Military-Affiliated Students – On-Demand Training

Build an Integrated Transitional Asset-Based Approach to Ensure Engagement, Success & Degree Completion

Although many institutions claim to be “veteran friendly”, many don’t do what is necessary to go beyond the rhetoric to create campuses that are truly inclusive of their military affiliated students. Systematic initiatives and intentional partnerships that embrace the military culture and meet the unique needs of veterans and military affiliated students need to be in place for these students to be successful.

Our expert presenter shares the support strategies and initiatives that were created on her campus that helped transform it into one of the top military-friendly programs in the nation. She details how they employed an asset-based model to identify the support areas on campus that needed improvement, and ways to develop them and other practices to engage student veterans on a deeper and more meaningful level. These programs have moved them beyond “talking the talk” to actually “walking the walk”. They are meeting the unique academic, social and career goals of their veterans and military-affiliated students — and so can you!

Foster an understanding and appreciation of the unique challenges faced by military-affiliated students and equip your frontline faculty and staff with the resources they need to support them through their educational and career journey.

Topics Covered

As a result of this online training, you will be able to:

• Create innovative support services and initiatives that employ a strengths-based perspective to engage student veterans – establish an inclusive atmosphere that successfully transitions veterans to your campus, enables them to adapt to the academic environment, engage in the campus community and persist through to graduation.
• Equip those frontline faculty and staff members who interface with veteran students regularly with the resources they need to understand and embrace the military culture – ensure tailored, culturally-competent academic advising, career services and campus counseling to support military-affiliated students without perpetuating stigmas or stereotypes.
• Build successful strategies and campus wide partnerships - especially with former veterans working on campus - to offer advising, counseling, tutoring, mentoring and career education for veterans – help your military-affiliated and veteran students overcome a sense of isolation by establishing effective working relationships that produce positive and successful academic, career development and employment outcomes.
• Create outreach strategies that will attract veterans to your campus – successfully transition veterans to your campus and ensure they achieve academic success, engage in the campus community and graduate!
• Capitalize on the ability to generate ideas for new initiatives and support programs that will allow your institution to exceed the expectations of your military affiliated students – move beyond talking the talk to walking the walk!

Presenter

Lisa Chandler is currently the Assistant Director at the Adult Learner & Veteran Services (ALVS) Office at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Click here for full bio.