Thursday, March 28, 2024

Student veteran reflects on MSU gold status

September 5, 2016
<p>Master Sgt. Wallace Doss, left, chats with Lt. Col. David Hargy on Nov. 11, 2015 during Veteran's Day Service on the fourth floor of Spartan Stadium. "This is a good stepping stone on bridging that gap and bringing more veterans out that are visible within the campus," Doss said. Veteran's Day of Service is put on by the MSU Student Veterans of America Chapter. </p>

Master Sgt. Wallace Doss, left, chats with Lt. Col. David Hargy on Nov. 11, 2015 during Veteran's Day Service on the fourth floor of Spartan Stadium. "This is a good stepping stone on bridging that gap and bringing more veterans out that are visible within the campus," Doss said. Veteran's Day of Service is put on by the MSU Student Veterans of America Chapter.

Photo by Joshua Abraham | The State News

MSU Student Veterans of America President Kyle Kissinger said he was “surprised” when MSU was named a veteran-friendly school.

MSU was awarded a gold status by the Michigan Veterans Affairs Agency, MVAA, as part of their Veteran-Friendly School program on Aug 26. Kissinger said he “was a little surprised” when he found out about the award.

“MSU is the largest university in Michigan and one of the largest in the U.S.,” Kissinger said. “And only until recently have they even started putting a consideration towards veterans transitioning from military through college and a lot of the programs that smaller institutions even in Michigan have, MSU hasn’t even begun starting.”

The universities that apply to be reviewed by the MVAA are evaluated based on seven criteria and gold status is awarded to schools that meet six or more of those criteria. MSU met all seven, according to the MVAA’s report.

Although Kissinger acknowledged MSU has made some important steps towards being veteran-friendly, he still feels MSU isn’t quite there yet.

“University of Michigan-Flint has 4,000 students, so significantly less, but they have two full-time staffers and three graduate level positions to help veterans through their process,” Kissinger said. “And we have one person who is on a grant that expires in May.”

That “one person” is Sarah Mellon, the Student Veterans Resource Center representative, who is responsible for helping the more than 630 student veteransat MSU with everything from adjusting to college life to managing their VA benefits.

“We offer here in the Student Veterans Resource Center kind of a one-stop place to gather information about programs and resources that are available not only on campus for MSU student veterans, but also off-campus resources,” Mellon said. “So sometimes, we need to access things through the state of Michigan or through the federal VA that we need to work with students to get access to some of those resources.”

Before coming to MSU, Mellon worked at UM-Flint’s Student Veterans Resource Center. She was a part of applying to have MSU reviewed by the MVAA and said part of the application involved looking at “areas that would further improve the veteran experience here on campus.”

“So we’ve done some things, like student surveys and some meetings with some students here on campus who are veterans to find out what our next steps would be strategically to make sure that we’re constantly monitoring the success of the programs that we offer,” Mellon said.

One of Kissinger’s goal as president of the Student Veterans’ Association is to make Mellon a full-time employee.

“If we don’t have a full-time staffer, we don’t have anything for veterans after that,” Kissinger said. “She only came here on a grant, and the veterans pull in, I think it’s over $2 or $3 million onto campus, and we can’t afford a position?”

Although Kissinger said he thinks MSU is on the right track towards being a veteran-friendly campus, he still feels it has a ways to go.

“So there’s a lot of things that would be really, really exciting and really cool to see here,” Kissinger said. “But we’re not there yet.”

Support student media! Please consider donating to The State News and help fund the future of journalism.

Discussion

Share and discuss “Student veteran reflects on MSU gold status” on social media.