The The Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF) at Syracuse University is currently engaged in an effort to understand the relationship between military service – and those who volunteer for military service – and the broader values, ideals, and priorities of American society.

We are asking for your support of that effort – specifically, that you take 12-15 minutes to complete a survey designed to capture your perceptions and opinions related to this important topic. Your responses are entirely anonymous, and we are looking for a broad cross-section of Americans to participate. The results of this study will be made public later this summer.

Please take the time to help us with this important project, and share the survey link with other. If you are willing to participate, the survey can be found at the following URL:

Survey: Perceptions of Service 

Please share this survey with your networks:         

As a young Air Force lieutenant, I was assigned as a procurement officer at a place called Defense Supply Center Richmond, in Richmond VA.  One of my first jobs DSC Richmond was to direct a procurement team responsible for – among other things – the acquisition of food service equipment for the Department of Defense.  It wasn’t a glamorous job, but it did have its benefits.

One of those benefits was the opportunity to attend an annual event held at nearby Fort Lee, where the Army’s most talented military food service personnel came together to compete for “Top Chef” honors across a host of different categories (desserts was my favorite).  I’m not sure what I expected from this event, but what I found was over the top; that is, it was one of my first lessons related to the diverse and extraordinary talents representative of those men and women who serve the nation in uniform.  Importantly, it wasn’t just about the “chefs” and the food, but it was about the entire team of foodservice professionals that came together to deliver a world-class experience worthy of any 5-star restaurant.

We talk all the time of how military skills and experiences do – or do not – translate to civilian life.  In the case of foodservice and hospitality professions, military skills translate almost directly.  This is why, for example, we see many veterans pursuing careers in this industry.   Importantly, it’s not just that veterans are seeking jobs in this industry, but we’re also witnessing a significant number of veterans pursuing business ownership opportunities in hospitality, event management, and foodservice.  This is an exciting trend, but also worthy of a word of caution.

As a new business, restaurants and hospitality ventures are a risky proposition.  Typically they require significant upfront capital investment, and specialized training.  This is not to say such ventures aren’t worth pursuing, but it is to say that you must do so with caution.  Success depends on a strong understanding of the industry, and a competitive advantage that is both novel and sustainable.  Further, it’s essential that you establish and nurture a network of industry insiders, and seek out opportunities for specialized training focused on the unique aspects of a hospitality venture.  All this leads me to the opportunity I’d like to highlight.

For those veterans that dream of business ownership in the hospitality industry, listen up!

In 2007, Syracuse University launched a program called the ‘Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities’ (EBV).  The EBV was created as an initiative designed to leverage higher education to provide world-class training in entrepreneurship and small business management to our post-9/11 veterans.  Over the course of the last 6 years, more than 650 veterans have completed the EBV program.  At the same time the program has expanded to a truly national initiative through the collaborative efforts of seven other world-class institutions that today offer the program, including UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, Florida State University’s College of Business, the Mays School of Business at Texas A&M University, the Krannert School at Purdue University, the E.J Ourso College of Business at Louisiana State University, and the College of Business at the University of Connecticut.  The EBV program is privately funded,  offered without any cost to participating veterans (to include travel and lodging), and last year INC Magazine named the EBV one of the 10-best entrepreneurship training programs in all of the U.S.

So how does all this relate to hospitality?

Last year the EBV added its newest partner school – Cornell University – as our first “EBV Specialty School.”  What does that mean?  Specifically, our partnership with Cornell University’s Leland C. and Mary M. Pillsbury Institute for Hospitality Entrepreneurship at The School of Hotel Administration, which is universally acknowledged as the #1 ranked school of hospitality in the world.  The team at the Pillsbury Institute is without equal, and they’ve made a commitment to support and empower those veterans who desire to launch and grow business in the hospitality industry.  The first class of veterans participating in the Cornell EBV pilot program graduated last summer, and they’re well on their way to realizing the American Dream of business ownership in the hospitality industry.  Alex van Breukelen was one of those graduates.

Alex van Breukelen is a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, and is the founder/owner of the The Americana bar and restaurant in Baltimore.  While before EBV has was already managing budgets, marketing plans, human resources, there was still a lot he didn’t understand about growing a hospitality venture. “There were so many different aspects of restaurant management and entrepreneurship that I just didn’t know I was missing,” said the 13-year military veteran.

Through the Cornell University EBV program, van Breukelen gained the skills he needed to build a successful business.  ”If I had known two years ago what I have learned [at EBV], I would be leaps and bounds ahead of where I am right now,” said van Breukelen.  As an added befit of the EBV program, Alex went on to win $5,000 at the EBV National Business Plan and Pitch Competition [held each year for EBV graduates], as the best venture impacting veterans.

Are you a veteran with dreams like Alex?  My advice is to take advantage of the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity afforded by the team at Cornell University’s Pillsbury Institute for Hospitality Entrepreneurship.  Applications for the Cornell EBV programs, as well as the EBV program offerings at the other EBV universities – are now open and are being accepted for spring, summer, and fall of 2013.  More information is available at http://whitman.syr.edu/ebv, or contact the EBV National program Manager Jared Lyon directly at jslyon@syr.edu.

Success as a business owner has everything to do with acting on opportunity, and the EBV program is one you don’t want to pass up.

Mike Haynie, Ph.D., is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, the executive director of the Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University (IVMF), and the Barnes Professor of Entrepreneurship at SU’s Whitman School of Management.

Program Manager | Veterans Career Transition Program

The Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University, in partnership with JP Morgan Chase & Co., is excited to announce the launch of the Veterans Career Transition Program Independent Study Track.

Since July 2011, veterans have been participating in the Veterans Career Transition Program (formerly Veterans Technology Program), which is delivered at no cost to post-9/11 veterans and paid for in entirety by a grant from JPMorgan Chase & Co.  VCTP is focused on providing instruction which:

• Assists veterans as they translate education, experience, skills and training from a military to civilian environment to be a competitive candidate for recruitment and hiring
• Provides connections to specific education and training programs, business/industry coalitions focused on veteran employment and information about national and state-level opportunities and benefits for veterans and their families

• Shows veterans how to develop the soft skills necessary to succeed in a civilian corporate or government environment, particularly in business sectors not closely connected to the military

Beginning May 15^th, in addition to its traditional quarterly, advisor-supported offering, the program will be offered as an Independent Study Track, to facilitate continued growth of the program across a unique population with diverse needs and to assist as many veterans as possible.

In the Independent Study Track, veterans will have six months of access to a variety of classes and a bank of 25 courses to design their own program. Veterans can enroll through an individual admissions process at any time to gain access to our large library of online coursework covering all subject matters, such as professional and personal development, leadership, information technology, operations, accounting and finance. Through the Independent Study Track, veterans can pick and choose individual online classes in areas that interest them and support their individual career development needs. For participants who complete the entire learning paths associated with select industry certification exams, the program will pay associated exam fees for industry certification.

• For individual learners – participants will not have an advisor
• Start classes immediately
• Industry certification available
• Program does not result in an SU certificate (which allows participants to start any day, rather than waiting for quarterly enrollment cycles)

Through online courses—accessible from any location, at any time–veterans have the opportunity to gain an understanding and insight into the corporate culture of civilian business/industry, government and other civilian sector employment opportunities.

Eligibility

Participants must be a post-9/11 veteran OR current military service member within one year of transition from military service to the civilian workforce. This includes Guard and Reserve members who have civilian sector employment, or will be transitioning into the civilian sector within one year. Participants may be employed and seeking career advancement or change, underemployed (working in a field other than their qualifications would prepare them for, or working for lower salary or fewer hours than they would like) or unemployed. VCTP requires an application (which reviews their preparedness and likelihood of success in the program) as well as their career goals and fit with the program’s offerings.

Cost

The program is offered at no-cost to post-9/11 veterans who have served on active duty at any time since 9/11/2001. Costs are currently underwritten by JPMC as part of their extensive collaboration with Syracuse University and as founding partner of the IVMF. Certification exam preparation and exams may be paid for by the program based on progress in the courses, and in the case of exams, results on preparation exams.

Additional Offerings within VCTP

[Professional Skills Track]

The Career Track gives veterans skills to effectively prepare for and execute job searches, including company research, and résumé and cover letter writing. Participants become official SU students and receive non-credit certificates upon completion. This track also offers a foundation to advanced level courses in Microsoft Office, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. Participants will be assigned an academic advisor to assist them as they progress through the program.

• Access courses for up to one full year
• Academic advisors available
• Classes begin quarterly

Apply Now

[Tech Track]
Interested in launching a career in information technology but not sure where to start? The Tech Track is focused on preparing transitioning service members for their next careers in operations or IT. Participants become official SU students and receive non-credit certificates upon completion. Where applicable, the program will pay the graduate’s associated exam fees for industry certification.

• Access courses for up to one full year
• Academic advisors available
• Classes begin quarterly
• Industry certification available

Apply Now

Please contact Dan Cohen, Program Manager of the Veterans Career Transition Program, with any questions or concerns. He can be reached at (315) 443-6898 or via email at veteranscertificate@syr.edu.

The Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University (IVMF) has announced the appointment of Colonel (Ret.) James D. McDonough Jr., as senior director of community engagement & innovation.  Colonel McDonough will join the IVMF team beginning May 20, 2013.

As senior director of community engagement & innovation, McDonough will play a principle role in cultivating and directing the IVMF’s strategic relationships with government, the non-profit sector, business, philanthropic organizations and other stakeholders.  Specifically, McDonough’s focus will be to engage current and future IVMF partners in community-centric initiatives, designed to seed broad and enduring civic engagement related to the concerns of veterans and military families. McDonough will manage a portfolio of activities related to continuing the IVMF’s broad-based technical assistance capability, leveraging resources made possible through relationships with major donors, corporate partners/sponsors and philanthropy to best align IVMF programming and resources. This portfolio will include technical assistance for all aspects of community engagement; workforce and curriculum development; program management; and grant evaluation, administration, and assessment. In addition, he will serve as the institute’s lead for cultivating and fielding viable community of practice standards and measurements of effectiveness in community engagement. McDonough will work collaboratively across the SU campus with colleagues in external affairs, sponsored programs, corporate and foundation relations to promote the IVMF as a partner in the community-engaged mission of the University and on fundraising initiatives.

“We’re excited to have someone of Jim’s caliber and reputation as a member of the IVMF team,” says the IVMF’s Executive Director Mike Haynie.  “In addition to his passion for serving the veterans’ community, Jim brings a wealth of practical experience to the IVMF related to strategies for harnessing community-based resources – along with those of government and the philanthropic community – in a way that results in coordinated, effective and holistic community support of veterans and their families.”

Before joining the IVMF, McDonough served as senior fellow for veterans affairs at the New York State Health Foundation and previously as president and CEO of Veterans Outreach Center Inc., located in Rochester, N.Y. The center is the nation’s oldest community-based non-profit for veterans and military families. McDonough is also a former director of the New York State Division of Veterans’ Affairs.

Jim’s expertise and enthusiasm with veterans will continue the upward trend of IVMF’s capacity to serve organizations as they engage veterans in work, society, service, government, and communities,” said James Schmeling, IVMF managing director and co-founder. “His record to-date is one of service to veterans and those who facilitate their advancement in civilian roles. He understands our issues as veterans, and our contributions to communities, as well as the barriers and facilitators to community engagement.”

McDonough was commissioned as an air defense artillery officer upon graduation from Officer Candidate School, Class 1-82, on March 11, 1982. Following graduation, he attended the Air Defense Artillery Officer Basic Course, Improved Hawk Weapons Course and the Air Defense Command and Control Course at Fort Bliss, Texas. He is a graduate of the U.S. Army’s Airborne School at Fort Benning, Ga. His first assignment was as platoon leader, Battery C, 1st Battalion, 1st Air Defense Artillery Regiment, Fulda, Germany. Following a stint as brigade electronic counter-counter measures training officer, 10th Air Defense Artillery Brigade, Darmstadt, Germany, he returned to Fort Bliss, to attend the Air Defense Artillery Officer Advance Course and PATRIOT Weapons Course. Upon graduation he returned to Germany and assumed command of Battery A, 4th Battalion, 3rd Air Defense Artillery, Giessen, where he commanded for 29 months. Following command, he was selected to participate in the Army’s Advanced Civil Schooling Program at Indiana State University where he earned an M.A. in communications.

Following graduate school, he was assigned as strategic planner in the Office of the Chief of Public Affairs and then speechwriter to the Secretary of the Army, the Honorable Togo D. West, at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. From 1995-1996 he served as battalion operations and later, executive officer, for 1st Battalion, 43rd Air Defense Artillery Regiment, Suwon, Republic of Korea. Following Korea, he reported to the Joint Staff, Operations Directorate, for three years.

McDonough was selected to command the 3rd Battalion, 43rd Air Defense Artillery Regiment, Fort Bliss, where he commanded from 1999-2001. In 2001, he was selected to attend the Army War College, Centennial Class, in Carlisle, Pa. Following the Army War College, he was assigned to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, as professor of outreach at the Simon Center for the Professional Military Ethic. In 2003, McDonough deployed as G3, current operations officer, 32d Army Air and Missile Defense Command, Camp Doha, Kuwait, in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Upon redeployment, he was assigned as Inspector General for New York State.

McDonough has received numerous awards and commendation for his service to including the Bronze Star Medal, Legion of Merit Medal (w/1OLC), Defense Meritorious Medal, Meritorious Service Medal (w/2OLC), Joint Staff Commendation Medal (w/1OLC), Army Commendation Medal (w/5OLC), Joint Service Achievement Medal, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Expeditionary and Service Medals, the Korean Defense Service Medal, the Armed Forces Reserve Medal, the Army Service Medal and Overseas Service Ribbon (w/2OLC). During his service, he wore the Joint Chiefs of Staff Identification Badge, the Army Staff Identification Badge and Parachutist Badge.

Upon retirement from the Army following 26 years of service, McDonough became director of the New York State Division of Veterans’ Affairs. In that role, he was responsible for addressing the needs of nearly one million veterans and their families across the state of New York.

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Last summer, the CBS News series “60 Minutes” sent special correspondent Sanjay Gupta to Syracuse University to report on the IVMF’s innovative Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV). The only program of its kind in the country, EBV leverages the skills, resources and infrastructure of higher education to offer cutting-edge, experiential training in entrepreneurship and small business management to post-9/11 veterans with service-related disabilities.

On Sunday, May 12 at 7 p.m. ET on CBS, “60 Minutes” will broadcast Gupta’s report.

Filmed over several days during the residency phase of the EBV experience at Syracuse University’s Whitman School of Management, the segment includes an extended interview Mike Haynie, IVMF executive director and Barnes Professor of Entrepreneurship, and follows several 2012 EBV graduates as they begin the long and hard process of launching their own businesses after returning home from combat. Haynie, himself a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, founded the EBV program at Syracuse University’s Whitman School of Management in 2007.

Viewers will meet several veterans participating in the program, including Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Pam Randall, who was having a hard time finding even a living wage job after leaving the military. She suffers from a range of painful disabilities incurred over years of hard landings on military flights. “I was a little shocked. I had to do something. So now, you know, small business, here we come,” Randall says. She used the skills learned at EBV to turn her leatherworking hobby into a saddle business. “I’ve got the craft side. It’s that whole business world, all that business stuff that I knew absolutely nothing about.”’

EBV teaches the crucial aspects of an M.B.A education in a month-long, practically focused online course that is followed by an on-campus immersion experience that lasts 9-days, and is focused on the tools of new venture creation and growth. Haynie tells 60 Minutes, “You learn to become entrepreneurial in the context of serving in the military. The boss comes to you and says, ‘Here’s what we need you to accomplish. It’s got to be done in two days. Figure it out.” The EBV program is designed to bridge the entrepreneurial skills and mindset developed through military service, into the vocation of business ownership in a civilian context.

The residency phase of the program begins with Haynie and the other instructors putting veterans into the entrepreneurial mode from the moment they arrive on campus. The program is intense, begins each day at 7:30 a.m. The EBV is designed to both train and motivate. “I want to begin to help them change who they perceive they are…create a new narrative, that new vision…‘I am a business owner,’ Haynie tells Gupta. Watch an excerpt.

Since its inception at Syracuse University in 2007, the EBV program has expanded quickly to a network of eight universities across the U.S. including UCLA, The Florida State University, Texas A&M, Purdue University, the University of Connecticut, Louisiana State University, and Cornell University–with Syracuse University serving as national host. The Cornell University EBV program is specialized and focused on those veteran entrepreneurs interested in Hospitality/Food & Beverage related businesses.

So far, just over 600 have gone through the program, and more than 50% launch businesses within four months of completing the training. In 2009, the EBV program was named a “National Best Practice” for serving veterans and their families by the Secretary of the Army’s Community Covenant Program. In 2011, Inc. Magazine named the EBV program as one of the “10-Best” entrepreneurship programs in the United States. Many graduates have launched ventures that now have revenues in the millions of dollars, including a tech start-up with $40 million in sales.

Currently, an estimated 20,000 are leaving military service every month, and on one hand Haynie says about EBV: “You know, it’s spitting in the wind. There’s so much more we could do.” However he also tells Gupta that “This is what I can do, and as far as I’m concerned, who better to live the American dream of business ownership than these men and women who have put on a uniform to defend that dream.”

For media inquiries contact Erin Kane at (315) 443-9186 or emkane@syr.edu. For more information about the EBV program, contact Jared Lyon, EBV National Program Manager at (315) 443-6007 or jslyon@syr.edu.

# # #

Citi and the Institute for Veterans and Military Families at Syracuse University (IVMF) today announced the launch of the Citi Salutes: Realizing Your Dream Business Competition, a call for veterans who are established or aspiring entrepreneurs to submit formal small business plans in hopes of receiving a share of $130,000 in available seed funding. The announcement was made during the Chicago offering of the IVMF’s Veteran Women Igniting the Spirit of Entrepreneurship (V-WISE) program, a three-day conference and collaborative partnership between the IVMF and U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) that is anchoring IVMF Women Veterans Week Chicago. Citi is a co-sponsor of V-WISE Chicago. For complete information, including competition rules and guidelines, click here.

“In the coming years, an estimated one million service members will leave the military and most will look to transition to the civilian workplace, including nearly 20 percent who will start their own business,” said Jerome Byers, Head of Citi Small Business, who officially launched the program at today’s conference.  “Citi is pleased to support a program that encourages entrepreneurship as a pathway to post-service success for our nation’s troops.”

In partnership with Citi Community Development and with funding from the Citi Foundation, the Citi Salutes: Realizing Your Dream Business Competition is a part of Citi Salutes™, a firm-wide initiative launched last year to support veteran consumers and job-seekers by connecting them to Citi’s entire range of services geared to the veteran community, including career development opportunities, banking products and services developed to meet the unique needs of military families, and partnerships with leading veterans service and community organizations.

“Access to capital is the number one obstacle entrepreneurs face. By partnering with Citi, we can help overcome this challenge for our nation’s veteran entrepreneurs. This partnership will continue to expand post-service opportunities afforded to our nation’s service members and their families through the most American way possible — business ownership,” says Mike Haynie, IVMF Executive Director and Founder.

As part of the Citi Salutes: Realizing Your Dream Business Competition, graduates of the IVMF’s V-WISE and Boots to Business entrepreneurship training programs who have at least 51 percent ownership in a small business will submit business plans that will be judged by an outside panel of independent judges involved in entrepreneurship.  The business plan judged to be the best will receive $25,000 in seed funding, with lesser amounts awarded for second and third place, as well as awards for Best Social Venture, Best Technology Venture, and Best Venture Impact Veterans.  Full competition rules and guidelines are available at www.CitiSalutes.com.

Created as a partnership between the IVMF and SBA, V-WISE and Boots to Business are the nation’s leading entrepreneurship training programs for veterans, active duty service members and military family members, positioned to empower participants to launch and/or grow sustainable business ventures.  V-WISE, which consists of a 15-day online course in addition to the three-day conference and ongoing post-program support, is open to all female veterans, active duty (including National Guard and Reserve) and female spouses/partners of active duty and veterans with a passion for entrepreneurship and the desire to start  and grow their own business. Boots to Business is a three-phase training program that introduces and trains transitioning service members to business ownership. It is open to all transitioning military personnel and their spouses from all branches of service.

About the IVMF

As the first institute of its kind in the nation, the IVMF leverages the intellectual, programmatic and human capital resources of higher education in support of the post-service life course of the nation’s veterans and military families. The IVMF focuses on developing impactful programming, cultivating actionable research, conducting policy analysis and providing technical assistance positioned to address the social, economic and public policy challenges facing the veterans’ community. The IVMF team approaches this mission as a collaboration, forging enduring partnerships with government, private industry, institutions of higher education, philanthropic organizations and stakeholders committed to supporting transitioning service members, veterans and their families. Visit vets.syr.edu for more information. Follow the IVMF on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, VetNet and LinkedIn.

About Citi

Citi, the leading global bank, has approximately 200 million customer accounts and does business in more than 160 countries and jurisdictions. Citi provides consumers, corporations, governments and institutions with a broad range of financial products and services, including consumer banking and credit, corporate and investment banking, securities brokerage, transaction services, and wealth management.

Additional information may be found at www.citigroup.com | Twitter: @Citi | YouTube: www.youtube.com/citi | Blog: http://blog.citigroup.com | Facebook: www.facebook.com/citi | LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/citi

About the Citi Foundation
The Citi Foundation is committed to the economic empowerment and financial inclusion of individuals and families, particularly those in need, in the communities where we work so that they can improve their standard of living. Globally, the Citi Foundation targets its strategic giving to priority focus areas: Microfinance, Enterprise Development, Youth Education and Livelihoods, and Financial Capability and Asset Building. The Citi Foundation works with its partners in Microfinance and Enterprise Development to support environmental programs and innovations. Additional information can be found at www.citifoundation.com.

About Citi Community Development

Citi Community Development is leading Citi’s commitment to achieve economic empowerment and growth for underserved individuals, families and communities by expanding access to financial products and services, and building sustainable business solutions and innovative partnerships.  Our focus areas include:  commercial and philanthropic funding; innovative financial products and services; and collaborations with institutions that expand access to financial products and services for low-income and underserved communities. For more information, please visit www.citicommunitydevelopment.com.

Media Contacts:

IVMF: Jaime Winne Alvarez, 315-443-0177 or jlwinne@syr.edu

Citi: David Roskin, 212-559-4767 or david.roskin@citi.com

Discharged from the U.S. Navy in 1981, like many other service women, I completely disregarded anything having to do with my military service. I just wanted to forget about it.

I was married, divorced and raised two sons as a single mom. For the better part of my career I held upper management positions. I began working for Culligan Water in 1994 and in 2007 fell through a ceiling at work. Realizing that I did not want to continue working in outside sales, I went back to school.

I started at Syracuse University’s Whitman School of Management in June 2007, after having been out of school for almost 30 years. School went well until September 2010, when I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. I continued in school while going through treatment, thinking that I could continue as I always had, not stopping. This proved to be a mistake. After chemo, I realized that I was sicker than I thought and decided to take a semester off.

I returned to school in spring 2012 and enrolled in Professor John Torrens’ Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises Capstone Class. It was during this class that my new business venture, Life Choice Meals, was born.

After class, my teammates chose not to continue with Life Choice Meals and I was forced to look at continuing on my own. I can’t begin to tell you how frightening this was for me, there were many tears. It was at this time that I shared my thoughts with Professor Torrens. He recommended I contact Meghan Florkowski (program manager) and Tina Kapral (director of education programs) at the IVMF about an upcoming V-WISE female veteran entrepreneurship training program that was to be held in San Diego. I was given a scholarship to attend and made my reservations.

It was during this weekend of attending V-WISE that my life changed. I was availed the opportunity to work with entrepreneurs, mentors and instructors and to speak with other women veterans and entrepreneurs who gave me encouragement, love and the support I needed to move ahead. I am sure that I would have given up if it had not been for V-WISE!

Life Choice Meals is a complete line of chef-designed frozen meals delivered to the home. These meals have been developed to meet doctors’ dietary guidelines for those with diabetes, heart conditions and pre/post bariatric surgery. It is my intention to market through the medical community.

Since my V-WISE experience, I am graduating this May from SU with a B.S. in accounting.  I recently won the Whitman School’s Panasci Business Plan Competition, which awarded me a grand prize of $25,000 to use for my business. Life Choice Meals is now an LLC and I will begin production this summer.

I cannot thank the instructors, mentors, staff and V-WISE attendees enough for their unending support. In particular, Tina and Meghan—it weren’t for you ladies, V-WISE would not be as powerful and life changing. You truly give everything that you have to this program and I see it every day working with you.

In closing, I would like to personally thank the IVMF’s Mike Haynie, if it weren’t for your vision none of this would be possible. God bless you all!

At Colorado State University, together with my colleagues Professor Lisa Langstraat, an Army brat, Colonel (retired) Jenny Pickett, Director of Adult Learner and Veteran Services and recent graduate student (and current U.S. Military Academy English instructor) Major Erin Hadlock, we have been offering, over the past few years, faculty short courses on working with student veterans. We developed this professional development series as a result of the frustration we felt with the scant attention being paid to classroom practices and faculty needs in terms of student veteran transition. Indeed, after reviewing the literature, it seemed to us that while good strides were being made in terms of veteran-informed admissions processes, student services and certifying official functions, attention to classroom issues was relatively slight.

Further, when we queried faculty, we learned that most were unfamiliar with the actual challenges faced by student veterans, or were too often guided by stereotypes of veterans as  wounded shells of people who were struggling to pick up the pieces of their lives. A few faculty members we talked to were vaguely familiar with the case of Charles Whittington’s violence-laced classroom writing that was published (at his urging and without benefit of professional editing) in his school’s newspaper, setting off a firestorm of concern about the mindset of the student veteran. However, in most cases, faculty members we talked to did not know the specifics of the case and hence rushed to judgment.

On the flip side, we had also read articles in a major military periodical in which faculty were characterized as liberal elites who needed to be carefully screened by vets so as to avoid classes which were likely to undermine student veteran experience. We saw language which suggested that many faculty are inclined to “bait” student veterans into defending their military service or conservative views.  The implication was that student veterans would need to guard against predatory faculty and the liberal ideology of the academy.

We were dismayed by both sides of the equation, faculty misapprehension of student veterans and student veteran misunderstanding of faculty, since such assumptions and stereotypes re-inscribe the military-civilian divide. As a result, we decided to research veteran transition into the college classroom and developed a short course that would assist faculty in our local setting.  In our four-hour workshops, we introduced faculty to basic demographic information about military service, conveyed local and national GI Bill enrollment information, developed a presentation on the presentations of PTSD and TBI in the classroom and presented a bibliography of sources for further reading. In addition, we did role plays and debriefed a variety of classroom scenarios involving student veterans and faculty. For these scenarios, we invited a panel of student veterans to lead the discussion and take questions from the faculty.

These student panels had quite an effect; among other things, faculty got to see the poised carriage of the student veteran panel, which handled their questions with confidence, clarity and substance. In turn, student veterans were able to see that faculty were as ready to learn from students as they were to teach them.

Another of the tools that participants found helpful was our presentation of strategies of strength-based pedagogy. The idea of strength-based pedagogy is to focus on the strengths and skills students bring to the classroom, rather than only on students’ weaknesses and shortcomings—the latter being a deficit model of instruction. Certainly, it was not a challenge for us to come up with a set of strengths that student veterans bring to the classroom directly as a result of their military service. Among these were the probabilities that student veterans are:

• mission and project oriented and hence can be relied upon to complete tasks
• time conscious and hence are able to manage time toward task completion
• able to give and receive orders
• respectful of authority
• articulate and able to speak with clarity and conviction
• aware and concerned about the needs of  their classmates
• vigilant about the broader physical and social spaces of the classroom
• well-traveled and culturally literate about parts of the world beyond U.S. borders

We added that student veterans are frequently also:

• prepared and interested to be asked their opinion on world events
• eager to share knowledge gained during service
• prepared to take peer leadership roles
• responsive to mentoring
• committed  to being held to a high standard
• poised and convincing in oral situations due to strong speaking/presentation skills
• professional and determined to polish their projects

Having established these strengths and having seen them demonstrated by our panel of student veterans, we discussed ways to invite and engage these strengths.  Along the way, however, the student veterans themselves rejected the list as a comprehensive descriptor, suggesting that such lists tend to valorize the veteran, which they described as being nearly as deleterious as vilification, since such generalizations fail to deepen understanding of veterans and instead reassert stereotypes.

One student veteran put it this way, after hearing a faculty member describe veterans as capable and competent: “If you think that’s a universal, then you haven’t met many veterans.”  With this encouragement in mind, we also addressed challenges that faculty might be prepared to expect among student veterans in their classes. Among these are the following:

• Although high school graduation rates are higher among veterans than the national norm, many student veterans may have struggled with school and may have been less likely than most student in college classrooms to have been in college-prepatory classes during their high school years
• May not have grown up in reading households
• May be first-generation college
• May have little or no familiarity with the “look” of academic products

These tendencies may or may not also be accompanied by these characteristics:

• May feel that the defining experience of their lives is over and hence that college is not particularly important in the grand scheme of things
• May misunderstand priorities, perhaps advantaging surface polish at the expense of deeper critical thinking
• May expect a certain kind of authority at the front of the classroom and misunderstand the cultural shift demanded by a new form of authority and expertise

This final set of possible characteristics suggests the productive space into which faculty and the college experience might enter the lives of student veterans.  In particular, we have found that military training’s tendency to defer to explicit guidance and hierarchical leadership causes some student veterans to struggle when such certainty and authority does not exist in classrooms or more generally in civilian settings.  As such, we believe that instruction can and should explicitly address this “learning difference” and the opportunity it represents for student veterans to entertain controversial ideas, or even perhaps to articulate them without anxiety about the ramifications of doing so.

Understood in this light, even the “absent-minded professor” might be recast by student veterans and their advocates as valid purveyors of alternative points of view and alternative ways of engaging the world.  In other words, leadership at the front of the classroom, as well as in other civilian environments, takes many forms and the student veteran’s ability to appreciate leadership in its variety may be an essential ingredient to transition.

In short, the student veteran may need to develop a more capacious understanding of what counts as legitimate leadership, not to mention legitimate activity. Erin Hadlock explains that student veterans may perceive themselves as moving from “always doing, never thinking” to “always thinking, never doing,” as they transition from the military environment to the college classroom. However, Hadlock also points out that in both cases this exaggeration of experience tends to oversimplify the actual complexity of these differing cultures.

Practically speaking, the student veteran transition might be eased by transition instruction that involves a gradual tapering of control, moving toward a model of increasingly open-ended discussion and assignment. Student veterans need exposure to varied models of leadership and explanations of why varied forms work in differing contexts.  The goal of such efforts would be to help student veterans expand their repertoires of learning and leadership, extending their existing skills in ways that are useful beyond the university classroom. Indeed, the campus setting, if it is able to impart this lesson, can serve as an important bridge to civilian workplaces and communities, shifting disappointment (in these locations’ seeming absence of leadership) into an appreciation for leadership’s varied forms.

My colleague, Lisa Langstraat, and I explore these ideas and others in our forthcoming book, “Generation Vet: Student-Veterans, Composition, and the Post-9/11 University” (Utah State Press, expected release fall 2013.) This collection features articles by faculty and student veterans from across the country.

Sue Doe teaches courses in composition, autoethnographic theory and method, research methods and graduate student preparation for writing in the disciplines at Colorado State University. Doe conducts research in three distinct areas—academic labor, writing across the curriculum and student veteran writing in the post-9/11 era. Co-author of the faculty development book, “Concepts and Choices: Meeting the Challenges in Higher Education,” she has published articles in College English, College Composition and Communication and Writing Program Administration, as well as several book-length collections. She serves on the board of directors of the New Faculty Majority Foundation and represents the National Council of Teachers of English on the Coalition of the Academic Workforce.