Adult Degree Program Department

The Adult Degree Program (ADP) at Atlantic Union College is based on two beliefs held by the college faculty: that many adults whose college work has been interrupted by marriage, work, military service, or other personal circumstances should have the opportunity of completing their degrees, and that there are many ways of doing reputable academic work other than being enrolled in on-campus courses. This uniquely designed program successfully combines both on campus and at home study. The program was founded in 1972 for adults who wish to complete degrees started years before, for college graduates who are changing professions, and for life-long learners.

Degrees Offered

Associate Degrees offered:	Business Para Education	Personal Ministries

Bachelor Degrees	Art Behavioral Science Business Communications English	History Personal Ministries Psychology Religion Theology

Interdisciplinary Majors:	BA Liberal Arts BA in Social Science	BA in Humanities BS in General Science
	Early Childhood or Elementary Education. BA in Liberal Arts with teacher licensure in Early Childhood or Elementary Education.

*Teacher Licensure ( baccalaureate & post baccalaureate)	Early Childhood (PreK-2) Elementary (Grades 1-6)	English (grades 8-12) History (grades 8-12)

*Teacher Licensure (post baccalaureate)	Early Childhood Education (Grades 1-6) Elementary (Grades 1-6)
	Biology (Grades 8-12) English (Grades 8-12) History (Grades 8-12)	Math (Grades 8-12) Music (Grades 8-12) Spanish (Grades 8-12)
Student teaching at home location.
* The Adult Degree Program of Atlantic Union College is one of the few colleges in the United States that offers teacher licensure through an adult distant learning program, offering adults the opportunity to continue working while earning their baccalaureate or post graduate licensure requirements.

Master of Education	M.Ed. Concentration in School Administration M.Ed. Concentration in curriculum and Instruction

The Adult Degree Program Offers Students the Ability to:

Work while completing your degree at home.
Develop a unit of study in your area of interest.
Receive teacher licensure/certification.
Attend seminars that will enable you to personally work out a unit of study with your professor.
Earn up to a year and a half of college credit for past college lever learning experience to prior learning portfolio.
Meet adult students and faculty from around the world.
Participate in graduation exercises and receive your diploma.
Applicants will find that costs are manageable.
U.S. students may apply for loans. (Contact the Financial Aide Office for
additional information). Scholarship availability.
Make life-long friends.

Program Eligibility

Eligibility
Students who enter AUC's external degree program have widely varied academic backgrounds and come to the seminars from all parts of the world. The program is open to anyone twenty-five or older who has a high school diploma or equivalent (including five GCE passes or a GED certificate with no score below 50 in any subtest). ADP offers opportunities to individuals for earning college credit through individually designed programs and is designed for students who have obligations that prevent them attending standard on-campus college classes but are able to find time for at least twenty hours of study a week.

ADP recognizes that students learn in a variety of ways.
Accordingly, in occasional circumstances and after a personalized review process, individuals who do not have a high school diploma (or the equivalent) but have demonstrated that they have the competencies required for college admission are admitted on a provisional basis. Applicants whose native language is not English must present a score of 550 on the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) or have passed College Writing I & II with a score of B or higher. All applicants to ADP must present evidence that they are likely to succeed in this type of program. A placement test will be administered to ALL admitted students prior to registration. Admissions will be made from the pool of qualified applicants.

Application Process to the Adult Degree Program
For personal contact with the ADP office, for an application packet and program bulletin, or for additional information please call or e-mail our office.
Adult Degree Program
Atlantic Union College, Box 1000
South. Lancaster, MA 01561

Toll free:        800-282-2030           Office: 978-368-2300
Director:        978-368-2304            Fax:                978-368-2514
Email:             adp@auc.edu         Financial Aid: 978-368-2280

An applicant to the Adult Degree Program should:

1. Fill out the APPLICATION FOR ADMISSION FORM from the ADP office. Include with it the requested personal essay.
2. Enclose with the application the non-refundable $25.00 application fee.
3. Ask the high school graduated from and each college attended to send official transcript directly to the ADP office.
4. Send any other relevant documents (GED or GCE certificates, CLEP or TOEFL scores) to the ADP office.

Cost
The Present cost for 15 to 18 college credits (semester) is $4,300.00.
Students may apply for Student Aide through FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid), information will be mailed to applicants in the ADP packet. Additional FAFSA information is available online at www.fafsa.ed.gov “help buttons on every page of the online application will take you to additional help. You can also click the “live Help” button to chat with a customer service representative directly online between the hours of 8 a.m. and midnight Eastern Time. Financial Aide for college.

Program Requirements
These Requirements Apply to Full-time and Part-time Enrollment Seminar Attendance.

ADP students attend an on-campus seminar at the beginning of each unit of study. Because so much else within the program is flexible and individual, attendance at the seminars in January and July is mandatory. Students spend a part of each seminar in discussion in highly concentrated courses that run for two hours a day, and in library work that involves them in the kind of study they will be engaged in during the following six months while working at home.

Seminar courses are designed to help individuals who have been away from college for a time return to the study process, and to open up ideas and topics that will suggest valuable areas of study to them.

Location
Atlantic Union College is located in central Massachusetts and is easily accessible by car from Routes 2, 290, and 495. The college also offers dormitory accommodation for our many students who attend the seminars from different parts of the world. Arrangements may be made for airport pick-ups through the ADP office.

Planning for a Seminar
Seminars give ADP students the opportunity to discover their own strengths and decide whether they can pursue an external degree successfully, and they give the faculty, who will work with students after they leave the campus, a chance to understand the students they will supervise. Students who are planning twelve-month units need not attend the seminar in the middle of their units.

Entering students come to an eleven-day seminar. Most of the continuing students attend the seminar for nine days (including weekends). The exception will be education students working toward certification who need either the Introduction to Teaching or the Measurement and Evaluation mini-course. Such students need to plan to be on campus for the full eleven days. Graduating students attend for one week. Classes and presentations are not scheduled over the weekend.

Seminar Responsibilities
After discussion with ADP faculty and staff students will submit tentative unit topics for approval. When these tentative topics have been approved, each student will be assigned a study supervisor, with whom he or she will work in preparing a proposal for their next six months of study.

Each proposal will include:
A method of procedure including a general description of the planned unit of study, objectives and goals, an outline of the unit, planned activities, a preliminary bibliography and list of other resources, a method for keeping in touch with the supervisor, a timetable giving deadlines for various parts of the work to be concluded, and the specific tangible products of the study. In addition to preparing a proposal, students are expected to participate in a mini-course, to attend the presentations of their fellow students, and to participate regularly in all of the other scheduled events of the seminar.

Planning the Unit of Study During the Seminar
A major part of the time during a seminar is spent in outlining a proposal for six months of study. Each six-month study project is called a "unit" and is equivalent to a full semester's work. Generally, a unit consists of 16 credits. However, a few professional areas are facilitated with units of 15-18 credits. A unit usually has a coherent, unified subject matter. No unit may be equivalent to more than 18 conventionally scheduled semester hours. Students may register for full units or half units. Within certain professional areas, the ADP committee will allow a unit to be included up to 18 semester hours. However, such must receive the departmental recommendation.

When students enter the ADP, the committee in charge of the program evaluates their past academic experience and determines the number of units required to complete a degree. Each unit's work begins with a seminar. The possibilities within a unit are open and "flexible in most cases. Many students organize units of study that relate their theoretical study to their work or other experience. Some combine travel and study. The fact that they are not limited to courses being offered allows students to explore areas of academic significance that they would not be able to study in a more conventional program.

Study units may involve reading and research, practical on-the-job experience, or creative work. There are, however, agreed-upon standards for both substance and quality within the work of the units, which must be composed of intensive, college-level work requiring at least 20 hours a week during the six-month period of time. The work must result in evidence of extensive and well-handled subject matter. Faculty supervisors expect students to be able to read and to discuss difficult books intelligently and to write articulately. They also expect that individuals in the program will know how to use library and other resources and will have such resources available to them as they study. Persons who do not feel able to meet these qualifications should not enter the Adult Degree Program.

After the Seminar
Having planned the unit, students return to their homes to work under the direction of their study supervisors. They keep in touch with their supervisors by mail, by tape recording, by phone, by e-mail, by fax and, wherever distances are not too great, by personal conferences. Free from the detailed breakdown of required courses, students are responsible for organizing large areas of study about which they genuinely want to learn. However, they must be self-disciplined enough to set deadlines and to find resources for themselves without relying on directives from their supervisors.
Students must log their hours worked and forward the log to the ADP office on a monthly basis. The unit proposal will include a calendar indicating when specific work needs to be completed and sent to the study supervisor. Office staff and the professor for a student’s submitted unit of work will be available for assistance as needed.

Governance of the Program
The Adult Degree Program is governed by a committee of the faculty and supervised by the regular structural organization of the academic program at Atlantic Union College. The Vice President for Academic Affairs is the responsible administrator. The Associate Dean represents the Program on the Academic Affairs Committee of the College, which recommends to the College faculty any actions that require faculty legislation under the policies of the Faculty Working Policy.