Q&A: Shelby L. Dill, M.S.
Written by Mark Fitzgerald
MAE 2010 Volume: 5 Issue: 1 (February)
Helping Coast Guard Members
Every Step of the Way
Shelby L. Dill, M.S.
Education Services Officer
U.S. Coast Guard,
Sector Houston-Galveston
Because of her travels with the military, she has worked in several different vocational fields. Her varied professional experience includes academic guidance counseling and testing in both Air Force education and navy college offices, career and vocational counseling, work with a federal disaster recovery program, and child welfare. She is currently the education services officer for the United States Coast Guard at Sector Houston-Galveston, Texas.
Ms. Dill’s academic accomplishments include an Associate of Applied Science degree in interpreting and translating from the Community College of the Air Force, a Bachelor of Arts degree in management from the University of Maryland/ European Division, and a Master of Science degree in counseling psychology from Troy State University.
Dill was interviewed by KMI Media Group Editor Ted McKenna.
Q: How did you get into academic advising?
A: I started as an academic advisor and then moved into the academic counselor position, first as a contractor, then as GS. The jobs are very similar and do essentially the same things. Almost all the education offices in all the services have some contract counselors and some GS counselors. I guess it keeps the GS numbers down and makes it a little less expensive for them.
Q: So you were in the Air Force and then you moved into a civilian position?
A: Right. I was in the Air Force first, for five years.
Q: That was your first job?
A: That was my first time with the military, but I wasn’t an education counselor in the military. But that’s when I first started going to college, as an active duty member using tuition assistance. My first degree is from the Community College of the Air Force.
Q: So you can see things from your students’ perspective?
A: Right. When I started it, I felt like—I put this on my cover letter and I swear this is what got me the job—I was “uniquely qualified” because I had done [schooling] through tuition assistance, I’d done it through the Veterans Administration, I’d done it as active duty, as a spouse, overseas, in the States. Pretty much everything I counsel on I’ve done personally, as far academics and utilizing programs. At least that’s the way I feel, and that’s why I feel as though I’m good at it. I’ve been there; I’ve been on the other side.
Q: So you went to the Air Force and then into the Navy?
A: Well first it was the Air Force at RAF Lakenheath in the United Kingdom, and then I worked for the Air Force for two years at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base and their education office as a counselor. And then the Navy College Office in Pensacola, and I didn’t start that until 2007. I took a 10 year break, moving and things like that. I did it in the 90s and then starting in the end of 2007, I came back to it.
Q: You were looking after family or working in the private sector?
A: Both. Working in the private sector, I worked in child welfare and as a career counselor. I’ve done so many different things, just because I was a military spouse, I was a military brat, I was military myself. So I’ve moved around and had to accommodate where I was at the time. I could never get back into education when I was in Pensacola until 2007.
Q: Then you were there about a year?
A: I was there for a year as a counselor and a test examiner and then I came to the Coast Guard in Galveston in September 2008.
Q: Is there any kind of particular situation that you see a lot with the people you counsel? Is it all different, the kinds of degrees they’re interested in and their backgrounds?
A: There are those that come in with “I want the fastest degree that I can get.” That is almost always, as I advise them, what we call a “rate-related degree,” where you work with some of the military friendly schools that accept the most military credit. The SOC schools, for us specifically the SOC-COAST schools. Usually that’s almost always going to be their fastest way to get just a degree—like an associate degree. It kind of validates their time in the service. I try and guide them with, “OK, you have 10 years of experience doing this.” Then you get out and say “I have 10 years of experience doing this and I have an associate degree in the field.” So for those people who want the fastest, that’s the way I try and lean them. They usually have to get their general education and combine it with military education, and they might have the requirements for an associate degree.
Q: They may be retiring and they know what field they want to go into?
A: They may just want to be able to mark that box, that they have a degree. Then there are those who don’t want anything to do with their military field, because they want to go into something else. Sometimes I even then advise them that this will be the fastest, if everything they do for their bachelor’s degree can also apply to their associate degree, because a lot of times all they need is general education. So I try to get them to work both and not skip that step, but not take things they won’t need. I won’t say, “Oh, you need to take a class in management for your associate degree” and not have it apply toward their bachelor’s degree too. So I try to make sure everything they take applies toward something. I’m trying to get them in here and review stuff with me so they don’t just take classes willy-nilly, just to take classes. “Well, I’ve got 120 semester hours.” Yes, but are they the right 120 semester hours?
Q: With the people you advise, is accreditation a particularly important issue, to make sure credits earned are as transferable as possible from school to school?
A: Where I am, I’m a little unusual. Most of the full-time ESOs in the Coast Guard are at a sector, and I’m assigned to a sector, but I’m not actually physically located there. I’m down at Galveston. I don’t have many officers at all here, so I don’t have many people going on to their master’s degrees. My focus is here, I’m for the whole sector, and I work with the whole sector, and I go out and visit all my units at least once a quarter. Last quarter I did Post-9/11 GI Bill briefings for all the sectors. Now I’m going out and trying to review tuition assistance that people have, and things like that. So for me here, the main focus is trying to get people started and get assessments, and let them know that it can be done while they are active duty, and the benefits of obtaining education while they are active duty. Everyone says, “Well, I can do that when I get out.” Yes, you can. But you can do it while you’re in, too, and then save your GI benefits for going for even more advanced education. Or now, for transferring it to your spouse or dependents. So utilize your tuition assistance now. Why wait until you get out? For those are going in for four years and then getting out, that’s great. For those that have been in more than six or 10 years, do it now. Because then you can transfer your GI Bill benefits.
Q: Does it seem like enough people take advantage of their opportunities?
A: For tuition assistance? No.
Q: Do you feel like you have a lot of people coming to you?
A: I do have a lot of people coming to me, and I’ve been here just over a year now, and I can see that it’s increasingly steadily, as they get the idea that I’m here. I came in here with kind of a disadvantage. One, this is still a fairly new program for the Coast Guard. Having full-time ESOs at every sector has really only been in effect maybe two years. So it’s kind of new. Two, I arrived right after a devastating Hurricane and the ops tempo was extremely high.
Q: It used to be part-time people?
A: Part-time and it was their secondary, collateral duty. They still have those, but they kind of come to us (the full-time ESOS) for guidance and they don’t really do any in-depth counseling. Some of them do, but most of them don’t have the time to do it. They mostly assist with the TA applications and promotion testing. So people are getting the idea that I’m here and they can come talk to me, and I’m getting people from all over my area of responsibility contacting me, both the ESOs and members. But also, when I got here in September 2008 … well, did you hear of a little thing called Hurricane Ike? The Houston and Galveston areas were trashed. We had to move, so we’re still recovering, we’re still rebuilding clinics, we’re still rebuilding buildings, we’re still working out of temporary spaces. So it’s been kind of a double thing. I arrived two weeks after Hurricane Ike. It was chaotic. Now it’s a year later and people are starting to calm down. The pace isn’t quite as great as after the hurricane, and now people are starting to really look and do assessments. Still, we’re nowhere near as utilized as I’d like it see. I think it would be great if the Coast Guard would make it award points—not make it mandatory to have an education, but if someone had an associate degree, maybe get two extra points, or something like that toward promotion.
Q: There seem to be a lot of schools interested in recruiting military students. How do you help prospective students sort through which schools to go to? Is it just based on the individual in how you narrow down the choices?
A: It’s based on a couple of different things. Based on the individual— do they want to go to school in residence or are they interested in distance learning? If they want to go in residence, obviously I’m looking at the local schools, local community colleges and things like that. Quite a few people going to school choose local colleges, because they want to go to the classroom and learn in the classroom. So I steer them toward regionally accredited schools, if possible. They have to be either regionally accredited or nationally accredited to use Coast Guard tuition assistance. It won’t work for a vocational school. You can take vocational stuff at a college, but you can’t go to a vocational school. Regional is preferable to national. That’s one way: I try to steer them onto what’s available locally. The second way is if they’re interested in distance learning—first I try to get them one class at a time initially, until they get used to it. But we go by if they are regionally accredited and if they are a SOC-COAST school. All SOC-COAST schools are regionally accredited. That’s really a key for me, is to get them into a SOC school, and preferably as SOCCOAST school. Most of the SOC-COAST schools have rate-related degrees, plus others. That’s where I try to guide them, but if they want to go somewhere else, I look at what their accreditation and say, “OK, you can use tuition assistance at this school” or, “No, you can’t. What are your long term goals?”
Q: Do you get barraged by marketing materials from schools?
A: Not barraged. But for example, I had an education fair, and I’d like it to be an annual thing. I wanted to get local schools in here that are regionally accredited, I wanted to get SOC-COAST schools, and then I got some of the other schools that are used by some people around [here]. But, no, I don’t get barraged by them too much. There are some schools that are more persistent than others.
Q: I’m curious too about schools that promote their online facilities. Is it pretty easy to tell which schools have good distance learning programs? How do you tell? Is it by reputation?
A: It’s kind of by reputation and personal experience and talking with the students. Like, which schools have a military department? If a school doesn’t have a military department, then they’re not necessarily going to understand what the students are up against. But then you try to avoid the schools that are just throwing something together in order to get the military students, because they know military students get tuition assistance. But if it’s a regionally accredited school, then it’s got to meet the accreditation guidelines. You can’t personally check out every school, and everybody’s got a different opinion about various schools. So you kind of go by your personal experience and you hope that the accreditation process works.
Q: Anything that you’d note about the testing process? Does that seem to go pretty well?
A: Well, I really try to promote my testing. Here where I am and at sector, we’ve obtained study materials for CLEP and DANTES tests, so I’ve got review materials available at four to five places throughout the sector. Then the Coast Guard has it on their portal—they have sample tests. Then there are several other free sites that I send people to. So I do promote that, and I give the ACT test and the SAT tests. Also, here and at sector and at one of our big boats I’ve acquired Rosetta Stone—Spanish, Chinese, Arabic—for the students to check out and use. I also have a small library I keep here in my office of leadership material and self-help books like The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and Coast Guard readings like In the Heart of the Sea. Some things on the Coast Guard reading list I try to keep available for checkout. Then a lot of students have put out the word that if you’re finished with a class, you’re not going to sell your book back and you don’t want to keep it, bring it to me, especially if it’s something that a lot of the schools use, so that we can have checkout books to reduce the expense of textbooks for students.
Q: So you have a kind of community that’s building?
A: Yes. I don’t have much space, but I’m trying to get out as much as possible to help, because tuition assistance pays for tuition, but it doesn’t pay for the books. Some of the schools include books with their tuition. I think Ashford, for example. And then some schools, like Coastline, if you enroll by a specific time, they’ll give you the books for only $50. Then there are Coast Guard resources where you can request reimbursement, but that’s only to a certain amount and only if the funds are available.
Q: Other education counselors have noted that often it’s a matter of encouraging prospective students to believe in themselves; that they might otherwise not even try to take tests to get credit and eventually enroll in a program. They might be afraid to not do well, but it’s part of the job to be a cheerleader.
A: Yeah, I try to encourage them to study for it first because the test still costs the Coast Guard money. It’s much less than the tuition assistance is, but it still costs that Coast Guard. So that’s why we try to get them to take the sample tests online. If they pass the sample tests online, they can get a certificate. Some of the ESOs will say that you have to bring the certificate showing you passed the sample test online first. That shows they are more likely to pass the test here. So I do push it a lot. But it’s a fine line. If you have to keep after them, they’ll be just like, “Leave me alone.” My policy, and what works for me with the students, though it’s hard as an organizational tool, is that I try to talk to them when they walk in my office. Because if you don’t talk to them then, you may not get them. So I try to make sure that if they come in, I can sit down and talk to them then. I don’t push them off to an appointment next week, if I can help it. I make appointments if they want them, but if they walk in I try to talk to them right then. So it’s being really open about it and going out to all the units to talk about what’s available, don’t forget that this available. I have a plan of the week. I put out a newsletter every quarter, and the plan is in every newsletter.
Q: E-mail or print?
A: I print it out here but I e-mail it to every member in the sector. We have these “all hands” mailing lists. It talks about: this is what’s available, this is when I test, this is what you can do with it. And I put in kudos, like when people get their degrees and things. I always put in congratulations that so-and-so passed their test or has earned their degree in this or that. That helps people a lot to know that their fellow members are doing it too.
Q: Any trends you’re seeing with the people you advise in their line of study or fields they go into?
A: Again, at my level, I’m trying to get them general education. Most of the people I’m working with are really just starting their education. I’m not at sector, I’m not at a rank, top-heavy place. You go to sector and you have lots of higher rank officers going for master’s degrees. You go to some of the [Marine Safety Units] that have inspectors and those are officers, they often have their degrees already and they’re looking for master’s degrees. Here I get lots of people who are just new in the service and they’re straight out of high school. A lot of the people I deal with here are a very young population. So I’m really trying to get them going for first time to college.
Q: I imagine that involves a lot more work, with the people just starting, as opposed to those pursing advanced degrees?
A: Right. For these guys, I have to sit down and talk with them and explain how college works, that you need some coursework for general education, for your major. All some of them know is, “I want to go to school and I want to get a degree, because that’s what people tell me I need to do.” So I explain pretty much what the process is and what degrees they’re going to need. For a lot of them, I’m the first one who has sat down with them and talked about attending college, versus someone saying, “You really should do that.” I have lots of people under 20 here.
Q: How many people do you work with?
A: In the entire sector I think I have 2,700 or something like that, but I have probably 350 on the island here. But people who actually walk in my office, I probably have about 300 who would walk in my office. Then I also have people who come from sector for the test, because I’m the primary test proctor here for the Houston- Galveston area. For people a little bit farther away, like Port Arthur or Lake Charles, they have their own test proctor. It’s a TCO that has the capability to give DANTES tests. At Air Station Houston, they have a lot of officers because a lot of them are pilots, so they have a different population. I’m very rarely working with someone working on a master’s degree.
Q: Any other final points you’d make?
A: No, just that I’d like people to know that this is where I came from, too. My first degree was from the Community College of the Air Force. I earned my bachelor’s degree while I was living overseas. I started it as active duty, finished it as a spouse. I didn’t finish my Master’s until 10 years later. A lot of kids come in here and they’re kind of intimidated about coming to see me, just because of my education service officer position. They put me up there with the officers and things like that, but when they find out that I was enlisted, I got my degree while I was in the military, I used all the same tools they have available, it really does help. Even though I’m older than these kids, I can see them loosen up a little bit when they realize I’ve done those kinds of things. I did it too when I was 18. ✯