At the helm of UMUC’s for-profit company is Max Shevitz (left), president, shown with Brock Holmes, senior vice president for marketing and strategic planning.

In December 1999, UMUC became the first U.S. public university to establish a for-profit company. The company will market the university’s extensive portfolio of online degree programs worldwide. All course development and academic management will remain within the university. The company will allow UMUC to seek revenue-generating opportunities that would not ordinarily be available to a public university, according to UMUC President Gerald A. Heeger. "Colleges and universities that want to participate in this competitive online market must think and act differently to succeed," said Heeger. "We are doing just that."

Donna Cunninghame ’92

Donna H. Cunninghame ’92 has been appointed UMUC’s senior vice president for finance and chief financial officer (CFO). A certified public accountant, she has held prominent positions in the field of finance since 1975. Most recently, she was CFO for the Internal Revenue Service. Cunninghame was associate vice chancellor for financial affairs and CFO for the University System of Maryland for eight years, until 1993. She was appointed in 1996 by Gov. Parris N. Glendening to fill an unexpired term on the Maryland Higher Education Commission.

Willard Martin, dean of the UMUC Schwäbisch Gmünd campus since 1995, will retire effective August 2000. Under his leadership, enrollment has doubled and the international campus now attracts students from 45 countries. "Willard Martin has played a vital role in the leadership of Schwäbisch Gmünd and will be sorely missed by his faculty and students," said Nick Allen, UMUC senior vice president for academic affairs and provost.

Calvert Street Station (1935), an early painting by Baltimore artist Karl Metzler, has been added to the university’s Maryland Artists Collection, thanks to a gift from an anonymous donor. Metzler, born in Bremerhaven, Germany, in 1909, immigrated to the United States in 1916 and was a longtime resident of Baltimore.

Pictured (from left) are UMUC President Gerald A. Heeger, Frances Hughes Glendening, and Eugene Leake, recipient of UMUC’s first Maryland Arts Lifetime Achievement Award.

Maryland artist Eugene ("Bud") Leake received UMUC’s first annual Maryland Arts Lifetime Achievement Award in December 1999. Leake, of Monkton, served 13 years as president of the Maryland Institute, College of Art, putting the institution on the map as one of the nation’s top four art schools. As the first artist-in-residence at Johns Hopkins University, he established the popular Homewood Art Workshops. His work has been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Brooklyn Museum

Frances Hughes Glendening, wife of Maryland Gov. Parris N. Glendening, presented the award.

UMUC and the Maryland Chamber of Commerce have established the Maryland Workforce Academy to promote economic vitality statewide. The academy, whose goal is to educate, train, and retain a 21st-century workforce, will tailor needed programs and services for Maryland institutions in conjunction with economic development plans. Relying on employers’ needs assessments, the academy will develop educational and training programs ranging from short-term seminars to credential sequences.

For the second year in a row, UMUC students from India brought the Hindu festival of lights, or Diwali, to the Schwäbisch Gmünd program In Germany. The entire campus, noted for its international student body, got involved last fall in the "happy and colorful occasion," according to Dean Willard Martin. "If there is any tension among students of different nationalities . . . it certainly wasn’t evident at the campus Festival."

UMUC and the Society for Human Resource Management are offering a new professional training program for human resource specialists. In addition to providing the latest information and management techniques for success in the progressive HR industry, the program will prepare HR practitioners for the Human Resource Certification Institute national examinations for professional (PHR) and senior professional (SPHR) designations. Training covers the seven core competencies identified by the society as critical to HR management professionals.

The 36-hour training program will be offered throughout the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. For more information, call 301-985-7644, e-mail pdhr@umuc.edu, or visit www.umuc.edu/ workforce/hrm.html.festival"