Providing A Safe Environment For Student Veterans To Promote Academic Success And Personal Wellness

"Since the introduction of the post 9/11 GI Bill in 2008, there has been a significant increase (42%) of veterans enrolling in colleges, universities, and vocational schools (National Center for Veterans Analysis and Statistics, 2014). Over one million veterans utilize benefits from the GI Bill including paid in-state tuition and monthly stipends for books, supplies, and housing. However, veterans still face many challenges ranging from lack of understanding other students and faculty, finding camaraderie, and obtaining counseling services (National Conference of State Legislatures, 2014). Higher education administration should consider these challenges and provide resources to help student veterans succeed in reaching their educational goals. Defining the beneficial factors that influence student veteran success helps clarify what measures need to be taken to meet the needs of student veterans. This project will identify therapeutic resources that will highlight tools designed to help military members overcome obstacles on and off campus and help increase the chances of their academic success."--Abstract, p. 1.

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.

Student Veterans and Service Members in Higher Education bridges theory to practice in order to better prepare practitioners in their efforts to increase the success of veteran and military service members in higher education. Bringing together perspectives from a researcher, practitioner, and student veteran, this unique author team provides a comprehensive but manageable text reviewing relevant research literature and presenting accessible strategies for working with students. This book explores the facilitators and barriers of student veteran learning and engagement, how culture informs the current student veteran experience, and best practices for creating and maintaining a campus that allows for the success of these students. The latest to publish in the Key Issues on Diverse College Students series, this volume is a valuable resource for student affairs and higher education professionals to better serve veteran and military service members in higher education.

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.

Despite high enrollment rates of Post-9/11 U.S. Military Student Veterans in higher education, identification of effective institutional practices that promote successful outcomes is an understudied topic. Although some studies have addressed the transition from military into postsecondary education, more research is needed to improve our knowledge about the experiences of student veterans and how non-profit higher educational institutions, especially student support services, can better help student veterans succeed. Through the lens of university student support staff, as well as student veterans, this qualitative study examines which factors student veterans and support staff perceive in contributing to successful attainment of a baccalaureate degree. For this study, in-depth semi-structured one-on-one interviews were conducted with a diverse group of 12 student support staff and 6 junior and senior undergraduate student veterans at a four-year public university in California. This study applied the Schlossberg Transition Conceptual Model by extending the support factor to include the critical role of four types of student support services: academic, mental health, disability, and career services. Several major overlapping and non-overlapping themes emerged from both student and staff interviews. The most salient theme was the critical role of the Veterans Center. The Center assists student veterans in their transition and adjustment to the university. It plays a central role in providing a physical space, a hub that facilitates connectedness and student engagement on campus and assist with access to vital services and resources on campus, as well as off campus. The assistance of the Veterans Center is critical in ensuring that students receive their financial benefits, as well as verifying their coursework, so they get the courses needed for graduation and meet all GI Bill requirements. Additionally, many of the on-campus services have liaisons between the Veterans Center and their corresponding service department, where identified liaisons help ensure student veterans receive the necessary support when needed. These findings can help inform higher educational institutions, its staff, faculty, and administrators about the best practices in serving the needs of veterans toward successful transition to college, retention, and undergraduate degree attainment, as the number of student veterans in higher education is growing nationally.

Student wellbeing is foundational to academic success. One recent survey of postsecondary educators found that nearly 80 percent believed emotional wellbeing is a "very" or "extremely" important factor in student success. Studies have found the dropout rates for students with a diagnosed mental health problem range from 43 percent to as high as 86 percent. While dealing with stress is a normal part of life, for some students, stress can adversely affect their physical, emotional, and psychological health, particularly given that adolescence and early adulthood are when most mental illnesses are first manifested. In addition to students who may develop mental health challenges during their time in postsecondary education, many students arrive on campus with a mental health problem or having experienced significant trauma in their lives, which can also negatively affect physical, emotional, and psychological wellbeing. The nation's institutions of higher education are seeing increasing levels of mental illness, substance use and other forms of emotional distress among their students. Some of the problematic trends have been ongoing for decades. Some have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting economic consequences. Some are the result of long-festering systemic racism in almost every sphere of American life that are becoming more widely acknowledged throughout society and must, at last, be addressed. Mental Health, Substance Use, and Wellbeing in Higher Education lays out a variety of possible strategies and approaches to meet increasing demand for mental health and substance use services, based on the available evidence on the nature of the issues and what works in various situations. The recommendations of this report will support the delivery of mental health and wellness services by the nation's institutions of higher education.

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.

Prepares readers to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse college student population This is a timely and comprehensive overview of key theories of student development that illustrates their application across a range of student services with diverse student populations. It is distinguished by its focus on nontraditional student populations including adults changing careers, parents, veterans, and international students. The book examines relevant theories of cognitive, ethical, moral, and personality development and theories of identity development in terms of ethnicity, gender, and ability. Also covered are theories relevant to disability issues, LGBT identity issues, and to choice of career and major/degree. Unique to the text is information on how theories can be applied, beyond understanding individual students, to student groups and to guide the coordination of student affairs services across the campus. Engaging case vignettes immerse readers in diverse perspectives and demonstrate the application of theory to a wide range of student types and issues. The book covers the history and development of each theory along with its strengths and limitations. Also included are useful suggestions on how to best assist students with current challenges. Reflective questions concluding each chapter help students to reinforce information. An insightful text for courses in college student development in relevant graduate programs and for student affairs professionals who wish to enhance their abilities, this book reflects the realities of contemporary college student life and student affairs practices. Key Features: Applies student development theories primarily to non-traditional college students Presents chapter-opening/closing examples reflecting student diversity Explores the strengths and limitations of each theory Describes how theories can be applied in varied student affairs settings and in broader contexts of student affairs Includes instructor’s resources

"Mike Cubbage, a former Army combat veteran, draws upon his personal experiences in re-entering civilian life as well as his work advocating for veterans in this guide to navigating the transition to civilian life. While he shares tips in many areas, he focuses on education. Learn how to: find a school that will provide you with valuable support and skills; take advantage of military benefits that help day for education; cope with the stress that goes along with transitioning to civilian life; and apply skills you learned in the military to succeed as a student. You'll also get tips on preparing for job interviews, writing a resume that stands out, and making a good first impression with potential employers."--Page 4 of cover.