UM Leads Navy Veteran to New Mission: Teaching History
By Skylar Rispens, UM News Service
MISSOULA – It may not have been Keely McFarren’s first experience with higher education when he started as a student at the 91短视频 in 2022, but this time was different. This time the father of four young boys and Navy veteran had a clear goal in mind: He wanted to become a history teacher.
Now, McFarren is preparing to graduate from UM with a degree in history and a handful of minors in philosophy, political science and democracy studies.
“I think that it’s important that people have an understanding of their end-goal before entering college,” McFarren said. “I think that it’s OK to take time off. It’s OK to do other things. It’s OK to pursue other avenues or interests.”
McFarren, who is originally from Bloomfield, Montana, first pursued higher education at a technical college in North Carolina with the intention to earn an associate’s degree in emergency medicine and work as an emergency medical technician. But after learning that he only needed an EMT certification—which typically requires 120 hours of supervised training over a matter of weeks—he instead opted to pursue the certification and save money on tuition.
“As a person who was solely responsible for funding their college education, to me, it just didn’t make any sense for me to finish at that time,” McFarren said. “I could go ahead and get a full-time job and start working. I was unwilling to go into debt to go to college.”
After working as an EMT, McFarren enlisted in the Navy and served for nine years before retiring in 2022. Once he concluded his service, he decided to make the most out of his military benefits and earn a bachelor’s degree to overcome the “paper ceiling.” The paper ceiling is an invisible barrier that prevents people who develop professional skills through routes alternative to higher education from climbing the economic ladder.
“It’s not that people aren’t necessarily qualified, they just haven’t checked the specific box that people are looking for when hiring them,” McFarren said. “A lot of people turn to college, especially at a young age, to try and get ahead in life. Your opportunities are definitely limited without a college degree, but I’m glad that I waited to pursue mine.”
McFarren’s father worked as a history teacher before he was born and discussions about history were quite common in his household, which helped shape his interest to pursue a history degree and become a teacher.
Although he didn’t go through a traditional teacher preparation program, McFarren served as an educator in the Navy and lead courses on nuclear reactor principles and theory for years. During that experience, he regularly received feedback from superiors with decades of experience on how to improve his instruction.
“The nuclear community in the military is definitely built around education and continuing education,” McFarren said. “So while not having taught in high school or middle school, I’m very comfortable with teaching and leading a classroom.”
In recent years, Montana, Kentucky and several other states developed alternative pathways to teacher licensure that streamline the process for veterans transitioning into teaching careers as a means to overcome staffing shortages.
After graduation, McFarren plans to move to Kentucky to launch his career while being a bit closer to family. He is applying for jobs teaching history to either middle schoolers or high school students.
“I like the material and the maturity of teaching high schoolers,” McFarren said. “However, with middle schoolers, you can definitely have an outsized impact on their life. The longer I’ve been away from teaching the more I miss watching people make the connections in their own minds.
“You can see the light bulb turn on,” he continued. “And the longer I’ve been here, the more I’ve realized that’s a very meaningful career that I would enjoy. I know that this degree will not only benefit me, but it benefits my four children, my wife and our stability.”
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Contact: Dave Kuntz, UM director of strategic communications, 406-243-5659, dave.kuntz@umontana.edu.