Staff & Faculty Training

During the ACE Veteran Success Jam, faculty training was cited as one of the best ways to reduce confusion and stigma related to the student veteran population. It helps reduce confusion about the importance of Department of Veterans Affairs appointments and raises awareness among faculty of available institutional services for veterans.

These trainings can also offer faculty a better understanding of military culture, which can go a long way toward ensuring military students perform to the best of their ability. Veteran students face many of the same challenges as adult or non-traditional students: They are older and more mature, many are tending to the needs of a family, and some are commuting long distances to complete their education. Military students, however, also bring with them a structure, sense of discipline, and work ethic that typically far exceeds faculty expectations.

With a greater number of veterans expected to enter all areas of post-secondary education in the years to come, it is important to highlight the additional leadership and other qualities and characteristics that veterans bring to the academic environment and communicate those to faculty.

For example, today’s military has been trained to work with groups from different cultures. They are skilled in getting groups to focus on tasks and use each others' strength to accomplish goals. Most have experiences that bring with them a breadth of knowledge that is generally more global and worldly than the average college student. These experiences can add significant depth to classroom discussions.