Working with Student Veterans: Creating a Military Inclusive Campus

LaToya Hill, Assistant DeanBen Armstrong, Coordinator

Student Veteran Services

Building a Military Friendly Campus

• Creating the Blueprint• Breaking ground• Laying the foundation and structure• Making it a home• Future improvements

Creating the Blueprint: Needs and Misconceptions

• Veteran Services Committee• Focus Groups– An individual to support them– A place on campus to call their own– A change in the perceived culture at the University

• VSIRP- Research Initiative/ VA Grant

Breaking Ground: University Initiatives

• Opening Center• Hiring Coordinator• Hiring VA Psychologist• Partnership TVC, SVA• Sponsorship to SVA• Outward bound

Laying the foundation:Student Veteran Services

• What is SVS?– Connect, Integrate, Develop student veterans – Assistance with the academic process– Explaining and accessing VA benefits– Veteran Counseling / Programming

• Statistics – Services provided so far– 200 veterans / 72 dependents serviced

62%

2%

8%

4%

4%

20%

Nov 2011 - Jan 2012 Services Provided

Education HealthcareMental Employment Family Financial Other

Making it a home:Working with Student Veterans

(Misconceptions)

• Veterans are all white males with combat experience• Women veterans experienced Military Sexual

Trauma(MST), and need to be handled differently • Veterans suffer from that PTSD thingy and the TBI stuff• Veterans do not want to integrate into the University

experience • Veterans are aggressive

Making it a home:Working with Student Veterans (The Truth)• While the percentages point to a

large amount of veterans being white males there is a great diversity in the student veteran population

• The VA reports on their website that in 1995 that 15% of Woman Veterans experienced MST, and the current data suggested 1 in 5 experience MST

• Yes veterans are experiencing TBI and PTSD, but the VA estimates that 11% of veterans suffer from PTS

• A majority of veterans want to integrate, but we just do not know how.

Making it a home:Working with Student Veterans

• Apply Social Justice to your work with student veterans• Collaborators not Consumers • Understand the need for structure – Student veterans come from a structured world where

everything is deliverable based, when they are removed from that world the attempt to find that in the civilian words

– They want to find that one person that can take care of that one thing for them. (Ben can solve X, LaToya can solve Y, etc.)

• Understand why they are so open with information

Making it a home:Working with Student Veterans

• Don’t be a “clearing house”• Developing deliverables you can give the student veteran

directly.• Quick victories will validate your service.

• Simplify your touch points and message.

Home Improvements- Future plans• Creating Veteran Orientation Session• Creating Veteran Transition class• Developing veteran programs (Welcome

Week, Graduation stoles, Theatre of War)

Questions and Answers