Much of the research on military-connected students focuses on former members of the military (i.e., “student veterans”), or those individuals who served in the military (i.e., were a part of the “active component” or AC), then exited the military and moved on to pursue their college degrees. These students’ educational experiences are often conflated with the experiences of those students who serve in the military while attending college (i.e., those students who are serving in the National Guard or in the Reserves, or the “Reserve Corps”). This results in an inadequate understanding of the experiences of Reserve Corps (RC) students in engineering education.
In this paper, we focus on students who are actively serving in the RC, either in the Reserves or National Guard, while pursuing their engineering degrees (i.e., Reserve and National Guard Engineering (RANGE) students). These RANGE students have unique challenges during their education, such as the need to attend regular training and being prepared to be called to active duty at any time. We examine RANGE students’ motivations for joining the military and engineering and the extent to which these students experience benefits as a result of their simultaneous military service and educational pursuits.
Our analysis reveals that RANGE students joined the military primarily to receive financial assistance although the timing of this realization and reasoning varied. In terms of benefits of their service, the RANGE students were able to make direct, real-time connections between their engineering studies and their military service. The results of our study will be of interest to engineering educators interested in broadening participation in engineering, supporting the students who are in engineering programs, and recognizing the assets that they bring.
Key Words: student veterans, Reserve Corps, National Guard, engineering education
Catherine Mobley, Ph.D., is a Professor of Sociology at Clemson University. She has over 30 years experience in project and program evaluation and has worked for a variety of consulting firms, non-profit agencies, and government organizations, including t
Joseph Murphy is a graduate student of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles whose research interests include the mobilization of college knowledge, and the role of institutional agents in promoting college access to STEM programs. He received a B.S. in Sociology from Clemson University.
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3984-533X
Purdue University, West Lafayette
[biography]
Joyce B. Main is Associate Professor of Engineering Education at Purdue University. She received an Ed.M. in Administration, Planning, and Social Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a Ph.D. degree in Learning, Teaching, and Social Po
Catherine E. Brawner is President of Research Triangle Educational Consultants. She received her Ph.D.in Educational Research and Policy Analysis from NC State University in 1996. She also has an MBA from Indiana University (Bloomington) and a bachelor’s degree from Duke University. She specializes in
evaluation and research in engineering education, computer science education, and technology education. Dr. Brawner is a founding member and former treasurer of Research Triangle Park Evaluators, an American Evaluation Association affiliate organization and is a member of the American Educational Research Association and American Evaluation Association, in addition to ASEE. Dr. Brawner is also an Extension Services Consultant for the National Center for Women in Information Technology (NCWIT) and, in that role, advises computer science and engineering departments on diversifying their undergraduate student population. She remains an active researcher, including studying academic policies, gender and ethnicity issues, transfers, and matriculation models with MIDFIELD as well as student veterans in engineering. Her evaluation work includes evaluating teamwork models, broadening participation initiatives, and S-STEM and LSAMP programs.
Susan Lord is Professor and Chair of Integrated Engineering at the University of San Diego. She received a BS from Cornell University in Materials Science and Electrical Engineering (EE) and MS and PhD in EE from Stanford University. Her research focuses on the study and promotion of equity in engineering including student pathways and inclusive teaching. She has won best paper awards from the Journal of Engineering Education, IEEE Transactions on Education, and Education Sciences. Dr. Lord is a Fellow of the IEEE and ASEE and received the 2018 IEEE Undergraduate Teaching Award. She is a coauthor of The Borderlands of Education: Latinas in Engineering. She is a co-Director of the National Effective Teaching Institute (NETI).
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