Creating a Veteran Friendly Campus: Action Items for Veteran Friendly Community College Campuses
Veterans taking advantage of the educational benefits such as the Post-9/11 GI Bill look to post-secondary institutions, particularly community colleges, to acquire the skills and knowledge needed to move forward in their civilian lives. Many student veterans choose to attend community colleges because of their low cost and open door admissions policies.
Administrators, faculty, and staff can initiate efforts to provide the support and structure veterans need to succeed, thereby creating a veteran-friendly campus. Here are some action items for community colleges to become a more veteran friendly campus:
Establish programs for supporting spouses/families of veterans. Family support and inclusion is essential to ensure connectedness to the educational process. This may help the veteran and their families create a connection to the campus and learn how to obtain campus and outside resources. For example, a Veterans’ Exposition/Fair can be established to provide partnerships with local bases and veteran hospitals and veteran organizations in the community where veterans can learn about services and resources.
Train staff, faculty, and administrators in veterans’ issues, such as Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI), Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and persistence strategies. For example, training sessions can be offered during faculty orientation, personnel meetings, and/or departmental meetings.
Employ trained/licensed counselors on-campus to support the needs of veteran students.
Develop a veteran-specific student orientation so that the campus community may interact with veterans and their families before the semester begins to help integrate them into the community.
Train advisors not only on academic requirements, but also on the ways in which those academic requirements may affect a veteran’s financial aid benefits.
These implications for practice are based on the findings from in-depth interviews conducted with veteran participants of a research study entitled: "The Persistence of Military Veteran Students in a Southeastern Community College: A Narrative Study,” by Dr. Marlena Everett.
The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of veteran students in a southeastern community college to gain an understanding of the factors that contributed to the students academic persistence from matriculation to completion of their educational goals, whether defined as a college course, certificate, degree, or diploma. Administrators, staff, and faculty at community colleges may consider implementing these strategies to support their veteran students’ academic persistence.