At 9 p.m., on Aug. 31, Claudia Winn received a call she wasn’t expecting.

“They basically said ‘we’re calling you, we need you, when can you get here?'” said Winn, a senior political science major.

Her unit was calling her to duty for Hurricane Relief. She spent two weeks at the beginning of the semester evacuating people out of New Orleans.

The phone call marks the third time since she started attending Eastern in the fall of 2001 that Winn has been activated.

The first time happened in 2003, when her husband was activated. They put her on reserve call, and she spent the remainder of the semester in Hawaii completing a mission for another unit that had been called to Iraq.

The second time, in November 2004, the President activated her unit to assist Operation Iraqi Freedom.

“There are at least 80 students that are reservists who are on our campus,” said Nancy Dole, supervisor of Veterans’ Benefits. “There could possibly be more because there could be that group that doesn’t get benefits.”

Veterans’ Benefits certifies that students are enlisted in the reserve so they can receive a monthly benefit for educational purposes through the Montgomery G.I. Bill.

Richard Wandling, chair of the political science department, worked closely with Winn through the times she was called up for duty.

“When they start the semester, they don’t know if they’re going to be enrolled at the end of the semester,” he said about the challenges students in the reserve face.

When Winn left in November, she didn’t know that the University has a policy for students who are called up for military service.

“I thought that I was just going to lose the semester,” she said.

Eastern Internal Governing Policy number 95 addresses the options students have if they are activated.

Reserve students activated for duty receive a full refund or incompletes in their classes if they must leave after the fourth week of the semester. However, if students must leave during the last three weeks of the semester, professors can award them the grades they are making in their classes at that point provided they are making a C or better.

The Enrollment Transfer Relations Office tracks students who leave for military service.

“We only know if they contact us,” Burris said.

Students are not required to notify the university that they are leaving for active duty. Therefore, she said that what she has on file probably is not an accurate reflection of the number of students who withdraw because of military service.

This semester, seven students withdrew because they were activated for hurricane relief, said Carole Burris, office systems specialists III in Enrollment Management/Transfer Relations.

During Spring 2005, five students withdrew because they were activated to the Middle East, she said.

Working with Winn, Wandling has witnessed the additional difficulties and stresses those students serving their country experience while trying to get a higher education degree.

“Above all, I’ve learned about the stresses and difficulties that these students experience,” he said. “They’re in a very different set of circumstances.”

Military involved students must be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice.