Wildland firefighters spend the summer season working in the state and beyond, but fires don't just end by the start of the new school year.
Boise State makes special accomodations for firefighting students who need to be in the field beyond the first day of fall semester. This has included helping firefighting students get extensions for adding classes, paying fees and other start-of-semester tasks.
The university first started helping these students in 2003, but the program was informal. Some time after that, a summer of terrible Idaho fires kept several Boise State students away for the start of the year. Soon thereafter, they started the formal program of today, with specific measures in place to make sure these students get the support they need.
“It set a good precedent for years to come,” says Kris Collins, Boise State’s Interim Associate VP of Enrollment Services. “Like this year, [fire season] doesn’t happen to be as bad, and so hopefully students that need that couple extra weeks will benefit.”
Collins says that what firefighters need varies greatly from student to student. Sometimes they just need help letting a professor know they won’t be there until the second day. Other times it’s to drop a class, which the enrollment office can help them do with no penalty.
“It’s to help them,” Collins says. “They’re serving our state, or in some cases other states, so we want to do what we can to assist them.”
Student firefighters should contact Boise State’s office of enrollment services for accomodations. Drea Burton is the point of contact for this program, and can be reached at (208) 426-2384.
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