Global Campus

They may never see their alma mater, and her football games come out of the radio. But last week more than 13,000 University of Maryland undergraduates began a new semester as eagerly as if they were back in College Park. Their campus is global, stretching from frigid Thule in Greenland to burning Dhahran on the Persian Gulf. Stationed at U.S. bases around the world, the students are members of Maryland's booming Overseas Program for American servicemen. Just ten years old, the program may be having as much impact on U.S. education as the invention of the junior college.

It started with Maryland's extension courses for military students in the Washington area. When many students were shipped to Germany in 1949, Maryland professors followed them, setting up six centers to serve an unexpected crush of 1,851 applicants. Enrollment grew and grew. At 204 centers in 23 countries, more than 130,000 G.I.s and dependents have now been through the Maryland mill. (Up to 75% of a G.I.'s tuition is paid by the armed forces.)

Since most students aim to build up credit for Stateside colleges, only 500 have actually graduated. But more graduates are on the way. Maryland conducts full-scale commencements in Heidelberg (and Tokyo), with caps and gowns, a heady speech by the Governor of Maryland.

For its 500-man overseas faculty, Maryland hires at least 100 new teachers annually. Most are professors on leaves or sabbaticals, lured by adventure or a chance for research. Little else draws them: families-in-residence are discouraged and classes follow the troops. During his year in the program, a lecturer (the same title for all) can end up teaching in four or five countries. In his ten years, the program's Dean Ray Ehrensberger has flown almost a million miles.

Average age of the students is close to 37. Attending class at night, they can earn only about 15 credit hours a year (half the normal rate), and the consequences of cutting class are clear. One jet pilot, forced to eject over Newfoundland, landed in bush so wild that a helicopter had to haul him out. All he could think of was getting back for his class. He made it. "Our students may not all be brilliant," says Dean Ehrensberger, "but they sure are motivated."

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