Military service members at East Central Community College will no longer need to worry about losing scholarships due to military training or exercises after the Board of Trustees voted to amend their policy regarding scholastic scholarships.
In a regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday, ECCC President Billy Stewart asked the board to consider changing the policy on scholarships as it was inadvertently excluding students in the military, who had earned scholastic scholarships in high school.
“The current policy says students must enroll in the fall immediately after high school graduation,” Stewart said.
However, some students, who join the military during their senior year of high school, are required to go to fall, and occasionally spring, training. ECCC’s policy regarding scholastic scholarships makes those students ineligible to receive their scholarship, Stewart said, as they were not able to enroll in courses immediately following high school graduation.
Stewart said East Central administration was only able to identify one or two students who had lost scholarships due to joining the military. However, he said even one student is too many.
The amended policy would allow students, who had signed up for the military, a conditional exemption. Stewart explained students attending military training in the fall and spring semesters following high school would keep their scholastic scholarships.
“If you join the army, and you’re required to go to training in the fall, or the fall and spring, you can still come to East Central, and we’ll honor your scholastic scholarships,” he said.
While Stewart had originally planned for the policy change to go into effect for the Fall 2019 semester, the trustees said they did not want to allow the potential for more students to lose scholarships due to military service.
After discussing their options, East Central Trustees and administration agreed to implement the policy beginning Jan. 1, 2019 with an option to retroactively apply the new rule for the current Fall 2018 semester.
Also, on Tuesday, Randall Lee, vice president for Student Services at ECCC, announced they would be making some changes to the student housing policies regarding curfew.
“After midnight, students should be headed back to their dorm,” he said. “If they don’t, they can be disciplined.”
Years ago, East Central had a midnight curfew in place, Lee said, but it was removed. The result, he said, has been students “whooping and carrying on” late at night
In recent years, Lee said, it hasn’t been uncommon for him to be woken up 2-3 times per night by students yelling outside his house on the East Central campus. However, this year was a bit too much.
“Beginning in the fall, we had a lot of activity after midnight,” he said. “The police were overwhelmed.”
Lee said the midnight curfew will hopefully keep students safe and encourage them to get plenty of for the next day’s classes. Students who do not abide by the curfew will receive a warning and then be referred to the dean for disciplinary action.
