Experiences and Challenges of Students with a Military Background at an Academic Medical Center

# of items	Items Measured	Measurement Scale (0 to 5)
11	Student experiences applying to university Student experience navigating the university Students experience obtaining financial assistance	very easy _{… to …} very challenging
7	Students experience with peers and faculty	strongly disagree _{… to …} strongly agree
14	Students impressions of university culture related to military service	false _{… to …} true
8	Ways to improve university setting	very unhelpful _{… to …} very helpful

Table 2

Social experiences of students with military backgrounds on campus.

Survey Items	Response Frequencies
Survey Items	Very challenging	Challenging	As expected	Easy	Very easy	N/A
Fitting into the university culture and social climate	6%	24%	47%	12%	6%	6%
Finding meaningful activities or groups in which they can become involved	0%	24%	24%	24%	6%	24%

Table 3

Top Five Support Items Ranked in Order of Most to Least Helpful.

Survey Items	Response Frequency
Survey Items	Unhelpful	Not necessary	Occasionally helpful	Regularly helpful	Very helpful	N/A
Identify and promote a central point of contact for student veterans	0%	6%	0%	29%	65%	0%
Consolidate information specific to veterans on the university website	0%	0%	24%	18%	53%	6%
Establish a student veteran interest group	0%	6%	29%	24%	41%	0%
Dedicate a space for veterans to connect with other veterans and to have veteran-related questions answered	0%	18%	35%	18%	35%	0%
Develop and promote a faculty-mentoring program for student veterans	0%	18%	24%	18%	35%	6%

[i] Note: boldface = Response frequencies > 50%.

Table 4

Final coding on item “I believe my university is a military friendly institution.”

Theme	Illustrative Quotation(s)
Being accommodated	“Not a lot of help but nothing negative either as far as resources for military students.” “When applying for my program, [university name] SON “School of Nursing” offered me early acceptance into their program to allow me to fit the requirements of my Navy Commissioning Program. This was all through the help of [faculty name].” “[University name] have made great strides in the past few years in improving military relations…While attending [university name] other veterans would tell me that they believed their professors were not always military friendly. We also fought to include short term military exercises as excused absences at [university name]. This is a good first step.” “Always someone to help if needed.” “I have never reached out to anyone regarding military things, and no one has reached out to me.”
Respect	“Many professors are “offended” by blunt talk and administration talks about wanting diversity but what they mean is diversity of skin color so they can check a box on a federal form; they do not appreciate diversity of ideas or straight talk. Peers have been great…” “The university and its faculty have always been respectful of my services.” “During orientation last summer, our program faculty were very supportive of my and other veteran’s service and acknowledged it briefly but graciously. I get regular emails from Office of Student Affairs that includes military students’ information. Overall, I feel no different from other students and am welcomed on campus.”
Connecting with other SMB	“There is not enough collaboration between military members. Awareness needs to be spread regarding meetings, etc. to become acquainted and learn from one another.” “The only thing I would say is that [university name] doesn’t have many veterans enrolled, I think there are only 3 of us in our class. I’m not sure why this is the case! It just feels like there aren’t many of us. That being said, I feel like I fit in just fine here and I’m very comfortable.”

References

Authors

Metrics

Articles in this issue

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21061/jvs.v6i1.114 | Journal eISSN: 2470-4768

Journal RSS Feed

Language: English

Page range: 112 - 121

Submitted on: Apr 17, 2019

Accepted on: Sep 21, 2019

Published on: Mar 5, 2020

Published by: Virginia Tech Publishing

In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services

Keywords:

student veteran,

academic medical center,

adult learner,

accommodation

© 2020 Vanessa Dudley-Miller, Jeff Radel, published by Virginia Tech Publishing
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Volume 6 (2020): Issue 1