General Perceptions of Student Veterans Based on Faculty and Staff Role and Level

Many companies and faculty recognize the student veteran’s skills, experiences, and unique gifts they bring to an organization. The use of student veteran’s versus veteran students is intentional to ensure the focus on students who happen to be veterans rather than on veterans who happen to be students. However, the existing biases and perceptions by faculty and students to include the veterans themselves can affect the interaction with veterans within the classroom, and eventually how prepared they are to enter the civil workforce (learning outcomes). As presented in recent papers, the generalized perceptions can be either positive or negative without a desire to do so with intent [1]. Informing faculty of these possible perceptions is critical based on the high numbers of current and future student veterans due to the Post 9/11 GI Bill and the veterans’ desire to pursue their educational goals once they leave the military. Veterans are a special demographic who are tracked on federal and state employment Equal Opportunity Hiring Policies and are a special interest group in the US government census. This results in a desire to increase the student veterans as well as active-duty military members’ presence in our classrooms, both virtual and physical spaces. Therefore, it is important that faculty (subset of a larger set of key people: advisers, staff, and administrators) who impact the success of veterans within our campuses are cognizant and aware of this group and the diverse opportunities they bring to higher education.