Military On Campus: A Joint Umr Army Program Providing Non Traditional Master's Degrees.

Through efforts to bring non-traditional students into the classroom, the Environmental Engineering Program at University of Missouri-Rolla (UMR) has developed a program to offer Master’s degrees to US Army Officers completing the Engineering Officer’s Advanced Course (EOAC) at Fort Leonard Wood. The program was formulated in conjunction with the Army Engineering School. The goal-oriented program provides a limited amount of credit for the EOAC coursework completed by the officers, subject to evaluation by program faculty. These officers/students are allowed flexibility to develop their own plan of study that meets the UMR criteria, while still permitting them to complete their non-thesis degree in a total of nine months. While this program met some resistance when initially proposed, it has since been extremely successful, receiving broad praise from UMR and the Army. The program is now seen as a “win-win” venture as the Army students are allowed to receive a superb, flexible degree from a prominent engineering school and bring that knowledge to their profession in the military. The program added minimal additional teaching load to the Environmental Engineering Program faculty, and UMR benefits from these officer/students with their high degree of professionalism, a drive to learn, and a vast background of experiences.