Like some people know they want to be a police officer or an astronaut, University of Idaho Senior Edwin Latrell has known he was going to serve in the military since before he can remember.
“I have known since I was little that I would do the military,” Latrell said. “There was not a doubt.”
Latrell enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps in 2004, two years after he started his education at UI. He said he lacked energy and enthusiasm for school when he first enrolled at the university and ended up dropping out of many of his classes.
“I was the best student at not being the best student,” Latrell said.
While he was enlisted, Latrell remained a student at UI and completed 40 courses online in seven different countries including Afghanistan, Iraq and Cuba.
“I”ve done (online classes) like Dr. Seuss, “Here, there and everywhere,”” he said. “I”ve had courses completed on aircraft carriers, in two different deserts “¦ that I served in.”
Latrell is set to graduate in May with three majors in philosophy, psychology and international studies, and four minors in French, naval science, religious studies and comparative international politics.
Rather than making his classes more challenging, serving in the Marine Corps helped Latrell thrive academically. He said being in a more professional role gave him a reason to do well in his online courses, because if he didn”t get good grades it wouldn”t reflect well to his superiors. Latrell eventually made the dean”s list.
Diamond Koloski | Argonaut
University of Idaho senior Edwin Latrell has completed 40 online courses in seven different countries while serving in the U.S. Marine Corps. Latrell is a student representative on Faculty Senate.
Having returned to Moscow in the spring of 2013, Latrell didn”t waste any time getting involved on campus. Before enlisting, Latrell said he was a member of a fraternity that doesn”t exist at UI anymore, but the experience was brief as he left the fraternity before he was officially initiated. Today, Latrell is the scholarship chair for Phi Kappa Tau Fraternity.
“I still wanted the opportunity to be a mentor and to give back some of those lessons that I learned in the intervening 10 years of not having been on campus,” he said.
Latrell also makes time to be a husband and father. He met his wife Julie in 2004 playing chess online and the two married in 2008, after having less than 80 days of in-person interaction. Their preferred method of communication while they”re apart – the phone.
“We actually communicate better over the phone,” he said. “Because we don”t take for granted some of the things that you say nonverbally.”
Latrell is a father to two boys, Charles and Jonathon, the later of whom was born earlier this year.
Latrell is a student representative for Faculty Senate and said he is currently collaborating with members of ASUI to work on different issues with Faculty Senate.
The progress of distance education at UI is one issue that he said he intends to be involved in, since a large portion of Latrell”s higher education was completed through online courses.
Latrell said while he doesn”t think UI”s current system is broken, he thinks the university should make more courses available online, but shouldn”t offer degrees online.
With everything going on in his life, Latrell said he occasionally gets people asking him how he makes time for all of his responsibilities.
“I get (86,400) seconds a day to spend doing something, and I can only better myself so much,” Latrell said. “So I take it upon myself to find opportunities to mentor individuals, to lead individuals.”
Erin Bamer can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @ErinBamer