Veterans working in higher education can be few and far between. It is not an industry that is advertised as a potential career space for veterans and service members transitioning out of the military. The higher education industry comes with its challenges, just like any industry, but it can be a soft place to land for veterans transitioning out of the service and looking for employment, community, and a higher purpose.

The Career Journey

Dario DiBattista is now the director of the Military and Veterans Center at Towson University (TU). He joined the Marine Corps as a reservist, graduating bootcamp in August of 2001, and served until 2007. He considers himself the “old guy at this point” but higher education was the soft place he found to land after transitioning out of the military.

DiBattista enrolled as a student at Central Connecticut State University and soon landed his first job in higher ed as a resident assistant (RA). 

“One of my concerns of getting out of the military was not being part of a team, not having a sense of higher purpose, not feeling connected to something greater than myself. But being an RA is an incredibly instrumental position. First, it helped me in my transition. You know, to go from a corporal in the Marines where I would tell somebody to do something and they would yell, ‘yes, corporal’ and do it as quick as possible, to having drunk 18-year-olds on a Thursday tear down all my pretty flyers and door tags that I made and giving me the finger,” DiBattista says with a laugh.

Throughout DiBattista’s transition, he was exposed to the not so structured civilian life of college students, but at the same time was learning how he fit into the community and the larger structure of the campus, “…troop welfare, looking after your fellow brothers and sisters is very important in the military ethos, and I got to see a lot of that, be a part of a team, and truly, I loved being an RA.”

DiBattista later earned his master’s degree in poetry and nonfiction from Johns Hopkins University, which earned him the role of teaching as an adjunct. He also was an original instructor and team member of the Veterans Writing Project and later landed at TU.

“I really, really, really like higher ed, but I really, really, really like helping people and go figure helping other people helps you feel good about yourself. I kind of accidentally wound up in this space, but I didn't really, I've always enjoyed being an educator,” DiBattista reflects.

One of the Few Military-affiliated Employees in Higher Ed

Recruiting more military-affiliated employees to work in higher ed is a “…challenge for institutions, but also a challenge for veterans. Nobody at TU, faculty, staff, executive leadership, would ever say, ‘I don't like veterans.’ ‘I don't support their families.’ Because of course that’s not true at all. But none of the vast majority of these people have a military affiliation. So, it's not ill will or malice. It's just a matter of there's not a lot of veterans working in this space. At Towson University, a university of 20,000, there are only a few people in leadership who have a veteran identity, myself included. I would challenge veterans, whether you get into higher ed or any other industry, business, nonprofit, healthcare, whatever it is, go as far as you can so you can represent effectively and powerfully.”

For institutions to retain military talent there needs to be some institution-wide foundations set in place, DiBattista notes, “…[one thing] which I'm very thankful for here at our university, is that we have a large coalition of support. I'm constantly reminding people we're the military and veterans center, but we're really military and veterans student affairs. We're also military and veterans enrollment services. We're also military and veterans alumni affairs. The whole university is already designed for our traditionally aged students, nothing exists for the military-affiliated students unless we partner with other offices and make that happen.”

For veterans looking to land a career in higher education, DiBattista encourages veterans to work on the interpersonal skills that the civilian workforce seeks and needs.

When it comes to institution-wide veteran inclusivity on a campus, the truly inclusive campuses will go above the baseline expectations. Much of higher education has established the baseline that as long as the veteran students and military students don't complain, as long as institutions sign their principles of success, as long as they get the military-friendly ranking, they count that as success. DiBattista stresses that higher education can do better.

Better Industry Wide Initiatives

Veteran inclusivity practices need to be an industry wide effort and shifted slightly in scope. 

DiBattista says, “Every abstract I read talks about how we need these supports and services for veterans because of their battlefield experiences. Well, at schools like Towson University, the student veterans today are of a different generation. They're often not millennials, like me, and they haven't had those experiences, but I still see them having challenges and needing help with their transitions. It's very hard for anybody to get out of the military, regardless of experience. So, I think universities and colleges can re-envision what they've done and maybe even reset and start thinking about the next generation of military-affiliated supports and services.”

DiBattista encourages benchmarking your institution with other institutions. “I'm very proud of what we're doing here at TU. I'm obsessed with benchmarking. And I want to find the [institutions] that are doing it better than us…there's a fellow Marine veteran named Andrew Newby, he works at the University of Mississippi and he's created what I call the Ole Miss model. He has data that shows the single and only factor that speaks to veteran persistence and being retained is whether the university cares about them, and with that he's reducing barriers to healthcare and creating special support teams to serve them.”

Holistic review models for admissions are critical for veterans and service members. Old GPAs and no, or average, SAT scores should not exclude student veterans from admission into quality programs. “…the military is an educational community of practice, not dissimilar to colleges and universities. You're constantly evaluated on how much you know, how proficient you are, and how committed you are to professional development,” says DiBattista.

Holistic review models should take into consideration military service awards, military education earned while serving, and other leadership and teaching positions the service member possessed. Part of the holistic admissions process, which is becoming more common, is offering ‘boot camps’ that give potential students a sense of what your college environment is like.

Staff, faculty, and students can also get involved in research on their own campus to improve supports and services. DiBattista advises, “…there's a lot of things that people can do that are potentially very high impact and cost the university nothing other than just some consideration and planning.”

“Truly,” DiBattista says, "this all starts with an honest accounting. Where are you at as an institution concerning military-affiliated supports and services? Answering that honestly, and then making a commitment – across all divisions and departments – to do better for them."

Article Topics

Job Search Advice Military Friendly Institutions Serving Military in HigherEd Veterans Academic Success Working as a Veteran in HigherEd

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