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Supporting Active Military Students Through Academic Disruptions
HigherEdMilitary
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If you read anything related to higher education recently, you more than likely have heard about an enrollment cliff and changing student demographics. What higher education considered to be a "traditional" student is changing as "non-traditional" students are making up increased amounts of incoming classes across the United States (US). Higher education in the US is historically slow to change and adapt to market trends proactively. Most changes that occur in higher education are reactive and that can have negative impacts on students' ability to thrive. One of the groups of "non-traditional" students that are increasing on college campuses are active service members.
Active service members are those who are currently serving in a component of the US military. This group includes those on active duty who are serving full-time in the military and are often stationed all over the world. It also includes National Guard and Reserves members; those are part-time members who usually live around where they grew up, drill one weekend a month with their units, perform annual training, and perform some combination of work and college full-time. These groups share similar and different struggles due to their military service. The one struggle they share that impacts their college success the most is when they receive military orders to deploy or mobilize in support of efforts either overseas or stateside.
The amount of notice that a service member gets to make arrangements for their deployment or mobilization varies widely. Some get adequate time to prepare to leave for their military obligation and some do not. That can create challenges for active service members as they attempt to complete their academic credentials. Regardless of the time afforded an active service member to plan for a military obligation, those obligations create opportunities for academic disruptions that could negatively impact completing coursework. It has become more common for active service members to experience frequent or reoccurring deployments or mobilizations. How can higher education institutions prepare to support these active service members through academic disruptions?
Strategies to Support Through Academic Disruptions
Higher education institutions usually provide a student support infrastructure that assists the overall student population through academic advising, tutoring, supplemental instruction, peer mentoring, success coaching, and other initiatives. Most of the support infrastructure that is already provided is helpful to active service members who are experiencing frequent academic disruptions. The key is to look at your support infrastructure and determine what gaps exist in providing your active service members the best experience when leaving the institution, and a hassle-free pathway to return. By completing a gaps analysis of your current infrastructure and coordinating efforts across campus, you can positively impact active service members during academic disruptions.
Mobilization Policy Development
It is common for institutions to have policies that govern a wide range of topics from grade replacement to student conduct to academic progress. These same institutions will utilize a variety of policies that impact service members experiencing academic disruptions. Those could include policies on military withdrawals, class attendance during drill weekends or annual training, etc. What is less common is one overall policy that organizes the variety of policies that are already in place in a way that is understandable to both student and faculty member. How does an institution start the process of developing this mobilization policy?
It is helpful to consider the full student cycle against the realities of serving in the military. Each component of the military (active duty, guard, or reserves) brings unique challenges and obligations that can impact completing academic goals. Impactful mobilization policies will address common military obligations that cause academic disruption. This may change per institution, as some colleges are located near or closer to bases than others. After you have identified those common military obligations, institutions should identify the policies that already exist that support students through academic disruptions and which policies need to be developed. Several universities have already developed mobilization policies, such as University of Alabama, University of Maine system, and Florida State University, that serve as great templates for other institutions to use when developing their own policies.
Expectation Development
Once the mobilization policy is developed and implemented, institutions can move on to the next step of supporting students through academic disruptions by setting expectations. The mobilization policy will not only set the stage for students and faculty members to have honest discussions about classes that are impacted by military obligations, but it helps develop expectations for both as well. The policy provides students and faculty members with what options are available depending on the military obligation and who is responsible for each option. This takes a lot of guess work out of these situations that historically have been addressed with minimal guidance from university policy or the past experiences of faculty members who had students experiencing academic disruptions. Providing clear expectations to students and faculty members removes a lot of anxiety from situations that are rarely uniform.
Student Tracking
Now that an institution has an overall policy and expectations developed, the next step is to develop a mechanism to track mobilized students. This will look different depending on what student information systems and other student support technology an institution uses. The key is to identify the best way to identify mobilized students for future advisement, support, and communication. This is important as without the tracking mechanism, it is very difficult for other departments on campus to know that the student has military obligations. Usually the student's advisor or success coach and the campus military support office will know about the military obligations, but other departments like financial aid, registrar, or student accounts will not. It can be difficult to coordinate support services for students experiencing academic disruptions if the support services are not aware of the military obligation.
Communication Plan
The final step in supporting students experiencing academic disruptions is developing a communication plan. Impactful communication plans will provide touch points for students at each phase of their academic disruptions. Whether the student is attending drill or annual training, is being mobilized to support domestic operations, or is being deployed overseas to support international operations, they will receive communication from the institution. The students will receive relevant information when they leave the institution, while they are away, or are looking to return to the institution. Communicating with students while they are fulfilling their military obligations tells the student that the institution is invested in their academic and professional success and cares about retaining them.
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