Charles Street Chats: Q&A with Ralph O. Mueller
BEHIND THE CHAT
Order: caffè latte
Location: Starbucks
Distance from campus: 0.2 miles
Ralph O. Mueller joined The University of Baltimore as senior vice president for academic affairs and provost in summer 2023. He brings decades of experience in higher education at various research and comprehensive institutions including ones in Washington, D.C., Indiana, Connecticut, and most recently, New York state. At UBalt, his priorities include programmatic innovation, student success, and institutional identity.
Q: Describe a time in your personal or professional life that shaped the trajectory of your career and ultimately helped you end up where you are today.
A: There are two periods. One is, as a teenager, I remember earning pocket money through peer tutoring. That apparently worked well: Parents were willing to give me all sorts of money for teaching and helping their kids. That’s where I learned my passion for teaching and education.
The other was decades later at George Washington University, a research-intensive institution. I had just gotten promoted to professor. I was looking at my publications and thought, ‘Good job, Ralph’ [laughs]. But what do these really all translate to? In other words, do they touch the people that we need to reach with higher education? And it turned out that they didn’t, in any direct way. I ended up thinking, why don’t I work at institutions that are more applied in nature, that have a focus on social mobility, career readiness? Institutions like UBalt. So, those two things: peer tutoring and the realization that a research institution might not be where I want to spend my whole career.
Q: What about UBalt made you want to be part of this community and how can you make the impact you want to have here?
A: Higher education is at an inflection point. The public questions the value of higher education right now. The central structure of universities has not changed in hundreds of years. One of my priorities, programmatic innovation, is geared toward thinking about ourselves not just in disciplinary silos, but we need to think across disciplines.
From a consumer point of view, the student that is going into a career and is going to take a leadership position needs to be able to look at a particular problem from multiple perspectives, for example, from a historical point of view, from a political point of view, or from a scientific point of view. We need to find ways of bringing traditional disciplines together and imparting that to students. The University of Baltimore, with a focus on career-readiness and graduate-level education, is ideally situated to articulate its value proposition from multidisciplinary perspectives focused on social mobility. The University of Baltimore—now a PBI, a Predominantly Black Institution—is for Baltimore, serving the city’s diverse populations at a central location in downtown, right across the street from Penn Station.
WATCH: Ralph highlights the value of higher education
Q: If you had an opportunity to build an institution, in your vision from scratch, what do you feel is the most important attribute to include for its success?
A: Throughout history, we have had a somewhat elitist approach to higher education; we erect a barrier that asks: Are you, the student, ready? Are you prepared to come to the university?
But what we need to do at this inflection point for higher education is to have a paradigm shift: instead of asking Are you college ready? we should ask, Are we student ready? In other words, the population—especially growing populations like BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, (and) People of Color]—can use, should use, and must use higher education as an opportunity to advance themselves. Our role is to facilitate that, but we need to meet the students where they are.
Earlier, we talked a little bit about programmatic innovation. Our other emphasis on student success is to try to figure out how to make students excel in higher education. But it’s more than just measures of success. We need to engage them more in the process of higher education. It used to be very passive, right? The professor professes; I’m in front of a group of students and I do my thing; they sit on chairs and listen and write stuff down; there was very little engagement.
Over the last couple of decades, I think we have learned to implement more experiential and engaged education. The idea of students becoming more active in their learning is a big part of student success. For us as an institution, student success leads to higher retention. Nationwide, we have a decline in student enrollment that’s largely due to a demographic cliff; the college-age population is rapidly decreasing. The sub-populations that are growing—and can come into higher education—are adult learners, degree completers, and those that want to advance their careers at the graduate level, on the one hand, and traditionally underserved populations on the other hand. It’s those populations that need our attention, our help, and our support to make them successful.
What Charms Us
We end all of our Charles Street Chats with the same question: What do you love most about Baltimore? Here’s Ralph’s answer.
I’m fortunate enough to have found housing close to the Inner Harbor. Walking at the water’s edge trail, and at night especially, is wonderful. The many diverse and historical restaurants and pubs in Fells Point and the restaurants in Harbor East are heaven to me [smiling].