Howard Makes Bold Changes

Goal is to promote excellence

This week Howard University's president and Board of Trustees announced major changes to the academic structure of the school. The Academic Renewal Plan – the culmination of two years of meetings, university community input and the hard work by the Presidential Commission on Academic Renewal (PCAR) – was presented to the board by Howard's President Sidney A. Ribeau on Jan. 29 and approved.

“Universities must periodically review and assess themselves to respond to developments in higher education and the changing needs of our nation and the world,” Ribeau said in a statement. “At Howard, we are doing just that. We must maintain the highest standards of academic and administrative excellence.”

The plan consolidates or eliminates many of Howard's degree programs and works to reorganize the university's resources in a way that supports its strategic goals.

While this process was initiated by the board of trustees and President Ribeau, Alvin Thornton, Ph.D., senior advisor to the president on academic affairs and chair of the PCAR committee, was clear that this effort and the resulting recommendations involved all parts of the university community. "These were not presidentially or board determined decisions. These are largely decision that came from the university community," he said.

"These changes will, in essence," said Thornton, "strengthen Howard University, make it much more focused around the strategic areas that the Board of Trustees and the president have identified."

Some of these strategic goals include ensuring high quality undergraduate programs, a continued commitment to the professional schools and a return to a focus on teacher preparation, Thornton said. Others, according to a press release issued by the university, are: to strengthen the commitment to science, technology, engineering and math; encourage increased research, advance Africana and Diaspora Studies to make Howard University the leader in that area of study; augment urban education, business, communications, humanities and visual and performing arts programs; and streamline and focus degree program offerings.
"We have identified specific areas of emphasis,” Ribeau said in a statement, “and we plan to be leaders in those areas.”

Howard currently offers 171 degree programs. As part of this plan, 71 programs – 38 professional programs, 11 graduate programs and 22 undergraduate programs – will be either eliminated or changed. Thornton stressed that students in those programs to be discontinued will have the opportunity to complete their degrees and faculty members in those programs will not lose their positions. "The concept really has a lot on integrity," he said.

In the past Howard, Thornton said, "responded to the national need that our community had and our nation had to educate in all areas of the Black community. ... We cannot continue to do that because of resources and we, frankly, don't have to do that in the same way.

"This renewal program that the board has approved and the president recommended will strategically redesign us and prepare us to move forward for the future."

He added, "We're going to be much more research oriented at Howard University because we believe that's the best contribution we can make to the African-American and national community."

All public photocopying in the Library now defaults to duplex (two-sided) copying. Patrons may change to simplex (one-sided) photocopying by following instructions posted at the photocopiers.

All printing in the Library now defaults to duplex (two-sided) printing. Patrons may change to simplex (one-sided) printing before they send their documents to the printer by following instructions posted here: http://aok.lib.umbc.edu/services/printing.php and at Library workstations.

Based on requests and expressed interest in new or alternate products, the MDL has arranged trial access to the following databases. For off-campus access, please login via VPN first (http://vpn.umbc.edu). Then follow the link under "News & Events" on the library homepage. For more info on remote access, see http://aok.lib.umbc.edu/services/remoteaccess.php

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Oxford Bibliographies Online
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Please let us know what you think.

UMBC's trial access to Oxford Bibliographies Online has been renewed. The trial runs through February 21, 2011.

Oxford Bibliographies Online (OBO) is a library of disciplined-based subject modules. In each subject module, leading scholars have produced a literary guide to the most important and significant sources in an area of study they know best. The guides feature a selective list of bibliographic citations supported by direct recommendations about which sources to consult. Each topic has a unique editorial commentary to show how the cited sources are interrelated. The citations promote discoverability as they link out to the sources via your library collection or through Google books and more.

For off-campus access, please login via VPN first (http://vpn.umbc.edu). Then follow the link under "News & Events" on the library homepage. For more info on remote access, see http://aok.lib.umbc.edu/services/remoteaccess.php

Please let us know what you think. Leave a comment or send your comments to Drew Alfgren at alfgren@umbc.edu.

The end of the semester is typically a busy time for donations to the archives and Special Collections. Here are a few highlights that have come into the University Archives recently:

UARC 2011-003: President's Office records

This small donation, only .25 linear feet, came from Karen Wensch just before her retirement this Fall. One gem from this donation is a resolution passed in 1992 by the City Council of Baltimore, "in recognition of [Dr. Freeman Hrabowski's] appointment as interim president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County." This demonstrates the relationship between the City of Baltimore and our county campus.

We have a small collection of plaques, honorary degrees, and certificates awarded to Dr. Hrabowski available in our President's Office records.

UARC 2011-001: University Photographs

This beautiful image of the Albin O. Kuhn Library was taken by UMBC's own Tim Ford in the Fall of 2005. Tim is the Manager of Illustrative Services, located in the Biological Sciences building. He has longed served as UMBC's unofficial (and sometimes official) documentarian of campus life and has often worked with campus departments on capturing the events and people that pass through our halls. This image was prepared by Tim as a retirement gift to Pat Cronise, UMBC's former Slide Librarian. If you're looking for historic images of people and places at UMBC, you can contact Special Collections and we can work with you to locate an appropriate photograph within our holdings or from other photograph collections on campus.

UARC Photos-13: University Photographs

While this accession, or group of photographs, is not new to Special Collections, it is being made more accessible because it is being processed. When you process an archival or photography collection, you rehouse, arrange, and describe the collection so that researchers can learn about the materials and locate the items within the collection much easier. Special Collections student assistant Paul Pierson has been rehousing these slides into archival polypropylene sheets and creating a folder listing. These sheets will not off gas or damage the chemical emulsion on the slides. Thanks Paul!

The title image above is from the 1968 Skipjack, UMBC's student yearbook. You can view all of the Skipjack volumes in Special Collections (UPUB S2-001) or browse this volume online.