Unlearning As Learning? A Critical Analysis of Student Veteran Support at a Veteran-Friendly Campus

Student Veterans in Higher Education

Over a decade of scholarship examining student veteran outcomes presents mixed results (Demers, 2011; DiRamio et al., 2008; McBain et al., 2012; Sansone & Tucker Segura, 2020). On the one hand, a number of studies have provided evidence that student veterans have strong leadership skills, time management, high levels of maturity, and a “mission-like” mindset that help them earn degrees and develop fulfilling civilian careers (Lim et al., 2018; Mendez al., 2018; Sansone & Tucker Segura, 2020). On the other hand, many studies report that student veterans face major obstacles throughout their university experience, from navigating institutional policies and procedures related to admissions, to assessing requirements for degree completion upon graduation (Alschuler & Yarab, 2018; Demers, 2011; McBain et al., 2012). Scholars have suggested that some of their challenges stem from the added pressure of juggling employment, school, and family life as adult students (Radford, 2009; Rumann & Hamrick, 2010). However student veterans face more than just these adult student challenges.

Existing literature has repeatedly confirmed that student veterans enroll with military values and dispositions that conflict with those normalized in higher education, reflecting differences in these institutions’ cultures: ‘the collective, mutually shaping patterns of norms, values, practices, beliefs, and assumptions that guide the behavior of individuals and groups” (Kuh & Whitt, 1988, pp. 12–13). This cultural conflict in higher education is often unseen and reinforced by faculty/staff as members of the dominant cultural group (DiRamio et al., 2008; DiRamio & Jarvis, 2011; Interiano-Shiverdecker et al., 2019; Rumann & Hamrick, 2010). To understand how these underlying cultural dynamics impact the exchange between faculty/staff and student veterans, the current study is grounded in three important theoretical concepts: military culture, the culture of higher education, and cultural capital.

Military Culture

Scholars have prescribed the military as a culture with a unique set of established values, norms, philosophies, customs, and traditions (Reger et al., 2008). Despite its multifaceted nature and differences between service branches, scholars agree that, as with any cultural group, the military holds a shared set of belief systems that affect the thinking and behavior of all members (Reger et al., 2008). The socialization process for most service members begins with recruit training, colloquially known as boot camp (Demers, 2011; DiRamio & Jarvis, 2011). This is an intensive process that often occurs between the ages of 18–20—a critical period of identity formation (Erikson, 1968). Service members are required to learn the “military way” (Demers, 2011) and abide by the mission of the US Department of Defense (2021), “to deter war and ensure our nation’s security” (para. 1). This military dictum requires service members to adopt a collective identity with absolute commitment to comrades, chains of command, and mission accomplishment (Hall, 2011; DiRamio & Jarvis, 2011). These clear and consistent core cultural values shape a diverse group of people in American society that must be understood as distinct from the civilian world (Hall, 2011).

It is important to note, however, that the United States military and veteran population is not a monolith. Given its six service branches, hundreds of military occupational specialties, installation communities across the world; and the diversity of service experiences by rank, combat experience, disability, length of service, service era, race/ethnicity, gender, and LGBTQ+ status, no two veterans’ experiences with military culture will be the same. Despite these individual differences, scholars contend that overall, veterans experience a broadly defined collectivist military culture that is distinct from civilian society (Demers, 2011; DiRamio & Jarvis, 2011).

Culture of Higher Education

Higher education is another unique cultural institution in American society, which fosters values and habits of mind that often conflict with military ideology (Moffat, 1991). First, higher education is regarded as the custodian of knowledge and must adhere to “universal standards” that promote its purpose—“to pursue, discover, and disseminate knowledge, truth, and understanding” (Austin, 1991, p. 62). Second, higher education rewards a commitment to autonomy, academic freedom, personal responsibility, and truth seeking (Austin & Gamson, 1983; Hofstede, 2001; Kuh & Whitt, 1988; Wilcox & Ebbs, 1992). Lastly, socialization—the acquisition of values, knowledge, attitudes, and skills appropriate to a particular culture—occurs through a bureaucratic organization where committed members (i.e., faculty, staff, administrators, and upper-level students) teach newcomers (i.e., incoming students) to abide by their expectations (Austin, 1991; Kuh & Whitt, 1988). While students are expected to recognize, receive, and internalize the values of the dominant culture, educational institutions do not necessarily provide them with opportunities to learn that culture (Dumais, 2002).

Previous studies have highlighted how the conflict between the cultural norms and expectations of higher education and the military leave student veterans at times feeling confused, misunderstood, and isolated (Arminio et al., 2015; Howe Jr. & Shpeer, 2019; Interiano-Shiverdecker et al., 2019; Livingston et al., 2011; McAndrew et al., 2019). Military veterans leave a highly structured and respected professional environment built upon the principles of camaraderie and shared leadership (Ackerman et al., 2009; DiRamio et al., 2008; Lim et al., 2018). In higher education, however, curriculums, services, and organizations are set in place to cultivate autonomy and fulfillment of students’ personal goals (Moffat, 1991; Wingate, 2007). Further in contrast to the explicit communication of expectations in military culture, institutional and faculty expectations regarding standards and desired dispositions are often implicit and indirectly communicated (Howe Jr. & Shpeer, 2019). Deciphering these new cultural norms in higher education is often challenging for student veterans and can impact their success (DiRamio & Jarvis, 2011; Lim et al., 2018; Rumann & Hamrick, 2010).

Cultural Capital

Bourdieu’s (1986) concept of cultural capital provides a theoretical framework for understanding why students from diverse cultural backgrounds struggle to grasp the underlying values and expectations in higher education that are intuitive and normal to members of the dominant group (i.e., faculty/staff; see Gardner et al., 2007). According to Bourdieu, cultural capital is a resource held only by the dominant group in society transmitted through early socialization or education. In higher education this socialization occurs as new students attempt to decipher what to expect, how to behave, and what it means to fail or succeed (Tierney, 1997). Students who come from different cultural backgrounds are at a distinct disadvantage because they do not simply inherit the vital forms of cultural capital that have been passed down to the offspring of the dominant group (Bok, 2010; Maldonado et al., 2005; Ovink & Veazey, 2011; Tierney, 1999; Winkle-Wagner & McCoy, 2016).

Previous research has brought forth the central and powerful role faculty/staff can play in helping students acquire the institutional cultural capital they need to be successful (e.g., Arminio et al., 2018; Collier & Morgan, 2008; Lim et al., 2018). Interactions with faculty/staff affect underrepresented students’ levels of educational attainment based on their professors’ and staff members’ power to access the culture of higher education (Aguinis et al., 1996). Gardner and colleagues (2007), examined the “habits of mind” perceived by students and faculty members and found that through their activities and attitudes, faculty members create institutional and disciplinary cultures that profoundly impact students. When faculty and staff share some of their control and power with students, self-directed learning, decisions, and progress toward increased academic integrity occur (Humphreys, 2012). Ovink and Veazey (2011) found that minority students are significantly more successful when faculty/staff provide explicit instructions for meeting cultural expectations, such as how to interact with colleagues and professors.

While faculty/staff have an important role in guiding students to academic success, they are also primary agents in upholding the fundamental structure and culture of higher education. As “gatekeepers,” faculty/staff believe they have a responsibility to society to not only produce knowledge, but also ensure its quality by controlling access to it (Austin, 1991; Brint & Karabel, 1989; Reyes, 2011; Umbach & Wawrzynski, 2005). Gatekeeping involves identifying a set of desired dispositions and allowing only the individuals who demonstrate competency to advance (Brint & Karabel, 1989). Structures put in place to maintain academic standards, for example, are considered non-negotiable by many faculty/staff in order to ensure objectivity and remain accountable for decisions. However, social and political struggles for access, equity, and inclusion during the Civil Rights movement expanded ideas about faculty/staff’s role beyond the traditional gatekeepers and stewards of academic culture (Long, 2012). Today student affairs practitioners and scholars propose that faculty/staff have a responsibility to support diversity on campus by serving as advocates for students who come from diverse cultural backgrounds. As such, faculty/staff hold a paradoxical role in student veterans’ cultural transition; as gatekeepers and advocates, they are responsible for both reinforcing underlying norms in higher education and aiding student veterans in navigating them.

Informed by the three strands of literature above, this study aims to uncover fundamental cultural assumptions embedded in faculty and staff’s conception of a veteran-friendly campus, and how it clashes with student veterans’ perceptions of support. Our critical analysis is intended to (a) elucidate the privileged cultural power that is inherently part of any social institution, including higher education; and (b) further understand how faculty/staff’s dual role as advocates for students and arbiters of academic/professional standards shapes their philosophies about how best to support student veterans.

Case and Participants

This study was conducted in a large public university located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Great City University (a pseudonym) is a public urban research institution with approximately 28,000 students and moderate selectivity with an acceptance rate of 80%. The entire student body consists of approximately 60% White, 17% Black, 7% Hispanic, 5% Asian/Pacific Islander, 6% other/unknown, and 5% international students. The institution has a long history supporting veterans transitioning to civilian society. At the time of this study, the number of GI Bill beneficiaries was 650. Partly due to the large number of veterans residing in the region and the institution’s founding purpose to serve World War II veterans, Great City University recently identified supporting student veterans on campus as one of its top priorities. The office of veteran student services was established in 2014 to centralize various types of support for student veterans across campus.

The research team obtained approval from the Institutional Review Board and recruited student veterans and faculty/staff initially through individual or group emails and later by the referrals of initial participants. This research project was part of a formative evaluation funded by an external grant agency that supported student veterans in engineering programs. As a result, student veterans were first recruited within the college of engineering. As a sampling strategy to ensure diversity, non-engineering student veterans were also recruited. All 25 student veterans who volunteered to participate were interviewed. The student participants served in five service branches and were pursuing a variety of degrees in engineering, biology, political science, and business administration (further participant information is located in Table 1 below). All student veteran participants identified as male and all but one identified as White.

Qualitative case studies rarely seek to create a representative sample or intend to produce generalizable knowledge about an entire population. However it is important to note that the racial/ethnic and gender diversity of our sample was likely influenced by the intentional recruitment of engineering students at a predominately White institution and does not reflect the student veteran population writ-large. Exploring how myriad intersections of race, class, and gender, among other military service characteristics such as rank, combat experience, and service-connected (dis)ability, manifest in the lives of student veterans is an important area of future research but is outside the scope of this study.

Data Collection

Data were collected using semi-structured individual and group interviews. Five of the 25 participants volunteered for interviews twice—individually, then later in a group. After completing their individual interviews, these 5 students also wanted to join one of three focus group interviews. The group interview facilitators found it necessary and beneficial to include them to ensure comfort and collegiality for all student veterans in the group interview process. Each focus group included 2–3 student veterans. The length of interviews, both individual and group, was typically 60 to 90 minutes.

The faculty/staff sample included nine faculty/staff working closely with student veterans. Four faculty members were from two Colleges and had experience working with a sizable number of student veterans. Five staff members were employed in various on-campus offices coordinating or offering services for student veterans. Due to confidentiality, the exact name of their office or job title was not provided. All faculty/staff interviews were individual and lasted 40 to 90 minutes.

All interviews used a semi-structured interview protocol (see Appendix A & B). A set of open-ended questions were posed to participants to examine their subjective understanding of student veterans’ strengths, challenges, coping strategies, and necessary resources/support. Interviews were conducted by one of three research assistants. Student veteran interviews began with a discussion about participants’ school-related experiences before Great City University, their overall transition experience on campus and in their degree program, their satisfaction with their degree program, and suggestions for better supporting student veterans on campus. Faculty/staff interviews began with a discussion of participants’ work with veteran students, characteristics of veteran students, institutional support provided for veteran students and suggestions for improvement. All interviews were digitally recorded and later transcribed verbatim for participant verification and analysis.

The research team consists of five members, each possessing a different cultural, ethnic, and professional background; two had first-hand military experience at the time of data collection and served as the advocates of and communication conduit for all research participants. The research team was led by two faculty members: an Asian American female, the second author of this paper who served as the qualitative evaluator for the grant project, and a White male engineering faculty who worked closely with student veterans. The first author of this paper is a White female who worked as a research assistant along with the third author, a Honduran Ph.D. student researcher. The first author is now a military spouse engaging in research on student veterans; the third author is an assistant professor in counselor education. The fourth author was an engineering graduate student veteran who served as an advocate and mentor for student veterans. He is now a faculty member in engineering education. We acknowledge that our advocacy stance for student veterans inevitably shaped the entire research process, including our selection of the theoretical framework and subsequent data analysis and interpretations. Still we engaged in constant communication with the student veteran community on campus and shared our observations and interpretations with them to maintain our critical reflexivity and to strengthen the co-constructed nature of our final arguments presented in this paper.

Data Analysis

Following the general guidelines of IPA (Smith et al., 2022), the research team first carefully read all transcripts, made initial notes, and created a brief participant profile summarizing key information about each participant and relevant context. After an initial review of all transcripts and participant summary profiles, the team noticed some significantly diverging points between faculty/staff and student veterans’ perceptions about the nature of major challenges faced by student veterans. We decided to interrogate this initial observation further and probed/coded the cultural assumptions underlying those differed points of view. Considering the collaborative nature of our research, Atlas ti qualitative analysis software was used to ensure consistency and transparency in the coding process. Our data analysis process was iterative and involved multiple revisions of initial code sets and re-analyses of previous transcripts.

In the second stage of data analysis we went back to existing literature to find a meaningful link between our emergent themes and theoretical framework. We found that Bourdieu’s (1986) idea of cultural capital would adequately guide our further analysis and interpolated the concept to situate our interpretation of participants’ experiences. The research team also utilized various strategies, such as member-checking and peer-debriefing, to ensure the co-constructed and collaborative nature of our knowledge claims.

Lack of Knowledge About Student Veterans’ Military Experiences

Student veterans perceived faculty/staff’s lack of awareness about their transitional and cultural challenges both as a major impediment to effective institutional support and as potentially preventable. Both groups expressed a need for faculty/staff and university administrators to be more educated about student veterans’ unique needs (Alschuler & Yarab, 2018; McBain et al., 2012). Many faculty/staff admitted to personally being uninformed about aspects of the student veteran experience, such as military culture or veterans’ benefits, and cited several reasons for their ignorance about student veterans’ unique challenges. Some faculty/staff participants explained that, because students often do not disclose their military identity, they are frequently unaware of whether any student veterans are enrolled in their courses. Other faculty mentioned that they avoid interacting with student veterans because they are afraid of upsetting them. One staff participant described student veterans as “kind of scary … big dudes with beards. They have loud voices, they kind of come in with this presence and as a faculty member it can be intimidating to be in a room with these guys.”

Staff members suggested that because many faculty/staff do not consider student veterans a protected class they are reluctant to provide them with specialized support. As a result, faculty/staff described their colleagues as “inflexible” when responding to student veterans’ needs. Unlike many underrepresented student populations, most student veterans were not physically distinct from their peers. As is the case with our sample, the majority of student veterans were young, male, White students who easily blend in with traditional college-aged students at predominantly White institutions or within ethnically homogenous departments (Radford, 2009). For faculty/staff and university administrators, most student veterans were an invisible minority population. Without student veterans revealing their military background or communicating about their transitional challenges, faculty/staff members could not recognize their veteran status nor acknowledge them as requiring additional educational support. All faculty/staff expressed a need for more professional development and sensitivity training to help them become more familiar with the structure and culture of the military and to help them provide more effective support.

Student veterans repeatedly commented on faculty’s lack of knowledge and stated a desire for faculty to “understand what we’re going through.” Student veterans expressed frustration with faculty who did not acknowledge military-specific academic challenges, such as scheduling conflicts or post-service medical conditions (Vacchi, 2012). Six student veterans felt more consideration should be given to military experience for academic credit and were disappointed by the university’s evaluation of their service. In response to inquiries about how service experience is evaluated, “nobody really has any answers,” explained Steven (pseudonym), a student veteran who was unable to get credit for over a year of language school he completed while in the military. Aside from awareness of student veterans’ existence on campus, faculty/staff and student veterans underscored that university employees lack accurate, working knowledge about military culture and transition, preventing them from anticipating and proactively addressing student veterans’ unique challenges. Most importantly, absence of awareness across the institution left student veterans feeling that faculty/staff—student veterans’ primary support agents (Vacchi & Berger, 2014)—were unsympathetic and more concerned with upholding institutional standards than helping them succeed.

Perspectives on Higher Education: Awarded Privilege or Earned Service?

Lacking accurate, functional knowledge about student veterans’ prior military experience, faculty/staff’s narratives reflected certain philosophies and cultural expectations of higher education that student veterans found to be both frustrating and counterproductive to their success. As such, faculty/staff and student veterans held contrasting viewpoints on the approach institutions should take for responding to student veterans’ unique challenges. Faculty/staff subscribed to a philosophy of higher education as an awarded privilege, as proposed by a faculty member:

Upon being awarded college admission, faculty/staff firmly believed that all students had an “equal opportunity” for degree completion. The difference between success and failure, in faculty/staff’s perspective, was the “hard work” that came with the opportunity to learn. Simply attending the university did not necessarily guarantee that students would earn a degree; faculty/staff believed students were also given certain responsibilities associated with the privilege of education, such as meeting professors’ expectations and abiding by institutional norms which reflected the values of the dominant culture of American higher education. Faculty were firm in their commitment to universal standards and went further to state that the university should not provide any “special privileges” or “short cuts” that might advantage one student population over another. Faculty expressed that students should learn to advocate for themselves when they are struggling. “In order to get help from the professor, you have to do it” explained one faculty member. “You have to reach out to the professor. You have to make yourself known.” Faculty/staff participants frequently declared that nothing would be handed to student veterans; student veterans would have to work hard and learn to adapt.

Student veterans’ perspective clearly diverged from those of faculty and staff; they viewed higher education as a service, one they had already worked hard to earn. Many student veterans explained that their decision to enlist in the military had been primarily motivated by the opportunity to earn GI benefits. As a result student veterans likened public higher education to a business or other paid community services and felt it should be catered to “serve the consumer.” One student veteran summarized, “let me tell you something. I worked my butt off to get my GI bill and now I’m here. I want to learn.” Consequently, student veterans expected the university would offer more specialized support for their needs.

All student veteran participants expressed a need for more specific, direct instruction on meeting institutional requirements and expectations. Student veterans were frustrated by the ambiguous, seemingly subjective guidelines for “how to get things done” provided by faculty and departments. Instead of perceiving the institutions’ universal standards as fair, student veterans felt course prerequisites, minimum grade point averages, deadlines and “weed out” classes were unnecessary hoops to jump through. Student veterans described the decentralized support services on campus as challenging to navigate and repeatedly stated a need for a “one stop shop” where student veterans would know “who’s in charge.” Many participants reminisced over their difficult transition experience and described feeling lost, misunderstood by others, and struggling to maneuver college more than traditional students (Arminio et al. 2015; Demers, 2011; DiRamio et al., 2008; Livingston et al., 2011). As a result student veterans reported feeling disrespected and neglected by the university’s approach to support. Rather than trying to enforce equal opportunity, student veterans wished faculty/staff would strive for equity by addressing their unique needs and helping them conquer the values and expectations of higher education which they perceived as major barriers to student veterans’ success (Ovink & Veazey, 2011).

Unlearning as Learning

Influenced by their position as institutional gatekeepers and invested in the belief that higher education is an awarded privilege, faculty/staff carried out a model for helping student veterans transition into higher education and civilian society which required student veterans to adapt in a way they found distressing, and in many cases, impossible. Faculty/staff explained that certain military dispositions “didn’t fit in the classroom” and believed that helping student veterans “unlearn” these aspects of their previous military identity would help facilitate their personal and professional success. One staff member described the process as “kind of shaking off the parts of the military that don’t fit in quite well and recalibrating a little bit to the academic environment.” Another participant described helping veterans wipe away their previous military identity to become a “clean slate.” By pointing out where student veterans’ behavior did not match the norms of higher education and teaching them to speak and behave “not like a military guy,” faculty/staff believed they were helping student veterans reintegrate back into civilian society as competent professionals.

Faculty/staff repeatedly described coaching student veterans to soften what they perceived as a “blunt” and “abrasive” communication style. One faculty member with military background described holding after class practice sessions to help student veterans present “professionally” in a way that was “approachable” for civilian audiences. While one faculty participant stated that it would be inappropriate and insensitive to expect international students to discard their native language and “learn to speak English” to be successful, he did not apply the same logic to student veterans.

Faculty/staff also believed that student veterans should adapt to the culture of individuality and personal freedom in higher education and learn to accept the often ambiguous, loosely-structured environment. Several faculty participants explained that the culture of ambiguity in higher education is intentionally designed to make students think. “We don’t want to make everything so rigid,” one faculty member elaborated. “We put a premium on higher order thinking, reflective thinking, flexibility, and adaptability.” For example many of faculty/staff’s expectations came as explicit classroom rules for professional classroom etiquette, such as attending class regularly or avoiding profanity. Other values were implicit and embedded in the culture of higher education, such as the expectation that students would be proactive about seeking help and becoming self-sufficient in developing their own academic plans. Ultimately faculty/staff believed that student veterans who could forget their military dispositions and adopt the values and norms of higher education would be most academically and socially successful (Callahan & Chumney, 2009).

Student veterans found “unlearning” to be both a painful and impractical model for civilian transition. Student veterans described struggling with the perceived expectation to “blend in” with civilians. Many student veterans lamented about feeling like “two different people” when they were with veteran and non-veteran peers. Learning new professional norms was also a challenge for student veterans, who described “turning on and off” their military identity so their demeanor and communication style would be appropriate for civilian audiences. On many occasions, student veterans engaged in self-silencing by avoiding talking with traditional college-aged peers and faculty whom they felt they simply “wouldn’t understand” their military perspective (Hinton, 2020; Howe Jr. & Shpeer, 2019). As a result many student veterans remembered feelings of anger and hostility towards their classmates and faculty members, especially during their first semesters. “I would just yell at people. I would leave. I would disassociate myself with the university,” explained one student veteran. Another student veteran participant, Jason, who spent over 20 years in the service explained that asking him to shut off his military identity was equivalent to asking him to throw away a piece of himself. Rather than caring, student veteran participants found the institution’s expectation for them to unlearn military dispositions as a pre-requisite of their college success exasperating and emotionally taxing (Matias & Zembylas, 2014).