2009 Performance Accountability Report Vol. 2 - Maryland Higher ...

vs. 66.3% (see Objectives 4.3 and 5.2). Efforts to improve retention and graduation rates, described in
the previous section, can be expected to yield benefits for all of our students, including African
Americans.
UMBC has also endeavored to increase diversity at the graduate level. Graduate Horizons is a
program designed to introduce minority students to graduate education and its benefits for their careers.
Students are invited to the campus where they meet with faculty, tour laboratories and talk with current
graduate students about their experiences and motivations. The program has grown rapidly in popularity
and applications to the Graduate School from minority students have increased dramatically. In fall 2009,
22.2% of UMBC’s graduate students were minorities; 12.2% were African American.
Another aspect of diversity that has been a focus of UMBC’s recruitment and retention efforts is
to increase the numbers of women, both students and faculty members, in the STEM disciplines. The
campus has active student and faculty groups of Women in Science and Engineering (WISE), and the
university was also the recipient in 2003 of a prestigious five-year NSF ADVANCE grant that promotes
recruitment, retention, and advancement of women faculty members in STEM disciplines. Since fall
2003, the number of female tenured and tenure-track faculty members in STEM has risen from 29 to 45.
We were pleased to note that the ASEE ranked UMBC 12 th in the nation in the percentage of master’s
degrees awarded to women in colleges of engineering (31.6%) and 14 th in the percentage of tenured and
tenure-track women faculty (18.2%).
Student Outcomes. UMBC engages in extensive assessment activities designed to evaluate and
improve student learning and to determine accountability for the quality of student learning produced.
UMBC’s assessment efforts are viewed as complementing ongoing campus planning processes, and it is
expected that these assessments will be used to support the re-examination of assumptions, values,
priorities, goals, objectives, practices, and programs as they relate to our mission and position among
other institutions. Our recently submitted Student Learning Outcomes Assessment Report provides
detailed information on student performance in courses that focus on oral and written communication,
scientific and quantitative reasoning, critical analysis and reasoning, and technological competency. The
report also illustrates how these formative assessments have been used to make changes in curriculum and
in individual courses.
Student outcomes are also assessed through feedback from alumni surveys. The most recent
(2008) survey confirmed high employment rates (see outcome indicator for Objective 1.1) and high rates
of student satisfaction with preparation for graduate/professional school (see quality indicators for
Objective 1.2 and Objective 1.4, respectively). Results of the 2008 survey revealed that UMBC
achieved its 2008 target for Objective 1.3: 43.0% of graduates are enrolled in graduate and professional
study within one year of graduation; the rate for African American students (41.5%) also surpassed our
goal of 40%. Taken together, these results show that a trade-off consisting of a slight decline in the
percentage of students employed and a slightly larger increase in the percentage going on to graduate and
professional schools.
Faculty
Accomplishments. UMBC faculty members continue to be recognized for their outstanding
accomplishments. A recent issue of Science Watch ranked UMBC third in the country in terms of citation
impact in the Geosciences. Arts and humanities faculty rank 13 th among public universities in prestigious
scholarly awards per capita, including Fulbright, Guggenheim and Mellon awards.
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