MOBILIZING THE ACADEMIC FRONT

Andrew Crighton

Life Editor

Chris Banyas

Editor-in-Chief

Universities are places of learning, for both students and faculty, and on Nov. 9, there was an opportunity for the faculty to learn about what it could do to help teach a certain demographic of the student population: student veterans.

This event was geared towards helping faculty better understand some of the issues that can be specific to veterans and what can be done to address them.

Kelly Ricken is a graduate student in the English department at ISU, and was the individual who saw a problem and thought of a way to try and fix it. Ricken explains that she came up with the idea through her time teaching courses at ISU. For around six years, Ricken has taught English at varying levels on campus, and in some of those classes she taught student veterans, and that’s where those experiences came from.

“I’m always surprised to find out who the student veterans are, because a lot of them don’t self-identify right away,” Ricken said.

She tells the story of one experience she had that she remembers clearly. A student that she did not know was a veteran approached her after missing class, and provided her with a note from his therapist. The student explained that while on the way to class, someone dropped a textbook in the hallway, which triggered his PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, and kept him from attending his next two classes.

With experiences like this, Ricken decided that she wanted to do something, “This is my attempt to solve a problem that I do not personally have the answer to. I also want to make very clear that not all veterans have PTSD.”

The event was originally planned to be small and kept inside of the English department, but when others heard about it, it grew and was soon expected to host around 150 individuals including a mixture of faculty and student veterans.

Support was strong to get this event going, with help from College of Arts and Letters as well as the Veteran Student Services Center, or Veteran’s Sanctuary.

The only opposition that Ricken received was from peers who were more wary than opposed. They want to be sure that Ricken was not speaking in place of veterans.

“I don’t want to be seen as speaking for them, that’s why I’m having so many different people speak at the event, and why I’m having student veterans speak as well,” said Ricken.

The event was kicked off by Todd Johnson, director of the Veteran Student Services Center on campus, and a veteran himself, explaining that MRE’s had been provided in an attempt at giving those in attendance a true glimpse into the military lifestyle.

Johnson explained a few things about the veteran population of ISU:  touching on the fact that many more might be on their way soon, and also about how the effects of military service can manifest in veteran students.

“We have a reduction in force of over 100,000 beginning this year. We’re going to see a lot more military service members coming to school because they got home from the military because the government downsized, and they get home and they say, ‘I don’t know what to do,’ so they say ‘go to college, you’ve got the GI Bill,’” said Johnson. “That’s a double edged sword. It’s either going to be a great experience, or a horrible experience.”

Johnson then briefly touched on the origin of the designated computer lab that was planned as part of the Veteran’s Sanctuary.

Why the need for a designated computer lab? Because many veterans feel uncomfortable in enclosed spaces, where they do not know who is watching their back.

Following Johnson, Casey Cornelius, USMC Ret., went through his personal experience of military life, and reintegration into society, specifically the college setting.

“[Veterans] are a diverse group of individuals different than pretty much anybody you know. We’ve done a lot, we’ve seen a lot.  No generalizations are remotely accurate about this group. We’re a lot of different people,” said Cornelius. “We don’t see ourselves as victims, no matter how much we were victimized, where we were at, even if people are victimizing us by talking bad about us. Even when we’re struggling with psychological or physical ailments, we still see ourselves as warriors, we still see ourselves as being able to overcome anything and that’s part of the reason why it’s so difficult for us to seek help and for us to get the help we need because we don’t feel as though we have a problem a lot of the time.”

Justin Stover, assistant professor of history at ISU, then offered a historical perspective on trauma, including shellshock, PTSD and Moral Injury.

Moral Injury, according to Stover, is “a relatively new concept within the literature on veterans’ mental health. It’s said to develop during or after committing or viewing actions perceived to be morally wrong, triggering shame, guilt, anxiety and increasing the risks of suicide or other self-harming.”

Stover addressed an important note about himself, and others who might have been in the audience, who had never served in the military at the onset of his address, explaining, “I certainly feel like an imposter standing up here, speaking to you on issues that directly affect veterans having never served myself, but I don’t believe these issues are reserved only for veterans. They’re far too important not to be discussed openly and nationally.”

“I don’t believe the layman can be blamed for misunderstanding the psychological trauma. It’s quite complex. Historically the language and pathology of war trauma has been difficult to formulate. Many times trauma statuses have been misidentified, under-identified or never identified.”

Lydia Wilkes, assistant professor of English at ISU, followed Stover, and began her address by stating, “When I started studying this topic, I found that almost everything I thought I knew was wrong.”

Wilkes covered several points contained within a document entitled “Best Practices,” which is available on her website, www.lydiawilkes.com. These best practice points detailed ways that instructors might help veterans, and be more prepared themselves.

One of points that Wilkes stressed was the importance and potential of including a statement on syllabi aimed at veterans directly.

“Add a statement to your syllabus. This is a way to signal to a student veteran who may want to remain invisible in your class that that person belongs.”

There are a large percentage of international students that attend ISU and many of them are from Middle Eastern countries. This can make some veterans uneasy and nervous, not because of anything that these students have done as individuals, but hearing the language spoken and seeing it in writing can potentially act as a trigger for some veterans.

Lance Corporal Dustin Mathie, USMC, served one tour in Afghanistan and explains this position from a veteran’s perspective.

“You have the training, just basic training. It’s like if I see a wire hanging off of a car, or see it’s riding low on the shocks, you know I can’t help but get nervous about that too,” said Mathie.

He explains that is difficult because it is very easy for people who don’t understand the circumstances or what happens while on tour to paint veterans as racist.

“Does it make me racist? No,” said Mathie. “I think it’s just something that I can’t control, it’s something that has been instilled in me by our government. I get uneasy around white people too…the government has trained [soldiers] to be aware. Aware of our surroundings and constantly be on the lookout. That’s not something that just goes away over night; I don’t think it will ever go away.”

A general lack of education and knowledge that these kinds of issues exist for student veterans is one of the main reasons why Ricken wanted to start this event, because if faculty is not aware of them then it can be difficult to identify them if there is not a strong relationship between instructor and student.

“…we need to focus on the student vets, because it’s their turn,” said Ricken.