Preparing Your Campus for Veterans' Success: An Integrated Approach to Facilitating the Transition and Persistence of Our Military Students

ISBN-13: 9781579228637 / Angielski / Miękka / 2013 / 272 str.

Bruce Kelley; Ernetta Fox; Justin Smith

Opis

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.

Recenzje

“Preparing Your Campus for Veterans Success is an important tool for educators, researchers, and institutions of learning. We have an important responsibility to care for our veterans who have sacrificed so much for our freedom. This book provides insight to ensure that student veterans and military students may more easily transition to academic life.”

Senator John Thune

“It is imperative for the growing population of student Veterans that educational institutions across the nation and their staff understand the needs, physical and mental implications, and the desire of Veterans to further their education. This book succinctly provides that understanding and translates it into guidance for effectively assisting Veterans and their families.”

Larry Zimmerman, Secretary, South Dakota Department of Veterans Affairs

“This book is a must read for all educators, counselors, higher education administrators, and community leaders. It is a playbook for solutions that will enable our veterans to achieve their capacity for greatness and empower them towards graduation. It teaches us the ways that education leaders can make a positive difference, on a daily basis, and describes the skill sets necessary to support our military veterans. This book educates the educators about us.”

Colonel David W. Sutherland, US Army, Retired, Director, Dixon Center for Military and Veterans Community Services

“There is one truism all college faculty and administrators can agree upon—the demand for higher education is going to increase from veterans exiting the armed services for the foreseeable future. Another point of agreement should be that veterans are a far cry from graduating high school seniors. Hence, faculty and administrators at schools seeking to recruit veterans need to know their target audience, in order to not only successfully attract their enrollment, but to serve their special needs. This treatise is a ‘must read’ for administrators and faculty seeking to enrich their student body with veterans. What do veterans bring to your campus? What are they seeking in your collegiate experience? What are their expectations, needs, and sensitivities that must be met different from high school students? This insightful and revealing journey through the veterans’ culture is a handbook every administrator and faculty should study. It is the cornerstone in the growing body of literature addressing serving the ‘servants of all’."

Gregory M. Huckabee, Distinguished Visiting Professor, Department of Law, U.S. Air Force Academy

“Preparing Your Campus for Veterans Success will have a long-term positive impact on veterans in higher education by providing an easily replicable toolkit for campuses to support this generation of veterans as they take the transformational step of education between military and civilian careers.”

Hunter I Riley, Director of Programs, Pat Tillman Foundation

“It’s more important than ever that returning veterans be given every opportunity to pursue an education. This valuable book gives universities a blueprint for strengthening their relationships with student veterans, and improving veterans’ educational experience. I hope educators of all kinds will make good use of these noteworthy insights.”

Senator Tim Johnson

Spis treści

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS PREFACE PART ONE. THE STRENGTHS OF OUR STUDENT VETERANS AND THE CHALLENGES THEY FACE 1. SETTING THE STAGE Student Veterans In Higher Education 2. NAVIGATING THE LABYRINTH The Transitional Experiences of Student Veterans 3. STUDENT VETERANS AND DISABILITIES PART TWO. INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO SERVING VETERANS ON CAMPUS 4. RECRUITMENT TO ORIENTATION 5. STUDENT AND ADMINISTRATIVE SERVICES 6. ACADEMIC PROGRAMS FOR STUDENT VETERANS 7. STUDENT VETERANS IN OUR COMMUNITY COLLEGES By Holly Wheeler PART THREE. INNOVATIVE APPROACHES TO SERVING VETERANS IN THE CLASSROOM 8. COURSE STRUCTURE AND DESIGN 9. TEACHING AND LEARNING ACTIVITIES 10. PHYSICAL, EMOTIONAL, AND BEHAVIORAL ENVIRONMENTS 11. DEVELOPING FACULTY AND STAFF 12. CONCLUSION APPENDIX A Common Military and Educational Abbreviations APPENDIX B Glossary of Important Military and Educational Terms APPENDIX C An Educator’s Guide to the Military ABOUT THE AUTHORS INDEX

O autorze

Bruce Kelley is the Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of South Dakota and an Associate Professor of Music.

Ernetta Fox is the Director of Disability Services at the University of South Dakota.

Justin Smith is the Fides Program Coordinator at University of South Dakota’s Center for Teaching and Learning.

Holly Wheeler is an Associate Professor of English at Monroe Community College.