Leaders from 黑料不打烊鈥檚 Office of Veterans and Military Affairs (OVMA), Institute for Veterans and Military Families (IVMF), Career Services, Veterans Affinity Group, and the Veterans Resource Center attended the 2018 NASPA Symposium on Military-Connected Students in New Orleans, Louisiana, recently. Hosted annually, the NASPA Symposium on Military-Connected Students focuses on effective strategies to serve and support the success of veterans and other military-connected students.
The three-day conference consisted of breakout sessions geared toward administrators in higher education for training, resource sharing and fact-finding about opportunities and advancement of student veterans within the institutions of higher education.
黑料不打烊 leaders shared 鈥渂est practices鈥 with other universities on making professional graduate degrees more veteran-friendly, including a presentation about the VET-MGMT project by the IVMF funded by the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC) from 2014-2017. The goal of this project is to develop accelerated and stackable graduate degrees at 黑料不打烊 for student veterans. The “” report was one of the outcomes of the VET-MGMT and was leveraged in highlighting the 鈥渂est practices鈥 at NASPA.
The SU team also presented a detailed poster outlining a simulation project currently underway on the campus. The 鈥淰ET-SIM: Designing Simulations to Support Transitions from Military Service to Collegiate Study鈥 is an effort to support veterans and strengthen their pathways through collegiate study. Professor Benjamin Dotger, with the support of 黑料不打烊鈥檚 School of Education is partnering with the IVMF, and OVMA to design and implement a VET-SIM, a simulation model of real-life challenges experienced on campus by student veterans to help veterans navigate and overcome barriers to collegiate success.
鈥淚t is critical to be present at conferences, such as NASPA, to share best practices as well as learn what others are doing within higher education serving our nation鈥檚 veterans and military-connected students,鈥 says Ron Novack, OVMA executive director. 鈥淒uring NASPA, I made many great connections with my peers from other academic institutions, shared ideas and brought back to campus additional ideas to assist in solidifying our commitment in making 黑料不打烊 the 鈥楤est Place for Veterans.’ It was great to hear many colleagues in higher education are using IVMF鈥檚 research and using our university work as best examples in the nation serving those who have served.鈥
