(Re)framing the Student Veteran: Intersectionality and military-connected student services in higher education.
For the 2022-2023 academic year, Dr. Lotspeich-Yadao and the Office of Research and Educational Programming (OREP) was awarded a grant by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to explore with a team of graduate students and faculty how the Chez Veterans Center may more appropriately consider the diversity of student veterans and military-connected students in higher education. Student veterans, as a subpopulation, carry additional identities (race/ethnicity, gender identity/sexual orientation, disability status, first generation, et al.) that may hinder psychosocial adjustment, well-being, and academic performance. Through this project, Lotspeich-Yadao hopes to engage dynamic voices and intersectional theory to offer a fresh perspective on how barriers in higher education may hinder transitional adjustment for all student veterans.
We are interested in constructing a portfolio of funding and research that strategically positions the Chez Veterans Center as the national center for research on student Veterans in higher education. This project represents the model of research that the Chez Veterans Center has been founded on. The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has had a long history of supporting access for military Veterans to higher education. Disruptive research by faculty in the College of Applied Health Sciences has led to nationally adopted architectural accessibility standards, including the first comprehensive program of disability services in higher education. Within the Chez Veterans Center, OREP continues this legacy through the independent facilitation of a visible program of veteran-focused research, application, and outreach.
The Center is a place to explore innovative transitional methods, develop new technologies, test important questions, and discover treatments from various disciplines. This initial funding will allow us to more closely examine how intersectionality can contextualize physical, mental, social, and financial stressors for student veterans. This project will also support theory development as it relates to programming and services for military-connected student.
Results will be shared through traditional channels of academic dissemination, as well as a strategic plan for the Chez Veteran Center to use for future programming and services. In addition, we hope to pilot launch a continuing education opportunity for practitioners that represents Chez’s role on the national stage.
Chez Veterans Center, the ‘center’ for a Joint Initiative on Veteran Health at Illinois
The Office of the Provost has announced that for FY23, the Chez Veterans Center will be the home for a new, joint initiative on veteran health between the College of Applied Health Sciences & the School of Social Work. This proposal was submitted by Dean Reginald Alston (former Interim Director of the Chez Veterans Center) and Dean Steve Anderson in alignment with the discovery, learning, and outreach missions of the university. Upon funding, the project will encompass three distinct objectives:
- A new online Graduate Certificate in Veteran Health will be shared by the Master of Public Health (MPH) and Master of Social Work (MSW) programs. Public health professionals increasingly are encountering veterans and their unique adjustment issues in health care delivery settings, and social workers are increasingly required to create comprehensive care frameworks for veterans that integrate physical health, mental health, and social determinants of overall health. Services to veterans in these settings require a great deal of interaction between public health workers, social workers, and other medical professionals. This certificate would offer a constructive learning context in which graduate students in public health and social work on campus can learn about veteran health issues together, while also learning theories and practical applications from each other’s disciplines.
- A online professional certificate on Veteran Health will be available to field practitioners who are looking for further developmental opportunities outside of a traditional degree program. For the graduate certificate program, the Chez Veterans Center is hosting an entirely new and comprehensive online curriculum in a topical area of interest for practitioners in veteran health. We also look to engage field practitioners who are looking for a rigorous university-reviewed learning environment outside of a traditional classroom setting.
- Tasking of the Office of Research and Educational Programming (OREP) at the Chez Veterans Center to investigate and implement a small grants program that supports research on veteran mental health and human-computer interaction using Virtual Reality Therapy. Across the nation, few universities have the resources or capital to explore innovative ways to use virtual reality in supporting the health of military veterans. OREP actively collaborates across multiple colleges, providing research development support for an interdisciplinary group of campus researchers focused on veterans, military-connected populations, and their families. We’re excited about opportunities to engage researchers from across the humanities and sciences at Chez in disruptive ways that we can utilize virtual reality therapy.