90 Credit Degrees (“Applied Baccalaureates”)

Season 9 kicks off with a discussion about 90 credit degrees and how the University of Maine System is moving forward with three Applied Baccalaureate degrees as a way of bringing learners with some college but no degree back to the university system. Chancellor Dan Malloy and Vice Chancellor Jeff St. John join to talk about their process for developing the Applied Baccalaureates, the surprisingly little pushback from faculty, the enthusiastic response from employers, and their hopes for continued growth and engagement with these innovative credentials in the future.    

Key Takeaways:

• The 90-credit credential is an academic innovation designed to bring “some college no degree” learners back to school. The reduced credit threshold for awarding the degree may support easier access into the workforce in less time with less money spent by the learner.
• The University of Maine System will launch three “Applied Baccalaureates” in fall 2026, having worked with their accreditors, their trustees, and faculty at each of the system member institutions to identify and develop these programs. 
• Accrediting bodies may provide guidance for institutions about what must be included as part of a 90-credit credential, and may have requirements for how to name the degree and how to differentiate them from the full baccalaureate degree. 

Host:

Doug McKenna, Ph.D.
University Registrar, George Mason University
cmckenn@gmu.edu   

Guests:

Daniel Malloy, J.D.
Chancellor, University of Maine System
https://www.maine.edu/chancellors-office/dannel-p-malloy-chancellor/ 

Jeffrey St. John, Ph.D.
Vice Chancellor, University of Maine System

References and Additional Information:

Core Competencies: Leadership and Management

Transcript

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You're listening to For the Record, a registrar podcast sponsored by ACR. I'm Doug McKenna, University registrar at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and this is 90 credit degrees. Hello. Welcome to season 9 of For the Record. I'm so excited to get back into a more regular publishing cadence now that I have completed my dissertation and graduated with my PhD in education. Doctor McKenna at your service. It still feels a little weird to say, but it's fun. Today, we're gonna be talking about a hot topic in higher education. Hot topic, the 90 credit degree. Maybe you've heard people talking about it, but you're not exactly sure what it is. What are we calling them? What are they being used for? In this episode, we're going to hear about the way the University of Maine system approached this particular. educational innovation. Let's turn to our distinguished guests for today. Joining us are the Chancellor and Vice Chancellor of the University of Maine System, Daniel Malloy and Doctor Jeffrey Saint John. Gentlemen, thanks very much for taking the time to be with us today. Great to be with you. Thank you, Doug. Daniel, I want you to know that you're making for the record history today. You are the first former governor. That I've had on as a guest. So this is very exciting for me. I was going to put together a little blurb of your bio, but in reviewing your bio, there's a lot. You're a former prosecutor, two-time governor of Connecticut, now chancellor of the University of Maine system. So-- rather than-- just 14 years as mayor,-- 14-- years as mayor, that's correct. Instead of me just reading that, would you give us an introduction You would like to be introduced. So Dan Malloy is my name. I'm the chancellor of the University of Maine system. I'm in my 7th year in that role, and obviously I've had some interesting experiences to join as COVID was breaking was really a challenge, but we got through it and and we're doing things pretty well right now, hitting our own. We Maine is a relatively small population, but it's the size of the rest of the entirety of New England, and so we have a number of universities spread throughout that state, and we do the best we can. We're celebrating 7 semesters of increased population, which has been good. We are doing more on delivery systems and offering. Uh, people of different ways to complete their degrees and, and that sort of thing. And, uh, and then along came the concept that you've invited us to talk a little bit about. Yeah, and we'll get to that in just a moment. So, Doctor Saint John, would you also introduce yourself? Happy to, uh, Doug, so I serve as a member of the Chancellor's staff. I'm vice chancellor for academic and student affairs. I've been at the system office for about 5 years. Now before that I worked at the University of Maine for 12.5 years in a variety of administrative roles, and before that I was full-time faculty at my prior institution, Ohio University. Right on, thank you very much. And Chancellor Mullo, you hinted at some of the University of Maine system, but would either of you give a breakdown sort of how many institutions, how many students, and then maybe say a brief word about the unified accreditation. That is distinct and unique from the University of Maine system. Doug, we have 6 universities with a 7th that is now a regional campus of the flagship. So, University of Maine is the flag and Machias is its regional campus. And we have 5 other universities across the state from north to south. They're spread all across Maine, and the University of Maine School of Law, which is the only law school in Maine, is. Also part of our system. So each of those institutions have a president. They all report to the chancellor, and we work together on everything. Right on.-- The unified accredit-- accreditation are hard, hard to people have a hard time understanding. But so when I came here, there was a collection of universities who are all part of the, of the system. But you might be shocked to know that they actually saw their other sister campuses, universities. I should say we tended not to work particularly well together and and to have territory, and we needed to change that. The idea of change had been proposed by my predecessor, but I got hired to get it done, and we got it done. So we were the first public university system to do what we did, which means the system is the accredited agency. Under which each of the universities operate and it has led to much higher levels of cooperation and understanding. It also saves a lot of time. Anybody who's going through accreditation on an individual university basis knows how many hours you lose your people, how much money it costs to get it done. So we've, we've, we've done it. We'll do it once, but it's super sized. Yeah. And that's accreditation is a big, it's a hot topic among registrars in particular as there are some changes afoot, but, but not for today we're gonna talk. Today, uh, let's dive into the topic at hand and the 90 credit degrees. And so I would like to start with some terminology. I have seen a couple of different ways that these credentials are identified. And so, how are you at the University of Maine system? Identifying the 90 credit degree and what is it that you are talking about when you say the 90 credit degree or abridged baccalaureate or what are the words that you use? So, so let me, what you will see is the word applied being the the the signal that we're talking about a 90 credit. A baccalaureate degree as opposed to a 120 credit baccalaureate degree. Our particular approach in moving in this direction is to serve people who had stopped out or failed out or just had to go home and take care of the baby or take care of grandma, so we We want to encourage those folks to come back. So imagine if, you know, 10 or 15 years ago you completed 60 credits and someone's telling you, oh, all you have to do is come back and get another 60. Yeah, you're halfway there. Yeah, yeah. So, so we, we are concentrating in a lot of different ways as well on that particular audience of people. We think that's about 160,000 people in Maine that that started at some point, got. Some number of credits in many cases a lot, but life, life comes and grabs you for and you've got a new assignment. So what we're trying to do is to build a program that will get a baccalaureate degree to a person who's been separated from either our university or some other university for a period of time, and we want to lift them up with respect to how do they, how, what courses are they going to take and how is that. Going to help them in the future and yes, you'll get a baccalaureate degree slash it's applied baccalaureate degree, meaning 90 credits. Jeff, did I mess it up? No, that's perfect, Chancellor. I'll only add that our, our board asked us to include at the end of each of the names in parentheses 90 credits just so it's very clear for marketing purposes, for catalog purposes, Doug, that this is a 90 credit, not a 120 credit degree program. Yeah, I have a bunch of questions about this. Obviously, that's why we're here to talk. When was the first time you sort of considered a 90 credit and applied baccalaureate? How did that come about? Who was involved in those early conversations? And was there any kind of reluctance or pushback on the part of either faculty or or administration or concerns with accreditation? That came out as part of these conversations. So cast your memory back. When was the first time you started to have the conversation about implementing an applied baccalaureate? If I might, and Jeff, again, feel free to correct me, uh, but we, we were listening to our creditor who was, and, and you know, the yearly meeting, you get discussions, um, and we picked up on it. And then there were universities that were already moving in that direction, um, in New England and uh we also were invited to a conference that Merrimack University in Massachusetts was holding on that subject and then. And then it kind of clicked, uh, because simply hearing about it just, you know, blows your mind because you're supposed to have 120 credits. What are you talking about? And, um, so, so we came to understand what we were talking about, what other people were talking about, and, uh, we briefed the, uh, uh, trustees and, um, kind of got a yes and a no, you know, do some work on it and come back again, and that's what we did. And, uh, and we moved specifically, uh, in a direction that the trustees. Ourselves we're comfortable in and quite frankly that we thought we could market to that audience of people that I described just a few minutes ago. Jeff, Jeff, just as the Chancellor said, Doug, so we got verbal approval from our board in January of 2025 and they followed that with a with written authorization to us in March of 2025. We began working that January with the presidents and the provosts to identify. On a voluntary basis, universities that wanted to, to develop one of these programs. We ended up with 4 programs in development at, excuse me, 5 programs total at 4 of our universities total. Um, one of them had 2. And ultimately, uh, our primary accreditor Nchi approved 3 of the 5 programs. Chancellor, uh, identified them and, and they will, uh, 3 of those programs will, will launch this fall. We developed the programs through our normal curricular development process, uh, faculty, uh, led process at the university level. They went through all the campus-level reviews, including, thanks to our unified accreditation, a system-wide review of all academic program proposals at two stages of development so that faculty at any university can. Comment on programs being developed at any other university and share feedback through a system-wide faculty governance council that we have that I participate in uh ex officio. Um, we brought them forward to the board's academic and Student Affairs Committee, uh, late spring of 25. The board approved them that summer. Thanks to the, uh, Chancellor. We had asked for and received a slot on, on Necci's commission meeting agenda that fall. Uh, they approved 3 of the 5 programs, and those programs will again launch this fall. So, from, from end to end, 2+ years of work on this. What was the process for selecting the areas where the program would be developed. Was there some sort of workforce need analysis done? Was there just faculty willingness to engage in this process? What, what did that look like? Well, we offered, I'm sorry, we offered the go ahead, we offered the opportunity to all of our universities, and they came forward with programs that they were designing, um, and ultimately we picked 5 of those. Ultimately 3 of those were approved for implementation starting. This fall and fall for us is August, um, uh, as well. Uh, so it's, it's, I guess. It's the experimental stage that we're, we're entering into, see how many students we pick up, but we also have to explain it to people. It's not something that people are instantly get, you know. So, so we have, we have work to do and are doing in that regard. I will say to you that we have a very strong relationship with our biggest employers in the state, and they are super happy. They helped their, their employees pay for. For additional education. They think this is the greatest thing. They know that when, when they, when, when an employee gets a baccalaureate degree applied in this case, they can predict that that person's going to stay with them for their career. They're very happy about, about this, and my hope is that we'll be able to grow more programs going forward, but it's great to have 3 that we can kind of, you know, work on. Yeah, float out there. Sure, Jeff, we're, we're gonna make Jeff take it, so. Yeah, that's right. It's called continuing ed, Doug. That's, well, that is a question that I have as well is, are there concerns that implementing a 90 credit and applied baccalaureate will in some way sort of cannibalize the 120 credit baccalaureate? We don't, I, I, Jeff can express himself, but we don't see it that way. Uh, you know, we have a fair number of traditional age students who want to go. To college or at least want to get a 4-year degree because that's what they've been told they should get and what this really is is an opportunity to bring back people and get them a degree. And by the way, when we say bring back, they don't have to be our people, they could be from other colleges and universities, other states, or they can be from the community college if they meet the criteria. So it, I, I think it's, it's very exciting. I mean, you know, I, I, God bless the Carnegie folks, but You know, some of those rules are a little, little old, um, you know, they were written at a time when, you know, we, we wouldn't, we, we didn't have a phone. I don't know whether that's true, but it, but it, but it, but, you know, I, I think what we're doing is part of testing what do we need to change about ourselves and our product, uh, to attract more people, um, to finish, uh, a program. Um, and we're very, uh, excited about that and think that this, again, you know, we have these 3 tests that we'll, we'll be running with and, and presumably we'll start giving degrees as, as perhaps as soon as, uh, December, um, and certainly one would presume by next spring. So we'll, we'll, we'll know a lot more about it. We're not afraid of it. I, I want to be very clear, we're not afraid of it. We, we, we think it's a different market and. Somebody who comes with an associate's degree and don't have time to get another 60 credits, but they have time to get another half of that, uh, we're excited about that. And, and looking at the fields, it's psychology, it's a public administration, uh, it's uh applied business management. Those are things that are, are going to appeal, in my opinion, to folks who stopped out or left or just didn't have the energy to, to, to complete. Jeff, what do you think? I agree with what, uh, what the chancellor just described. I would only add, Doug, that both our creditor and our board mandated a pathway for students who, who move into a 90 credit program and decide, I want to pursue the 120 credit version of the same program, something we had already committed to doing anyway. So there is a path for students to move from 90 to 120 with no loss of credit, no loss of uh trajectory or uh uh none of that. We, we don't think very many students will choose that, but that option will be available to them. All of our advising staff are aware of that and will be trained to respond accordingly. So we think. Have a good mechanism both for what the chancellor described, which is someone who's looking to complete potentially having earned a significant number of credits elsewhere previously. And, and if we get the occasional student who decides, no, I, I really want the 4 year version of this degree, that person can do that and there'll be no harm, no foul. Nice. And there are something akin to 44 million Americans with some college, no degree. And that's sort of one of the areas where I think an applied baccalaureate makes a lot of sense. But some of the concerns that I'm hearing in conversations about this are, you know, surrounding the, the reduction in international students coming to the United States over the last 3 years, which will extend at least for another 5 years. The demographic cliff of traditional age high school students falling off, making The traditional enrollment numbers more challenging to meet. And so this was just a concern that people had said, you know, if they're going to be able to finish in 90 credits, what does that mean for the rest of the model? And Chancellor,-- go-- ahead. I'm gonna, I'm gonna push back a little bit. I, I, I, I think walkaway students are just tired sometimes, you know, they have issues that they're addressing at home and they Got to, you know, contribute to the cost of all of that. I'd rather have somebody leave with a 90 credit applied degree than to leave without any degree. And so again, we're concentrating on older people who have been away and now realize that that they could benefit probably financially, maybe on a Uh, uh, on a self-appreciation basis as well. Um, and, uh, and that's an important thing to, to bring about. And, and not everybody, listen, I, I, I had, I had friends in, in, in college who, you know, probably could have done the whole thing in 2 years, but, you know, we required 4, and, uh, I, I think that this is an innovation that is worthy of testing and watching. And you know, we don't fight about associate degree degrees any longer, you know, everybody understands that that a it's, it's a degree, b, it moves a person forward, maybe not as far as they would like to go, but it moves them forward, and we think that that moving. That that degree to an applied baccalaureate degree is a big win. It's a big win for us. It's a big win for the students, you know, Maine is, is, as I said, a big geography, but not a big population, and we need more folks that have degrees, quite frankly. And then my personal hope is that they'll be excited and, and, and will continue to get a a degree, a baccalaureate degree. Um, and, and they may see that is, is necessary, uh, to get to the next step, which might be a master's degree or a doctoral degree or something else. So I, I think giving, giving, um, uh, more steps on, on the, on, on the way up is, is not a a fallacy. It's not a problem. It's not taking away from anybody. Um, it, it, I think it'll, it'll produce a lot more students in the ranks that I've been describing to you than we've been able to capture in the past. Yeah, and I want to come back to the pathway idea that you just articulated by Chancellor. And this may not be, this is uh a perch that they can reach and achieve. But with the pathway designed in from the beginning, there's already a a way for them to come back and move forward. So in a similar way to how George Mason anyway, if you have an associate's degree, you sort of wave out of the A section of the undergraduate degree requirements and you just do your upper level stuff. And so I can, I can sort of envision a way that an applied baccalaureate does a similar thing where you then, so let's say someone receives an applied baccalaureate, not from one of the University of Maine System schools, but then comes to the University of Maine system in search of a 120 credit baccalaureate and establishing the pathway from the beginning, I think makes that process go a lot more smoothly and. I, I'll tell you something else we're kind of proud of, and we have an agreement with our community colleges that when, when, uh, they have half of their credits for their associate degree, we will inform them that they are eligible to come and would be accepted at one or more of our universities, and it kind of fits in the model that you're talking about. And, and what's really important is it gives that student time to understand what courses they should take for a major, to get the counseling that they need and that sort of thing. So we're trying to be innovative. Um, we're not, we're not trying to break any rules or, or, or change the four-year degree. Uh, we're, we're just trying to get more people with more degrees.-- I-- know. Shifting a little bit to the now the implementation side of things, and I know that these are gonna launch in the fall, and so some of these questions are still hypothetical for you. But let's chat. What policies, if any, did you need to address at the universities, at the different schools in order to make the 90 credit,-- the applied baccalaureate-- work? Chancellor Doug is a, is a registrar by trade, so I knew he would ask this question. So I came prepared. Thank you for this one. So the only, only two, only two changes we really had to make, Doug. First is that working with our, with the chancellor and with the trustees, we established some enrollment safeguards which are now codified in board policy around the eligibility for adult learners and where they're coming from and when and having earned some degree, some number of credits elsewhere but been away from one of our universities or another university for a period of time. So we worked all that out so that we truly are recruiting and marketing to adult learners as the chancellor mentioned. On the, on the academic policy and process side, uh, we really just had to develop a new degree code in our student information system so we can bring these students in, track the bucket, know where they're going, and, and things that you're very familiar with. So, otherwise we, we've not made policy changes as a consequence of a new type of student cohort, but rather just built them into the existing policy and workflow. Our universities. Yeah, I think that's super helpful, in particular for the audience of this podcast. It's a primarily registrar. It's a registrar focused podcast and so the audience is primarily registrars. And that is one of the concerns that we just had the ACro annual meeting in New Orleans a couple of weeks ago, where the, the 90 credits was a hot topic and a lot of concern expressed from people about like what are, what's that going to involve with changes and Yeah, we can't do it. I know. Uh, so this is very helpful that really just a couple of sort of minor changes and it's more effort to incorporate into rather than try and build something totally different and new. That's, that's helpful. Let's talk about what guidance would you give to another institution or a set of institutions as they set out on this journey of applied baccalaureate degrees. How would you, yeah, how would you advise them? To approach the topic, to get buy-in, those types of things. So I learned from my boss, Doug, uh, you socialize the innovation with, with all of the relevant constituencies. So we began talking, Chancellor began talking to faculty. In fact, the semester before we even approached the board, the chancellor who, who visits each of our universities each semester, fall and spring every year, began talking about this. Concept in visits with faculty and staff at the universities in the spring semester. So people had a chance to sit with it over the summer, those who wanted to consider it before we went to the board. And then we did the same thing with the board. We had 3 conversations with our board, in-depth, good conversations before they initially authorized us to move forward. And after each of the 1st 2 conversations, they asked for more information which we provided and, and. the Chancellor and, and his staff helped them get a sense of what this might look like. The, maybe the, maybe the analogy for us is direct admission which we developed a couple of years earlier. Also one of the things Chancellor mentioned hearing, hearing something from our creditors who went to the annual meeting there and heard about direct admission for the first time and Chancellor came back, this is something we need to do. Let's start talking to people right away. How fast can we get this out of the blocks and, and that's what we did. So, I want to dig in a little bit about those conversations, who participated and what were the kinds of topics that were raised and the kinds of questions that either the board or faculty or other administrators raised as part of that, that discernment process. Well, I'll start and then turn to the chancellor because we were in many but not all of the same conversations. Quality came up first and foremost, Doug, at least in the, in the discussions that I was part of, both from faculty, but also from trustees who ask good questions. Can, can we offer a high quality degree program of, of 3 quarters the number of credits of Of a regular undergraduate degree program and, and we believe we demonstrated uh pretty convincingly that we could and that we will. Logistics, how do we engage these students? How do we market to them? How do we advise them? Those kinds of questions came up both from faculty and from the registrars, uh, and you might imagine we had a number of questions to answer from the registrars from the financial aid. Office. That's another big one. Our enrollment managers, how is all this going to work? We had a series of meetings. The chancellor really led the way with the board, with our boards of visitors, uh, with, uh, people that he interacts with in, in, uh, the main workforce, business community, and, and elsewhere. So those were the kinds of discussions that, that we had. Thank you. More from you on that. Yeah, I,-- I think-- we, we just, we like to talk and we particularly like to talk when people are listening. Um, and, uh, we shared the concept, um, you know, we, we needed to convince ourselves that this was a mission that we could accomplish, um, and, uh, it, you know, it, it made sense to, to share what the concept is. A number of our universities have not, have not grown substantially or may have even had smaller populations, although our overall numbers have gone up, but Different ways to attract people, I think is, is, you know, makes sense. Why let somebody else do all of that work and be so far ahead of us when we have the opportunity to be a leader in this? So we chose to be leaders. I love that. And I'd also say that there was less opposition than than we actually thought we would get. And I think in part because people understand that if you can get somebody to come back, geez, you know. You probably got, you know, a fair amount of credits there, um, towards your, at least your hour, uh, way to think of it. So I, I was surprised at how little opposition we got. Interesting. Yeah, Jeff, was that the same for you in your conversations? It helped that, that two big prior innovations that preceded this 11 was direct admit, which I mentioned. The other is the Chancellor and our, our vice chancellor for finance made a series of. Investments in adult degree completion, um, advising, marketing, resource offices, essentially resources at all of the universities 3.5 years ago. So, there's been a consistent theme from the chancellor to the presidents to the provosts and, and to faculty and staff about being, uh, about engaging adult learners and bringing adult learners back to our universities or to our universities for the first time. So, This, this concept may have been radical in some places, but it really wasn't in Maine once the Chancellor began describing it and connecting it to previous innovations. Yeah,-- it's-- an extension of work that, you know, you're laying the groundwork and the foundations of it. Through these, you know, adult speaking specifically about adult learners and using that terminology and making that those resources more available for that group, this does seem like a logical extension from that work. But I, I used to say when, when I'd be talking about this is I, I, I can't make people have more children 18 years ago. Right.-- So-- these are the people who are available.-- So-- that's what available and needed, quite frankly, this might be too in the weeds, but what came out of your 120 credit version to reduce it to the 90 credit applied baccalaureate? What, what was specifically included and what was specifically Removed. So really it's a, it's a some truncating of electives, dug, and some truncating of general education, but you still need the core of the degree program. You still need a robust general education, and then typically there are comparatively fewer electives but not no electives. So it's, you're tightening it up in, in the three phases. We have some guidance from our creditor and we followed that guidance in developing the, the balance of credits within these programs. Yeah, Saks COC, who is the accreditor for George Mason, issued a statement and put out a policy. They had a policy on their website and then it went away. So I'm not sure if that was intentional or if the link is just broken. But they, they were adamant that some general education must be included, that this is still a broad-based liberal arts degree that is just not 120 credits, but it can't, I have to say this, if, if, if, if we're picking somebody up who hasn't been in college, uh, in 10 years, but, but got, you know, uh, 70, 60 credits, they will have had, they will have met that standard. Because that's what we all did first. Yes, yes, so I, I, I don't think it's, I don't think we're taking things away from people. We're giving them opportunities to have additional courses in that subject matter taken by someone, an advanced course or the like. Yeah, agreed. Where do you see the applied baccalaureate going? Like how do you see it affecting? Sort of the higher education environment and then do you see it as the next step that many, many other institutions will adopt? How do you view this idea? I, I think it's a wait and see thing for some people, um, and on the other hand, as soon as I recognized this is a possibility, I, I got behind it. So, um. It just makes sense. And again, I can't make people have more kids 18 years ago and, and, and you know, one other interesting thing about Maine is we're the oldest population in the country and we are surrounded by the oldest area of the country demographically. So, you know, we, we. We think we're doing a good thing to get people degrees, and we think we're doing well by the states so that it has more workers who have the abilities proven to move forward. Um, so I, I, it is an experiment, you know, we, we admit that it's, it's 33 shots, uh, but, but I think it's um. I think it's gonna work and it and it won't be an overnight, you know, gigantic change, but my hunch is that, you know, 2 or 3 years from now, there won't be a debate about it. I mean, Harvard might not do it. Harvard. Jeffrey, you looked like you were gonna, you might have said something. No, I agree. I mean, um, we're seeing some Western states and some Midwestern states that are moving really aggressively here, as you know, Doug, and in New England in general, a, a little more reluctant to get, to get out of the box quickly. But I, you know, just what the chancellor said we're gonna watch it closely, see what it does, and we have I think reasonably high hopes for, for the future of these programs. You know, if you can have a quality education at 120 credits, I think we could do it, you know, at, at, at, at the numbers that we're talking about. And, uh, certainly very happy that I got my baccalaureate degree before I got my law degree, but, um, not everybody's gonna go to law school or medical school. Um, they, what they wanna do is have an informed background, an educated background to, to be able to compete in. In the job market, and I, if we're helping people get promoted, that's more family money. That's more indications that children and grandchildren will go to and get these degrees of baccalaureate or applied baccalaureate or whatever is invented in the future. We're educators. We need to take, you know, chances in an appropriate measured way, um, and, and that's. That's why I think what the way that we're introducing it is the right way in in Maine for Maine. Yeah, I want to say it's contextually there for Maine in Maine, and the approach that you're taking makes so much sense. Where I see some challenges here are in different places with different demographics or different sort of governance models, not in a coordinated system. But I think that those challenges are manageable for institutions. They can do, we can do hard things and this shouldn't necessarily be a hard thing. Although change is difficult for a lot of people, a lot of places, and I, I laughed, I giggled a little when you're like, it's not in New England. We're not seeing a lot of exploration. They're older, you know, more established institutions. Mason is 52 years old. We're not encumbered by the baggage of the ivy walls or things like that. And so we engage in these innovative ideas, I think more readily. Than some other of our state colleague institutions. Well, well, I mean, Virginia is a much bigger state geographically, uh, and, and, uh, uh, population wise, just northern Virginia, yeah, yeah, and, and quite frankly, your job market is, is more spread out than ours. So, you know, you all should do what's right for Virginia. We're trying to do what's right for Maine. Yeah, maybe we'll have you back in a year to see how things went. OK. OK. Gentlemen, thank you for joining us today. I appreciate your time and I hope that all goes well with the implementation and the recruiting process and that first batch of uh students who come through in the applied baccalaureates. This is a very exciting time for higher education. Yep, good. Well, thank you very much. Thanks, Doug. Thanks very much to Chancellor Malloy and to Vice Chancellor Saint John for joining today's conversation on the 90 credit baccalaureate, locally known in the University of Maine system as applied baccalaureates. It'll be interesting to check in with them in the coming year to see how things are going. Speaking of checking in, it was wonderful to see so many friends and colleagues at the annual meeting in New Orleans. If you weren't able to attend, there are still plenty of opportunities to interact with your registrar colleagues in your region or across the country. Join the Acro Exchange and get yourself on the volunteers list. You'll get invitations whenever new opportunities arise. If you're enjoying the podcast, please subscribe via your favorite podcast provider of choice and send a link around to colleagues who may be interested. If registrar stuff is not their jam. Send the Admitted podcast to your admissions and enrollment management people, the Transfer T podcast to your transfer people, and the Herd podcast, higher education and real diversity to, well, everybody. Thanks for listening. I hope you get a bit of a breather over the summer months, during which it is especially important to drink plenty of water, stretch your legs, read a book, maybe go dancing. Until next time, I'm Doctor Doug McKenna, and this is for the Record.