Veterans’ Resource Center sponsors seminar series

Veterans’ Resource Center presents a series of fall seminars focusing on key issues relating to veterans. Topics include transitioning from military to student life, suicide awareness and prevention, developing veteran-friendly programs in schools and techniques for supporting the academic and social success of veterans.

The lectures are as follows:

“Serving Those Who Serve: Insights and Innovative Ideas”
Tuesday, Sept. 25, 5:30-7 p.m.
001 Life Sciences Building
Meg Mitcham, director of Veterans Programs at the American Council on Education (ACE), provides an overview of ACE veterans’ programs, offers insights into key issues facing student-veterans and shares ideas for helping schools develop veteran-friendly programs. Educators and policymakers will learn about models for success that can help them promote military and veteran education.

“From Combat to Kentucky: Interviews with Student-Veterans”
Tuesday, Oct. 2, 5:30-7 p.m.
001 Life Sciences Building
This award-winning oral history project documents the stories of veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan as they pursue post-secondary education in Kentucky. A web site contains compelling student-veteran video interviews that create an engaging oral history documentary. The interviews highlight the difficult transition from military to student life and illustrate the student-veterans’ unique college experience at the University of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University and Bluegrass Community and Technical College. Doug Boyd, director of the Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky Libraries, and Lt. Col. (Ret.) Anthony Dotson, director of the Veterans Resource Center at the University of Kentucky, will discuss their collaboration and how this web-based oral history project can serve as a model for future oral history projects at universities throughout the country.

“Health Care for Homeless Veterans: VA’s Five-Year Plan to End Homelessness”
Tuesday, Oct. 16, 5:30-7 p.m.
001 Life Sciences Building
Adam Ormsby, development coordinator of Health Care for Homeless Veterans in Upstate New York, will discuss the VA’s comprehensive plan to provide more support services through partnerships to prevent homelessness, improve employability and increase independent living for veterans.

“Suicide Prevention Strategies for Veterans and Symptoms/Treatments of PTSD”
Tuesday, Oct. 23, 5:30-7 p.m.
Watson Theater
Jan Kemp, national suicide prevention coordinator for the Veterans Administration, will discuss the VA strategy for suicide prevention. This strategy utilizes veteran-specific and population based approaches to provide ready access to high-quality mental health care. Veteran-specific risks and population characteristics will be discussed. Interventions such as safety planning and crisis management using Crisis Lines and social media tools will also be covered.
Jessica Hamblen, deputy for education at the National Center for PTSD and assistant professor of psychiatry, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, will discuss the number of returning service members from Iraq and Afghanistan (15 percent) who have PTSD. Many more have symptoms of PTS that continue to affect their relationships, work or student life, and general well-being. Veterans will learn about the symptoms of PTS, how PTS affects them and their loved ones and what treatments are available.

“When Veterans are in My Classroom”
Monday, Nov. 12, 2:30 p.m.
304 Schine Student Center
Steve Darman, chair of the Mohawk Valley Housing and Homeless Assistance Coalition for Utica/Rome/Oneida County, will discuss changing classroom dynamics as veterans return to college. Men and women who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces—and combat veterans in particular—have been shaped by their training and deployment experiences in ways that often sharply separate them from civilians. This lecture will explore the origin and dynamics of these cultural differences and provide insight into the challenges that veteran and military students face on college campuses and in classrooms around the nation. Concrete techniques and strategies for engaging and supporting the academic and social success of veterans in a college setting will be shared, along with ideas for reshaping the cultural and physical environment of schools and classrooms to empower students who have served in uniform.

These lectures are free and open to the public. No registration is necessary. Parking is available in the Q4 lot.