MOC named among military-friendly by national magazine
By Catharin Shepard
Published in News on September 3, 2010 1:46 PM
MOUNT OLIVE -- Mount Olive College was among 33 North Carolina colleges and universities named this week to a 2010-11 list of military-friendly schools.
G.I. Jobs magazine honors each year the top 15 percent of schools that make an extra effort to support America's servicemen and women pursuing degrees in higher education.
The private Mount Olive College, an outreach of the Original Free Will Baptist Convention, enrolled about 240 military students this year. That amounts to about 7 percent of the college's total enrollment, school officials said.
Mount Olive College earned a spot on the list for its one-night-a-week degree programs, providing easy access for time-crunched service member students, and for offering online classes and accelerated degree programs that give men and women facing a deployment more options to continue their education.
In turn, the military students themselves bring a great deal to the school community, President Dr. Philip P. Kerstetter said.
"Military students bring a high degree of maturity, considerable life experience, a rich understanding of diversity and extensive leadership skills to the classroom. Our other students, as well as our faculty and staff, benefit from the different perspectives that service members and veterans bring with them," Kerstetter said. "We at Mount Olive College are proud to again be included on the list of military-friendly schools."
The college also participates in the Yellow Ribbon G.I. Education Enhance-ment Program and other veterans' benefits programs, and provides support counselors at its six locations to assist veteran students.
Derek Blumke, president of Student Veterans of America and a member of the list's Academic Advisory Board, called the list "the gold standard" for veterans seeking a school that can offer the greatest opportunity, flexibility and overall experience.
"It's especially important now with so many schools competing for military students," Blumke said.
The military-friendly schools list includes public and private colleges, universities and trade schools across the country. Schools on the list also offer additional benefits for student veterans, including on-campus veterans' programs, credit for service, military spouse programs and more.
The list is compiled each year based on months of research. The "G.I. Jobs" team polled more than 7,000 schools nation-wide, eventually naming 1,220 to the list.
Criteria for making the list included efforts to recruit and retain military and veteran students, results in recruiting military and veteran students and academic accreditation.