Page 12 - The MILConnection: Fall 2021

Back to the links!

MIL was a proud gold sponsor of the Lions Club Annual Golf
Tournament! Our very own Joe Joseph serves as a Vice President
for the club and was joined on the course by Jeff Bailey, Vince
Brown, and Brandon Nardo.

The journey to Rebecca Helms, PhD

On September 26, 2021, Rebecca Helms from We asked Rebecca what her greatest challenges were with going to
the Proposals & Marketing team graduated school while working full-time, she replied, “Well, one thing that
from American College of Education as a was NOT a challenge was cost…MIL’s educational reimbursement
Doctor of Educational & Organizational program is above par in the industry—they paid 80% of costs
Leadership, with honors as a member of up to $4,000 each year, which was over a third of my total cost.
Kappa Delta Pi. Rebecca began the program It was one of the driving factors which made me realize I’d be
in August 2017 and became a doctoral stupid not to get this degree. The only real challenge was when
candidate in 2019 when her research proposal the COVID-19 quarantine was put into place, I had to revamp
was accepted to move forward. She used my entire study approach. You wouldn’t think that would be very
a basic qualitative research approach to examine common cumbersome, but it required an entirely different methodology
characteristics, habits, and beliefs of successful first-generation and an entire new set of review board approvals. It added an
college graduates. First-generation college students experience entire year to my timeline. But all-in-all it ended up being a much
a college dropout rate of approximately 50% due to barriers and stronger study, so I choose to see all the good that came out of
challenges their counterparts do not experience. When asked such a dark time in our history.”
why Rebecca chose this topic, she replied, “Most of the research Lastly, when asked what was next for her and what was the major
in the field focused on the demographics of who made up the takeaway from her degree, she stated, “I hope to use the study
first-gen college student population—most of which is made results and degree here at MIL—I love working here. The one
up of minority, at-risk, single-parent homes or homes where major takeaway I have is how resilient first-generation college
English is not the first language. I wanted to find out how the graduates are and the amount of creativity, grit, and tenacity they
other half succeeded so we could teach and duplicate those bring to any goal they set. MIL, being a government contractor,
characteristics to future first generation students. There’s also an draws from prior military members as a source of hiring pools,
enormous opportunity for colleges to support this group once many of whom are first-generation themselves—I think there’s an
they arrive in college as well as the opportunity for companies to opportunity to increase our presence in those individuals’ looking
create recruiting pipelines based on first-generation status. Many for their next career. But more than that, if we create the right
respondents stated they used the same skills they used to succeed environment to help them succeed and grow and thrive—we have
in college when they entered the workforce but creating the the greater opportunity to also be their last career.”
necessary cultural capital and networking resources remained a
challenge. Corporations and non-profits in the U.S. could tap into Rebecca serves as the main point of contact at MIL for all
that workforce with early mentorship programs and networking things SharePoint as a Systems Administration Specialist.
events aimed at attracting over 1.2M first-generation college Congratulations, Dr. Helms—well done!
graduates each year.”

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12 | The mil connection | Fall 2021