Higher Education for Those Who Serve

One has to realize that during times of deployment our students are confronted with different kinds of situations. To give you an example, during Hurricane Katrina, we were hit very hard because many of our students and faculty who are in the National Guard or serve in emergency management positions in the South, they were pulled out of classes to deal with the emergency. For that reason, we have to be extra flexible. I just saw one of our new ads in Emergency Management magazine. There’s a picture of an ambulance going past a big fire and the caption reads, ‘Looks like you won’t be making it to class Tuesday night, but we understand.’ That is the type of environment in which we teach and our students learn.

Forty-three percent of our students come to us through word of mouth. We also have field representatives that go to the military bases to both visit our current students and also to talk with soldiers and sailors who are interested in enrolling in our university. We reach across all branches of the service, including the Coast Guard. Of the Marines who serve on the President’s honor guard, almost all of them are currently our students.

Another thing about our students is that many are self-directed and motivated. The average age is 29, age 32 for our graduate courses, which provides a certain maturity and direction to our students, which we really like.

We have about a thousand students in Iraq this year. I have three clocks in my office set to the various time zones around the world, trying to keep track of where we are and how we handle and manage our students. A lot of stuff happens for us in the middle of the night that we have to act upon quickly. We’re serving students in 110 countries. We just re-did our general education curriculum. When we re-did that, the first thing our faculty said was that we needed a course in geography because our students really have to know where Uzbekistan is and a little bit about the region and its people. Our students are world travelers and they really bring a lot to classes. Imagine someone who has lived in four or five countries having something to share that is probably going to be more interesting than someone who perhaps has just lived in Kansas.

A-HEC: In conventional universities, students obtain degrees to enhance their careers or get better jobs. For many of your students, they already are working in their chosen careers. What motivates your average student to pursue an education through your universities?

FM: Part of it is getting them ready for life beyond the military. If you serve 20 years, you retire at a relatively young age and then what do you do next with your relatively small military pension? A lot of these folks are realizing that education is the key to do bigger and better things. A lot of our people, for example, realize there’s a big business in homeland security and intelligence. Their experience can be useful in the civilian market, but they need a college degree to do that.

For others, it’s a fun thing to study. We’ve actually given a degree in military history to a general. We offer specializations in Civil War history such as studying the battles of Antietam and Gettysburg. It’s one of the more fun majors as opposed to some of the more serious courses.

We have an English degree, and we offer degrees in computer science and business, because these are fields of study our students want. Also, about six or seven years ago, our students asked us about a degree in sports management. A lot of folks in the military are into physical fitness and when they get out, they want to work in gyms or manage sports facilities. A lot of them go into coaching, interestingly enough. We currently have about 500 students in that program. It’s very popular for us.