Michael Samano, Project Director: Lane’s Integration of Veterans
in Education (LIVE)
Lane Community College, Eugene, OR
www.lanecc.edu/veteranservices/
 The focus of this presentation is on the philosophy
driving our efforts to enhance and support the
learning experiences of student veterans, National
Guard, reservists, and their family members at Lane
Community College in Eugene, OR.
 The more traditional position of colleges and
universities was that a campus would be built, a
reputation developed, and if students wanted to enroll
and engage in scholarly pursuits, they would find a
way to show up.
 A more contemporary position of colleges and
universities focuses on outreach. Originally, outreach
efforts focused on the offspring of wealthy alumni,
selected student scholars, and athletes.
 Now, as a result of various reasons, there has been
more of an emphasis to do outreach or extend an
invitation to various nontraditional student
populations.
 Regarding veterans, National Guard members,
reservists, and family members, this philosophy of
outreach is no different. Instead of the old way of
thinking, “If you build it, they will come.” We are
actively engaged in inviting people to consider
spending time on our campus.
 Using this philosophy of outreach also influences how
we regard and treat student veterans.
 For me, the old “If you build it, they will come,” also
means, colleges and university staff and faculty can
treat students as numbers, or statistics; more like a
commodity.
 If we are engaged in outreach, or inviting people to
come to our campuses as students, they become our
invited guests. Hence, a more humane approach to
teaching and student support services.
 In other words, with the impressive support
mechanisms that many colleges and universities now
claim to have in place (including ours), do we offer a
wide array of services to student veterans to make us
look good, or to really help them?
 Remember, for most of these students, they have
traveled on a journey that kind of goes like this:
civilian world – to – military world – to – veteran
world. As returning or incoming students, these
people are doing what? Adjusting? Readjusting?
Transitioning? Reintegrating?
 Identifying what a student veteran is experiencing is
not an exercise in vocabulary. Rather, in order to really
refine a philosophy to serve student veterans, we must
be clear on the life transition that they are engaged in.
 Consider that regardless of branch of service, or era of
service, everyone who joins the military, goes through
some sort of process to become a functioning person
in the military. This process is the initial basic training
that everyone must experience.
 Unfortunately, there is no such thing as “Reverse
Bootcamp.” There is no process in which service
members unlearn or undo the training that they have
received while serving. One day you are in, the next
day you are discharged.
 In this life transition back to civilian life, a person is
not civilians, they are veterans. Since they can’t “go
back” they must go forward with the life skills and
experiences that they now pocess.
 With college students who are still under contract,
they exist in a more marginal existence. Marginal in
the sense that they have one foot in the military world,
and one foot in the civilian/veteran world.
 So, on our college and university campuses, it is not
enough to just wait for veterans to show up on our
doorsteps.
 It is not enough to determine their “veteran status.”
 We have to practice a philosophy of outreach.
 We have to treat them as we would invited guests in
our homes.
 Meaning, we have to treat them as individuals, with
respect and dignity.
 In addition to critical thinking skills and other career
related skills, we have an obligation to help student
veterans learn and understand how to navigate veteran
life and veteran culture.
 Teaching student veterans how to navigate veteran life
and culture will help them in their healthy navigation
and success on our campuses.
 Thank you. Please visit our website at
www.lanecc.edu/veteranservices/ to learn more about
our specific efforts to work with student veterans and
their family members.
 Questions?