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With the passage of the Post-9/11 GI Bill in 2008, more than 1.4 million service members and their families became eligible for higher education benefits, and veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan enrolled in colleges and universities in record numbers. The first wave of research about these new student veterans focused primarily on describing their characteristics and the transition from military service to civilian life and the college campus. This new edited collection presents findings from the second wave of research about student veterans, with a focus on data-driven evidence of academic success factors, including persistence, retention, degree completion, and employment after college. An invaluable resource for educators poised to enter the next phase of supporting military-connected college students.
As the United States? wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continue, increasing numbers of students who experienced combat will enroll in colleges and universities. There is mounting evidence that these veterans will require support unique to their needs beyond the processing of financial aid paperwork from the Veterans Administration. Obviously, combat frequently inflicts injuries, both physical and mental, that will require attention, but veterans are a unique population in other ways as well. Soldiers experience extraordinary bonding in wartime, and colleges can provide opportunities for that fellowship to be a source of support and connection. Female veterans will bring a new, nontraditional perspective to campus, and student service organizations should pay careful attention. There is also a significant group of students who leave for service and return?under the best of circumstances, they need accommodation to succeed. Institutions of higher education traditionally have responded to the needs of special student populations by developing programs and offering services. This volume contains information about programmatic initiatives that can help create a welcoming environment for veterans, one that encourages serious, creative involvement. The authors bring broad experience and deliberate consideration to bear on questions that are only becoming more important to the entire spectrum of American colleges and universities. This is the 126th volume of the Jossey-Bass higher education quarterly report series New Directions for Student Services, an indispensable resource for vice presidents of student affairs, deans of students, student counselors, and other student services professionals. Each issue of New Directions for Student Services offers guidelines and programs for aiding students in their total development: emotional, social, physical, and intellectual.
In today's volunteer military many recruits enlist for the educational benefits, yet a significant number of veterans struggle in the classroom, and many drop out. The difficulties faced by student veterans have been attributed to various factors: poor academic preparation, PTSD and other postwar ailments, and allegedly antimilitary sentiments on college campuses. In Grateful Nation Ellen Moore challenges these narratives by tracing the experiences of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans at two California college campuses. Drawing on interviews with dozens of veterans, classroom observations, and assessments of the work of veteran support organizations, Moore finds that veterans' academic struggles result from their military training and combat experience, which complicate their ability to function in civilian schools. While there is little evidence of antimilitary bias on college campuses, Moore demonstrates the ways in which college programs that conflate support for veterans with support for the institutional military lead to suppression of campus debate about the wars, discourage antiwar activism, and encourage a growing militarization.
Teaches transitioning service-members how to properly network and build relationships with the people in their community who are most willing and able to help them launch new careers of their choosing.
This book is intended for everyone in higher education – whether in the classroom, student affairs, administration, admissions, health services or faculty development – who is, or expects to be teaching, advising, or serving student veterans. This book is the outcome of a partnership between the Center for Teaching and Learning and the office of Disabilities Services at the University of South Dakota that led to the development of the Fides program whose goal was to establish high-quality, evidence-based development opportunities specifically designed to enable key university constituencies—the faculty, staff, and administration—to understand their role in providing extraordinary learning experiences for veterans. The program was funded through a congressionally directed FIPSE grant. Materials from Fides have been featured by prominent educational organizations, and are being used by the National Center for PTSD, colleges, universities, and boards of regents across the US.This book provides the background and guidelines you need to leverage the strengths that student veterans bring to your institution, to ease the challenges they face in transitioning into higher education, to facilitate their learning, and to ensure their successful graduation.Student veterans bring many strengths to your campus – maturity, significant life experiences, and cross-cultural awareness. They are highly motivated to serve others and value education. Student veterans may however face significant challenges. Student veterans have typically been out of high school for some time, where they may have earned average grades. Many are married with children and more than a few are single parents. They are approximately 20% less likely than non-veterans to attain a bachelor degree and slightly more likely to drop out of higher education without attaining a degree of any sort. Deployments extend their time to degree, and multiple deployments can significantly delay graduation.The challenges associated with transitioning from the military into higher education are heightened when a student has a disability – physical, psychological, or emotional. Common disabilities that are emerging from Iraq and Afghanistan include amputations, hearing loss, traumatic brain injury, and post-traumatic stress disorder.To enable student veterans to succeed, institutions need to develop holistic initiatives to mediate student veterans’ transition and persistence, and develop appropriate programs and services that recognize their skills, family responsibilities, and distinct needs. This book outlines best practices for student affairs; describes innovative approaches to administrative services and support; suggests streamlining policies and procedures to make the campus “veteran friendly”; proposes ideas for academic programs; looks at the implications for course structure and design; considers the classroom environment; and explores how classroom policies impact student veterans. One chapter examines the issue of student veteran success specifically from the point of view of two-year institutions. The authors stress the importance of collaborative approaches across divisions and functions providing all stakeholders on campus with a comprehensive view of how they can support each to ensure the success of their student veterans.
Parents of returning service members may sometimes feel that their voices are not heard. The media is saturated with stories about troops returning from deployment with mental health problems like post-traumatic stress, depression, and substance abuse. Some also return home with physical problems including traumatic brain injury, physical pain or more severe injuries like amputations. Almost all returning service members experience reintegration challenges such as readjusting to family and community, finding employment or attending school. But rarely do we hear how parents are taking on the role of supporting their sons and daughters who have served our country. In countless ways these parents provide help—and when their military child suffers significant physical or psychological injuries, they may once again become their primary caretaker. For mothers and fathers and others in a parenting role, it can be overwhelming at times, and resources are limited. Courage after Fire for Parents of Service Members provides a compassionate and accessible guide for the parents or guardians of returning troops. This groundbreaking book acknowledges the significant contribution and sacrifice parents have made for their military children, provides strategies and resources that will assist them in understanding and supporting their son or daughter, and will validate their own personal experiences. Recommendations for helping them care for their returning service member are woven throughout the book, as well as education about the importance of taking care of themselves to help prevent caregiver burnout. Vignettes and reflections from parents who have had a child deploy offer a sense of hope and community. Even in the best of circumstances, parents play an instrumental role in helping their sons and daughters successfully reintegrate after deployment. This book is a valuable resource for any parent who is seeking to better understand and support a returning military child while caring for themselves.
On rare occasions in American history, Congress enacts a measure so astute, so far-reaching, so revolutionary, it enters the language as a metaphor. The Marshall Plan comes to mind, as does the Civil Rights Act. But perhaps none resonates in the American imagination like the G.I. Bill. In a brilliant addition to Oxford's acclaimed Pivotal Moments in American History series, historians Glenn C. Altschuler and Stuart M. Blumin offer a compelling and often surprising account of the G.I. Bill and its sweeping and decisive impact on American life. Formally known as the Serviceman's Readjustment Act of 1944, it was far from an obvious, straightforward piece of legislation, but resulted from tense political maneuvering and complex negotiations. As Altschuler and Blumin show, an unlikely coalition emerged to shape and pass the bill, bringing together both New Deal Democrats and conservatives who had vehemently opposed Roosevelt's social-welfare agenda. For the first time in American history returning soldiers were not only supported, but enabled to pursue success--a revolution in America's policy towards its veterans. Once enacted, the G.I. Bill had far-reaching consequences. By providing job training, unemployment compensation, housing loans, and tuition assistance, it allowed millions of Americans to fulfill long-held dreams of social mobility, reshaping the national landscape. The huge influx of veterans and federal money transformed the modern university and the surge in single home ownership vastly expanded America's suburbs. Perhaps most important, as Peter Drucker noted, the G.I. Bill "signaled the shift to the knowledge society." The authors highlight unusual or unexpected features of the law--its color blindness, the frankly sexist thinking behind it, and its consequent influence on race and gender relations. Not least important, Altschuler and Blumin illuminate its role in individual lives whose stories they weave into this thoughtful account. Written with insight and narrative verve by two leading historians, The G.I. Bill makes a major contribution to the scholarship of postwar America.
"A hell of a gift, an opportunity." "Magnanimous." "One of the greatest advantages I ever experienced." These are the voices of World War II veterans, lavishing praise on their beloved G.I. Bill. Transcending boundaries of class and race, the Bill enabled a sizable portion of the hallowed "greatest generation" to gain vocational training or to attend college or graduate school at government expense. Its beneficiaries had grown up during the Depression, living in tenements and cold-water flats, on farms and in small towns across the nation, most of them expecting that they would one day work in the same kinds of jobs as their fathers. Then the G.I. Bill came along, and changed everything. They experienced its provisions as inclusive, fair, and tremendously effective in providing the deeply held American value of social opportunity, the chance to improve one's circumstances. They become chefs and custom builders, teachers and electricians, engineers and college professors. But the G.I. Bill fueled not only the development of the middle class: it also revitalized American democracy. Americans who came of age during World War II joined fraternal groups and neighborhood and community organizations and took part in politics at rates that made the postwar era the twentieth century's civic "golden age." Drawing on extensive interviews and surveys with hundreds of members of the "greatest generation," Suzanne Mettler finds that by treating veterans as first-class citizens and in granting advanced education, the Bill inspired them to become the active participants thanks to whom memberships in civic organizations soared and levels of political activity peaked. Mettler probes how this landmark law produced such a civic renaissance. Most fundamentally, she discovers, it communicated to veterans that government was for and about people like them, and they responded in turn. In our current age of rising inequality and declining civic engagement, Soldiers to Citizens offers critical lessons about how public programs can make a difference.
The demanding workload and fast pace of college often overwhelm students. Without access to the right resources, many of the three million U.S. college students with disabilities fail or drop out--at a much higher rate than their peers. This guide helps students, parents, counselors and psychologists find the appropriate resources and accommodations to help students with disabilities successfully transition to college. The author explains Americans with Disabilities Act laws and outlines steps for requesting and implementing college staff, classroom and testing accommodations. Student testimonies are included, advising on which assistive technologies and resources have worked to achieve academic success.