Browsing by Author "Soldan, David L."

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    Defense to Degree: Accelerating Engineering Degree Completion for Military Veterans
    Soldan, David L.; Gruenbacher, Don; Schulz, Noel; Hageman, William B.; Vogt, Blythe; Natarajan, Rekha (Virginia Tech, 2013-04-15)
    This paper will focus on the accelerated track for military veterans into bachelor's degrees in engineering. It is important to have contact with the military veteran prior to their arriving on campus to begin their schooling. Current policies give little credit for military experience or training. The development of on-line pre and post assessments and subject based tutorials are being used to accelerate the veteran's entry into the electrical engineering circuit theory sequence and the traditional mathematics sequence. Veterans may have a base of technical knowledge acquired through the technical nature of their service posts. Assigning them to introductory level courses with traditional freshman and sophomore students does not respect their technical expertise nor challenge their capabilities and accustomed pace.
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    A Sample of Best Practices to Support Veterans in Attending and Completing Engineering Degree Programs
    Kasarda, Mary E.; McCrery, Ennis McNeer; DePauw, Karen P.; Byrd, Carson; Mikel-Stites, Max; Ray, Victor; Pierson, Mark; Brown, Eugene F.; Hall, Simin; Soldan, David L.; Gruenbacher, Don; Schulz, Noel; Vogt, Blythe; Hageman, William B.; Natarajan, Rekha; Olson, Rick; Kramer, Kathleen; Lord, Susan (Veterans in Society: Changing the Discourse, 2013-04-15)
    This paper describes some sample best practices identified by three institutions, Virginia Tech, Kansas State University, and the University of San Diego to support the recruitment, transition, and retention of veterans in engineering degree programs. These three institutions represent a subset of the initial cadre of institutions receiving planning grants from the National Science Foundation to facilitate and support veterans in their pursuit of undergraduate and graduate engineering degrees, particularly when utilizing their "GI Bill" benefits. Best practices presented here include a website to co-locate veterans' campus resources virtually, a slide show "video" to highlight the mechanics of graduate school and finding the right program, models to help institutions give military veterans academic credit for military training, results of a regional institutional networking workshop on veterans issues, and strategies to better attract and recruit veterans to engineering degree programs.