Relationally Distributed Service (RDS): Remembering the Forgotten Supporters in Higher Education and Veterans Studies

Abstract

Military spouses play a critical yet overlooked role in sustaining military service, often subordinating their own educational and career goals to support their partners and the broader mission. Despite their contributions, they remain largely invisible within higher education and policy discourse. This presentation introduces distributed service, a conceptual framework that extends James Spillane’s theory of distributed leadership to illuminate how spouses’ labor is enacted across relationships, institutions, and everyday routines. Drawing on Lewis A. Coser’s concept of greedy institutions, the framework highlights how spouses absorb structural demands that enable service members’ full participation. Using qualitative data from interviews with 16 military spouses, this session centers their narratives to reveal how mobility, caregiving, and institutional barriers shape disrupted educational pathways and diminished belonging. In alignment with the Veterans in Society 2026 theme, the presentation calls for reframing military service to formally recognize spouses’ contributions and advance more equitable higher education policies.