Regional
(2010-12-09)
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A poster from the American Veterans Institute
This population explosion is happening across the country, and that has colleges and universities scrambling to accommodate their unique needs. But defining that term is more challenging than you might think.
Becoming "Veteran Friendly"
Twenty-five-year-old Mike Rister looks like any other freshman on the CSU campus. He has dark hair, a baby face and carries his backpack everywhere. But talk to him for just a couple of minutes and you get a sense of how he's unlike most students.
"The thing that I have the biggest issue with is the lack of discipline with other students--sagging pants, just their appearance in general," he said.
This sense of order is important to Rister because he spent four years in the Army, including a tour in Iraq as a gunner. And that experience has made his transition back to college life a bit difficult.
One thing that has made it easier, he said, is a veteran's only freshman writing seminar.
"We've all had pretty much the same experiences," he said. "So it makes the class a lot better when people can get along and communicate openly."
Rister is not alone. More and more veterans are going back to school in Colorado and nationally after Congress passed the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill last year. It set aside almost $4 billion in scholarship funding for veterans and their dependants.
That's why CSU is taking both traditional and creative steps to make sure they are a "veteran friendly" institution.
Defining Best Practices
Jan Rastall is director of Adult Learner and Veteran Services at the school. She said the veterans-specific class has been an initial success, exceeding enrollment expectations, but for very different reasons.
"Some of the vets said they signed up for it not because it was vet only but because they could get in--there were spaces open," she said.
Just a handful of schools across the country have priority registration for veterans--an option that's usually extended to student athletes. The University of Arizona put the procedure in place this September, but it took more than a year to do it.
And that underscores the real challenge universities face when it comes to accommodating veterans: they're a diverse group with very distinct needs.
Gwen Dungy is executive director for Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, which has hosted webinars for schools that want to become more veteran friendly.
"One of the things that I have an issue with is that we have to make a lot of assumptions, there are a lot of anecdotes and stereotypes," she said.
The problem is that there's just not a lot of data right now about this group. The most important thing universities need to do, she said, is to ask veterans what they need. And that's exactly what Michael Dakduk does.
"We find out what are the best practices that universities need to adopt to make sure veterans succeed while they're on campus," he said.
Dakduk is deputy executive director of Student Veterans of America, which has chapters in almost all 50 states. The idea is to help ease a veteran's transition to campus life. And that can mean different things. Schools need to have a social support structure in place for vets. But he said they also need to make sure veterans graduate--and that they do it on time since the average Post-9/11 G.I. Bill benefit only lasts three years.
"They know that they bring these federal dollars often in the amount of a full-ride scholarship to their university," he said. "I would think they would want to retain them in the best possible way to ensure that they graduate."
Many of the programs are so new that schools are still collecting statistics. And just last month, a national education standards organization released a framework for schools to use as a guide when creating military programs.
High Hopes, High Visibility
CSU's Jan Rastall said they've been aggressive on this front over the past two years--starting everything from veteran-specific student orientations to temporary loans for those who don't receive their federal benefits on time.
"We're just all learning about what's working at each of our institutions and starting to share that information," she said.
Rastall said the first impression that schools make on veterans is important. Most colleges have a dedicated office for student veterans. But location can say a lot about how this student population is valued.
"Our office space is in the Lory Student Center--that's the heart of campus, the hub of campus life. So we're more visible, we're easy to find," she said.
And so far that's bringing praise from students like Mike Rister, who in his freshman seminar wrote for the first time about his experiences in Iraq.
At the end of this semester, Rister and the other veterans in his class will compile their stories, creating a "vet to vet" manual for freshman. It's something that will become part of the training for incoming students next semester.
© Copyright 2012, KUNC
