Working in the higher ed military space, we all know that the more connected our students are, the more successful they will be. HigherEdMilitary's May Careers and Coffee focused on the unique challenges and opportunities that come with getting military-affiliated students connected to campus and community resources and advocates.

In this session, the group first talked about unique and creative ways campuses get students connected. This included community office hours on campus, strategic event planning, creative advertising, finding your allies, leveraging partnerships on campus, and the power of accommodations offices. The group discussed the role CARE teams play in student success and purposeful student-employee training.

The conversation steered to finding ways to bridge the gap with upper administration in understanding the importance of veteran services and initiatives put out by our offices. This included talking about military-affiliated students through the diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) lens when discussing strategic initiatives. Sharing the lived experience was also discussed when talking about bridging the gap. You don't know what you don't know, and the only way to promote understanding is to include upper administration and the campus as a whole in all military-affiliated initiatives.

The group also talked about the importance of intake and data collection to promote understanding and advocate for support when putting together initiatives to get students connected. This included best practices when it comes to your student intake process, how to most effectively track student involvement, and the effect involvement has on academic success. Other best practices shared included what case resolution management technology (CRM) our campuses use and how to creatively adapt to the systems at our disposal. We also talked about Veteran's spaces on campuses and the unique challenges and opportunities that come with overseeing those spaces. This included how and when to use memorandums of understanding (MOU) and mitigating potential risks.

It was a very lively and productive session, and everyone came away with something tangible to bring back to their campus community.

Article Topics

Serving Military in HigherEd Veterans Academic Success

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