MULTI-STATE COLLABORATION ON MILITARY CREDIT
Presented by:
a. Dr. Paula Compton, Associate Vice Chancellor, Ohio Board of Regents
b. Mr. Louis Martini, Symposium Event Manager and Historian, CCME Board
c. Mr. Jim Yeonopolus, President Elect, CCME Board
d. Coordinator/Recorder: Ms. Deborah Walker, Symposium Planning Committee
Discussion:
1. Why are you here at this Round-Table Specifically?
a. State part of multi state collaborative; first op to meet folks.
b. Academic Credentialing Survey circulated by Lou Martini lead to a desire to
know more about collaborations.; learning more about
c. Want to know if institutions as a whole are accepting or resisting the concept of
collaboration. And if they are resistant why?
d. Want to know how to start collaboration efforts
2. Collaboration 101: Examples of Successful collaborations
a. State Collaborative:
 College Credit for Hero’s is an example of a state collaboration. The Texas
Workforce Commission was looking to educate service members in
technological and medical fields. This effort initiated with seven educational
institutions up and down the I-35 corridor participating in a five year grant.
The program eventually grew to twenty educational institutions. The grant
fully funded these programs year one and each year the funding decreased
with the intent that the participating institutions would take over funding
responsibility. Indtai assisted us put together the requested programs.
 An intense need to consistently evaluate a service members experience to
award credit resulted in Central Texas College creating an ICEP Manual. A
tool for applying military credit appropriately and consistently based upon
the ACE Guide and MOS criteria.
 Service members participating in College Credit for Hero’s will receive a
transcript at completion.
 One drawback to the program has been that institutions with a small Veteran
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population are not want to financially back the program. Efforts are being made to
try to change the mindset of those institutions. In the meantime, operating this
system is costing approximately a million dollars a year.
College Credit for Hero’s is a collaborative program that is effectively working
through articulation agreements.
b. National collaborative:
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An attempt is being made to engage institutions with a small veteran
population to collaborate with military educators. As educators, we have a
responsibility to share information for the benefit of the student.
Thomas Edison State College started out as an assessment institution.
Collaboration has always been the center of our operations. Focusing on
doing the right thing for the student instead of what was best for the
institution. This change in mindset has been very profitable.
Thomas Edison State College began working with Fort Sam Houston with
regard to its National Guard Service Members and the respiratory program.
Train the most at the highest quality but having an issue keeping its
accreditation due to a lack of an academic side to their training. Thoomas
Edison worked with the Army to imbed courses into their training schedule
and Thomas Edison gives them credit for those courses.
National Guard and Reserve members would complete an eleven month
training program. They couldn’t practice because they weren’t accredited
respiratory therapists. So they would go home and back to their everyday
life.
This created a problem, because when these service members were called
up, they would have to complete another eleven months of training. The
cost was ridiculous for the Army. So now those in this program due to
collaboration between Thomas Edison and the Army receive an Associate’s
Degree, are fully accredited and will sit before the board before they leave
Fort Sam Houston.
Working now to promote this type of program with other allied health
programs and working not just with Thomas Edison but with other
institutions.
An outstanding issue that the Academic Credentialing Committee is working
with the White House to correct is to take this initiative a step further to
have a recognition of training/certification/credentialing completed in one
state be accepted in another.
c. Agency collaborative:
 Two and half years ago the Ohio Board of Regents recognized that more needed to
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be done to help the service member receive credit for their military skills. A
collaboration of seven states worked together to establish a best practices to be
followed.
We have grown to a nine state collaboration (Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky,
Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, and Ohio) and specific working groups
have been organized address awarding credit and credentialing.
Technology has played a key role in the effectiveness of this collaboration. Our
institutions all met through email. We were advised of a national task force created
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to address this issue, and have subsequently been invited participate in task force
initiative.
Accomplishments of the collaborative:
o Dr. Ken Sauer had the opportunity to testify in September before the Higher
Education and Workforce Development Congressional Sub-Committee.
Addressed concerns of Indiana and Ohio institutions, which is the lack of
consistency and transparency of applying credit evaluation. He addressed
the need for the openness of sharing electronic data through technology.
As a result, ACE has given them permission to access their data
electronically.
o The access to free software from College Source has put at evaluator’s
finger tips course definitions from approximately 70 million course
definitions from across U.S.
o Financial aid aned number of credits you’ll be getting; using other form of
financial aid and no longer shows academic progress
3. What types of issues are being addressed by collaborations?
a. Maximization of a service member, veteran and their family members to transition
to college
 Articulation of credit
 Certification and Licensure
 Technology
b. Create a mode for consistently, transparently and effectively awarding credit for
military training and experience that can be scaled regionally and nationally.
c. Establish strong partnerships with institutions and organizations for the purpose of
promoting shared interests.
d. Generate a system for documenting and tracking academic progression.
4. Were any attendees currently involved in a collaborative relationship and if so; how
large and what is its function?
5. What makes a collaboration successful
a. Using technology for transfer and data collection
b. Developing and nurturing communication to and between vital stakeholders.
New Collaboration: The lifecycle of the Service Member is going to be analyzed. What
happens from the time they enter into the military and when they separated military service
and begin using VA benefits and Financial Aid resources.
Technology: There are free resources to students and educators that allows for the building of
a database that will allow a soldier to preplan what to do when they get out of the military so
they can make the best investment for the dollars available to them.
College Source: This database will streamline the evaluation of transfer credit. This transfer ology
program enables the student to learn what credits will transfer, who will accept their existing credits
and identify how many credits their institution of choice will accept. This eliminates confusion and is
fairer to the student, benefits the transcript evaluator, and can reduce costs.
Financial Aid: There are two issues with Financial Aid.
1. Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP). We want to give a service member as many credits as
possible, but in the long run, it can hurt them. SAP has value in that it mitigates the professional
student.
2. We do not have a Community College of the Armed Forces. Educators agree that it would be the
right thing for the student service member, but the government does not see a community college as
essential to the military mission.
The Ohio State is leading push for veteran friendly; sending volumes through state to move forward. All
services but the Air Force must wait 1-2 years to be able to access their tuition assistance. The Ohio
State University is making a push to with senators to get the DoD on board with supporting education
Unfortunately the tendency is to move away from education focus in military. Thereby they are
eliminating the service member ability to learn and excel. Therefore many are getting out of the military
and utilizing VA for educational benefits when it is actually more fiscally feasible to educate the service
member while they are still active duty.
ESO in attendance stated that he is asked a lot why they are not being given credit for a skill. It comes
down to a lot of skills have not been evaluated yet so credit is not available.