Every month, the American Public University System (APUS) Interactive Marketing Team hosts two webinars which are open and free to all students, faculty, staff, and the public.  The topics for these webinars range from terrorism to logistics and from nursing to history.  Recently, the team has developed a series of webinars focused on the Civil War in Jefferson County, West Virginia where APUS makes its home in Charles Town.  Last week I attended one of the webinars about the Civil War titled “Border War: Jefferson County at the Outset of the Civil War” and was  impressed with the content.

The webinar featured Mr. Dennis E. Frye, Chief Historian at Harpers Ferry National Historical Park and past president of a national battlefield preservation organization (today known as the Civil War Preservation Trust).  Mr. Frye has written six books and authored more than 70 articles about the Civil War.  He also served as the Associate Producer for the acclaimed film Gods and Generals.  Mr. Frye is an expert on the topic of the Civil War in Jefferson County.

Situated on the border of the north and south, Jefferson County was a critical position for both sides.  At the time of the war’s beginning, Jefferson County was part of the state of Virginia.  Following John Brown’s assault on the US Armory and arsenal at Harpers Ferry, the citizens of Harpers Ferry formed militia, uncertain whether Brown acted alone or whether they should expect another such attack.  It was these militiamen who initiated the first attempts to protect Harpers Ferry from the north. 

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Two weeks ago, we recognized the graduation of 5,589 students with a graduation ceremony in the Gaylord National Hotel and Convention Center at National Harbor, Maryland.  This year’s graduating class was the largest in the history of the American Public University System (APUS) and its institutions, American Military University (AMU) and American Public University (APU).  Our 5,589 graduates were awarded 2,388 master’s degrees, 2,506 bachelor’s degrees, and 695 associate’s degrees and hailed from all 50 states in the United States and 17 other countries.  We awarded degrees in 82 of the 85 programs that we offer.
 
Over 90 percent of our graduates worked full-time while they were enrolled at either AMU or APU.  Many (66 percent) served their country as members of the Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Coast Guard, National Guard, and Reserves.  It takes perseverance and determination to earn a degree over many years, and a majority of our graduates attended other colleges and universities before they completed their degree at AMU or APU.  Time spent completing college courses means fewer hours shared in family activities and generally requires the cooperation of student and family members in order to balance course work with family time.

There have been numerous studies about the difficulties that adult students encounter in completing their college degrees while working, raising a family, being a caregiver, etc.  Graduates attending the reception the night before the ceremony shared some of their stories with each other, the faculty and staff members in attendance, and with me.  Their stories are inspiring.  The faculty, staff, and I are proud of our students and our graduates for their professional, personal, and academic accomplishments and wish all of our graduates the very best in their future endeavors.

Frank  Buckles, the last living World War I Doughboy, died early Sunday morning at the age of 110.  Born on February 1, 1901 in Bethany, Missouri, Buckles’ life spanned one of the most turbulent, exciting, and eventful times in history.  A resident of Charles Town, West Virginia where American Public University System (APUS) is headquartered, Buckles was well-known within the local community as well as nationally. 

At the age of 17, only a year after the United States entered World War I, Buckles lied about his age and joined the US Army.  Buckles volunteered as an ambulance driver and was sent to France where he found the suffering of the French people disturbing.  In a 2001 interview for the Library of Congress’ Veterans History Project, Buckles said, “’The little French children were hungry….To me, that was a pretty sad sight,’” demonstrating his compassion for those living in the midst of the Great War.  During his time in France, he also escorted German prisoners of war back to their homeland after the signing of the Armistice. 

After the war, Buckles held various positions with shipping and steamship companies and was assigned to locations throughout the world.  During World War II, he was working as a civilian in Manila and was captured by the Japanese and held for 39 months in a prisoner of war camp.  In the mid-1950s, Buckles settled in Charles Town, West Virginia where he owned and ran a cattle farm.  Buckles remained quite active until his death.  Aside from maintaining his farm (he continued to drive his tractor until the age of 106), he advocated for a suitable memorial in Washington, DC to commemorate the sacrifices of those with whom he served in World War I.

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I had the opportunity to present a paper this week at the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education’s (AACE) E-Learn 2010 conference in Orlando along with Dr. Phil Ice, our Director of Course Design, Research & Development.  The paper, Comprehensive Assessment of Student Retention in Online Learning Environments, originated from research that I conducted as part of my doctoral dissertation at The University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education.

Student retention has been an issue in higher education since the late 1800’s.  Some of the early research in the area began in the 1930’s but the volume of research studies increased substantially in the 1960’s through the present era.  Early research focused on psychological reasons for students to drop out of college but most of the literature since the late 1970’s have focused on sociological issues.

While there are many significant contributors to the research of student retention (William Spady, Alexander Astin,  Vincent Tinto, John M. Braxton, George Kuh, Ernest Pascarella, etc.), Vincent Tinto’s Leaving College: Rethinking the Causes and Cures of Student Attrition provides a fairly thorough overview of many research studies (note:  the second edition of this book was published in 1994 and new copies are difficult to find).

Tinto is given credit for developing the first theoretical construct of predicting student retention.  Three major areas of his theory involve the importance of the background characteristics of college students, the social integration of students with their college, and the academic integration of students with their professors and programs.  Subsequent research studies have focused on some of these areas and/or attempted to prove or disprove the original construct.  Colleges and universities use some of the studies as the basis for their internal retention research or external explanations of their graduation rate.

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I received an email from a student asking me what he could do when people state that American Military University (AMU) or American Public University (APU) are “diploma mills” or unaccredited.  I thought I would post my response.

The “myths” that AMU or APU are diploma mills or unaccredited are invalid.  In most cases, the myths are more than likely disseminated by individuals who do not care for online colleges and universities.  Faculty and staff members of accredited institutions that operate partially online or totally online have heard the negative perceptions about online education for years and have worked hard to demonstrate the evidence that supports learning in online programs.  A May 2009 study published by the U.S. Department of Education entitled Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning:  A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies stated that students learn better in online programs than in face-to-face programs .  The researchers examined over 1,000 published research papers involving online and face-to-face learners.

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In December, I wrote a post about why the frequency of my writing slowed and would continue to slow.  The explanation was simple:  I had entered a doctoral program and was engaged in the final writing stage of my dissertation.  I am pleased to say that I satisfactorily completed all the requirements for my doctoral program at the University of Pennsylvania including defending my dissertation.  Now that I have had a couple of weeks to savor the accomplishment, I am ready to resume some of my “free time” activities that I postponed or slowed in order to go back to school and earn my doctoral degree.  As I begin to resume blog posts, I thought I would share my reflections on my area of studies.

When I completed my MBA from Tulane’s Freeman School of Business in 1978, I thought I had completed all of my formal academic studies.  After graduation from Tulane, I sat for and passed the CPA (Certified Public Accountant) exam, the CMA (Certified Management Accountant), and the Fellow exam for the Healthcare Financial Management Association.  Maintaining those certifications required annual continuing education hours, but not academic credits.  Usually, I could earn 40 hours of credit per year by attending a couple of two day seminars along with a single day seminar.

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