Andy Hibel 0:03
Welcome to the HigherEdJobs podcast. I'm Andy Hibel, the chief operating officer and one of the co-founders of HigherEdJobs.

Kelly Cherwin 0:09
And I'm Kelly Cherwin, the director of editorial strategy. Today we're going to be talking about the theme, "Have you talked to a student veteran on campus?"

Mike Walker 0:18
Welcome back to the conclusion of our Live from Naspa 2025 episode. Let's pick up where we left off.

Kelly Cherwin 0:25
Thank you, Franklin. That kind of goes well into my next question. I know for those of us who are in the room today, you heard RJ's keynote yesterday regarding impostor feelings. And I want to ask and this is for anyone on the panel, what did your institution do to make sure that you felt like you belonged there and maybe overcome any impostor feelings that you might have had? Anyone have any thoughts on that?

LeRoy 0:50
So there's one group the rebel vets. That was a group there that helped open up to me. They sent out their weekly or monthly email and I show up to the meeting and the meeting they had pizza said, bring your family, bring your kids. It's like, Hey, we're having a golfing event. Come out. We'll support you guys. They got me outside my norm, meeting new people, networking. Then the next week I think we ended up on East Bonanza handing out food to the U.S. vets. There are programs here at UNLV, and I'm guaranteeing they're all over your guys's colleges just tapping into those resources and making sure people are getting them out. Like I said, I'm a social worker by trade, and I'm always going to push social work agendas. And I want to make sure people are out there helping each other, especially the peer-to-peer. So like, again, PAVE -- That's the number one thing I really have, but PAVE, Rebel Vets. The office is being open. Like I know we've all heard open door policy. Truly, at UNLV, it's open door policy. There are no closed doors there. I rarely ever see a closed door. So that's how they made it inclusive out there. Ross, Dwayne -- they send emails like, don't get me wrong, you might get like 20 million of them in a day, but out of that 20 million, there's five of them. Your guarantee you will be there. And it's just good stuff.

Kelly Cherwin 2:06
Thank you. Anyone else having anything to add?

Justin 2:08
So real quick? I would probably say I always tell the people because it's hard to get with counselors on campus. So that's why I'm glad I had the veterans services, because, you know, I think sometimes 30, 45 days to even see a counselor. They do have a program, too, where you can call in, you get a 50 minute appointment. But I would probably have to say, you know, just the email, the fast emails back that I got from like, oh, just a day. I think that helped me out a lot in figuring out what next steps is like I said, so always having the information as quick as possible. And you know, when we certify people, it takes like three weeks. I mean, we've had 200 certification requests coming through in us as student workers. We don't work for you know, we work for basically the I would say the VA kind of. However, we try our best to email. I mean, Franklin over here he does great email and quickly whatever cache hearing problem you need, you know, we just try to get out as fast as possible. They're working on emails all the time. We don't joke around and we do joke around the office, but we, we, we when it comes to work, I mean, Franklin's got on me. He says, Go get back to work. Okay, We got stuff to do. I'm like, okay, all right. And usually student workers can do their homework is like that. But we have a dedication to veterans to help them out. And family members, of course, we deal with family members as well all the time. So and I don't treat them like a family member. I treat them like a brother that came out of and a sister came out of military. So it's all about having people that will have that devotion to do the students. And I wanted to work because I wanted to help veterans have the opportunity to go through faster integration from what I went through because I found out that this is way better now than I mean, if I would went to the office right away, I wish I would've went to you and all of you right away instead of CSN.

Kelly Cherwin 3:58
Thank you.

Andy Hibel 3:58
Thank you. So for those of you who are listening to the podcast online right now, this is the point where we ask you to send us your questions at podcast@higheredjobs.com, or send us a direct message on X @higheredcareers. But we're actually sitting live in a room as we record this with a few hundred people and we're going to literally in there, there are no plants in this audience, so don't think that there's any questions coming that we have any clue. But we have about 15 minutes here where we'd love to get questions, comments, thoughts, critiques, and just raise your hand and I'll come to you so I can give you the microphone before you ask the question. Anybody? This will be edited out, Mike? Our producer, Mike is here. Can we do a round of applause for Mike? Trying to figure this out?

And also, if we're applauding, Mike, for those of you who don't know Monika with HigherEdMilitary, please. Round of applause for Monika, who brought this all together.

Q&A Speaker 4:59
Hey, thanks for your time. I appreciate it. Today, I'm a smaller college community college in northwest Arkansas. So I understand you come from a larger university. Do you prefer to deal with just your veteran center when you want to advising, when you want financial aid, when you want, whatever you prefer, just to use the vet center? Or do you like being able to use the entire campus? And I only ask it because this is an issue that my within in my little institution. So I just wanted to get your perspective on.

LeRoy 5:30
Well, for me, I would say I want to deal with only veterans that know what they're doing, especially when they deal with all the chapters. They know the ins and outs to it. But I'm never going to cut off a resource from other parts of the college because, you know, that teacher has been here for 20 years. My has some great knowledge or he'd be like, Hey, you might not want to take that specific social work thing. It's really not applicable for your macro level you're working on. So it just depends on whoever a teacher is. But for me personally, I'll go straight to the vet center and then if there's a question that I just probably can't get from that office, I'll go over that teacher.

Teresa 6:07
For me, I think it's been easier for me to use both resources because, you know, going back after 40 years, I had no idea. College is so different now and it felt kind of weird. But the advisors have actually been really helpful with pointing me into an ideas degree, which they didn't have anything like that when I first went to college. And so they were really helpful with that. And I've actually changed programs a couple of times. They've been really good about that, so that's been helpful for me there. But then Ross has been amazing in just helping guide me through like one of my classes. I have to take one class in person to get my benefits. That's, you know, the requirements that you have to go through. You know, you have to be full time. You have to take certain courses like I can't take anything that I had taken before. In business, it has to be a completely different degree. And all of those things that my advisor is not aware of, they're aware of that I need, you know, and that I have to be going full time and to maximize my benefits, I have to take the class in person. So getting that class in my class this semester was dropped like two days before classes started. So Ross was so helpful in helping me find another class so I could get my full monthly benefits. So I would say I use both resources. You know, I need to one for getting my credits, being able to get my degree, making sure I'm taking the right classes, and then for them, if I have any questions regarding my benefits, they're there to help me.

Kelly Cherwin 7:45
Thank you.

Justin 7:46
A great question. I've used the counselors plenty of times. However, I would rather go to the you know, the veterans office. However, when you're applying for classes, the counselor has to approve them first and then they get sent over to us and then we apply your benefits and stuff like that. So it would be nice to have a counselor directly in the office. We do have a lot of certifying officials that work there, but Mr. Ross tries to get every penny he can because IT funding is like he says is not is not the best for the school itself. So even being a big campus, the funding is a problem for that. So, you know, it's easy to say up here, but when it comes down to brass tacks, that's the hard part. However, like I said, the 15 minute appointments because I can call in, I go to the business school. So every school and, you know, he has a different counselor base, which is nice, but I call and leave with the school and they give me a 15 minute appointment the next day and usually 10 to 11 they'll call me between that time. So but having two resources, because I know a lot of the college rooms, they just have counselors and they have to figure it out on their own. But having two resources like the Veterans Office and somebody there that knows is definitely a great step forward.

Kelly Cherwin 9:02
Thanks, Justin.

Nick McMillan 9:04
Hi, my name is Nick McMillen from Santa Fe College in Gainesville, Florida. My question is specifically for. Yes. So what are some of the unique hurdles and shortcomings that you experience going through the higher education system, specifically with the Veterans Office? Because I look at the conversation we had yesterday with RJ and dependents are on the rise. While I love my fellow brothers and sisters, we also take into consideration our spouses and our dependents.

Teresa 9:36
Well, unfortunately, I feel like I got a lot of pamphlets and everything after Stan passed away and stuff like that, but I wasn't really informed about a lot of the benefits that were available to me and the kids. So that was probably like one of the biggest hurdles that we encountered. But I have to say, once we got into the system of knowing basically like how it worked and everything and working in the VA offices, we haven't had one. I've experienced the VA at USC, I've experienced the VA at Duke and even advisors and stuff. And my kids have gone to some amazing schools. But I have to say at UNLV, it makes such a huge difference, your advisors and your VA office, because we never received the kind of help that I've gotten from Ross at any of the other schools. And it was basically you kind of had to be on the phone with the VA and trying to do it all on your own. Now, in the later years, it's become a lot easier because a lot of it we can do online and you can do all your applications that used to have to do everything by paper for the kids and stuff. But now you can do a lot of it online. But that's probably the biggest hurdle is you do have to get a lot of the information on your own. You know, even when my father was trying to get my father was military to his veterans benefits from Vietnam, you know, he didn't find that out until he was like later on in life, you know. And so it's just a lot. You have to be the one you have to be your own advocate, basically, to be able to get a lot of these benefits. And that's probably the biggest hurdle.

Kelly Cherwin 11:14
Thank you, Teresa. Looking for more conversations in higher ed? We invite you to join the HigherEdMilitary community as we discuss issues, best practices, news and general trends affecting our institutions and the higher ed military-affiliated community inspired by the deep commitment to service that veterans and military-connected faculty, staff and leaders have towards the academic community. We at HigherEdJobs established higher ed military as a resource for both original and curated news and information, as well as job opportunities from colleges and universities actively recruiting military-connected professionals. Visit us at HigherEdMilitary.com on Facebook and LinkedIn.

Andy Hibel 11:48
It's interesting. One of the things that we've noticed from talking to institutions at HigherEdJobs, we were talking about funding. And you know, this has been interesting. They've had a frieze for many years for cost of living for faculty and staff until recently, where the state legislature has mandated any surplus go back into the system. So the past two years there have been giant cost of living increases. I think it's not only the funding that's hard, but the reliability of the funding, particularly with state related institutions, is something we've seen with higher ed jobs over the past, particularly three years. That's been really kind of difficult for institutions to react to the kind of the yoyo factor funding.

Russ Chavez 12:32
I'm Russ Chavez. I'm the director for Veterans Affairs at South Dakota State University. So for the veterans up there, how are you finding. I have work study as well. Veterans that work for us. And how are you finding it to where when you certify somebody and they kind of demand that we use the dual certification process where you certify it first and then you turn it tuition and fees later, that an enrollment manager, when they call in to ask about their benefits and they tout the VA and I hope I'm not the one anybody on the bus but we'll open this can of worms when they call the VA. And then the VA tells this individual, one of your veterans that has looked at you in the face and you've told them what's happening and they tell them that that you haven't turned in their certification yet and you have a control number for it. And you know that your school certifying official has done their job. And so for that period of time until they come back and talk to you, they're thinking that the VA office is not doing their job. The veterans office at your schools. There's that area with the turning in tuition fees and then enrollment manager here a while back and only school certified officials know what I'm talking about. They did like a reboot. They did something they updated and they didn't inform the people that talked to the veterans what they did. And if they did, they didn't convey that to the veterans. What they told them was that they weren't certified yet. Instead of telling them we recently did a reboot and you may have been certified by your school certifying official, however, they're going to repopulate here in the next week or so. And then your veterans are calling you and you got to put out this long massive email to your veterans that covers all of them that are affected, which is all of them. And you're trying to let them know what's going on. How do you manage? How do you guys manage? Because I know I got work study just like you guys, and they're coming in and asking them, hey, they're saying we have union emails and phone calls and everybody's calling you, acting like you haven't done your job. How are you managing that to other veterans?

Franklin 14:41
Yeah, because. Because, you like the echoes are the more like kind of like, knowledgeable in the VA enrollment manager system. But we do get a students like that mostly. So Ross is going to talk about this

Ross 14:54
So, we send out emails that nobody reads especially our military family members on 33 or 35. But all we do is we let them know that there's a two step system at the orientation session and they get priority registration for attending. So we get a good turnout. The other thing is that second step where you do tuition later, what's happened is a guy goes to an advisor, the advisor tells him to take a class. We don't catch it till too late. It's after drop Ed and now you're paying $1,000 for a class. You don't need. And it doesn't count for housing. But we were able to raise 150 K from a retired Air Force vet who had no family and left us money. And then what happens is that's about a 20 $300 impact on your housing in that we pay it. I write a check and say, Hey, man, how tough is that? And the guy's like, Yeah, this really pissed me off. Oh, I'm sorry. And then we help about.

Andy Hibel 15:55
We're going to do what I would like to call is a lightning round here. And we have two questions left. We have about 90 seconds. So the questions need to be quick and the answers need to be even quicker.

Jace A. Choo 16:07
So here goes. I'm Jace A. Choo, a Chapter Success Coach for Student Veterans of America. And this question's for the panelists on the far left. You spoke to your experiences of coming from CSN and then transitioning into UNLV. This question is for you and for the room. It's mainly -- can you speak to your experiences at CSN in comparison to UNLV? Were the programs the same when you first went to higher education? If not, how were they different and how did it shape your journey in higher education?

Justin 16:35
So I see us end basically when I first started, they only had three people. It was a little bitty trailer. It was not inviting, first of all. Second of all, I just had to put a step forward. I would recommend telling your telling your veterans or anybody you come across that has this it just one step at a time. That's why I tell people on the phone all the time, keep on chugging on, okay? You're going to get there sooner or later. You know, sometimes you are too much pressure. So taking that pressure that, you know, we did when I started there and when I first started, I didn't think I had enough time for anything. But now going through and having help -- the help, it matters. CSN was not really inviting. I mean, there's a lot of you have to process a lot of stuff. And I understand they're busy. I mean, as you guys know, they're really busy. So I don't like to bother people. And I had to learn how to ask questions for myself.

Teresa 17:28
If I can just add, because I started at CSN too, I actually ended up dropping out before I actually started because he's right there -- they just don't have the resources. There wasn't the class schedule, especially for somebody who works full time in addition to going to school. They had three of the four classes I was taking get dropped the week before I was going to start at 16. So I ended up just withdrawing and then starting at UNLV's. So I think if you, you know, maybe you're working full time or you have another job or something and you need an array of classes and different schedules and that type of thing that you're better off going to a bigger school.

Jonathan Steele 18:05
Good morning, Jonathan Steele from the University of Oklahoma. To our veterans, thank you for everything and your talks and experiences. The question I have is, as you all have had to interact with what I call our military-connected the spouses of dependents. And we know that there's unique differences between the two. How have you all been able to interact positively to where everyone still feels included, invited? There's a number of places, a number of schools where our veteran students make that distinction. They don't want to be connected with a military-connected, you know, the spouses. They don't even want to be classified. How have you all been able to work together and just interact together better?

Franklin 18:51
Yeah. So every day we get like spouses or dependents. And many of the times I see that it's hard for them to speak up and be like, This is what I'm asking you. They're kind of like nervous. It's a little different. And the interactions we try to give to them, it's basically, Hey, you're part of us. Like, we'll help. You could be your parent. That was in the military, but you're also part of the family. So we try to get them like basically connected to us and try to give them the service that they deserve. We haven't had any issues with that. But what I can tell you is like it could be just a quick phone call, like it's a dependent. They're trying to understand how their benefits work and stuff like that. How can they get their classes certified? So we try to give them the same purpose that we give. We don't we don't just classify one person to another. I think they're all basically part of like we try to make them feel like basically there's no dumb questions now because you are you weren't in the military doesn't mean like you should deserve the same respect we give to them, you know, And every time, every time they come to the office, I feel like we try to do for them is making them feel included. We have a we have a culture like the one that we're wearing. So we tried to give to them to basically say that they're using benefits and at the end of the day, they will call us, they will ask us questions, They will feel like, you know what, thank you. Thank you for helping me. I didn't know about this benefits. I didn't know this is how you guys certify things. We not only like basically tell them, oh, this is what you need to do. We basically try to sit down with them if possible, try to get them apply for their benefits there. When we have time and they feel like, you know what, Like this is a good office. Like you guys are giving me a lot of help. So by next semester we're like, Please, if you have any questions, if you feel like you don't understand this part, just give us a call. Come to the office. We'll try to help you as best as we can. You could be a veteran or dependent. Does it matter? We try to do our best to help everyone at that point.

LeRoy 21:00
So I have a little different take on that. It's customer service. It's a lot of outreaches. You're going to get a lot of people that don't reply back. I've had a veteran who she was a 15 year vet. She doesn't want anything to do with us except for signed that dotted line, send me the check and we're done. And I respected her. I said, Ma'am, I'll do what I can do and push this through. Make it quick. Just be there for them. That's the best thing I can advise. And like I said, we ain't McDonald's. I'm trying to make everybody happy, but sometimes it ain't going to be that way. And I'm an honest person with them bullying. I've met children. They're like, Look, my father just passed. I hate the military. He died because of this and just give me my benefit and we're gone. I've had multiple cases with that. It's just you just got to be polite, respectful, try to give him a shirt, try to make him feel inclusive. By the end of the day, it's on that person and make that next step. They got to want to network. They got to want to ask for it, but try to be there the best you can. And that's the only thing I can really say. And that's just me, the customer service.

Kelly Cherwin 22:00
Thank you, LeRoy. And I want to thank everyone in our panel today for joining us for your thoughts and insights. It's a great conversation and thank you to our podcast listeners for listening today. Till next time. Thank you.

Mike Walker 22:14
If you have any questions or comments, please email us at podcast@HigherEdJobs.com or message us on X @higheredcareers. We look forward to talking soon.