[soft music] - Good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Blaze Carswell.

I'm a student veteran here at Appalachian State University.

I'm a former army veteran and current political science major.

I'm honored to be here with you all here today to discuss some challenges that myself and other student veterans have faced in our transition from military service to campus.

- Hello everyone.

My name is Caroline Bringhurst.

I'm a student at Cape Fear Community College formerly a Marine Corps veteran and a current associates of arts major.

I thank you for having us today and giving us an opportunity to share our transformation or experience from active duty to student life.

So Blaze I believe that I'm speaking on behalf of the applicants who rely on the GI bill for education, finance, medical care and other things alike when I say that the system could use some improvements.

While there have been really great with items such as tuition, books, stipends, and general education related finance, I have had struggles in the terms of communications.

I've experienced issues applying for medical disability and just trying to get ahold of an operator or even navigating the website is challenging.

Fixing the communication between the applicant and the VA can be very beneficial to not only students but medical applicants as well.

Is this an issue at Appalachian Blaze?

- Hi, Caroline.

Actually yeah.

Trying to stay on top of filing for your disability while attending college can definitely be a pain.

Things like tracking down your paperwork, getting a hold of people in the office attending your examinations for your disability, especially during the semester can definitely add up to be a lot.

And on top of everything you mentioned, it's an issue that's kind of unique to our student veterans up here at App.

but plainly it's the traveling distance to get to the VA.

I know that in Cape Fear down in Wilmington you have your own VA medical center.

That's not the case for us up here in the Mountains of Boone.

Basically we're expected to travel at least two hours one way, and that's with good weather, to reach the nearest VA hospital.

This is a big issue for us here on campus, given that a lot of the space, physical disabilities, as well as mental challenges related to our time and service.

So it would definitely help if those needs could be addressed quicker.

But that brings me into another issue that I've faced especially here in the high country.

And that's the cost of living.

Here in Boone, if you can find a place to live off campus, you've only won half the battle.

Rates here in the High Country are incomparable to that of a student that's attending a New York University.

A student at NYU gets double the base allowance for housing while their rent on average is just the same as those of us here in Boone.

This could be a major issue for student vets in the area where their BAH rate is just barely scraping by the costs of their rent.

And that doesn't include the various other expenses that come with college living.

Do you guys have a similar experience with housing down at Cape Fear community college?

- Yes, it is Blazing.

I'm glad you brought this up.

At Cape Fear the cost of living has increased.

And I agree with you on how BAH rates do not cover the cost of rent without adding additional utilities.

Comparing the average living costs from NYU and in Boone, the cost of living is the same here as well.

I could say how the major issue is affording a place to live.

I think teaching student veterans to budget better and providing the resource to do that can lead to an advantage financially.

I encourage student veterans to research the average living costs in their area and budget accordingly before they leave the service.

Another topic I'd like to address is students faculty communication in classroom experience.

Online classes for new or current students are more challenging than ever expected.

Students have to change their normal college routines and that's put a huge impact on understanding the curriculum.

For my teachers, they are understanding and offer resources with help on any concept that we need.

And nothing has really changed in my perspective because I believe it's up to the students to reach out and ask for help when it's an online environment.

And by doing that, I think it's easier to ask for help in this tech world than ever has been before.

Have you or your fellow student veterans experience has changed as positively as I have?

- Honestly hasn't been that big of an issue up here in Boone.

Most military training courses, while I served at least were online.

At least they were in the army.

I can't necessarily speak for all the other branches but it's definitely been easier to get ahold of teachers and faculty, given that they're going through the exact same thing we are.

If anything, I kinda feel like I'm in more control of my day-to-day life.

And I also save a ton of money on gas, obviously staring at my computer eight hours a day.

But so that's a plus.

But I do certainly want things to return to how they were before, which kind of brings me to my final point.

The elephant in the room, obviously the COVID pandemic has definitely transformed the typical college experience that's usually filled with like parties and fraternities and football games and all that jazz.

To experience college with displace learning, the online schedules that change from day to day and the lack of any real extracurricular activities can add up and it can turn out to be a bit much.

Especially when your football team up here in App is the best in the state.

You got to start to rely on tailgates and stuff like that for social interaction.

But all jokes aside, my college experience right now is definitely not what I expected.

And it's definitely a far cry from what I had my freshman year where everything had some degree of normalcy.

But how's the pandemic effected y'all down there in Wilmington, Caroline.

- Well, Blaze, I agree with you.

Transitioning to campus from active duty during COVID 19 pandemic has made the move to campus much harder than before.

This new COVID 19 society has brought more discipline and less of an advantage to college students as a whole.

Many student veterans are actually at an advantage over the civilian student counterparts.

Because throughout the military career they experienced a level of independence that has shined through the pandemic.

And I believe that the traits instilled in us give the student veterans and advantage to overcoming college stresses over the average student.

- Awesome.

Well, thank you so much for being here with me, Caroline and discussing these issues with me.

I'm sure there's a variety of things that we needed to talk about that we couldn't get to with a time allotment.

And there's a lot that student veterans across North Carolina face that we haven't mentioned, but I want to instill hope for the people that are watching this, that those with the power in charge to change these issues are here with us today and they are listening.

I'm glad we're able to get together and try to hash out some of these topics.

But I do look forward to seeing solutions provided in the near future.

Thanks.

- Hi, my name is JJ Brown.

I serve as the vice chancellor for student affairs here at Appalachian State University.

I'm proud to be one of many here at Appalachia to support our student veterans.

Here on campus, this effort is a collaborative one involving faculty, staff and university administration led by our chancellor, Dr. Sheri Everts.

Our military affairs committee chaired by Dr. Lynn Gregory has been instrumental in our work to support these students.

This committee played a key role in a grant we received allowing us to hire a full-time staff member and advocating for our existing student veterans center.

This team meets regularly to support the ongoing needs of our student veterans across all aspects of the university and consists of both faculty, staff, and administrators.

Within the division of student affairs, we are specifically proud to support the Major general Edward M. Reader Jr. Student Veterans Resource Center.

Stamped with a full-time employee, we're able to provide physical space for our veterans service members and students and military families to gather and support one another.

While we have continued work to do we have been successful because we continue to partner and collaborate together to support our students.

Thank you for the many ways in which you also support the success of these students.

This work is important and Appalachian is grateful for the many collaborative relationships we have to keep us moving forward.

- Welcome, and thank you for joining us today for NC STRIVE 2021.

Today's session we're gonna focus on student veteran transition.

And in this particular segment, we're talking about the logistics of transition.

I'd like to take a moment to thank JJ Brown for his warm welcome, as well as Blaze and Caroline for their wonderful introduction to this important topic.

My name is Jennifer Coffey and I serve as program director of student veteran services at Appalachian State University in beautiful Boone, North Carolina.

I've had the honor of serving Appalachians student veterans and military affiliated students for 10 years.

And for the last year, I've had the privilege of serving as our program director.

- Good afternoon, everybody.

I'm Jason Bocchino, veterans affairs coordinator here at Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington, North Carolina.

I've been serving as the veteran service coordinator for a year now.

I had spent 24 plus years on active duty in the Navy.

I joined in 1993 and retired in 2018.

- Before we get started, I wanna go over a few of the objectives that we want to reach during this session.

First, we're gonna provide you with some definitions to give context to the information we're providing.

Then Jason and I are gonna go over common logistical challenges and some suggested solutions for those challenges.

Finally, we'll give you our contact information.

So if you'd like to get in touch with either of us at the conclusion of this or at any time, you'll be able to do so.

Before I turn it over to Jason, I would like to say that transition is something that is unique to each individual.

It is definitely not one size fits all.

And every person who is going through transition is going to have an unique and different experience.

However, the information we're providing is very common among transitioning service members and we hope you find it a good help.

- Thank you, Jennifer.

So during our conversation today, we're gonna use terms such as student veteran, transition and logistics.

The slide we showed you gives you a general idea definition what that is.

The logistical requirements for you and your family to transition from the military into the college life, it can be overwhelming and it can be simple for some people.

So we hope today to provide you with good tools and tips to help you determine what challenges and solutions that you have.

So we can help you create a good plan for yourself.

So some of the first challenges that you would face are finance and budgeting.

So for veterans facing transition, they have a big change in their financial situation.

They lose their active duty pay.

They lose their housing allowance.

So you have to create a new budget to adjust for this.

And this could be a challenge if you don't know exactly how much it costs to relocate, how much it costs to live in that new area and really how much income you're gonna have.

So a couple of the challenges is what is the impact of losing your military pay and how do you budget for that?

You also might want to look into, do you qualify for any VA disability out there and get extra income?

The other thing is you wanna know how much your rent or mortgage is gonna be in your new area.

You know, if you just leave 40 miles from your duty station, that could be a difference of hundreds and thousands of dollars in rent and mortgage, just depends on the area.

You also need to find out as if your GI Bill allowance which a lot of people will rely on, if that's gonna be enough.

And if you do get Pell grant or any Stafford loans will that also be enough for you to fill the needs of your family?

A couple of other things that you might wanna think about that are definitely a challenge is what does it cost to move into that area?

You've got to rent a truck, you got to pay for gas, you might need temporary lodging when you get there.

You might also need storage fees.

So you've got to plan for all of those things.

If you haven't done your final PCs move, you might wanna look into that and you can go to move.mil to find some information about it.

- Thank you so much, Jason.

Those are all very relevant challenges that many individuals transitioning out of service may face as they enter higher education.

For those of us who engage in support, where the practitioner supporting student veterans, what we can do is engage in early intervention and outreach.

Reaching out to those students who have applied to attend our institutions and provide for them clear and easy steps for obtaining their VA education benefits and applying for financial aid.

For those of you who are transitioning or thinking about it, being sure that you're saving up some money prior to exiting service, if at all possible, so that you have funds available to cover rent and utilities while you're waiting on your education benefits.

Because most VA education benefits are not paid out until after you've started attending school.

Additionally, for those of us supporting student veterans, advocating for emergency funds and scholarship opportunities is really integral to ensuring those individuals have the support they need to be successful.

Campus based employment is another option for individuals to have more financial stability while attending school and developing partnerships with nonprofit organizations so that a broader net can be cast and providing support to those individuals as they transition.

What about competing priorities, Jason?

- Hey Jennifer, thanks.

So competing priorities, what this really means is what kind of outside influences are there on your time?

Do you have children that require you to take them to activities or drop them off to daycare?

Are you going to need a part-time job?

So you have to budget for that time.

And do you have a spouse or that needs to work or do you share vehicles?

So those are some of the outside influences that you face.

So some of the challenges are, especially with childcare is, is there a childcare facility near the school or is it a one at the school?

Is there one that's affordable for you and your family?

And the last thing is, are there any work programs that might help you?

If you're a veteran student, what kind of assistance out there as they help you get a job?

- That is so very true.

According to research done by student veterans of America, 47% of student veterans have a spouse, children or both.

Additionally most student veterans are significantly more likely to have full or part-time employment outside of education than their traditionally aged counterparts.

So what we can do is develop partnerships with local nonprofit organizations that support family care and childcare to work with our campus-based and community childcare centers to see what organizations are gonna be most supportive of our student veterans and their families.

Also, as I mentioned before, and as Jason mentioned, campus based employment, if you're going to be working as a student veteran, seeking out that campus based employment is a great idea because those jobs are cognizant of the rigors of academics and they know and will work with you to set a schedule that works best for you and your family and your studies.

Organizations that offer whole family support programs, either at the school or in the community, so that the spouses and children feel involved in a part of the community.

And having a solid relationship with a career development center on your campus, provides opportunities, not only during education, but during that next big transition from higher education and back into the civilian workforce.

What about healthcare?

- Well, all right, cool, Jennifer.

Healthcare is complicated for families.

It's complicated for people.

A lot of veterans do have disabilities that they have to deal with.

They have a medical appointments they have to deal with.

And sometimes, it's simple if you're a single veteran you're coming straight from the military, you go to college, you might just only have yourself to worry about.

And if you do have VA rated disability and you need to be seen by VA clinic, one of the challenges is finding one that's near your school.

There might not be one near your school.

So you've got to find the nearest one and see if you're even eligible to use that facility.

And if you are able to use that facility and it is in a distant location, you need to find out if they're gonna allow you to get paid for mileage and travel.

So that's simple for a single veteran.

But if you've got a family to deal with and you just, if you're not gonna say, you're not a retiree and you don't get the TRICARE Humana Retiree insurance, you've got to find affordable insurance for your family.

And in doing so, you've got to look into federal programs like Medicare and Medicaid and stuff like that.

And then you're gonna need help with that.

So finding the people to help you get enrolled in those are big challenge.

And then the last thing is you've got to find medical facilities for your family primary care that accept your insurance in that area.

- For us, providing support to those transitioning service members, it's important that we have good relationships with veterans service officers.

Those individuals usually county by county if not multiple folks in our county, who have that direct connection to state-based and federally based resources.

Our veteran service officer here at Watauga County is a guru when it comes to helping individuals find community healthcare, BA based healthcare, and really anything outside of VA education benefits.

back to the finance side, they can even help with VA home loans.

Having relationships with VA outreach liaisons is also key because those individuals can help our student veterans set up their disability claims and get enrolled in VA healthcare.

For individuals facing difficulty with family health care and those sorts of things, local health departments are a huge asset.

And counseling centers.

Having a relationship with counseling centers in the community or on campus provides an opportunity to connect those individuals and their families with any resources that they need.

At Appalachia were fortunate to have members of our counseling center staff who have worked with the VA.

They know the lingo and they know how to support their colleagues in supporting our students.

We also have a referral coordinator who has worked with all of our community partners to know which organizations are best for individuals facing service connected issues or whose healthcare is provided by the VA. And one important thing to note that many of our students have had trouble with, is immunization records and their medical records.

I don't know if you or your students have faced that, Jason, but I know our folks here at Appalachian have had one heck of a hard time obtaining immunization records after leaving.

So if your service member who is transitioning, I urge you go ahead and request a complete medical file on disk, as well as a paper copy of your immunizations, because in college that immunization record is actually more important than your DD 214.

You can come to school without a DD 214, but you can't come to school without those immunization records.

Right Jason?

- Yeah, Jennifer.

That's a great point.

And that made me think of one other thing for, like say you are a disabled veteran and you're near a military treatment facility the MTF.

So think about that as a resource out there as well.

So you might be close to a military base that has a hospital or a large clinic.

And if you are retiree, or if you are a disabled veteran, then you might be entitled to use those facilities as well.

So just think about that as a good resource out there.

You're not completely detached from the military.

- That's a great point.

And here at Appalachia our closest VA medical center is an hour and a half away.

And the closest, those are the hospitals, in the closest medical centers, small clinics are about an hour away.

So our students often work together to carpool for appointments and really have established a network among themselves to help alleviate some of that stress caused by being away from those medical centers.

So what about housing?

- All right, Jennifer.

So housing.

We've all shopped for apartments.

One point in our life, we've all shopped for houses.

It can be fun.

Looking online, looking for housing, but it also can be long and tedious and very stressful, especially if you're transitioning out and you've got a family and you're trying to accommodate everybody.

It can be very stressful.

So we talked about finance and budgeting.

So if you do have a good plan in place, you do have a good budget and all that stuff, you know exactly what your means are, you also need to start looking in the area and finding out what size house is actually affordable to you.

What size apartment is good for you?

You are single, can you share an apartment with somebody?

And if you do need to share an apartment or with somebody, how do you find another student that you can safely live with?

'Cause we're leaving the military.

So we don't know the folks as much as we used to know.

So another part of finding suitable housing, you wanna find a good neighborhood, obviously for your family.

You wanna find the one with good schools.

So you're gonna do all those kinds of researches.

But you also want to look at if you're going to rent, how long is your lease going to be for.

How long do you need it for?

Are you there just for the term?

Are you there for two terms and then taking the summer off?

And while you're looking for a proper lease, also try and find out if there's any hidden fees or any maintenance fees or parking fee.

So those are just kind of some of the things that I see people can have a hard time making sure that if they're not planning for it, they can have a hard time with that.

- Having partnerships.

I keep harping on partnerships, but partnerships are so vitally important.

With off-campus agency, specifically relates to housing.

Knowing those leasing companies and renters that have better and friendly policies that recognize VA education benefits as a viable form of income is super important.

Also finding lease support.

Here at Appalachia, we're fortunate to have someone who offers free legal advice to our students.

If your organization doesn't have that, seeking out that sort of support in the community is a huge asset to those transitioning service members who may not have had to sign a lease before, or where it's been a long time since they've had to sign a lease.

County veteran service officers are a asset for VA home loans and finding those reputable leasing companies.

We also use Facebook group here at Appalachian for our incoming students and continuing students to network with one another to find out who to rent from, who to not rent from.

If somebody needs a roommate, they use that system to identify one another.

And even if somebody needs a couch to crash on while they're getting back on their feet.

We encourage them to work together to support one another.

And so that kinda flows into our last topic, loss of a support network.

What about that?

- So losing your support network, you don't realize it until you lose it.

You know we all know that term.

But, while you serve in the military, you have your buddies.

You go to your unit, you have your buddies, it's easy to make friends in the military life.

When you're losing all that, when you transition into college life, you will make friends but you're losing those real support network.

A lot of people will leave the military servers, go to college and then they're not really in their home area.

So they don't have their immediate family with them.

So you're losing that part of it as well.

So if you have a spouse and you have children, while you're serving, you kind of live in areas where you have other service members around so your spouse feels kind of like they have some people around them that are dealing with the same type of issues.

So moving away from the base and moving into a college life, you're losing that whole support network that you're used to having.

So somebody other challenges with that is who can you rely on for guidance and support and even mentorship while you're at college?

'Cause you can feel like you're kind of alone.

What kind of groups are out there or agencies are out there for your family to help support them?

And then, are there any other outside influences that could really help you with, like you said, commute time or other stuff like that?

So what kind of help can you get from outside of the community?

- Those are great points.

And one thing that is completely relevant to that is the good sense of student veteran associations, chapters of student veterans of America that are found across our institutions in North Carolina and beyond.

That is kinda that first stop for students who are transitioning, who are looking at rekindling that network of community and fellowship.

And for individuals who may not be interested in staying connected to the veteran identity, campus based resources and groups are out there.

It may be an interest in studying abroad or connection with other first-generation college students or other non-traditional students.

But getting connected with campus based groups, is really the first step to rebuilding that support network.

Having the ability to support students with relocation if at all possible that goes back to those emergency grants and scholarships I mentioned earlier, but really offering at the institutional level that place for students to rebuild that community.

Having a student veteran resource center is also a great way to foster that cultivation of community.

Outside of higher education, having those VA outreach specialists, nonprofit organizations, and other post-military networks of individuals, offers opportunities to rebuild that community and rebuild that support network.

In this area, we have a chapter, the Military Officers Association that is super involved with everything we do Appalachian for our student veterans because they've walked in those shoes and they understand how difficult that transition can be.

And they've committed to supporting our students through that transition.

That's all we have on the logistics of transition.

Coming up next, my colleague and friend Dr. Len Gregory with Amber Taylor, who's a student at Cape Fear, are gonna talk more about the social challenges associated with transition.

And Jason and I will be back with you for an information session on resources related to transition.

We thank you so much for joining us and for participating in NC STRIVE 2021.

- Hello, and thank you for all being with us for our part in the NC STRIVE transition presentation.

Lynn and I will be focusing on social transition among student veterans.

I'm Amber and I'm a Marine Corps veteran, a student of nursing at Cape Fear Community College.

- I'm Lynn, I'm a faculty member in the department of communication at the Appalachian State.

And I've also been chairing our military affairs committee since it started in 2012.

- [Amber] Before we get started, we have to recognize the importance of social transition issues to student veterans success, campus culture, and meeting academia's public mission.

- [Lynn] That's right, Amber.

Student veterans bring a lot of in diversity of perspective to my classrooms and to our campuses.

They've served our country and it's up to us to serve them now.

To do so, we'll identify issues student veterans face as they transition from military to academic culture and some strategies to bridge those culture gaps.

- [Amber] As I read over what some student veterans have said on campus, I know that I see a lot of similarities between what I have heard and what I know some of my fellow veterans have heard.

- Collected this data from App Amber.

And I'm not surprised to hear you say that you recognize some of these issues.

There's all kinds of research that says they are common among student veterans across the nation.

We've used this data to develop campus training like green zone.

Often faculty and staff wanna support military affiliated students but they just don't know how to.

- [Amber] We will read these definitions to you but we really hope that you'll download the PowerPoint as a resource.

It's available on the NC STRIVE website.

- [Lynn] One thing that I do wanna point out is the growing importance of equity on campuses across the U.S. Building cultural competence is certainly a good first step in ensuring that we are inclusive and welcoming.

- And that's really important giving the tangent demographics of the military and veteran populations.

Just like the U S population, it's becoming more and more diverse.

- The text and course that these definitions come from, intercultural communication is one of my favorites.

And I've been lucky enough to teach it for quite a while.

It's the foundation for the work that I've done in student veteran transition.

These are hops that is culture dimensions and they provide a foundation for much of the intercultural communication research and practice that we rely on today.

- We don't have time to cover them all.

So we'll focus on individualistic/collectivistic.

It's one that might even be familiar to some of you.

I recognize some of these from my own experience and from talking to other student veterans.

Like the part about sacrifice and how regulated communication is so important in the military.

I know that during my time in the military, I had many experiences where I had to sacrifice time with my son and other family in order to accomplish our mission, whether that be in the field or in the day-to-day shop.

And I know that was something not special to me in my service.

- That's the case for many service members, Amber.

And now those service members are students with families.

And it's an important thing for academia to realize that our student veterans are bringing families with them and all of the responsibilities and joy that that entails.

I'm not surprised that you picked out the two of those both the sacrifice and the regulated communication channels.

As we both know, after serving in the military, communication has definitely regulated there.

Many people think first about the sacrifice that military service represents and that aligns with the group orientation of collectivism as well.

- As we had spoke about communication is really important.

One of the main ones is student to communication.

When we look at the previous slides, in the quotes that we had heard, the one that really stuck out to me was, it's hard to be in a classroom, and serious about learning, with kids who were literally in high school last week.

I know for me, this has been a huge struggle.

I always feel like when I'm in the classroom that I don't really associate well or connect well with a lot of my peers, because I always feel like I'm really in a different part in my life.

And that is something that like they can't or the can and they don't really understand.

For example, like when some of our friends want to do a study groups, and I'm usually the one they have to work around 'cause I'm like, well, I have to be home at 2:00 to get my son off the bus, or I have to...

I can't be out that late 'cause I have to put the kids to bed or I have to cook dinner.

And just some other examples of like, just things they say where it just really feels like, we're really different.

And for me that's been a barrier in a lot of my classes.

Another important piece of this communication is between student and faculty.

One of the quotes that really stuck out in regards to this was somebody in this classroom needs to take charge.

I know that coming from the military, we're used to there being that person that does take charge, the one you listen to, the one who is, in like the classroom setting, sits up there and gives you the lecture tells you what you need to hear.

And many times in my college experience, there have been times where you can tell that students are trying to lead the conversation or the lecture.

And I'm kind of getting off topic or they they know they can sway the instructor.

'Cause they think if the instructor doesn't talk about it, then it's not gonna be on a test or something.

And for me, that's really frustrating because from my experience, it doesn't matter if it's not talked about.

If it's a chance it's gonna be tested on, I really want to hear it.

And just the whole thing I'm going off topic is something that is really frustrating for myself because I just like going from point A to point B and no unnecessary or silly conversation in between.

So those are just a couple of examples that I know that I have experienced personally in my time as a student.

- And Amber, I smiled when you were talking about how students will sometimes try to get the instructor off topic, thinking if you don't talk about it, then it won't be on the test.

And as an instructor, I can tell you and you probably already know that's not true.

You're going to get tested on everything that's covered in the course.

So I can where that's really frustrating.

And speaking as a faculty member and also an interculturalist it's not surprising to hear that frustration from student veterans, from you and from others, because in the military the training is much more trainer centered, whereas in academia classrooms are much more student centered.

And so not only do we appreciate students' opinions and the conversation they have and what they can lend to the classroom, but we also expect it from them.

And so we often encourage students to speak in class and sometimes faculty do let the conversation go in a little bit different direction.

Sometimes for me, I let it go in a little bit different direction because I'm learning something new from the students and seeing things in a perspective that I didn't have.

Certainly student veterans bring a great perspective to my classrooms.

But one of the things that I have to be conscious of, is time and covering the topic well.

And so that's a wonderful thing for not just student veterans to know, but teachers to know, instructors to know, as we work together in the classroom to help build a good classroom culture and environment for learning.

One of the things that I think has been really evident in research by several different groups across the United States, but certainly Cognito did a white paper that talked directly about how unprepared faculty felt and staff felt.

I believe it was staffed to felt, to interact with student veterans and military affiliated students.

But the nice thing about that white paper was it also indicated how willing they are and how much they want to have good communication and to support student veterans.

One of the things that I noticed about the quotes that stood out for me and the reason why I pulled it out from a lot of data, was the one that said, "I volunteer at Hero's day, and it's like my student veteran is a different person.

They're chatting, laughing, he's stoic in class."

Amber, when you were talking about students kind of, other students going off topic, or sometimes it's about topics that come up that are a little bit close to military affiliated students experiences and maybe uncomfortable for them.

And so what they wind up doing is just sort of turning off and tuning out and that could appear to be stoicism in the classroom and why that particular faculty member saw that great difference.

Has that ever happened to you or to anyone you know?

- I know that it has personally happened to me and I know as well others students who it has happened to.

There's actually been a few classes where I kind of make sure I don't let it be known that I'm a veteran, just 'cause I know that some of the topics will come back to that and I don't necessarily wanna be singled out or really feel like I have the true experience or knowledge to speak on it.

And I don't really wanna be the person that they think represents all the military or all veterans.

- Representation is a really important thing to talk about not just in terms of student veterans being expected to represent for the military, but also other minorities or marginalized cultures who are sometimes recognized in class and asked to represent.

So that goes back to that issue of vacuum equity and really supporting these students.

One of the things that in a quote that I'm sure you saw Amber, was the one where someone said that they actually asked their students that they saw that, if they were covering a topic that was related to the military, they saw that as the opportunity to draw and to engage and to bring their student veteran into the conversation when that's kind of problematic.

Isn't it?

Because maybe, like you said, there's times when you don't wanna be recognized as a student veteran.

What do you think?

- No, I really think that's true.

There have been a lot of times that even like in nursing we had a unit where we talked about PTSD.

And a lot of people by now knew that I was a military veteran and they would ask me questions and I'd be like, well I'm not a professional on this.

It is common among some of my peers but it's not specific to just the veteran community or enough that I have enough information on it to be someone to come to for knowledge on it.

- Absolutely.

And that's not even just about representing.

Some of that is the misrepresentation or the stereotype that some people have about veterans.

Some of the faculty members and staff that I talked to are a little bit older, which was probably typical I guess, and many of them still have in their mind some of the stereotypes of the Vietnam veteran.

And that's who they're looking for in their classrooms when they're thinking about military affiliated students not students who for all intents and purposes kind of blend in with the rest of the students.

Many student veterans are not that much older than our traditional students.

And then we have non-traditional students who are not military affiliated.

And so it's really very important for faculty and staff and administration and universities to recognize not just the diversity in the classroom in terms of race and ethnicity and gender, but also in terms of human experience.

Each of our student veterans is an individual.

And that's one of the things that is important for us to bring up here, because some of the things we're talking about like collectivism individualism or some pop status other dimensions, those are generalizations and they can be contextually bound and they can also not really apply to some individuals and cultures.

And so we really wanna be careful to understand the idea of intersectionality as well.

And our student veterans are a diverse population.

So not only are you a student veteran, but maybe you also identify as female and you have a particular background, ethnic background or cultural background, regional background.

So all of those things that make us who we are, inform who we are in the classroom, and it's important for everyone to understand that and to recognize it, but to go beyond recognizing it and really celebrating it.

- The dynamics in the U.S. population as well as the military and veteran is changing so rapidly.

And really it's not like the typical, oh, that's a veteran.

Like you just look at them.

It's really not like that anymore, I don't think.

- I think that's a really good place to wrap up.

So we wanna thank everyone for being here.

We encourage you again to download those PowerPoints, use them as references.

our contact information is there.

So please reach out to us if you have questions.

And we've also included some references in that PowerPoint slide that you can use as resources.

It's just so nice to have a session on transition.

It's such an important topic and I wanna thank everybody who participated.

And I especially want to thank Jason and Jennifer.

They took a lot of time and effort in putting together a piece on resources.

And so we'll move over to them and let them share that with us.

Thanks everyone.

Thank you, Amber.

- [Amber] Thank you.

- Welcome again to NC STRIVE 2021, an hour session on student veteran transition.

During this segment, we're gonna talk to you about support resources.

If you missed our first session, My name's Jennifer Coffey, a program director of student veteran services at Appalachian State University in beautiful Boone, North Carolina.

- Hi, and I'm Jason Bocchino, veterans affairs coordinator here at Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington.

- Before we get started, I wanted to go over some of our objectives for this particular session.

Jason and I are gonna go over the different types of resources that you may encounter as a transitioning service member or someone who's support to student veterans as they transition.

We're gonna provide you some examples of resources, albeit this won't be an exhaustive list, but we want you to kind of have an idea of what to look for.

And then we're gonna talk to you about how to identify quality resources.

And finally, we want to provide you with our contact information so that if you want to connect with either of us, to ask questions or get any information, you'll have that information available.

So, types of resources.

- The big type of resources that are out there are the big federal ones.

When you think of federal resources, most people think of the VA for veteran students.

But federal resources are programs that are designed really to assist individuals with healthcare, with education, disability, pensions.

And they also have big programs out there that'll help you with employment benefits.

So navigating through federal programs can be challenging for an individual veteran.

They might be overwhelmed and not really sure what to do.

So as our job is to help them narrow down which ones that they need, which ones that they qualify for, and where to go to start applying for these federal programs.

- With regard to state programs and resources, that's essentially any program or resource that's funded with state dollars.

Those can be as large as a university or community college like where Jason and I work, or as small as a tiny little service office in a small county in the state.

Essentially those organizations are funded by the state and operated by either state employees or contracted service member.

Service providers, excuse me.

- Yeah, Jennifer.

Now the local and regional offices, we're talking to municipalities.

If you have a large city they might have a veteran's office.

And then the county office is really what a lot of North Carolina deal with.

You got to county offices and those offices are a lot more...

There's a lot more programs that they might be able to offer.

So if you do the federal search, then the students and the veterans really need to go to their county reps to really find some more benefits and some more narrow...

There's a lot more programs out there.

And like you said, that the state would offer.

- And then we have non-profit organizations.

Non-profit organizations come in all shapes and sizes.

They can be nationally acclaimed or from a small municipality.

But the purpose of those organizations is to provide a service or program to individuals or groups of individuals.

And their goal is to not make any money, but instead to provide services.

So for examples of free resources, what are some federal resources, Jason?

- Thanks, Jennifer.

Let's start with the big ones, the simple ones.

This is what veterans students they need.

They need to go and find out what VA benefits that they have to apply for.

Most of you know, but some of you may not know that the veterans have to go on to va.gov and they have to actually apply to use their chapter 33 post 9/11 GI Bill.

So that's usually the very first place I'll send any...

I get active duty people that call me and they're like, "Oh, I wanna use my benefits."

And that's the first place I send them.

So if they want to use either Montgomery GI bill or their Post-9/11 GI Bill, the first place they need to go is the va.gov and apply for their benefits.

There's other education benefits out there by the VA.

There's the Chapter 31, the Veterans Readiness and Employment Program, which is a great, great program that assist disabled veterans get skills, and training and education that they need to give that a sustainable employment for the future.

Not everybody does something in the military translates to a civilian job.

And they need extra training to get a new career.

And if they have VA disability, they wanna make sure these are good jobs that are gonna help that veteran out.

So those are some of the big, big specifically for the veteran programs.

The other one out there for family members that some veterans don't know about, if they're a 100% permanent totally disabled veteran, they would be eligible for Chapter 35 which is the Dependent Education Program.

And that assist the no spouses or the children of the disabled veteran.

It gives them a monthly stipend to help them pay for college.

So those are some of the big VA federal programs out there.

All their big federal programs that are not VA related is the FAFSA.

That is a great program that some veterans don't even think that they are entitled to.

They think they can't use their GI Bill and get a Pell grant, same time.

Well, if they don't have a large income that would be a resource.

I always recommend all my students, the veteran students here apply and do a FAFSA application because they might be entitled to something.

So all the federal programs, they're not all VA programs.

So if you're not entitle...

If you're not eligible for a VA medical, you got to look into the federal Medicaid, Medicare and come up with a basic health plan program because you really don't wanna go without medical insurance.

So those are federally funded programs that are helped to assist the families and the individuals.

Some veterans are disabled and then they need help with housing.

So there are federal grants out there that can help you adjust your housing if you have a wheelchair and stuff like that.

So they have these specific programs for adaptive housing.

So keep that in mind if you have any veterans that need help with that kind of stuff.

So the last big federal program that I think is very helpful for veteran students when they're transitioning out is, well like me, I just retired but, I didn't know what I wanted to do when I grew up.

So some of these guys and girls come to you and are like I just want to go to school and wanna use my benefit, but I don't know what I wanna do.

So the U.S. Department of Labor has a great, great website and it's called O#*Net.

And they could just search through O#*Net for certain jobs that they might be interested in.

There might be programs at your school that they're interested in, but going through O#*Net, they find out if those job fields ar good job fields for that area they wanna live in and also gives them a general idea how much that job would get paid in that area.

So it'll help them narrow down what type of education they wanna get to get a real job when they grow up.

- Well.

That's awesome.

Thank you so much for that overview of federal resources.

At the state level, that's obviously going to vary from state to state, but since we're here with NC STRIVE and we're focusing on North Carolina, state programs in North Carolina are robust.

And many of them are centered in our state government.

For example, the North Carolina Department of Military and Veterans Affairs provides support for veterans homes, cemeteries.

They provide a scholarship for the dependent children of veterans from North Carolina, that a lot of folks don't know about.

And they're kind of the central hub for many of the local and regional organizations.

Additionally, we have NC Serves an NC Care 360.

Those programs are really born of the COVID-19 outbreak.

And they have parts and pieces, excuse me that are tailored to the veteran population and are endorsed by our secretary of health and human services, Dr. Mandy Cohen.

Finally, NC for Me kind of bridges the gap between nonprofit and state funded organization, and is a an employment preparation organization that helps our military affiliated folks find valuable employment.

There are so many others and we are gonna actually share after our session, a list of resources on the NC STRIVE website so that you don't have to try to jot all of this down right now.

How about local and regional resources?

Jason?

- All right, so yeah.

The local places are really...

Your county veterans service officer which I talked about earlier.

You also have your county housing authorities.

They can help you with housing.

They can help you low-income housing or they can give you referrals.

Your health and human service department is another one you wanna reach out to.

And don't underestimate your public schools or library system.

They can really help you with other resources and point you in the right direction.

So the first place I tell people to go to is there a county veterans service office.

I want them to get there and get signed up and registered so to speak, with their county service office 'cause the county service office can help them with VA disability claim, if they would need to file that.

They help them with any state veteran exemptions they might be entitled to, that they don't know about.

And then, like I said earlier with the VSO, they have a lot more smaller programs.

They can help you with getting free state park fees if you're a veteran disabled veteran.

They can help you with a hunting efficient license for veterans.

And then after you do all the fun stuff, they can also help you and point you in the right direction for some veteran friendly military friendly employers.

And that is a very valuable resource because you don't always know who's going to work around your schedule and work around the student's schedule.

So reaching out to the VSO is a great, great resource.

- That's true.

And right now back to those public libraries.

There are many public libraries across the state of North Carolina that are offering free tax preparation services.

And most veterans qualify for that free service.

So now is as good a time as any to start utilizing that particular local resource.

- Sorry, I forgot.

This one was one that I absolutely loved when I got here and settled down, was the local veterans service office which I didn't know about helping me with tax relief benefit.

I did not know that there was a tax relief benefit for your house if you're a disabled veteran.

So definitely send them that way.

Take advantage of that benefit.

- That kind of lends itself to non-profit organizations.

For the items that cannot be subsidized by state or federal dollars, nonprofit organizations often step in and help bridge those gaps.

Organizations as large as the wounded warrior project or as small as our state run whole that organization, they all are designed with a mission and vision for supporting some sort of greater good.

Wounded Warrior obviously is gonna support our brothers and sisters in the service who have served and been injured and are now disabled as a result of their service.

Student Veterans of America, anyone who is transitioning out of service and into higher education, I encourage you to get connected with the national organization SVA and your local chapter.

Student veterans of America is committed to helping all student veterans be successful while they're in school, but also after they separate.

There are a whole plethora of organizations out there.

And that's one thing that Jason and I want to help you understand and figure out how to navigate that's identifying resources.

One way to do that, Jason's already mentioned is connecting with your veteran service officers.

Those individuals know what quality programs and resources are available in your area.

They can help with healthcare loans, disability, community resources, and discount programs.

Here we'll talk to county if you register your DD 214 with our clerk of court's office.

You get a huge discount program for the area.

And if you don't check with your veteran service officer, you may not know that type of programs available.

Jason and I serve as school points of contact.

It's our job to support those student veterans at our institutions and for people in our role across the state, our jobs to help those individuals obtain their VA education benefits and to be successful while they're in school.

So always, always never hesitate to reach out to the person at your institution who holds this role, because that's what we're here for.

When you're looking for resources and support networks, one thing you need to keep in mind when you're searching, is for non-profit organizations.

You want to look for a 501 C3 status.

That's a federally approved nonprofit status.

And that tells you that that organization has checked all the boxes to be a relevant and substantive nonprofit organization.

Most often they're going to have a .org website and their mission statement is going to be easily found if not on their homepage.

You definitely need to watch out for organizations where that information is hidden or not available.

With government resources, watch for a .org or .gov website because there are lots of wolves in sheep's clothing out there.

And it's important that you avoid that.

You'll also look for official seals and insignia on those websites to ensure that you are utilizing a resource that is legitimate.

Finally, with local and regional resources, you may see also .org or .gov on the website, web address as well as clearly articulated mission statements.

- The last thing is don't afraid to ask question.

If you're a transitioning veteran and you're watching this and you're not sure, give us a call.

Give any of your school certifying officials, any of your veteran service offices a call and let us help you vet through some of these crazy amount of resources out there.

A Google search will get you crazy amount of stuff.

So do not be afraid to reach out and ask questions.

And if you're a school certifying official at a school and you do a little bit of help, we're all always available to each other and definitely feel free to drop us a line any time to ask a question.

- Thank you, Jason, for working with me on this very important project.

I've enjoyed our time together here for NC STRIVE, 2021.

Our contact information is available on our final slide, and will be posted on the NC STRIVE website.

If you would like to reach out to either of us we welcome your outreach and we hope to connect with you.

Thank you so much.

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