Aerial view of the planned 9/11 memorial on the site of the World Trade Center. (photo from 9/11 Memorial website)

It has been a decade since the unprecedented terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.  Despite the time that has passed, our memories of that day remain fresh and raw.  More than 3,000 lives were lost in the attacks at New York City and the Pentagon as terrorist hijackers flew two planes into the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon.  More than 400 firefighters, police officers, and other first responders lost their lives responding to the tragedies in New York and Washington.  Thanks to the brave actions of the passengers of United Flight 93, countless more lives were saved.  All 45 people aboard that flight were killed as a brave few attacked the hijackers, forcing the plane down in a field in rural Pennsylvania.  Had the hijackers completed their mission with an attack from Flight 93 on any strategic location in Washington, the total death toll would have been higher.

Less than a month later, the US military mobilized to Afghanistan to rout out the Taliban regime which had provided safe harbor to the terrorist mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks, Osama bin Laden.  Within a few years of entering Afghanistan, the US military also began mobilizing to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. 

Approximately three-quarters of APUS’ student body have served as active military personnel and have been directly involved in these missions.  Some of them made the ultimate sacrifice in these two theaters of action.  To date, more than 6,000 American military personnel have lost their lives in Iraq or Afghanistan since those wars began.  Each of us owes a tremendous debt of gratitude to the first responders who risked their lives to assist those trapped in the rubble in New York City and at the Pentagon, to our men and women in uniform, and to the many people who work diligently to identify and avert future attacks.  I encourage everyone to take a moment to reflect on the lives lost on that fateful September day and to commemorate and honor those who have continued to risk their lives to protect our nation and its citizens. 

Two months to the day after the attacks, President Bush said, “’Time is passing.  Yet, for the United States of America, there will be no forgetting September the 11th.  We will remember every rescuer who died in honor.  We will remember every family that lives in grief.  We will remember the fire and ash, the last phone calls, the funerals of the children.’”  These words are as accurate today as they were ten years ago.  Even as we near completion of an official memorial to victims in New York, celebrate the toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the capture and execution of Saddam Hussein, and the death of Osama bin Laden earlier this year at the hands of US special forces, we will always remember that day, the tragedy it brought to our entire nation, and those who have given their lives since to ensure that the freedoms on which this nation was established remain intact for future generations. 

In honor of this weekend, Story Corps preserves some of the voices of those affected by 9/11.

The event was an opportunity to share ideas for promoting sustainability within higher education and within the communities in which college campuses are situated.  The audience included members of the Jefferson County Commission, representatives of the Jefferson County Planning Commission, the Mayor and other officials from Ranson, WV, the President of Shepherd University, Dr. Suzanne Shipley, and other higher ed representatives from APUS and West Virginia University (WVU), and various representatives of the building and development industry.

Rather than provide a few introductory remarks, I chose to provide the audience with a history of the acquisition, renovation, and construction of the buildings comprising APUS’ Charles Town, WV campus as well as some of the other green initiatives implemented by the Sustainability Committee since 2007 (click here to see my presentation).  I explained that our pathway to green construction occurred over time as we could see the demonstrated benefit to the community, our employees, and our energy consumption.

Our first outside speaker was Mr. Ed McMahon who is a Senior Resident Fellow at the Urban Land Institute (ULI) in Washington, DC. In that role, he oversees ULI’s worldwide research and educational efforts related to environmentally sound development policies and practices.  He is considered an expert on the topics of sustainable development, land conservation, urban design, and historic preservation.  In beginning his presentation, Mr. McMahon stated that Sustainability is “about our children.”  According to Mr. McMahon, in order to preserve the environmental well-being of our planet for the benefit of our children, a systematic behavior change is required.  He noted that “Even though the number of people per household has decreased from 3.57 to 2.62 over the last 50 years, the amount of land that each individual home consumes has increased by nearly 60 percent.”  The same trend is seen in commercial space as well.  Though the behavior change that is required to reverse this trend of consumption can be daunting, Mr. McMahon presented several positive examples of environmentally sound development.  One example was the Solara housing project in California which is equipped with solar panels on each unit, reducing energy consumption in the community by 95 percent.  Walkable neighborhoods with close public transportation have also had a significant impact on the success of projects.  Whereas city centers and towns migrated from mixed use to commercial use over the past 100 years, Mr. McMahon noted that successful developments are going back to the mixed use profile in style in the first part of the 20th century.  He also noted for the developers in the audience that top tenants are demanding green buildings and that “no one wants to be known as the last person to build a non-green building.”  Mr. McMahon’s presentation provided some thought-provoking ideas and provided some feasible options for this type of environmentally-friendlier and sustainable development.

Attendees at the Summit also had the benefit of hearing from Dr. Clement Solomon, Director of the Office of Sustainability at West Virginia University.  WVU has a comprehensive and successful sustainability program and Dr. Solomon has made tremendous strides toward incorporating sustainability into all aspects of the university, from operations to academics and from athletics to   community engagement.  Dr. Solomon discussed the various strategies that he and his team have employed to effectively engage the key stakeholders (students, faculty, staff, alumni, community leaders, etc.) involved in making any sustainability initiative successful.  During Dr. Solomon’s presentation, he highlighted the need for prioritizing efforts and encouraged the audience to identify and “pick” low-hanging fruit, the initiatives that are low-cost and relatively easy to execute.  Dr. Solomon provided some very interesting statistics about sustainability (and its execution within higher education) but the one that struck me as most relevant for higher education was that “64% of students say knowing a school’s commitment to the environment would influence their decision to attend that school.”  That is a compelling reason for more traditional, land-based institutions of higher education to pay close attention to the “triple bottom line” (“people, planet, profit”) as they move forward.

To wrap up the day, Mr. Noah Mehrkam, Founder and Partner of Arcland Property Company, presented the ways in which colleges and universities can begin the process of undertaking environmentally sound development projects.  The key points in Mr. Mehrkam’s presentation included the need to identify the key stakeholders in any sustainable development project.  For colleges and universities, “relevant stakeholders” include the obvious groups (students, faculty, staff, alumni) but also the less obvious groups including local community members, local governments, and even local businesses.  In fact, Mr. Mehrkam noted that in many communities, sustainability is driven by a highly engaged local business.  According to him, socially-conscious businesses can bring focus to “developing the urban core” of a community in order to provide for a more environmentally friendly community plan.  Mr. Mehrkam was instrumental to the development of APUS’ first green building, a 45,000-square-foot Academic Center that is currently in the LEED certification process (we have applied for LEED Gold). 

Overall, the Sustainability Summit was a great success.  The outside speakers were top-notch and spoke directly to many of the key functions of the various audience members.  During breaks and over lunch, audience members mingled and these relevant “stakeholders” were able to share ideas with one another, network, and confirm their common goal of creating a more sustainable community within Jefferson County.  I want to thank Beth Gray and the Sustainability Committee members at APUS who organized this first Summit. 

Since APUS courses are offered wholly online with no time for face-to-face instruction, we developed a number of math instructional videos using Camtasia tablet software and embedded them in our classrooms to supplement the instructional materials.  Later, we decided to make our math videos available to everyone on our American Public University iTunesU site  and our APUS Youtube channel.  Comments to the individual videos, primarily in the form of thank you’s, demonstrate the usefulness and the need for technology like this.  More recently, we partnered with McDonogh School to establish a website, www.campusmath.com, to offer primarily math videos to the public for an elementary school through high school curriculum.  While I can’t speak on behalf of McDonogh School, I think that both of our institutions are aligned with the belief that math skills need to be improved and providing access to these videos to teachers, students, and parents may contribute to improved skills without providing the teachers and professors inside of a physical or electronic classroom.

The article about the Khan Academy in Wired mentions a teacher at Santa Rita Elementary in California who uses the videos from the Khan Academy to replace some of her lectures and then spends more time in class working on problem sets.  Teachers using the Khan Academy videos and problem sets have access to a dashboard that lets them see exactly where the student is stuck on a particular concept or problem.  Increasing the amount of time spent in class solving problem sets provides the teacher with more one-on-one time with the students who need assistance.  Contributing Editor Clive Thompson mentions the 1984 Benjamin Bloom metastudy that measured the effectiveness of one-on-one tutoring versus general classroom instruction (two standard deviations more effective for one-on-one instruction).  Obviously, schools cannot afford to teach everyone one-on-one but technology is capable of assisting teachers and students to improve learning outcomes.  What prompted Khan to record his videos was the discovery that viewing videos over and over again in private is less embarrassing for the student than admitting in a one-on-one session that they still don’t understand the material.  Judging from the comments posted by students on our Youtube videos, Khan’s discovery is on track.

Based on the increasing frequency of its use in the classroom, technology continues to advance at a pace faster than the implementation capabilities of many of America’s K-12 schools, colleges, and universities.  At the same time, there are a number of educational innovators who are willing to experiment.  As Clayton Christensen points out in Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns, technology will ultimately provide educators with the ability to teach students with multiple learning modalities the intended lessons without impeding the highly talented individuals from learning more.  It is my hope that few institutions and regulators impede the innovation process.  (To read my review of Christensen’s Disrupting Class, see my August 2008 blog article.)

In an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, I read about the eduMOOC 2011 being hosted by the University of Illinois at Springfield, but at the time of Professor Couros’ keynote address, the course had not started.  However, Couros stimulated my interest in MOOCs by inviting all 900 conference participants to register for a MOOC at his university entitled EC&I 831: Social Media and Education.  According to Couros, the MOOC is free unless you want to take it for academic credit AND the course is dependent upon having the non-credit-seeking students attend.  I attempted to register immediately for Couros’ course, but registrations are closed until August.

Meanwhile, I conducted a little research on MOOCs.  Probably some of the best information can be obtained from YouTube videos assembled by Dave Cormier and his associates at the University of Prince Edward Island.  In “What is a MOOC?,” Cormier argues that a MOOC is a response to a world with information overload.  It is a course with facilitators, materials, and participants.  It is “an event in which people who care about a topic get together to talk about it.”  Participants make connections between ideas, materials, and the facilitators and participants.  The course is part of a way of building learning by creating networks that enable the participants to increase their lifelong learning.  Cormier’s “Success in a MOOC” video provides five key points for participants in a MOOC to keep in mind.  My favorite is the last one, focus.  Given that the idea of the MOOC, according to Cormier, is to facilitate a learning network in a world with information overload, it seems that participating in a MOOC with as many as 3,000 participants might contribute to that overload without a specific focus by the participant.

While I have not yet participated in a MOOC, the concept and the possibilities stimulate many ideas.  Formal online learning has enabled universities like APUS to bring together faculty with theoretical and practical experience and students who either have an interest in a field of study or practical experience in that field or profession.  Distance is not an issue.  MOOCs seize on the advantages of technology, the internet, and social media.  For a MOOC to be successful, the facilitators want as many knowledgeable people as possible to facilitate and participate.   My guess is that Alec Couros invites every participant at every conference he attends to sign up for EC&I 831.  While the conversion rate isn’t as important as it might be if you paid for advertising, the level of enthusiasm for the participants will undoubtedly be high given the topic and the currency of the material.

I can see the possibilities for MOOCs to expand beyond higher education to include associations, clubs, corporations, municipalities, etc.  If the concept is to provide an “event” to discuss a topic in which people get together and talk in an instructional way, the opportunities abound for learning, networking, and collaboration with people with the same interests.  As I mentioned earlier, I intend to enroll in EC&I 831 but I might take a peek at the eduMOOC 2011 course as well.  It appears that enrollment is still open even though the course has begun.  Let me know if you have experience with a MOOC as a facilitator or as a participant.

APUS recently completed the newest addition to its Charles Town campus – a 44,000 square foot, state-of-the-art green building which is anticipated to receive LEED certification later this year.  The building features solar panels, low VOC paints and finishes, a reflective roof, a variable flow HVAC refrigerant system, and double hung windows designed to reflect ultraviolet rays, to name only a few of the elements that make the building green.  All furniture in the building was either made or purchased within 500 miles of the site and the building sits atop a restored Brownfields site.  To see more information about the specific elements of the building that make it green, take a look at the article published on the APUS Sustainability Committee blog when the ribbon cutting for the building was held.

As I think of the commitment to sustainability made by the now 677 signatories of the ACUPCC, I am proud that APUS is a charter member.  The initiatives are important if the member colleges and universities can call attention to the benefits of being environmentally conscious.

Years ago, people used to hang freshly washed clothes on a clothes line in their backyard to dry in the air, not in an energy guzzling machine.  They walked distances to visit friends instead of climbing into inefficient vehicles to travel just a few blocks.  Mowing the lawn used to require some muscle and energy from the individual mowing; now we use lawn mowers powered by fossil fuels that can move with little to no effort from the individual.  Children played outside instead of sitting in front of one of several televisions in their homes all day.  Individuals who wanted to improve their health took a walk outside; they did not spend money on expensive gym memberships to run indoors on electric powered treadmills.  Corporations, on the other hand, were not so green, choosing to consume energy as long as it was cheap.

The irony in all of this is that our parents were “green” without even thinking about it.  Today not only do we have to consciously think of how to “go green,” we expend tremendous resources to get there.  In all of the examples above, energy was expended by the individual, not the machine, which is at least one reason why we are now a nation of overweight individuals.  Our lives have become so accustomed to leisure that we think nothing of the practices that are now commonplace (including using dryers, gasoline-powered lawn mowers, and watching television for hours on end, to name only a few).  Many corporations and universities have watched the cost of energy increase as well as the cost to society for an ignorant approach to the merits of conserving energy, recycling, and practicing good stewardship with our environment.

I am happy that many Americans are taking measures to implement greener practices in our daily lives, at our places of employment, and requiring such practices of the companies whose products we purchase.  Taking a walk outside may be helpful to our waistlines as well as the environment.  Given the increased levels of stress, it may also be helpful to our mental health.  Having healthier employees benefits companies/universities in many ways from better attendance through fewer sick days to lower health insurance costs.  In later years, these practices benefit our country through lower Medicare and Medicaid costs for the elderly.  Reducing carbon and other emissions also reduces the incidents of asthma and other respiratory diseases in the young and the elderly.

While our topics were organized under the headings of Distance Education and Technology in Education, they were not limited to higher education and thus, some of the presenters had topics that related to K-12, language training, and teacher training.  What amazed me about this year’s conference is that most of the presenters in our segments were from traditional educational institutions.  At APUS we embrace technology as it is the platform that serves as the foundation for our campus.  Because of that, we usually present at conferences with distance education or technology as the theme.  With themes of lectures at this conference ranging from training traditional college professors to build and teach in an online class, teaching fractions to fifth graders using a smartphone app, and using Twitter as a means of engaging students outside the traditional classroom, the other presenters represented a segment of educators that I have generally not seen at the more technical conferences.

Education is criticized for its slow rate of change.  While some of us have been utilizing technology to deliver instruction online for nearly 20 years, perhaps 2011 is the year we will look back and see a significant increase in the adoption of technology to enhance traditional K-12 and Higher Education instruction and learning.  In Disrupting Class, Clayton Christensen and his co-authors predict that 25 percent of high school classes will be online by 2014 and half by 2019.  Until this past week, I did not think that their prediction had a chance of being correct.  Today, I am much more optimistic.

Mr. Holmes’ blog will provide a forum in which he can share the information related to the construction of the building, the LEED elements of the building, and will even include a webcam to show real-time construction development.  In documenting the progress of this construction, Mr. Holmes will touch on issues related to “environmental policy; sustainable development; natural resource utilization; and responsible, community-oriented growth.”

APUS is a charter signatory to the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) and has committed itself to “greening” our operations and helping develop the leaders this country will need to evaluate the many complex issues regarding the environment.  As institutions of higher education begin to realize the need for educating tomorrow’s leaders about environmental issues, many have begun incorporating sustainability into their curriculums in a variety of ways.  I was impressed when Dr. Pollio discussed Mr. Holmes’ concepts for this project, and I believe it will be the first of many ways in which APUS’s faculty and students will integrate issues of sustainability into the curriculum. 

I encourage you to follow Mr. Holmes’ blog as he documents the construction of APUS’ LEED building.  I am sure that he will welcome suggestions as well.

John Brown was an American abolitionist born in Connecticut.  After an unsuccessful attempt at becoming a Congregationalist minister, Brown married Dianthe Lusk and moved to New Richmond, Pennsylvania where he opened a tannery, a venture that became quite successful for the family.  In 1832, following complications from the birth of Brown’s seventh child, his wife, Dianthe, died.  Soon after, however, Brown married sixteen-year-old Mary Ann Day with whom he had an additional 13 children. 

Brown was always an enthusiastic supporter of the anti-slavery movement.  After learning of the death of Elijah P. Lovejoy in 1837, Brown spoke the following words which would serve as a theme for the rest of his life: “’Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, from this time, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery!’”  In 1848, Brown moved his growing family to North Elba, New York to settle among poor black families who were being granted land by abolitionist Gerrit Smith.  Though he purchased land and built a home, he spent little time there.  When some of his adult sons who were in the Kansas Territory told Brown in 1855 of militant pro-slavery forces taking root there, Brown left his home in New York and traveled to meet them to oppose these forces and the institution of slavery in general.

While in Kansas, Brown led a group of men, including several of his adult sons, on a raid of Lawrence, Kansas after pro-slavery forces sacked the town.  The raid in May 1856, known as the Pottawatomie Massacre, ended in the death of five pro-slavery settlers in Franklin County, Kansas.  Though Kansas remained a slave state after John Brown’s raid, Brown did not give up his support for the anti-slavery movement.  Upon returning to New York in 1856, Brown traveled through New England attempting to garner support and funds for his cause.  Prominent supporters of Brown included William Lloyd Garrison, Samuel Gridley Howe, Frederick Douglass, and Henry David Thoreau. 

After several years of seeking support and funds, Brown returned to his New York home in 1859 to say farewell to his family before heading to Harpers Ferry.  By July 1859, Brown arrived in Harpers Ferry and under the alias Isaac Smith rented a farmhouse four miles away in Maryland.  There he awaited the arrival of those he had attempted to recruit during his travels through New England and was eventually disappointed that they did not show up in the numbers he had anticipated.  Indeed, upon revealing his plans to raid the Federal Armory at Harpers Ferry to several of his supporters, those supporters (including Frederick Douglass) expressed reservations about the plan and discouraged others from joining Brown’s effort.  After receiving promises of support from hundreds of men, only 21 showed up at Brown’s rented farm in Maryland.  Even with these small numbers, Brown was determined to push forward with his mission.

On October 16, 1859, Brown led 19 of these men to Harpers Ferry where they implemented their plan to raid and take possession of the Armory at Harpers Ferry.  The Armory contained approximately 10,000 muskets and rifles. Brown’s plan was to distribute them to local slaves until all of Virginia’s slaves were armed in rebellion against their masters and the institution of slavery as a whole. 

When the group of 20 men, including Brown, entered Harpers Ferry, they met little resistance from the townspeople and quickly took possession of the Armory as only one guard was defending it.  Brown’s plan started to go awry when an eastbound train began to approach the town.  One of Brown’s men fired on the train and the baggage master, ironically a free black man named Hayward Shepherd, became the first casualty of the assault.  After the death of Shepherd, Brown allowed the train to continue on its path.  That proved to be a critical mistake.  Through the train’s passengers and conductor, word of the raid reached Washington only hours later.  In the meantime, Brown’s men were coming under fire by local forces who had taken up positions in the hills and mountains surrounding the town.  By the morning of October 18, President James Buchanan had ordered a company of US Marines, led by Colonel Robert E. Lee to proceed to Harper’s Ferry.  Lee quickly surrounded Brown’s men in the engine house where they had moved after their escape had been cut off by local militia.  Lee sent Lt. J.E.B. Stuart to negotiate with Brown and tell him that their lives would be spared if they surrendered.  Brown’s refusal to surrender triggered a signal from Stuart and the Marines stormed the fort. Within minutes, Brown and his surviving men were in custody.  Ten of Brown’s men were killed in the fight, including two of his sons, and five escaped.  Brown sustained serious wounds during the battle and the seven other men who were captured with him were questioned for hours by authorities.  In a political twist due to the tension between the slavery and anti-slavery states, Virginia Governor Henry Wise insisted that Brown and his men be tried in Virginia even though the Armory was technically federal property. 

Brown was charged with murdering four whites and one black man as well as conspiring with slaves to rebel and treason against Virginia.  The trial of Brown and his men began in Charles Town on October 27 and lasted just over a week.  John Brown did not have counsel for much of the trial and was appointed several local attorneys to serve as counsel until his personal attorney could arrive from Boston, Massachusetts.  On November 2, 1859, despite the efforts of his team of attorneys, Brown was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to be hanged in public on December 2.  During the last month of his life, Brown was housed in the jail in Charles Town.  Also, during that last month, actor John Wilkes Booth (Abraham Lincoln’s assassin) performed orations from a meeting house in town.  Interestingly, one of Brown’s colleagues, Silas Soule,  managed to infiltrate the jail and intended to rescue Brown.  Brown refused and told Soule that he was prepared to die as a martyr.  Cadets from the Virginia Military Institute were sent to guard the execution site in case any of Brown’s supporters attempted to rescue him.  Among the three faculty members leading the VMI cadets was Major Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson.  On December 2, Brown is reported to have read his Bible and written a letter to his wife which included his will.  At 11:00 am that morning, he was escorted from the jail.  Brown refused any religious services both in the jail and at the scaffold since he had consistently rejected the ministrations of pro-slavery clergy throughout his life.  At 11:15 am, Brown was hanged and was pronounced dead at 11:50 am.  His body was placed in a wooden coffin with the noose still around his neck and returned to North Elba, New York where he was buried next to two of his sons who died at Harpers Ferry. 

Brown’s legacy has remained a controversial one.  Some historians note that even though Brown at times alluded to his hope to end slavery without much bloodshed, his raid spilled the blood of innocent people.  Others see Brown as one of the most steadfast abolitionists of the time and commend him for his efforts.  Undoubtedly, his raid and trial accelerated the path of the Civil War that erupted between the states.  During the war, the most popular song sung by Union troops was John Brown’s Body.  The melody of that song was later used for the song The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Today marks the 150 year anniversary of the conclusion of John Brown’s trial.  The National Park service held a series of events in Harpers Ferry in October and the Jefferson County Historical Society is having its fall meeting on November 7 at 2:00 pm on the lower level of the Old Charles Town Library on the corner of Washington and Samuel Streets.  At that meeting, local author and JCHS Board member, Bob O’Conner, will give a presentation titled, “Charlestown’s Role in the John Brown Events of 1859.”  I encourage anyone who can attend to do so since I am sure it will be informative and worthwhile. 

Below is a photo gallery with images that relate to John Brown’s trial.  Interestingly, the home of former Mayor and John Brown defense counsel Thomas Green has been restored by APUS and is now used as a conference center.

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The Ralph E. Gomory Award is named for Dr. Ralph E. Gomory, President Emeritus of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.  Dr. Gomory has had an illustrious career that includes Chairman of IBM Research’s Mathematical Sciences Department from 1965-67 and eventually IBM’s Senior Vice President for Science and Technology, the position from which he retired from IBM in 1989.  After his tenure at IBM, Dr. Gomory became President of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation where he became a pioneer in the field of online education.  Dr. Gomory has served as a Trustee of Hampshire College (1977-1986) and of Princeton University (1985-1989).  He served as a board member of the Washington Post Company.  He also served on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) from 1984 until 1992.  In 2007, after nearly two decades as President of the Sloan Foundation, Dr. Gomory became President Emeritus and continues to play an integral role in the development and improvement of online learning programs.

APUS’ assessment mechanisms are among the most well-developed in the country.  Since 2004, we have publicly posted our outcome assessment results on our website.  Our Learning Outcomes Assessment process, for example, produces invaluable feedback to academic programs on the performance of educational processes so that each program may continue to improve the quality of the APUS experience for each of our more than 50,000 students.  Through the process, APUS is able to gauge what students are learning and continuously improve on the student learning environment through enhanced courses and academic programs.

APUS uses five questions outlined by the Higher Learning Commission in 2005 to guide the learning outcomes assessment process:
• How are your student learning outcomes appropriate to your mission, program, and degrees?
• What evidence do you have that students achieve your stated learning outcomes?
• In what ways do you analyze and use evidence of student learning?
• How do you ensure shared responsibility for assessment of student learning?
• How do you evaluate and improve the effectiveness of your efforts to assess and improve student learning?

APUS utilizes two tests that various students must take depending on their program level and field of study.  The Measure of Academic Proficiency and Progress (MAPP) test serves as an evaluation of overall academic knowledge and skill.  All undergraduate students at APUS must complete the MAPP test during their senior year.  APUS examines student scores on the Major Field Test (MFT) as the second component to its Learning Outcomes Assessment process.  The MFT is a subject-specific test that examines the student’s basic knowledge and understanding of the core curriculum in specific disciplines.  In addition to completing the MAPP test, undergraduate students in the fields of Business Administration, Criminal Justice, History, English, Political Science, Psychology, and Sociology will complete the MFT.  Graduate students seeking the Master of Business Administration degree also complete the MFT. 

APUS has grown substantially in less than two decades because of its continuing goal of improving the quality and outcomes of the learning experience for its students.  APUS is dedicated to providing access to respected programs at an affordable price, tenants that many policymakers have recently embraced.    Through evaluative processes like our Learning Outcomes Assessment, we have been able to continually improve our programs.  I will be in Orlando today with several other APUS deans, faculty and staff to receive this distinguished award.  I am very proud of receiving this recognition and am even prouder of the countless hours spent by our faculty and staff in measuring, monitoring, evaluating, and implementing improvements in online learning for our students.

One of the tangible actions to which APUS committed when I signed the American College and University Presidents Climate Commitment (ACUPCC) in September 2007 was a policy of building all new campus construction projects to LEED Silver standards.  The newest addition to the APUS Charles Town campus will meet or exceed those standards.  Environmentally friendly elements of the building will include solar panels on the roof which should provide some 30 percent of the building’s energy needs, bike racks to encourage employees to cut down on commuting by car, parking spaces for energy-efficient vehicles, highly efficient insulation and windows, a modern variable refrigerant HVAC system, and lighting controls to manage energy use, to name only a few.

As APUS has expanded its campus to house a growing staff tasked with accommodating the needs of our increasing student body, we have remained mindful of our responsibility to our Charles Town neighbors as well as our environment.  The new building will blend old and new, traditional and modern in an attempt to keep it similar in character to the historic nature of Charles Town’s other buildings, most of which were constructed in the 1800’s and early 1900’s. 

Joining me at Thursday’s groundbreaking ceremony in addition to APUS staff were various members of the local Charles Town community as well as several state representatives.  David Lloyd, Director of the EPA’s Office of Brownfields and Land Revitalization, was also in attendance and expressed his approval of the planned construction and use of the brownfields site for this purpose.

Please see below for a photo gallery of images from the ground breaking event.

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