International Perspectives

Lynne Whitaker Memorial Scholarship Fund Established
Korea Area Director Retires
Surviving Faculty Boot Camp 101
European Division Expands into Panama
Overseas Marylanders Celebrate UMUC's 50th Anniversary

Lynne Whitaker Memorial Scholarship Fund Established

Lynne Whitaker, a European Division faculty member and administrator during the 1970s and 1980s, passed away in San Antonio, Texas, in January. Whitaker was a dynamic force for women's studies at UMUC and a tireless advocate for expanding UMUC education and training beyond the traditional classroom. She was instrumental in forming the San Antonio chapter of the alumni association. Her indomitable will and spirit will be both remembered and missed. Those wishing to contribute to the Lynne Whitaker Memorial Scholarship Fund should write their checks to the UM Foundation and send them to the Office of Institutional Advancement, UMUC, Adelphi, MD 20783 USA.

Korea Area Director Retires

Korea Area Director Thomas Robinson retired in December 1997. Robinson joined the university in 1977 and served it overseas for more than 20 years, assuming UMUC's top post in Korea in 1995. Those two decades with UMUC, he says, provided him with many rewarding experiences.

"Once you have joined UMUC, you end up being part of an international staff and faculty community that you always continue to be a member of, as my e-mail attests," Robinson says. "Surprisingly, considering how separated we are geographically, there is more community at UMUC than there is at a lot of other American universities."

"Also, one of the very nice things is that we get some interesting students, some really fine students," he says, adding that UMUC students tend to be brighter, more sophisticated, and more motivated than many he has seen at other institutions. "They have just seen a little bit more of the world."

Robinson has seen a lot of the world too, as a teacher of history (along with some government and philosophy) in both the Asian and European Divisions. He has lived and taught in Okinawa, mainland Japan, Korea, Germany, the Netherlands, Turkey, and Iceland.

After Robinson's departure, Gary T. Hunt assumed the responsibilities of area director for Korea. Hunt, who has a strong background in university administration, joined the Asian Division in academic year 1997–98. He was assigned to Korea and taught at Osan, Camp Humphreys, Camp Henry, and Pusan.

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Surviving Faculty Boot Camp 101

My instructions were to show up at Yokota Air Base in Fussa, a Tokyo suburb accessible by train, prepared to teach undergraduate classes in management and English composition for eight weeks in Kunsan, Korea. Getting to the air base was a challenge I knew I could handle, even at 2 a.m. What I could not figure out that day in 1983 was what my life would be like on my first UMUC Asian Division assignment. How would teaching at a military base compare to teaching at a large university? Where would I live? Would I be able to cook? How would I get around?

What I knew about Kunsan, an air base on the western coast of Korea, was that it was an isolated, hardship posting. Isolation I like. Hardship I am ambivalent about.

Flying out of Yokota on a C-130 transport plane, I fell asleep and woke up later that morning at Osan Air Base, outside of Seoul, Korea. Larry Hepinstall, at that time the area director for Korea, met my flight and welcomed me. He briefed me on my assignment, and after lunch dropped me off at the public bus terminal, where I found the bus going to Kunsan. There were only six of us on the bus, all of my fellow travelers being older Korean men whose weathered faces spoke of years of outdoor work. About half an hour into our journey, through rice paddies where bonneted women manually harvested rice and spread it along the roadside to dry, their repeated glances and nods indicated that they were interested in or concerned about me. One of the men offered me tea from a thermos and began a conversation in halting English. "Where husband? Children? You alone?" he asked.

I tried to explain myself in English, but was unsuccessful. Then, somehow, we stumbled into using Japanese. How ironic that we should communicate in this language, men in their sixties who learned Japanese during their country's years of occupation by Japan, and me in my thirties, an American business professor who had learned Japanese to try to understand Japan's competitive success in world markets. My new friends made sure I got to the base safely.

My first two courses were a challenge. They reminded me how Julian Jones, then director of the Asian Division, had explained to me and other new faculty members in Tokyo some of the differences in teaching we might encounter here.

My management course met in a room at the education center. Often, students came to class straight from work and went back right after class. Sometimes, students were involved in military exercises and came to class exhausted from 24-hour duty. Once, there was an alert and we all had to wear protective masks, even inside. And students were periodically sent on temporary duty away from the base and missed classes, then needed to review their material and find a way to make up any work they might have missed.

I remember many lively class discussions during this assignment, some of which have been critical to my own learning about education. One evening a bright young private, a "one-striper," disagreed with the position taken by a master sergeant on the social obligations of business, and called him something like "a romantic old fool." Remembering our orientation back in Tokyo, I kept my seat and carefully avoided eye contact with other students, who immediately looked to me, I suppose, to diffuse the tension.

The master sergeant stood up, walked across the discussion circle, and stopped a few yards from the younger man. As he approached, the private got to his feet, and I prepared to intervene. However, it was the issue the master sergeant really cared about, not how the private had personally attacked him. He asked the private what arguments he could produce to support the claim that return on investment (ROI) was the ultimate justification for business decisions, and what kind of a world we would have if all decisions were made on the basis of ROI. Everyone in the room began breathing again.

Three weeks later in the term, when we were brainstorming questions for a final exam, the private suggested that we describe the potential ROI on a private's decision to call a master sergeant a romantic old fool. The question did not make it to the final, but we took the suggestion to be his apology.

That management class in Kunsan was the best teaching experience I have had in my 26 years as a teacher. It led me to a five-year tour with UMUC in both Asia and Europe. Something happens in those UMUC overseas classes that is difficult to make happen as quickly back home—a willingness to explore the ideas, to be involved, to cut to the essentials. Perhaps in Kunsan it was the isolation, the potential for mind-numbing boredom peering over our shoulders, along with personal commitments to explore what education really can be.

Five years ago, I wrote a letter of recommendation for the former private, who had completed his UMUC degree, finished his enlistment, and concluded a three-year stint as a financial analyst for a major brokerage house. He had decided to go to law school, and today he practices environmental law. That ROI would probably have pleased the master sergeant.

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European Division Expands into Panama

Just as the U.S. military overseas is adapting to the changing times, so is the UMUC European Division. The most recent evidence of this phenomenon is that the European Division has been asked to offer classes via distance education to U.S. service members stationed in Panama.

"Because of the nature of the U.S. military mission these days, distance education is becoming increasingly important," says United Kingdom/Atlantic Area Director LeAnn Cragun. "Distance education fits into the new military in a real and effective way for students who can't take regular classes because of their work schedules, their TDY (temporary duty) schedules, or just because—as in Central America—they're working at rather isolated sites without a large enough group of students together to take a traditional class."

The first UMUC student in Panama began studying via distance education in August 1997. Several more have since joined at three education centers in Panama—Fort Clayton, Fort Kobbe, and Fort Sherman—and word has spread to personnel at other U.S. Army South locations, including Colombia and Honduras.

Cragun is quick to share the credit for the Panama program with European Division Director for Distance Education John Floyd.

"Distance education is the best way to service the troops in Central America," Floyd says. "We initially offered online courses using e-mail and listserver, then added video-assisted independent study (VAIS) courses." Over the past four terms, the UMUC field representative in Panama has registered 20 students, 17 in online courses and three in VAIS courses. "This may seem a modest achievement, but without these UMUC distance courses, the chances for these soldiers to engage in upper-level university courses would have been slim to none," says Floyd.

Lynn Ciecierski, the UMUC field representative in Panama, took classes with the European Division in Germany and Italy while on active duty with the U.S. Air Force. When Cragun went to Panama to hire a field representative, she found Ciecierski, a UMUC student since 1994 who is close to earning a bachelor's degree with a primary specialization in English and a secondary specialization in art history.

Because of the complications associated with starting a new program, the normal duties of a field representative have been more difficult than usual for Ciecierski, Cragun says.

"There was no UMUC field representative office, so Ciecierski had to set that up," Cragun says. "And she had to get the word out that UMUC was there to a lot of students who didn't know about us. In Europe and Asia, where we've always been, the name 'University of Maryland University College' is something that everybody recognizes. Lynn had to create name recognition for us."

Ciecierski found that to be an enjoyable aspect of her position. "I definitely feel like a recruiter," she says. "This distance education program is so new to students here, and most of the people I have talked to have expressed uncertainties about inaccessible faculty and getting "kicked off" the Internet service. However, UMUC has a good reputation and many soldiers and airmen are familiar with us through courses they've taken in the European and Asian Divisions. Everyone who discovers that we're here in Panama seems so relieved and is enthusiastic about getting started on UMUC degrees. I've discovered that there are many UMUC graduates already living here, and many more are trying to finish their degrees with UMUC."

Ciecierski, Floyd, and Cragun are doing their best to ensure that distance education students have everything available to them that UMUC students in Europe do. Cragun says she is pleased that students in Central America have access to the databases on the World Wide Web subscribed to by UMUC and to online library catalogs. She also says that so far the biggest challenge in the initiation of the new program has been getting textbooks and other class materials delivered to Panama in a timely manner, a process that takes longer than is usual in the European Division. Nonetheless, she is optimistic about the program.

"I think it will be successful for the same reasons distance education is effective for us everywhere in the world," Cragun says. "It's there for the students who need a particular upper-level class that's not available as a traditional class."

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Overseas Marylanders
Celebrate UMUC's 50th Anniversary

Former overseas UMUC faculty and staff were well represented at the 50th anniversary receptions held in 27 locations across the United States. There was instant rapport among the alumni and faculty, who have served UMUC students everywhere from the DMZ in Korea, to Hohenfels, Germany, to DaNang Air Base in war-torn Vietnam. The following members of the Overseas Maryland Association served on host committees that helped organize the receptions.

John Elder of San Antonio, Texas, a psychology instructor in both the European and Asian Divisions, is now a Presbyterian minister who teaches at the University of Central Texas. His wife, Theresa Elder '79, recently completed her M.A. in library science.

Joy Patterson of Orlando, Florida, a history faculty member in the European Division during the 1970s and 1980s, taught for UMUC in Korea during summer 1998. Patterson is head of the English Department at Melbourne Central Catholic High School. Her husband, Gordon, teaches history at Florida Institute of Technology.

Lois Mohr of Atlanta, Georgia, a former area director for Okinawa and assistant to the president for Overseas Programs, took a second Ph.D. in business and is now assistant professor of marketing at Georgia State University. Her husband, Tom Arnold, works for the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.

Julia Rux of Atlanta, Georgia, is a former faculty member in the European and Asian Divisions. She is a professor of psychology at DeKalb Technical Institute in Atlanta.

Kerm Henrikson of Virginia taught psychology in the European Division and was one of the early directors of Faculty Development for UMUC overseas. Henrikson is a consultant for CAE-Link Corporation and frequently teaches for the UMUC Graduate School of Management & Technology. His wife, A-young, is a painter. She has an M.F.A. from University of Maryland, College Park, and has shown her work in numerous Washington-area galleries.

Jeff Gray of New York City taught English in Korea and in Europe for UMUC. He is an assistant professor of English at Seton Hall University and a widely published poet.

Dave Jones '79 of St. Petersburg, Florida, retired from the Army as a sergeant major and became UMUC's field representative in Kaiserslautern, Germany. He also worked several years for the University System of Maryland in College Park. Jones is a regional representative on the UMUC Alumni Association Board of Directors.

Kevin Flanagan of Tucson, Arizona, taught psychology on Okinawa for UMUC and is a psychologist at St. Joseph's Hospital in Tucson.

Barbara and Ralph Millis of Colorado Springs, Colorado, taught throughout Asia. Ralph Millis also served as area director for Japan and the Philippines. Today, Barbara Millis is director of faculty development at the Air Force Academy, and Ralph Millis is head of the English Department at the Air Force Academy's Preparatory School.

Georgia Chapman '82 of Colorado Springs, Colorado, was executive assistant to the directors in both the Asian and European Divisions. She is now executive director of the El Pomar Foundation in Colorado Springs and is a regional representative on the UMUC Alumni Board of Directors.

Jeanne McNett taught English and business courses for UMUC in Asia. McNett and her husband, Nick Athanassiou, live in Massachusetts, where they are both assistant professors of management, McNett at Assumption College and Athanassiou at Northeastern University.

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