Heroes in caps and gowns: Online military grads travel to ASU for graduation festivities
For the first time, the Office for Veteran and Military Academic Engagement funded accommodations for five veteran and active-duty ASU Online students to travel to Tempe and attend Saturday's Veterans Honor Stole Ceremony (pictured) and another ASU graduation event of their choice. Those grads are (from left) U.S. Air Force veteran Shawn Zielsdorf, master's degree in supply chain management; U.S. Marine Corps veteran Erik Rinda, bachelor's degree in marketing; U.S. Army National Guard Engineering Officer Dustin Dice, master's degree in emergency management and homeland security; U.S. Army active-duty member Melissa Aguirre Rios, bachelor's degree in political science; and U.S. Marine Corps veteran Mark Richard, bachelor's degree in psychology. Photo by Alyssa Thornhill/ASU
A record-breaking 20,000 veteran and military-affiliated students are enrolled at Arizona State University this semester and, of that group, 1,826 are proudly graduating this spring.
Whether posted overseas or scattered across the country, many opted for online learning and are not able to travel to campus for graduation festivities. That’s where ASU’s Office for Veteran and Military Academic Engagement in the College of Integrative Sciences and Arts stepped in.
For the first time, OVMAE is funding accommodations for five veteran and active-duty online students to travel to Tempe and attend ASU’s Veterans Honor Stole Ceremony and another ASU graduation ceremony of their choice, so they can celebrate this milestone — in person.
“By bringing them to campus, even briefly, we hope they get to feel what it means to be part of the ASU community. I want them to know just how proud ASU is of everything they’ve overcome to get here,” said retired Col. Wanda Wright, the Peter M. and Michelle H. Wilver Director of OVMAE and assistant teaching professor in the School of Applied Sciences and Arts.
Next week they will travel to campus from Honolulu; Kansas City, Missouri; Cancun, Mexico; Detroit; and Jacksonville, Florida.
Undergraduate psychology student and U.S. Marine Corps veteran Mark Richard of Jacksonville was one of the students selected.
“To be able to travel to campus and experience graduation in person is important to me and an experience that I would otherwise not be able to have,” he says.
After initially dropping out of college, Richard followed in his father’s footsteps and joined the Marines, where he completed two combat tours.
“After the Marines, I wanted more. I wanted to be better,” says Richard, who is a Pat Tillman Scholar. “I wanted to finish my degree for my children, for myself, for my family.”
After 20 years, he went back to school and chose ASU.
“ASU felt like a home for veterans. It gives off that inviting military feel,” says Richard, who will begin his master’s degree in psychology at ASU this summer.
“Throughout my life, everything has been a battle, but ASU was the opposite. The OVMAE and Pat Tillman Veterans Center helped me focus on my studies."
Dustin Dice, an engineering officer in the U.S. Army National Guard in Kansas City, was also selected to visit campus.
He says he chose ASU because it offered the emergency management and homeland security online master’s program — a field he is passionate about.
“I never even planned to go to college, and here I am with a 4.0 GPA,” he says. “Surpassing obstacles and confronting my own insecurities has transformed this achievement into a powerful milestone, symbolizing my relentless dedication and personal growth along the way.”
Dice says ASU Online offered a way for him to balance his studies with family and work.
“Canvas was easy to use, and my professors were extremely receptive and easily accessible whenever I needed assistance,” he says.
He looks forward to his future knowing that everything he learned in his master’s program is directly tied to the efforts of the National Guard. He foresees himself taking on a liaison role between local emergency management offices and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Along with Richard and Dice, OVMAE will welcome three more students to campus for spring graduation festivities.
“We hope to continue this tradition every semester," Wright says, "because it’s important to remember why we are here — to support, uplift and celebrate the achievements of our veterans and active-duty students.”
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