terrapinsanity.com

University of Maryland’s University College (UMUC) has proposed a new degree program (a doctoral degree in college administration), which was denied by the state administration because it would be seen as duplicating a service provided by an historically black university elsewhere in the state, in this case Morgan State University. UMUC appealed, and the matter is now at MHEC (Maryland Higher Education Commission) – which according to latest reports has blinked and asked for more time. We sure don’t envy them that decision.

The running of any successful university is just like any other business, and it is competitive. Each ‘company president’ has his or her own strategy for success. UMBC’s Freeman Hrabowski is doing a bang up job by knowing and serving his local market, and playing state politics like a fiddle. Dan Mote on the other hand is focused on outsourcing, by turning Maryland resources into political coin that buys relationships for him in the international community. (Maybe he should pay attention to what Freeman is doing…)

UMUC’s strategic edge is distance learning and on-line service, and the present proposal appears in that spirit. Morgan State shows that in competing for market share it is willing to do anything … including play the race card. The policy they are trying to leverage hearkens back to Selma, Alabama, and the 1960′s, arguing that it would constitute racial discrimination to allow another program to even enter a market that is today served by an HBU.

Our view: Morgan leadership does itself no favor in pressing that argument. There would be no better way to confirm that the school has ‘made it’ than to show it can compete in the market without regulatory protections. There is no better way to confirm that the school will remain a prospectively black institution than to follow a business plan that admits it can’t succeed without special protections.

At the end of the day, Morgan’s argument fails a reality check: They say UMUC’s new program should be free to serve students in all the nation’s states except Maryland. So much for the consumer rights of a student in Bethesda who would be denied the value of visiting a mentor 20 minutes down the road as compared with a mandate to commute to Baltimore.