Andy 0:06
Welcome to the HigherEdJobs Podcast. I'm Andy Hibel, the chief operating officer and one of the co-founders of HigherEdJobs.
Kelly 0:12
And I'm Kelly Cherwin, Director of Editorial Strategy. Today we're joined by Dr. Paul Tontz, assistant professor in the HigherEd and post-secondary education program at Arizona State University, and Dr. Monteigne Long, Director of Veteran and Military Services for the Texas A&M University System. Thank you both for joining us
Paul 0:29
today. Oh, hello. Thanks for having us.
Monteigne 0:31
Hello.
Kelly 0:32
Glad to have you both here. So in this episode today we're going to be talking about military family appreciation month and explore some practical steps campuses can take to better support military-affiliated students and their families. So to give you a little background on our guest today, Dr. Tonsk brings more than two decades of experience in student affairs and higher education. His work has spanned academic advising, counseling, orientation, and student success initiatives. Supporting a wide range of student populations, including first-generation students, student athletes, international students, and military-connected learners. at Arizona State University, he teaches in the higher and post-secondary education program where his work focuses on student development theory, advising practices, and research related to student success and support systems. Dr. Long is a system-level higher education leader and advocate for veteran and military-connected learners. She serves as Director of Veteran and Military Services for the Texas A&M University System, where she leads initiatives that support access, engagement, leadership development, and workforce pathways across the systems to all universities. In addition to her system-level she works directly with the students at Texas A&M again,
and teaches leadership focused on ethical decision-making and values-based leadership. Together, their work highlights the importance of recognizing the experiences of military-connected students and identifying meaningful ways institutions can support them and their families through the college journey. So, Monteigne and Paul, once again, thank you so much for joining us.
Monteigne 1:56
We're excited to be here.
Kelly 1:57
So, let's get started and talk about what military-family appreciation means to each of you.
Monteigne 2:04
I think, for me, as a veteran spouse, military spouse, but it's important to remember that it's not just the service member that serves, but it's also families that are serving alongside of them with frequent relocations, deployments, all the challenges that come along with being part of a military-connected family member.
Paul 2:29
Yeah, and I would just echo that and remind us that it's not just the military member's right? It's the families that are also serving and also going to school, right? They're also potentially a student. Shout out to my sister-in-law on the channel and both have relocated almost five to six times with their military spouses. So, I think it's a really testament to their sacrifice and their service, as well as being associated as military-connected.
Andy 2:58
In the month of May, there's a lot of opportunity to be able to celebrate with various holidays throughout the month. When you're looking at May from an academic calendar perspective, there's a lot of things going on, usually graduation, as well as move out, The academic year really wraps up in May for most institutions. That said, what do you think has been key elements of with all those days in military appreciation month, of successful military-appreciation events, as well as events that maybe didn't quite hit the mark and could be approved upon?
Monteigne 3:36
Paul and I were reflecting, I think, on some of the events that we have done throughout our years in higher education, whether that was around Veterans Day, which typically we would both do Veterans Week programming, some of the things that I have seen, some of our Texas A&M system campuses do. But I think we both landed on September 11th as being some really meaningful program that we have seen on our campuses. So not in the month of May, and not typically associated maybe with being a Veteran holiday, but certainly a day that is now really linked in service, which really resonates with our student veterans and military-connected students. And maybe a day that inspired them to join the military and inspired their service. I had been at an institution within the California Community College System, and September 11th was one of the days that I was responsible for planning the programming for our campus. And we brought in Veterans from many different eras who were students on our campus to hear their stories of, I was in kindergarten when September 11th happened, but that was the day that inspired me to join the military. Or I was in the military during that time. And this is what September 11th means to me, right? So it seems that within our military community, September 11th is a very impactful and meaningful day for many people. Just for the way it changed the trajectory of many of our students and their families lives.
Paul 5:16
I would echo that too. We had an amazing 9/11 memorial. We had firefighters came out that had served, lifted their ladder, hung a huge flag over a veteran space. It was just a very emotional, but also sentimental day. So celebrate and remember those that were lost, but also those that continue to serve. I think to your point to thinking back to some of the programs that I developed. First, I think Monteigne would agree with this too. I think we both have a mindset that we'd prefer to do a veteran's year. Instead of just focusing on one week, but we are we realize there are limitations, but one of the programs I tried to do was to place little flags on our campus, little tiny little American flags. One for each military connected student, that was an enrolled at our university at Cal State San Marcos. But I thought was a really nice visual. I think the mark in some ways because students on campus didn't really understand what was going on. So I think and Monteigne and I chatted about this with a different program, but I think there's opportunity for us to create a programming attached to that. Maybe have a student veteran stand there and explain kind of what it is, or maybe another type of program that could more student developmentally explain or under showcase why why we're having this in the first place, right. I loved Monteigne, I don't know if you want to share the bracelets story that you shared with me, but I thought that was so cool.
Monteigne 6:46
Sure. Sure. in the California community colleges in the 2010s, paracord bracelets were a big deal. And so during our veterans week programming to get our traditional students engaged with our student veterans and to learn from one another and share experiences, we had a student veteran who put on a paracord bracelet making workshop, like on our campus quad. And so it was an opportunity for her to kind of give back to the community and help other people make paracord bracelets, which very military symbolic, right. get traditional age students involved and engage with military students. So just a unique program that was designed for the entire campus with a veteran is led by a veteran designed by a veteran meant to be engaging for everybody during veterans week.
Kelly 7:41
Thank both for your examples that you share there and you're exactly right, we don't want to just celebrate it in one week or you know, it just happens to be designated as May, but it is so important to celebrate it all year long. So, you know, kind of switching over to the military spouse side, what are some things that Monteigne that I'll ask you this, what are some campus events that you maybe have zoned in on like the military spouses again, not just in May, but like how do you recognize and celebrate them the entire year.
Monteigne 8:10
Yeah, absolutely, being super intentional with all of our veteran programming is that families and spouses are welcome to join us. just being very inclusive of their families when we have barbecues or we have fun events at the mini golf place, right, like your family is welcome to join you as well. I think it's also super important to remember that not all military spouses are and right we also have men who are military spouses as well. We want to just design the paint and sip party for the spouses right that we want to do something that's inclusive for our programming. And so that was a misstep that I have seen that we made right that we thought like this would be great and we'll have the paint and sip party and all the military spouses will want to come and join, but like, whoops, not everybody is into that right like this actually doesn't hit the needs of everybody. So again, just designing programming that is open to families so that regardless of who your spouse or partner is, you can bring them and they can connect with other military spouses and partners and family members.
Paul 9:29
Well, I would have come to the wine and sip so please host
Kelly 9:33
it.
Paul 9:33
It was fun. What I was going to add to you, I love I love where you're going with that Monteigne also thinking about like the times of days that were hosting events or even the weekend right where so that if a spouse is working right they can still show up with their family. So I think we're both very sensitive about not just the program itself, but how are we. Is there an opportunity for them to access it online and you know the time of day things like that. I think I can speak for moving now into the faculty side, remembering that our spouses are all also navigating transitions. And so. One of the programs. It's more of a curricular program that I'm working to develop is cohort of master students that are military spouses. Right. Maybe their partner is here. Station in Arizona for two or three years at a time. Right. So how can we provide access education into them. A master's, cohort, and and and higher ed, for example, to help build that camaraderie among these. And among each other, but also given them access to advancement and their master's degree graduate education.
Andy 10:40
We've spent a lot of time already talking about, students and their family members, which is a very different demographic population from the kind of the traditional student. Let's look at the faculty and staff side of things from their perspective. How does it differ in trying to engage the military connected faculty member or staff member. And where have you seen successes in doing so and where are some of the challenges that may differ from engaging with the student population.
Paul 11:12
Monteigne, you have a great example. I don't know if you want to share what you're doing some amazing work.
Monteigne 11:17
but Sure. Sure. So just recognizing that when veterans were in service, they had a community of others, but shared experience. They had the camaraderie some of the hallmarks of military service. When they separate, that's one the big things that is missing during that transition and then entering into civilian life. And so to get it faculty and staff a little bit more engaged. With their veteran peers, with other military connected faculty and staff at the A&M system offices here in our headquarters. We started a military connected employee resource group group. And so I recruited one of our veteran staff members to coach here with me. So I can be the military connected family member. And we've got a veteran representative as well. But we just wanted to help recreate some of that some of that community and shared experience and shared understanding. I think you know with our military connected employees to foster the camaraderie that belonging that community again and we're focused on community service bring engaged having social activities and being very family centric as well so that we can Again, bring our spouses bring our partners bring our kids out to our events. So the ERG has been a place where we can connect our members with resources in the community that they may not have been aware of. Just let them know that that within this building there are over 60 veterans and there are many, many more individuals who are military connected family members. Who have a lot of shared experiences and great people to connect with if you're looking for that type of connection veterans wanted to give back to the community military spouses were looking to give back to communities. The community so we're partnering with other veteran serving organizations. Just to do that. And then another way that we've been able to get them involved is with the of our veterans day event. So it's no longer just The veterans office is planning the veterans day event, but we have actually veterans volunteering and veterans planning event events so it's nice to have veteran programming driven by veterans. So it's been kind of multifaceted you know to get community to get engagement to give back to our community. And then to have programming that that was not offered before
Paul 13:44
I think for me as a faculty member. very much resonate and connect with our military students because I feel even as a Maybe as a former staff member, but now as a faculty member. I think sometimes people carry my peers included right carry these assumptions that I am Aggressive I have PTSD I'm nationalistic I'm pro colonialistic. And so for me, appreciation means giving giving me the space to To share that there's more pieces of my identity than just being a veteran right and a space to understand a space to have conversation a space not to assume Based on what you don't know. And so I see that Appreciation has a way to see me more than just a label.
Andy 14:33
I'd actually echo that whole heartedly based on The whole HigherEdJobs experience with HigherEd military. We came into the community really just trying to learn and understand and got to Meet wonderful folks folks like Monteigne who really kind of showed us the way and opened up our eyes to this amazing... the... Inclusive community a very, very, very different people and perspectives. And it's really been something, uh, professionally for me that's been amazingly fulfilling to be able to serve this community that has served as so much a part of its ethos.
I'm going to guarantee you it's going to be something you'll enjoy no matter who you are.
Kelly 15:25
Paul, did you want to say something?
Paul 15:26
I was just going to say I think it's, uh, incredibly important to recognize that this is a population that's not going anywhere. Am I change demographically a little bit? But I think there's such opportunity to, to recognize that not only is this population, um, diverse intersectionality, or across multiple identities, right? It's an opportunity for campus partners to collaborate because maybe that, that queer or trans student veteran is not showing up in the LGBT center and is showing up in the veteran space, so it's, it's definitely an opportunity to collaborate to talk to each other to learn about each other's experiences so I would just remind our viewers to, to remember that there's always opportunity to collaborate. Um, Monteigne, do you have any final thoughts?
Monteigne 16:14
Again, I think it's important to remember this who we are serving, right? Right? And how it has really shifted over the years, we are not only serving veterans and we have to be super intentional about the way that we engage with our students, the way that we design things for Um, if you've been listening over the past couple right? That's right, we're talking about shifting demographics, how we're applying theory to practice, and just being committed to serving this population. That's just the point that I'm already been trying to drive home is that this population is really diverse, and so there's not this one size fits all approach to serving them, and it continues to change over the years, so we have to continually evolve the way that we approach serving veterans and military connected students.
Paul 17:07
And this, this work doesn't happen in silos and I think that's a true testament to Monteigne, and I feel so blessed to have put together this book with such fabulous amazing scholar practitioners that are doing already doing this work in practice. So we, we literally them together and showcase their work, and so we just feel incredibly grateful to, to help provide a model for other campus partners, to think about how they can make these connections and thinking about the very diverse, and intersecting populations of military students that we work with.
Andy 17:40
And if you're listening to this podcast and had not the podcast about the book that we did with Paul and Monteigne, highly encourage you to do that. It really highlights a couple of the chapters and really provides a very in-depth and interesting and research-based approach to the work that they do.
Kelly 18:02
Well Paul Monteigne, thank you so much for this really thoughtful conversation, it really was engaging and I really, I truly learned a lot from your experiences and your examples, and I hope our listeners do as well. So it was such a pleasure having you back on the podcast today.
Monteigne 18:17
Thank you.
Paul 18:18
Thank you so much
Andy 18:21
And thank you for listening, whether you're listening from the HigherEdJobs community or the HigherEd military community, this is one of the first few episodes that have actually played in both communities, we thank you for listening. If you have any questions, thoughts or comments or questions for Paul or Monteigne, please feel free to email us at podcast@higheredjobs.com or send us a direct message on X at higher ed careers. Thanks again for listening.