Ben Armstrong & Dr. Latoya Hill

1. Working with Student Veterans:
Creating a Military Inclusive Campus
LaToya Hill, Assistant Dean
Ben Armstrong, Coordinator
Student Veteran Services

2. Building a Military Friendly Campus
• Creating the Blueprint
• Breaking ground
• Laying the foundation and structure
• Making it a home
• Future improvements

3. 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

4. Breaking Ground:
University Initiatives
• Opening Center
• Hiring Coordinator
• Hiring VA Psychologist
• Partnership TVC, SVA
• Sponsorship to SVA
• Outward bound

5. 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

6. Nov 2011 - Jan 2012 Services Provided
20% Education
Healthcare
4% Mental
0% Employment
4%
Family
8% 62%
Financial
Other
2%

7. 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

8. Making it a home:
Working with Student Veterans (The Truth)
• While the percentages point to a • Yes veterans are experiencing TBI
large amount of veterans being and PTSD, but the VA estimates
white males there is a great that 11% of veterans suffer from
diversity in the student veteran PTS
population • A majority of veterans want to
• The VA reports on their website integrate, but we just do not
that in 1995 that 15% of Woman know how.
Veterans experienced MST, and
the current data suggested 1 in 5
experience MST

9. 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

10. 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.

11. Home Improvements- Future plans
• Creating Veteran Orientation Session
• Creating Veteran Transition class
• Developing veteran programs (Welcome
Week, Graduation stoles, Theatre of War)

12. Questions and Answers