The University of Massachusetts at Amherst is home to University Without Walls, a degree completion and continuing education program that uses the resources of the 147-year-old UMASS institution to offer individualized adult education. The UWW program provides hybrid and online courses for students with life and work experience who wish to complete a B.A. or B.S. degree from a well-established, accredited university.
Degree Completion Programs for Adult Learners at UWW
UWW started in 1971 as part of the national "University Without Walls" movement, with a focus on "increasing access to education and reducing barriers to educational achievement," notes Melanie DeSilva, UWW's Marketing and Recruitment Manager. "The student body in this degree completion program for adult learners is diverse across racial, ethnic, and income categories, and nearly 70% of those enrolled are women."
As senior faculty member and former director of UWW Cynthia Suopis explains, "students in the UWW program may include "presidents of corporations to folks working in homeless shelters to folks doing adult literacy work to folks doing health promotion. We just have a range and they all come together in the classroom and they all learn from one another."
College Credit for Work and Life Experience
The UWW program offers college credit for life and work experience. Students can earn up to 30 credits through this process, but the UWW procedure for this evaluation is very different from that of other universities.
Suopis says, "We don't just look at a resume and say 'Oh, you've been a vice president of an organization or you've taught in a preschool for five years, here's X amount of credits.' No, we put you through some very rigorous paces to have you write a document which we refer to affectionately as 'the portfolio.'"
Students describe not what they have done, but rather what they have learned. Critical thinking and research skills are key to completing the portfolio to help accelerate a student's degree completion path. Staff and faculty find that the process is transformational for adult learners returning to college.
Interim Director and Senior Lecturer Ingrid Bracey concurs. "It gives students confidence to go on to graduate school, and oftentimes they come and they haven't really made a decision to go to graduate school just yet," she says. "But by the time they're finished with our courses, that confidence level is like yeah high (gestures). Many UWW students finish the portfolio and think, 'if I can do this, I can do graduate school.'"
Non-traditional Students at UWW and Graduate School After Graduation
Current UWW student Deborah Sprague of New York, NY experienced this firsthand when choosing a degree completion program last year. "For me, going back to school is something that I had done off and on again while raising two active boys and working full time but was not consistent because I had a hard time fitting it in," she says.
"[UWW] met all my criteria and once I dug a little deeper I realized that I was going to be further along in my degree program than expected - especially considering that I would be eligible for getting credit from my work/volunteer experience through completing my prior learning portfolio.
Sprague, like half her classmates, plans to attend graduate school when she completes the UWW degree.