed in our planning process were:
In May, 1995 we began to implement the IT master plan for the campus. The initial plan focused on deploying a solid infrastructure upon which to build. In the past three years UMBC has accomplished the following:
In May 1997 our work was validated in that UMBC was awarded a high-speed Internet connection grant by the National Science Foundation. These are based on meritorious research that requires high-speed Internet connections. UMBC was one of the first fifty institutions selected for this award and one of the few institutions without a Carnegie R1 classification. As part of this grant UMBC and UM,CP are working together to develop a high-speed network serving the region.
In the past year UMBC has recognized that we must continually update our IT plans. In April, Dr. Hrabowski created an IT Steering Committee that is charged with developing budgets and plans for IT initiatives across the campus. The IT Steering Committee is chaired by the Associate Provost, Dr. Antonio Moreira. The IT Steering Committee is comprised of the chairs of existing campus committees for which IT plays a significant role. Appendix 4 is an organization diagram.
Funding information technology equipment and software is expensive. In the case of UMBC much of our present infrastructure was facilitated by one-time funding associated with the new Engineering/Computer Science building and the Library expansion. It is not a coincidence that enrollments and research support increased dramatically due to the ability to deploy new technology in the early and middle 90’s.
A specific case involves the Visual Arts program, which now has 645 majors; this program requires high performance graphics workstations for teaching computer animation. A lab of twenty stations for teaching upper-level courses cost $300,000 to equip. The Visual Arts department worked with the software vendor for two years to convince the vendor to provide the software free of charge; otherwise the cost of the software would have run another $300,000.
UMBC is now going through this same type of issue in building the Computer Engineering program. The business community would like to see students taught using equipment and software that is commonly used by business; however the University presently can’t afford to replace equipment as frequently as industry.
Increasing the number of students requires that we invest in more faculty positions so we can keep up with demand for courses. UMBC has made extensive use of adjunct and part-time faculty to meet rising demand. This helps to meet the demand for classes but can lessen the quality of instruction. It is imperative that we keep a proper balance of full-time and part-time faculty.
The same issue applies to support staff. At UMBC we have focused the majority of new staff positions into the academic departments. We now find we are critically short-staffed in many technical support positions. The loss of a single key staff member can wreak havoc on instructional and research programs. We must add more support staff if we are to increase the number of students receiving technology training.
Salary is also a major issue. Students graduating with a B.Sc. in computer science now command starting salaries of over $50,000. We find that we can’t afford to hire our own graduates! Worse, the starting pay of new Assistant Professors is often below the salary offers made to recent graduates. The State must begin to address salary issues of faculty and support staff in technology related fields.
Faculties are very interested in using technology in a way that enhances instruction; however, the lack of an adequate support infrastructure requires that faculty become technology experts in order to make use of technology. In order to convince faculty to use technology in their courses they must be assured that adequate technical support will be present. Support comes in many forms. In the simplest form it requires that the faculty member have the proper classroom facilities to present their work. Other forms of support include reliable software and hardware, support for students with technology problems, and development support for integrating technology into the curriculum.
UMBC has created a committee on Technology Enhanced Learning to focus on issues involving the use of technology with instruction. This committee has representatives from the Library, University Computing, Instructional Technology, Continuing Education, and faculty with expertise or interest in this area. This past year UMBC established a pilot project with Emergency Health Systems to begin offering courses in the Master’s program over the Internet. UMBC is using an approach that integrates Microsoft PowerPoint, WWW, and the Real Video product. We can now present the audio and video lecture of a course along with the slide notes.
In terms of updating the curriculum for information technology courses we need more support for faculty development. Information technology is undergoing such rapid change it is hard for faculty to stay current in new technologies that might be outside of their research areas. For example, object-oriented programming using Java is being used for introductory programming courses. Java has only been widely available for the last three years and we must train faculty in Java programming for them to teach introductory courses. At UMBC, we must balance the issue of providing release time for retraining against surging enrollments in these majors.
The State has taken a significant step toward making higher education more affordable with the introduction of the Maryland Science and Technology Scholarships in 1999. UMBC believes this will have the intended effect and increase the number of students majoring in technology courses.
The impact of this on UMBC is that technology majors require extensive hardware and software resources. We must find a way to fund the necessary infrastructure needed to meet increased demand. UMBC is considering a number of options that are used elsewhere:
We are hopeful the Commission will consider this issue when it makes its final report.
Appendix 5 is a report entitled "America’s New Deficit: The Shortage of Information Technology Workers," produced by the Office of Technology Policy, U.S. Department of Commerce. This report notes that 1.3 million information technology positions will need to be filled by the year 2006. This represents a growth of over 80%. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects database administrators, computer support specialists and all other computer scientists; computer engineers; and system analysts will be the fastest growing occupations in the years 1996-2006.
Maryland, especially the Baltimore/Washington metropolitan regions, now has difficulty finding qualified candidates. This situation will be exacerbated in the next ten years as demand for IT workers increases.
As noted in section 2, in the last five years UMBC has increased the number of information technology related majors by 30%. One-time funding associated with equipping the Engineering/Computer Science building facilitated this growth. Presently, the campus is pressed to meet demand for courses and to provide adequate facilities. UMBC has the infrastructure in place to accommodate more students provided we can find additional resources
According to 1993 data from the National Science Foundation, about 60% of the computer programmer and computer support positions were held by people with degrees in Computer Science or Information Systems, the other 40% had degrees in other fields.
It is the belief of UMBC that the best way to meet the demand for IT workers is to provide basic IT training to all students and develop a technology minor focused on practical skills that students in other majors can take in conjunction with their major. Encouraging student ownership of computers and integrating computer training throughout a wide range of courses would do this. Once students have basic literacy in computing we would develop specialized tracks for students to acquire skills in a specific area. Examples of specialized tracks would include database design and development, WWW development, computer graphics, system and network administration, and computational science.
If we couple this specific training with internship or cooperative education experience we can produce IT workers from a wide-range of disciplines. In addition, students from other disciplines often have communication or quantitative skills that are better suited to business needs.
Simply put, we cannot produce more students with technology degrees without increased funding. As stated earlier, much of the progress UMBC has made over the last five years has been due to an infusion of one-time funding. Since the cost or replacing and updating technology is a recurring cost we need funds added to our base budget to support this.
In 1997, UMBC had a combined total of 47 full-time faculty in the departments of Information Systems and Computer Science. UMBC is already stretching to provide the necessary courses for students and we need to lessen the use of part-time faculty. We will need to add faculty to create a technology minor for students majoring in other fields.
Technology support staff have not kept pace with the increase in students majoring in technology. To encourage faculty in non-technical fields to integrate technology into their courses we must have more support staff.
The Commission should examine policy changes that would enable students to afford to purchase their own computer. The cost of purchasing a computer has fallen dramatically the last year and now approaches $1000.The Science and Technology Scholarships will allow students that meet those criteria to afford a computer. In order to promote IT training for students in other majors, it is essential we require them to use a computer throughout the curriculum.
We recommend that the Commission consider ways of providing some form of tuition assistance for students who do not meet the Science and Technology Scholarship criteria with the provision that Universities require students to own a computer.
UMBC is actively involved with business and industry groups through our Board of Visitors, College of Engineering Industrial Advisory Board, and the President’s Advisory Council on Business Outreach. UMBC also participates in the Maryland Applied Information Technology Initiative and the Maryland Technology Alliance. Through these initiatives we receive input on the needs of the business community and seek to develop partnerships
Technology training requires a partnership between the business community and higher education. Traditional undergraduate education is not well suited to producing students with specific product training. Simply put, over a four year undergraduate period "hot" technologies will change. The university system must focus on basic skills that form the foundation for lifelong learning. At the same time it is important for universities to understand what "basic skills" are needed for students to succeed after graduation (e.g. programmers who understand object-oriented technology, database analysts well-versed in SQL, etc.).
Through our Continuing Education programs we can meet the business community need for people with specific skills. Continuing Education provides the option for credit and non-credit programs. One example of this is the training program in object-oriented technology that Continuing Education is offering on-site for Computer Science Corporation. A second example would be certification programs we create that are focused on short-term training (one year or less) that could be non-credit or credit based programs.
The Commission should encourage the business community to work with universities in the following ways:
There are many ways that the State could achieve efficiencies and synergy between campuses by funding or promoting system-wide goals. Some specific items that the Commission should investigate include:
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Appendix 3
Appendix 4
Appendix 5
Appendix 6
UMBC REPORT TO THE
GOVENOR’S COMMISSION ON
TECHNOLOGY IN HIGHER EDUCATION