The document discusses challenges faced by veterans in college including adjusting to civilian life after the military, physical or emotional issues from service, and lack of family experience with higher education. It provides perspectives from veterans on feeling unwelcome on campus and lacking support. The document offers suggestions for colleges to better support veterans through understanding military culture, providing transition assistance, and creating a welcoming environment that utilizes their strengths.

1. WORKING EFFECTIVELY
WITH VETERANS ON
CAMPUS
Cerritos College Veteran Affairs
Norwalk, California

2. Challenges Faced by Veterans
 Veterans’ success in college can be complicated by:
 Challenges represented by the career shift from the
military to civilian life;
 physical or emotional challenges as an artifact of warfare
and deployment overseas;
 for recent returnees, the need to reconnect with previous
support systems and community;
 the fact that, as frequently working class and from minority
communities, veterans may be the first in their families to
attend college.

3. Challenges Faced by Veterans
 Veterans’ success in college can be
complicated by:
 the sometimes challenging identity work involved
with integrating past military experiences and
behaviors into a post-service identity (witness to
suffering and intense violence, etc.);
 worries over the return to employment;
 GI Funding delays and red-tape;
 health care delays and navigating the VA.

4. Guiding Principle
While acknowledging and addressing the
challenges faced by veterans on campus,
we must proactively support veterans by
utilizing their individual and collective
agency and assets

5. Veterans’ Perspectives
 Do not feel welcome
 Want to be with others who speak “their
language”
 Lack of personal support
 Too much “confusion”
 “Unfriendly” policies and procedures
 Lack of funds; benefits slow to arrive
 Credit transfer
Information - courtesy of Sam Wan, Ph.D.
VA Medical Center, SF

6. Veterans’ Perspectives
 DO NOT assume that you know my politics or beliefs
because I was in the military.
 Listen to me. I may or may not be ready to talk about
experiences yet, but I have a story to tell when I’m
ready.
 You must earn my trust, I will trust you if you earn it.

7. Suggestions from Veterans
 We are accustomed to being successful and accountable
and may be too proud to ask for help.
 We are not to be feared. Getting to know me and being
able to identify issues might help and may make me feel
welcome.
 Be direct and let us know when you see us struggling
and offer assistance
 Hold us to the same standards as other students. The
military held us to high standards. We know pressure.
We expect to be challenged.

8. Counseling Services
 Have a familiarity with military culture as it applies to decision-
making, ethics, pragmatism, and virtually any other daily activity
having a civilian context.
 DO NOT make clinical assumptions about a veteran student’s
behavior that would otherwise be completely reasonable from a
military perspective.
 Meet with vets for ongoing PTSD and TBI assistance and
create/facilitate support groups and classes.
 Allow vets to "vent" frustration when balancing the stress of school
with the alienation of trying to assimilate to a new environment.

9. The Proactive Campus
 Know the legal mandates and federal programs
available for veterans
 Post-9/11 GI Bill (Chapter 33, 38 USC)
 Montgomery GI Bill – Active Duty (Chapter 30, 38 USC)
 Montgomery GI Bill – Reserves (Chapter 1606, 10 USC)
 Reserve Educational Assistance Program (REAP, Chapter
1607)
 Post Vietnam Era Veterans’ Educational Assistance Program
(VEAP, Chapter 32)
 Etc.

10. The Proactive Campus
 Create a welcoming and safe environment where
veterans are viewed via their assets first and foremost
 Provide a class for transition from deployment to
civilian/academic life
 Offer in-service workshops on PTSD & TBI and how it
affects students
 Provide workshops for faculty, staff, and community
members on the above topics
 Build alliances with community leadership for veterans
services
 Support the creation of support networks among
veterans on campus with ties to off-campus agencies

11. The Proactive Campus
 Become a Service member Opportunity College
 Provide campus veterans leadership opportunities
 Actively listen to the suggestions of veterans in support
of a positive change
 Create an effective, pro-active student retention and
transition system through early tracking/identification,
intervention, and student engagement
 As Veterans Affairs Counselor, accept responsibility for,
and maintain an accountability system for assessing and
evaluating program management and student outcomes