The University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC, formerly University of Maryland University College) is a public university in Adelphi, Maryland. It is the largest institution in the University System of Maryland. Established in 1947, UMGC offers online, hybrid and face-to-face instruction at education centers across the Washington–Baltimore metropolitan area, throughout Maryland, and across the world.
UMGC serves approximately 86,000 students worldwide and is the largest online public university in U.S. UMGC is open to all applicants for undergraduate programs, and is among the top 10 recipients of the federal G.I. Bill benefits. The university offers 125 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.
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, (near Stuttgart), until 2002. It also ran a two-year residential campus in Munich, Germany, from 1950 to 1992, which then moved to Augsburg, Germany, from 1993 to 1994, and then to Mannheim, Germany, 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 up until 2019, it was a college in the traditional American sense of the word, albeit one associated with a university—hence , "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.