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Porter Lecture Series speaker to discuss how the military has opened doors to higher education

Long before "quick time" became a program that opens our Internet videos, it described the movement of a military unit — an expedient cadence that falls halfway between a regular march and a run. It's simply a quicker way of getting a group of people from one place to another.

VETERANS VIEW: As part of the
Porter Lecture Series, M.
Christopher Brown II, Alcorn
State University's president, will
present "The Quick-Time March
Toward College Access: Military
Veterans and Catalysts for
Universal Post-Secondary
Education" Feb. 21 in the
Student Center.

When Alcorn State University President M. Christopher Brown II considers the role the military has played in opening the doors of higher education to women, the poor and people of color, he draws upon his ROTC days at the University of South Carolina and the burst of momentum created by marching in quick time.

"That is really what military veterans have done for higher education access, in many ways," said Brown, who will present his lecture "The Quick-Time March Toward College Access: Military Veterans as Catalysts for Universal Post-secondary Participation" Feb. 21, at 6 p.m., in room 310 A/B of Eastern Michigan University's Student Center. "If you look at the history of this country, universal college access only occurred in the aftermath of military conflict."

His talk at EMU is supported by the John W. Porter Distinguished Chair in Urban Education, which has traditionally funded a series of lectures revolving around a social challenge in education. This year, the Porter Chair committee decided to use the series to bring sustained attention to the issues military veterans face.

Future lectures include a look at the experience of women veterans with Rutgers Professor Florence Hamrick March 16 and a conference centered around the effect of military deployments on children in grades K-12 April 1. New York University Professor Gary Anderson will wrap up the conference with a look at controversies surrounding military recruiting and presence in schools.