Though MSU varies widely on different rankings, some student veterans don’t think MSU is where it needs to be.

This year, the US News and World Report University rankings revealed something surprising: MSU tied for 50th in the ranking for best colleges for veterans with Texas Christian University and the University of Iowa. his comes about two months after MSU was awarded a gold status for a veteran-friendly campus by the Michigan Veterans’ Affairs Agency, or MVAA. MSU achieved all of the seven criteria required by the MVAA to receive a gold status.

Military Times had an even stricter ranking. MSU wasn’t on their list of 125 best universities for veterans. However, four other Michigan universities were: Saginaw Valley State University was ranked No. 38, University of Michigan was No. 50, Western Michigan University was No. 76 and Grand Valley State University was No. 111.

Improvements needed

Riley said he believes MSU isn’t doing all it should be doing to help student veterans.

“There’s a lot of stuff that could be done, but I think it’s kind of like a check in the box,” Riley said. “‘Oh, yeah, we fulfilled these things, and now we get a gold standard.’ But we’re trying to make it better and we just need help from other people in charge, but we’re not very visible.”

MSU Student Veterans of America president Kyle Kissinger also said MSU isn’t where it should be on supporting veterans.

“We’re doing really good on our transition with the G.I. Bill and making sure that credits transfer over, as well as anything that you learned in the military maybe applying as college credit,” Kissinger said. “But we have a long way to go towards the education experience and making veterans feel welcome through the involvement of things like our Student Veterans Resource Center.”

There are a lot of stumbling blocks that come with fully developing a Student Veterans Resource Center, as well as a Student Veterans of America chapter on a college campus. Riley works at MSU’s veterans center, and he said he finds it troubling that the center is in the basement of Student Services.

“What we have is not very visible, so not too many people know about it,” Riley said. “It’s in the basement. I feel like all of the places down in the basement should probably be more visible, like the sexual assault center. That needs to be on the first floor. There’s all kinds of space, either at the Union or the Student Services building.”

Although Riley has seen “a lot more participation from student veterans” recently, he said it can still be struggle to get veterans involved.

“Sometimes, veterans, when they’re non-traditional students, don’t really want to hang out with a bunch of other veterans,” Riley said. “They’re kind of done with the military, some people. So it’s good to just reach out to them and (say), ‘hey, we’re here, if you just want to come down to the center if you need any help.’”

Bigger than MSU

Three years ago, all the schools in the Big Ten got together to talk about student veterans on their campuses.

In the second week of October, all the Big Ten schools met in Wisconsin to discuss their best practices when it came to student veterans. Director of the Office of Military and Veterans Services at Ohio State University Michael Carrell said these meetings can be helpful for all the schools involved.

“If somebody has a neat program, they’ll share it,” Carrell said. “Some other people can try it out, or sometimes it’s just, ‘hey, have you ever heard of this group? They want to come on campus’ and ‘oh yeah, we had great results with them’ or ‘no, we didn’t.’”

Ohio State University, ranked No. 31 by U.S. News and World Report, also struggled with visibility when their veterans resource center was first starting out. Carrell explained that working with their chapter of the Student Veterans of America was key in getting their programs off the ground.

“I always joke that we use the student veterans organization as an adviser group to us,” Carrell said. “To tell us a lot of things on our campus, like we have a veterans’ lounge, the orientation, the peer-to-peer program. These were suggestions from student veterans themselves. So a lot of what we do, the programming and things, are based on what the students are telling us they need on our campus here.”

While OSU might be ranked higher than MSU, they also have approximately 2,000 student veterans on campus compared to the 630 at MSU.

U.S. News and World Report ranked U-M as 17 for best universities for student veterans, but UM-Flint student and Student Veteran Resource Center employee Chris Shea said it hasn’t always been that easy. Their veterans center is also in an out-of-the-way location on campus, which makes it difficult to get veterans to notice it.

“That was hardest part, because we went through a part in time where there was the same three to four people in here all the time,” Shea said. “We saw it becoming a problem, so in the beginning, we really prepped up for this fall.”

U-M-Flint has a little less than 10,000 students, 350 of whom are veterans. The veterans center on campus held a meet and greet for and were able to successfully recruit student veterans.

“Most of them didn’t even know (the veterans resource center) was in here,” Shea said. “So I think just letting them know it’s there and the resources, like the computers and the printing and we have a TV in there, a couch. We try to show them that they can come here, away from all the distractions and be around vets, which usually makes it a little easier.”

A staff of one

Staffing at the veterans center is another problem MSU faces. Currently, the MSU Student Veterans Resource Center has one employee – Sarah Mellon, who is on a grant that expires in May. Kissinger hopes to get at least one full-time position in the center by the end of the academic year.

“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?”

U-M-Flint and OSU each currently have three full-time employees in their student veterans centers as well as several student employees.

This is only the second year the Student Veterans Resource Center has been on campus, and a lot of their problems stem from that. While some goals might currently be out of reach, that hasn’t stopped Mellon from planning for the future.

“We have a lot planned for this fall semester,” Mellon said. “We’re really excited going into our second academic year here in the Student Veterans Resource Center to get a lot of those things going and see how a lot of the work that we’ve done initially has led to the gold level status for the second year in a row.”

Forging a new path

The MSU Student Veterans Resource Center is currently working on implementing Peer Advising for Veteran Education, or PAVE, a peer support program for student veterans. OSU has a similar program, which Carrell said has been very successful at allowing their veterans center to network with student veterans on campus.

Kissinger said he has two main goals for this academic year: securing a full-time staff position at the veterans center and getting priority registration for student veterans. Currently, MSU athletes, disabled persons and RAs have priority registration, but Kissinger said it’s important veterans get the same opportunity to sign up for classes first because of their age and their restrictions from funding requests.

“Coupling those two together, if a course fills up because they’re lukewarm between junior sophomore, well, they can’t afford an extra semester or an extra year and they might not be able to take a class if there isn’t an opportunity,” Kissinger said.

For Veterans Day, UM-Flint holds a Veterans Week with special veteran-focused events everyday. Kissinger would like to do the same at MSU, but said it is more of a “pipe dream” than anything else.

“We wouldn’t have anything if it wasn’t for the Student Veterans Association here on campus setting up at least a Veterans Day breakfast,” Kissinger said. “All of that over there was done and paid for by the university over in Flint. So there’s a lot of things that would be really, really exciting and really cool to see here, but we’re not there yet.”

The Student Veterans of America will be holding a breakfast again this Veterans Day, and they are expecting a large turnout. Also on Veterans Day, they will host a 5k race that is open to everyone. Registration before the week of the event is $15.

Riley said he is committed to networking with other groups on campus to expand the visibility of Student Veterans of America. Carrell said visibility is important, but highlighted communication between the administration and student veterans was the best way to achieve that.

“I really think just listening to (the veterans), because every campus is going to be a little different,” Carrell said. “Over time, veterans’ needs might change. If you have a lot of them coming out of combat, those needs might be different, or if you have a lot from the National Guard in your state, they might have some different needs, or whatever it might be.”

While MSU might be struggling to get its student veterans resources off the ground, Riley said he still feels the Student Veterans Resource Center and the MSU Student Veterans of America are on the right track.

“We’ve been doing a better job of getting more veterans involved in the community at Michigan State,” Riley said. “We’ve been improving a lot since last year, and we’re just trying to get more veterans involved.”