Episode 3: Supporting Our Adult & Military Connected Students
Dr. N.J. Akbar
Hello, everyone and welcome to Flashes of DEI, a Podcast where we explore topics and ideas related to diversity, equity and inclusion, aka DEI. I am Dr. N.J Akbar He/him and I serve as the Associate Vice President in the Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
Katie Mattise
And I'm Katie. I use they/them/their pronouns and I serve as director here in DEI
Dr. N.J Akbar
And today we're joined by two wonderful people from Kent State. Would you both mind introducing yourselves really quickly?
Joshua Rider
Not a problem, Joshua rider. He /him /his. Executive Director, Center for Adult and Veteran Services.
Scott Crawford
Hi NJ, Hi Katie. Scott Crawford (Assistant Director, Center for Adult and Veteran Services
Katie Mattise
We are so excited to have you both here with us today. We know I mean, it's always busy in higher ed but now it feels especially busy. So thank you for taking the time and be able to join us and talk about adult and veteran services and you know, students, faculty and staff here at Kent State University. We're really excited to jump in and learn more and since we want to keep things quick, Are y'all ready to just kind of go for it?
Scott Crawford
Let's do it.
Katie Mattise
Awesome. All right. So I actually recently reached out to your center to ask a question and learn something really new and I want to spread this knowledge a little bit further and wider. And that question was specifically around language. And so during that little conversation, I learned that the terminology at Kent State and kind of across higher education has been shifting around veteran active military and other folks connected to the military. Could you talk a little bit more about what that shift is and why it's important?
Joshua Rider
Yeah, absolutely. You know, we're talking really kind of some of the language came out of NASA. And that really revolved around folks being called military connected. And what that means that's our veterans, it's our service members and their dependents. And we've really touched base on this a lot. As a staff to kind of really adjust our perceptions when we talk about the military connected students, students, in the name of our in the name of our office center for adult veteran services. Yeah, right. But you know, we're really looking at building those programs around that military connected students. Scott, you have more to add to that?
Scott Crawford
Yeah, one of the things I try to do is whenever I can, I hate to say always use more words when fewer words will do but I always try to say veterans and service members. A lot of our students who are in the National Guard and Reservists, their services on the weekends a couple weeks in the summer. They don't really consider themselves veterans or veterans or people who are out on the service. So if we say, hey, there's an event for veterans that might inadvertently exclude our members of the National Guard and Reservists so I will try to save veterans and service members whenever I can. One of the statistics we look at military connected is how many students we have who are using their parents benefits. And right now, I can see that number is over a third. So we have a student who is using benefits with the Department of Veterans Affairs. There's a one in three chance that students is not in the service. I did not know that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, that's that's an expanding population right now. So if you know something, we certified 650 Folks, you know, 200 and some change are gonna be using their their parents benefits for one reason or another.
Katie Mattise
Yeah, I mean, we're all about inclusion here on this podcast, and it can state and so having, having the right language is really important to make sure we're capturing as many people as possible. So thanks for thanks for sharing about that.
Dr. N.J. Akbar
Thank you.
Scott Crawford
No problem
Dr. N.J. Akbar
You know, our families, for those who are either actively serving in the National Guard Reserve, and even those family members who are you know, connected to veterans who served previously, they make many sacrifices that a lot of people may not even realize being away from your family for even, you know, a weekend or three weeks memories that you may miss out on because you know those dates are selected for you. They don't really work around your schedule. You have to work around it. And so that's the sacrifice that our families make.
Scott Crawford
100 percent. Spot on.
Katie Mattise
N.J. kind of started talking about this a little bit with some of the specific challenges that families face, right. So those military connected students who are dependents, right of active service members or veterans. Could you talk a little bit more about some of the challenges that these populations face?
Scott Crawford
So one of things we noticed our adult lawyers and veterans are just busy in fact, on my on my notes here, divine, they're busy. There's a lot going on in their lives. There could be family commitments, they could be a parent. Generally, a lot of our veterans are going to be, you know, by definition nontraditional students, they could be 25,30,40,50 years old. You have a lot going on when you're older, as opposed to when you're, you know, 20,21 Typically, I want to diminish anyone's experiences when they're younger, but typically have more responsibilities when you're, you know, not in that traditional college student age anymore. One of the things we also want to mention is that about 40% of students using the post 911 GI Bill, have a service-connected disability rating with VA. So those are things we want to remind people of and you know, Joshua would put you on the spot, but maybe you want to talk a little bit about, you know, visible versus invisible disabilities too.
Joshua Rider
Oh, yeah, absolutely. You talk about some things that in some of these disabilities already, but as a result of the service, right, and that's for our for any adult learner. Um, you know, perhaps they had an IEP in high school, and then you've gone into the service. You've been there for eight years. Well, the need did not go away. Right, you just you know, you're able to learn a different skill. And do something else. Now you're in the classroom again, and you have the same challenges in a classroom that you had in high school, prior to the armed forces. You run some better time management, some better study skills, some better ways to regulate yourself, but nonetheless, you still have that need, right? That can happen for an adult learner. Maybe high school was not a fantastic experience for them. So they chose another career path. And they find themselves at for example, 40 years old, and you're a parent. You're not a military connected person at all. But nonetheless, those challenges are there for you. Yeah, you're busy. And you also have these accessibility concerns. And again, when we think about accessibility with the population, particularly veterans, we always think about physical, right, it always goes right to physical, you know, we think about folks that are missing, missing limbs that are, you know, double, single double amputees that are blind or deaf for these other kinds of things that are physical, the bulk of disabilities with our armed forces, veterans are invisible. You know, they are either you know, past learning disabilities or PTSD, TBI, those kind of things which affect people's lives in different ways. So that's something that could be an invisible challenge that you might not see they may be 25 years old and maybe put 100% put together. And wow, what so what's, what's going on? There is some there's something that they're working through there.
Scott Crawford
Yeah, very important.
Dr. N.J. Akbar
Yeah. One of the things that I actually just recently met with a student adult, who also is a veteran. One of the things that they share with me that's been a challenge is that there's this assumption that that they can make connections with other students pretty easily. And one of the challenges this team was having was that with most of the classes being online, and even there being some in person, their external responsibilities, don't give them an opportunity to connect with the other students in the same way so they don't have the same amount of time or opportunities to join the group study sessions and in many cases, they feel like an outcast because other students don't talk to them in with the same ease. So I think that's another challenge that I know you mentioned quite a bit, but that was one that I just recently heard. And, you know, I was a military connected student as well in college being in the National Guard. And I didn't have all of those challenges, because also was, more traditional age. But I do know that there were some people that I served with who also had some of those challenges. Connecting with other students.
Scott Crawford
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Some of the things that we don't think about right things that, you know, in the classroom is your interaction with the institution at that point in time, even if you want more, it can be sometimes hard to do that. Yeah.
Katie Mattise
And that's like a really good reminder to about how even when we're talking about a specific population, the challenges that the individuals may face within can be totally different based on identity and experience and all these different kinds of things. So even we're talking broad challenges, each individual may have different ones based on kind of who they are and where they're at.
Dr. N.J. Akbar
Absolutely, definitely. So there's another question I wanted to pose around myths and misconceptions about veteran students, if you can talk about some common ones and maybe debunk some.
Joshua Rider
Sure. I'll start off and I'll kick it over to Scott. You know, one of them, you know, we talk about is that our adult learners are going to look like they're going to look older, right? They're going to appear and they can, but like there's a myth that you know, they're going to appear much older than other students and you're gonna be able to identify the non traditional student in the classroom. And that may not be the case of the person could be a parenting student and be 21 years old, and there is really no real physical difference. Difference between somebody who's 18 and 21. It's very, very subtle, or they could be a veteran, 22 years old, right? And you're not going to really know that difference or that there's somehow going to be still wearing their uniform in the classroom, and that's, again, unless they're active duty, they're not going to be doing that. So this is these are things that are that are myths and misconceptions or, and we encounter this, that they're going to be either more prepared than a student because they're older, right? They're older and they have all these different skills that are going to be way more adapted to the classroom. They should Excel when they should have more expected of them than another student. Not true or flip it, that they'll be deficient, right? They haven't been in school in 20 years. They're not gonna be able to compete. They're this they're this isn't going to work out for them. Again, no, you know, individual, it's very individual.
Scott Crawford
You know, one of the things I wanted to mention that N.J might want to ask you to talk about this too, is one of the things that I think people who are not around military connected students, when they think veteran or service member they're gonna think, you know, camouflage and in where are you in the war, that sort of thing, right? The majority of people in the service are not in those situations. And one of the things that I've learned about the military is that pretty much any job there is in the civilian sector exists in the military as well. So maybe NJ maybe you want to talk about your experience in how National Guard and what you did there, and we'll see if that that rings true.
Dr. N.J. Akbar
It definitely rings true. I actually joined wanting to be a photographer in the military. One of the things that you may not know about me when I was a kid, this might sound funny, but I had a Polaroid and I would take pictures of everything. Because what you could do with a Polaroid compared to the cameras that you have today, but no, so that was one of the things that I thought I wanted to be a photographer, and my dad was in Vietnam, and he asked, Who do you think takes the pictures of everyone on the battlefield? You know, do you want to do that and I was like, No, but I just want to really work for the magazine, the army times. So that was kind of what I wanted to do. I ended up being a basically human resource admin. And so I did you know personal records and all of that for most of my time, and then I was the secretary but one to our captain. And then also the E O. So that's kind of my my experience, and all three of those things you could do in outside the military. You have human resource specialists at Kent State and all these other companies. You have people who are executives, Assistant/secretary and then you also obviously have equal opportunity and affirmative action here. So all three of those jobs and ability exists outside.
Katie Mattise
I'm learning so much right now for this conversation. So I appreciate you all sharing and asking each other questions and everything thinking about like some of energy shared about, you know, personal experiences and some of the myths and challenges we've all talked about, and how I mean, I didn't know a lot of what we've been talking about so far. So what would be some ways that divisions departments, colleges, classrooms can make our spaces better and more inclusive? For our adult and military connected students here at Kent State?
Scott Crawford
I think that one of the things we need to know is that people need resources. Right? Let's say you're really good at juggling in high school. You haven't juggle for 10 years. You're not gonna be really good at juggling. You're 20. You got to get back into it. Right maybe that juggling instructor so we need to talk about what services we have here and how we can get that information to our adult learners who may be on campus. A fraction of the time as a traditional student, you know, they can be going in and out. They could be coming from a job that could be attending remotely and not on campus very often. We have a lot of services on campus that are available to help our students and we really need to push our dollars and veterans to those services to make sure they're taking advantage of that because they need the help. And also those things are here for everybody, not just for our traditional students on campus.
Katie Mattise
Yeah, making those connections to resources. Super important.
Joshua Rider
Yes, absolutely. And I think it's also a step in its resources. And also, you know, making them both welcoming number one. So for example, we talk a lot about parenting students. We've been talking a ton about parenting students recently. And like folks that have to maybe bring a kid into the classroom once or twice or a couple of times a semester. Right? Don't make it a thing. If it's not disruptive, it's not disruptive. And you just it's just this is where rapid population that is going to college is changing as a heads up to everybody. It’s not gonna look the same in five years, I would not make as many 18-year-olds we did a couple years ago. Okay, so we're looking at a new population that's rolling out and they have other things going on. So you need to be welcome. You need to accommodate it. And you need to think about it right. Also knowing policy right? For students needs to leave last because they are being having your short-term training or deployment for the guard will understand that there was a required accommodation there under a certain number of days and it can be uncomfortable and this can be difficult but it is not. It is not if you will accommodate it as a section of situation. I'm getting to how right how you will accommodate those short-term absences in you know, in the classroom, you know, with documentation, etc. But nonetheless, so I always talk about those let's do the things that we can do easily right. Know what the policies and services are that we already have available. And then just be welcoming to the students. That do come into our classrooms no matter what, what they look like whether they fit our pre mold of those students or not.
Scott Crawford
Right, Josh. It's interesting. You mentioned the deployments because one of the things that I think you and I have seen. This isn't a guideline. This is the law. non-negotiable, right? This isn't a recommendation. This is the law. So let's follow the law.
Dr. N.J. Akbar
One of the things that I remember being a student who was called is that nervousness to actually have the conversation with your faculty member in not knowing how that was going to go knowing that we obviously were supposed to get it and everyone told us you're supposed to get it, but you don't want to upset or offend the instructor. You want to do well in the course and so I remember that being a thing. And my professors actually let me take my finals early because I was leaving like April 13. And classes didn't end until like the 20 Somethings, I didn't have family or any other responsibilities. So it's easy for me to put everything else on the side and focus and get all that done. But for some of those who have families, they may have had to take, you know, an incomplete and finish some things after the course but to think about the resources, you know, because many of our veteran and adult students are also first generation we take for granted that they know certain things. Can we make some things that simple, where anyone who doesn't have that experience, can walk into a situation understand what their next steps are?
Katie Mattise
Yeah, that's important, especially for us to think about, because as mentioned, we don't know just by Looking, who is an adult or military connected students, and so what are the things we can do to kind of standardize and make the access a lot easier for everybody, but especially our students who might not be tapped in in the same way? Our last question that we kind of want to end on and hear about is keeping in mind those students, right, the adult students, the military connected students, we've talked a lot about resources, but are there any specific resources you'd want to shout out? Or any piece of advice you'd want to give to them if they're listening right now?
Scott Crawford
Yeah, we Our office works pretty closely with Student Accessibility Services, especially with that, knowing that, you know, disability percentage number that we have with a lot more students care center be a great resource to some of our students spread out the military are you know they'll have a lot of savings in place. Say our Office of course we can help center for called Veterans Services point people to the right directions because appoint people to VA services as a community resources as well. And then caps as well. For any students who have some things that need to work through for that from the military. That's a great resource as well. Honestly, last one, I want to mention too, is the today's services we have on campus as well. I mean, we had a student, our office who's used that service for hundreds of hours of tutoring, and I think some of our adult learners can think oh, well, you know, I'm not failing this course. Why do I need this and, you know, things we want to tell people as well. It's not just to take students from failing to pass it's also help students go from good to great, so please take advantage of that free resource.
Joshua Rider
Yeah, that's great. Those are great. I always like to keep in mind for our parenting students and certainly not all are female identifying, but over at the Women's Center. The Women's Center is a great partner and great resource for us and although they don't have the, you know, the food pantry and some of those pieces over there anymore, those are with cares which we you know, we've kind of discussed but they still are able to hide and have some of those different conversations. And really also, when we look at CAPS, one of the reason Scott touched on that one of the reasons they might want to use that here, as opposed to the VA or some of those resources, they may not depending upon, if they want to go back into the armed forces, they may not want to have a record of counseling, you know, with the VA necessarily, right. So, you know, just something to think there's something for them to think about.
Scott Crawford
Yeah, right. Yeah, that on campus service might be a little bit better and they might feel a little bit less of a stigma in using that than going and talking to the VA which can be maybe a different experience for everybody.
Katie Mattise
Right. Yeah. And really quick cap stands for Counseling and Psychological Services, right? Yeah.
Joshua Rider
Thank you. Yeah, they're brand new, brand new. Brand new names, right. A lot of new folks on staff so they're really ready to go over there.
Dr. N.J. Akbar
Yeah, pretty, pretty awesome. And one of the things you made me think about earlier is to not think of veteran adult students from the deficit wins. So one of the greatest things that we also have is that students can join the honors College after admissions now. So that might be another great resource to refer our students to because we may not always think of veteran or adult students, as honor students, but they definitely can and will, and should be a great point. Great point. Thank you. Yeah, no problem. No, thank you both Josh and Scott, for being a part of this episode.
Katie Mattise
Oh, thank you. This was awesome.
Dr. N.J. Akbar
And for those of you out there listening, thank you as well for tuning in. And if you're interested in learning more about DEI, I feel free to check out our website at kent.edu/diversity. And if you've got a topic you'd like for us to discuss, feel free to email us diversity@kent.edu or connect with us directly on our social media across all platforms @DEIKentState. We'll see you all next month for a new episode. And Josh, and Scott, anything last you want to say before we take it out of here,
Katie Mattise
Any social media you want to plug?
Joshua Rider
Scott can do that. But just thank you for having us on here. And thank you for really including these student voices that maybe we don't think of necessarily as a piece of diversity, which most certainly are thank you
Scott Crawford
@KSUCAVS is our social media and please check us out. Thank you
Transcribed by https://otter.ai