{"id":4169,"date":"2011-06-17T16:15:48","date_gmt":"2011-06-17T20:15:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/?p=4169"},"modified":"2014-06-02T14:54:56","modified_gmt":"2014-06-02T18:54:56","slug":"squared-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/2011\/06\/17\/squared-away\/","title":{"rendered":"Squared Away"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"main_rotc\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Eagle Battalion ranks among the nation\u2019s top ROTC units<\/h3>\n

\u201cPreparedness,\u201d Gen. Douglas MacArthur once said, \u201cis the key to success and victory.\u201d By any measure, Georgia Southern\u2019s ROTC program would have made the late Gen. MacArthur proud.<\/p>\n

Eagle Battalion was named a MacArthur Award winner this spring, making it one of the eight best ROTC programs in the nation. It was the second consecutive year it earned the honor.<\/p>\n

Since 1989, the MacArthur Foundation has recognized the country\u2019s top ROTC units based on the ideals of MacArthur, performance on the Cadet National Order of Merit List, cadet retention, quality and performance of military training and newly commissioned second lieutenants.<\/p>\n

This year, seven cadets achieved \u201cIron Eagle\u201d status by scoring 300 or higher on three demanding consecutive Army Physical Fitness tests. Two cadets, Craig Overholt and Charles Deem, were selected for the nationally competitive LTG Maude Scholarship \u2013 a first for any ROTC battalion. Overholt was assessed as the 21st best cadet in the U.S. and also received the National Defense Transportation Award. Cadet Jason Graf was named a National Level Society of Military Engineers Award winner.<\/p>\n

The program commissioned five nurses and 34 line officers in 2010. The Battalion\u2019s leader, Colonel George Fredrick, expects to commission 50 officers in the summer of 2012 and 60 in 2013. Those kinds of numbers are what are expected from military colleges, not a traditional university like Georgia Southern, said Fredrick.<\/p>\n

U.S. Department of Education statistics show that only 36 percent of American college undergrads graduate within four years, and only 57.5 percent of them attained a degree or certificate in six years. The Eagle Battalion\u2019s average time to graduation is four years and two months.<\/p>\n

Fredrick said 104 of 171 contracted cadets (those committed to accepting an Army commission upon graduation) have GPAs of 3.0 or higher and of those 104, 44 stand at 3.5 or higher. The overall GPA for all of the Battalion\u2019s contracted cadets is 3.22.<\/p>\n

Fredrick credited Recruiting Operations Officer LTC Bill Roberts\u2019 skills for the program\u2019s rise in well-qualified and motivated new cadets. \u201cColonel Roberts is still the best in the business,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople confuse the term \u2018recruiter.\u2019 A recruiter brings you in, signs the paper, and tells you, \u2018Goodbye. Now you\u2019re going somewhere else.\u2019 When we bring somebody in, we follow them until they finish.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Army tells us if you\u2019re going to be successful, you\u2019ve got to recruit the best, you\u2019ve got to develop the best and retain the best,\u201d said Fredrick. \u201cTogether we\u2019ve contracted 211 cadets \u2013 211 times somebody raised their right hand and made that promise. Out of those, we lost 15. Two of those were for medical reasons. That\u2019s a 93 percent retention rate. My instructors are the best \u2013 competent, professional with a high level of care. Retention is very important. I\u2019ll take that 93 percent any day, and I\u2019ll put that up against any other ROTC program.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cStep one is to try to bring in the very best, high quality, really motivated, \u2018I want to be an Army officer\u2019 kind of student into the program,\u201d said Roberts. \u201cIf I can bring in those kinds of students and give them to a really good instructor who\u2019s going to develop them and mentor them and coach them, he\u2019s going to get them over those little speed bumps you get when you\u2019re in college.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much thought is also given to keeping instructors informed of each cadet\u2019s academic and personal situations. \u201cWe\u2019re very careful of how they get passed from the freshman year to the sophomore year and to the junior year,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cThe sharing of information is very important. Each instructor knows students\u2019 strengths and weaknesses and passes that to the next instructor.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s also vitally important for new freshmen to believe they are invested in the program and that there is concern about their needs from the first day. Early on, cadets are in uniform and participating. \u201cThey\u2019re thinking, \u2018So far, everybody I\u2019ve met is concerned about me and has taken care of me and makes me feel a part of the team.\u2019 You don\u2019t get that at every school,\u201d said Roberts.<\/p>\n

When a program is a cut above the rest, it doesn\u2019t take long for word to spread, said Fredrick. \u201cWord is getting out. It\u2019s an Internet world. These kids go online, they search, they check. They know how to research.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both men had high praise for the University\u2019s Office of Admissions. \u201cI consider myself a part of that team,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cEvery year they give me an opportunity to talk to the SOAR leaders. I take 30 minutes to teach 50 people about ROTC and they\u2019re going to be talking to thousands of people who come to campus.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery one of those admissions folks can talk ROTC,\u201d said Roberts. \u201cIf you\u2019re a student and you show up in the admissions office, they\u2019re going to be friendly to you. You\u2019re going to walk in there and think, \u2018These people like me. They\u2019re genuinely nice and they would really like for me to come to Georgia Southern.\u2019 That to me is one of the reasons Georgia Southern is one of the most popular schools in the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is just something about this University,\u201d said Fredrick. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to say too much about the support we get \u2013 from President Keel, the provost, the deans, down to the individual professors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some parents are now sending their second and third children to Georgia Southern ROTC. \u201cThat\u2019s a high compliment,\u201d said Fredrick. \u201cThat tells us that when the kid comes home at Thanksgiving, the parents like what they see.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eagle Battalion Earns the Coveted MacArthur Award for the Second Straight Year<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4170,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-4169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-summer-2011"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}