Year that goes to support faculty and also scholarship support and other things. And those are things, i think institutions have to look at, is to come up with creative ways that fund the operation of the university thats not on the backs of students by imp si increasing tuition every year. Those are the kinds of things we need to do. Diversity to us is on every single dimension. It means that we have a diver diversity of income backgrounds of our students. It means that we have a diversity of representations of underrepresented minorities. It mean wes have a diversity of our age of the students that are here and a diversity of the countries that our students come from. So theres probably not a dimension that we dont look at, when it comes to diversity. Because we believe that the exposure of our students to this kind of a diverse culture within this university can only be beneficial in the longterm when they leaf the university. We achieve it simply by working hard to recruit and find students that we can help us accomplish this. Mr. Steinmetz, we want to thank you for your time and everybody at ohio state university. Thank you very much. Well, thank you for having me on here today, greta. I appreciate it. More now of cspans interviews with University President s and the big ten. This Edition Features university of maryland president wallace lowe, its about 40 minutes. Today we are continuing with our monthlong series of interviews with University President s in conjunction with cspan busses, this morning cspan is on the campus of university of maryland in college, maryland, its about nine miles from washington, d. C. And joining us is University President wallace lowe. Let me begin with the headline thats in the newspapers this morning, its that s. A. T. Scores raise worry about college readiness. What are you finding on this, president lowe . Are High School Students ready for college . Well, good morning, greta and welcome to university of maryland. Glad that our neighbors here in the nations capital. I think whats important to know about standardized tests such as the s. A. T. Is that they are a predictor of college success, but theyre not the most important predictor, what we have found is that High School Grades and the types of courses that they take are a much more significant predictor of college success. When we admit students, we look at a whole variety of factors in deciding an admission, not solely and not priorly on test scores even though the test scores of our students coming to the university of maryland are very high. Has that happened over the years . Has that been the trend that youve looked less and less at s. A. T. Scores . Well, i think people in the business of admissions, educational psychologists always have known that the principle predictor of success are the courses youve taken and how well youve done in high school. And the s. A. T. Compliments it. So, therefore i dont know if any school that relies primarily or significantly on test scores. What about diversity . The state of maryland is 30 africanamerican, the university of maryland is 15 asian, 12 africanamerican, 8 hispanic, 55 white. How do you go about trying to obtain diversity . Well, we have a very diverse student body. Our diversity of the entering freshman class is 40 . Historically its been 42 . People of color were around 10 . Today, of course, because of immigration the demographic is changing. Thats great challenges for Higher Education, how to expand access to people from minority groups, many of whom may come from lower income and are less prepared for college. So, president loh, how are you going about doing that, then . Is diversity a larger criteria for admissions . Sit one of approximately 24 criteria we look at. Its holistic assessment of the individual. The way we do it is we aggressively go out and recruit. We go to high schools. We go to Different Community groups to encourage, talented, young, minority students to come. We have summer programs for them, College Preparatory programs. Its an aggressive process of expanding the pipeline and also providing precollege experiences so that when they come to college they are better prepared. We are talking with the president of the university of maryland, wallace loh as part of cspan buses college tour. Higher education is your topic this morning. You dont have to have any ties to the university of maryland. We want to take your comments, concerns, questions about Higher Education. Students dial in at 2025853880 and educators, 2025853882 and residents, 2025853883. You have a b. A. From grenell college, m. A. From cornell, graduate study from school in belgium, ph. D. In psychology from michigan and j. D. From yale law school. What has that taught you about Higher Education, that experience . What do you think it brings to the table for you . Well, i think education is the great equalizer of conditions in the democracy. When people ask what do educators do, i say were in the mortality business. Were in the business of transforming peoples lives. And opening opportunities for them. And at the same time, making a difference on the major issues of the day by our research and our educational efforts. And this impact, you know, extends beyond the current generation, goes to the next generation, so educators have an impact that lasts through well, eternity. In that sense were in the immortality business. Its one of the most fundamental functions and one of the highest callings that one can have. Lets talk about the university of maryland, specifically. You are nine miles from washington, d. C. How does the University Take advantage of your proximity to federal government, the agencies here . Well, washington has the second highest number of College Students or collegeaged students after boston. Its an Incredible Opportunity in terms of cultural opportunities n terms of interships for the students in federal agencies and for the faculty in terms of verj, we partner with federal agencies, with federal labs. Were surrounded by intelligence and military establishments. So we do joint research. We have contracts with them. So, the opportunities are immense and i think the university of maryland would not be the institution it is if it were not 8 miles from the heart of the nations capital. You have federal grants and contracts worth 310 million at the university of maryland. What type of contracts do you have with the federal government . Well, its actually 500 million and its in all sorts of areas. For example, with nasa goddard, we are engaged with them unmanned space flight. With the cybersecurity with Homeland Security and intelligence agencies we are extremely strong in cybersecurity and just got a huge grant from nist. Were working on Global Climate change. Noah is present on our campus. We have the largest concentration of earth scientists in the world. In fact, right here in college park and the surrounding area, we are very, very strong because of our ties with the federal government in the area of the advanced study of languages. Talking about very es sew tearic, strategically important languages like chinese, arabic. We have a major con sur shum with other universities on the study of terrorism. All of them have something to do with National Security, with economy and it is very closely tied therefore to the agencies of the federal government. If a student is interested in National Security, what sort of majors does the university of maryland offer . Well, areas of National Security interests, of course, go beyond National Security itself. Thats why we have expertise in language, we have flagship language programs, very strong in cybersecurity, one of our strengths, particular strengths are science and technology. Because of the enormous demand for people in stem fields in order to maintain our supremacy, our National Supremacy in science and technology is the seed corn for innovation and for job creation for economic vitality. We are also very strong in the performing arts. So, we are a comprehensive university. The access to the federal government and federal agencies in partnership with other academic institutions is that it broadly extends the opportunity for education for our students a staff. What is the National SecurityHigher EducationAdvisory Board . Im sorry. I dont know what it is. Its well i do know that there are lots of go ahead. Im sorry. Go ahead. I was just beginning to share im not familiar with that particular Advisory Board. Okay. Created and operated by the fib in 2005. Its a panel of approximately 20 University President s and chancellors, meets collectively at least three times a year in d. C. And consults with federal agencies responsible for Law Enforcement intelligence, terrorism and Homeland Security. Im wondering what does the federal government get out of partnering with a school like the university of maryland . Whats the attraction there for the federal government . Whether its the National Security issue or cybersecurity, et cetera . Well, its a partnership by the way, i know remember this fbi group of which i do not belong but i chaired for a couple years the Homeland SecurityAdvisory Committee appointed by dan secretary napolitano dealing with issues of the Homeland Security. And it had a number of president s of universities on that panel. So the kinds of things that the federal government gets is, number one, joint research. Number two, graduates who can move directly into the work force. Number three, doing outreach projects together. In other words, the federal government needs partners, just like we need partners with the federal government because we combine our resources. And if you take, for example, the center for the study of terrorism, we are the lead university but we have 25 other universities in this country and abroad who are working together to study issues having to do with terrorism. The same thing is true for our advanced study of languages, which is funded by defense and intelligence agencies. And in the area of cybersecurity, our latest grant from nist, which is with the private sector, with the other institutions from the university of maryland, setting up standards and protocols for cybersecurity. And this is a grant that is renewable every five years for up to 25 years with a total maximum with as high as Something Like 3 billion. So the federal government needs the universities. It needs to bring in the private sector as well. And all three together it takes a team. It takes a village to address these very complex, very large and very costly issues that face the nation. Were talking about Higher Education with the president of the university of maryland, wallace loh. We have a number of phone lines open. Dial in with your questions and concerns. Well begin with adam. Hi, adam. Caller hey. I wanted to ask two questions. The first question has to do with what things are being put in place for students that are nontraditional students . You know, i personally i have to work fulltime. I have a family. And its exceptionally hard to maintain fulltime school status. Unfortunately theres a lot of things that graduate schools are even dr medical schools and things like that are looking for as far as programs that people are involved in within the school, but i just dont have the time there and im matched up against these other students that do have all these other extracurricular activities. What kind of things are being done at the university of maryland to help those nontraditional students that are trying to go back . And the second question is on the focus of cybersecurity. My actual account has been hacked in the past and im just wondering what are schools and universities doing to step in and warn students about these cyberattacks where people are having access to their Financial Aid material, their student ids and can really cause havoc . Okay. Okay. On your first issues what about nontraditional students, students who are not the traditional 18 to 23 year age range, i think because knowledge is expanding so quickly that people will have several careers during the course of a life time of working, learning has become lifelong learning. So indeed university of maryland as many other schools are addressing the needs of not only traditional age students but lifelong learners. Crafting special programs for them. One specific thing that i think is worth mentioning is the increasing prevalence of Online Education and the uses of blended education together with Online Education. And the technology of Online Education is nothing compared to what it was ten years ago. This could well be a game changer in Higher Education. It may well be i dont know if it will address the issue which i call the holy grail which is how to educate more students of all ages, how to educate them better and how to educate them more cheaply. That is in fact the 64,000 question and i think that combining Online Education with as personalized education, adaptive software, data and analystics to personalize education, to fit the needs of a particular individual, i think that is partly the future of Higher Education. Especially for millennials who are always on their they have internetmolded brains. So hightech, hightouch is the future and i think that is an integral part of addressing the needs of nontraditional students. With regard to cybersecurity, that is a very major issue facing the country. It is not only an economic issue, its also a National Security issue. I think, for example, university of maryland, we have a about 50,000 attempted penetrations and that is found i think at most other institutions as well. So the solution is you have to identify all your sensitive information. After you identify who wr it is, aphthouses of thousands computers logged into our network, you identify it. Then you isolate it by building defenses around it. Then you incrypt it and also want to detect penetration at the boundaries of your network. And all of that is very costly, but its not only about a matter of technical fixes, it is also about the changing the culture of how we approach cybersecurity, namely pretty much has to a be a top down. You cannot have different departments having their own email systems. You cannot have individual people having their own websites that are not centrally monitored for purposes of security. So, it is a very complex issue. Its a multibillion issue in terms of threats to the American Economy and of course also to american security. Lets go to matthew, mansfield, pennsylvania, student. Caller hi. Thanks for taking my call. I would like to ask mr. Loh how he reconciles the phenomenon of mid to highlevel sixfigure salaries for College Administrators while over 76 76 , according to npr, of College Professors work as parttime adjunctions make one to 5,000 per course which they have to cobble together over every semester to get some kind of minimum wage level salary for themselves while they teach the students who are graduating with an average now of close to 30,000 of student debt. How does that shake out for you economically and morally, mr. Loh . Well, i think youre raising several very important questions. Thank you for asking it. Let me address first the issue of student debt, the rising debt nationally its around 30,000. And the reason it is rising and the reason it is becoming an issue of national concern, making it very unaffordable is because state funding has gone down accordingly. That is to say that, what were seeing here is a reflection of political and economic changes. To the extent that were a nation that now is drifting towards smaller government, lower taxes, there is less funding available for Higher Education and the expectation is therefore that students have to pay a larger share. So this is a shift in a fundamental philosophical approach to education. Is Public Education a public good that serves all of society or is it primarily a private good that serves only those who are benefitting from it . Now the state of maryland is fortunate that our tuition is relatively low. At approximately tuition and fees approximately 9,400, which is about 4,000 dollars less than the medium of your peer institutions. And the reason its lower is because our state appropriations are relatively high. It is approximately 12 i think 12,500 or so, so the total cost of education in the state of maryland is around 22,000. Of which 40 is paid by the student, 60 is paid by the state. That is very different than the rest of the country where its the ratio is reversed. That the proportion paid by the student is much higher than the proportion paid by the state. That is a fundamental issue and reflects, of course, political, economic and philosophical trend. With regard to the number of adjunct faculty, we have approximately around 4,000 faculty, about 1,500 of them are under tenure track, the rest are primarily full Time Research faculty, visiting faculty, lecturers. Yes, we have faculty members that come to teach about 3 to 4,000 a course. Most of them tend