{"id":128447,"date":"2020-11-11T12:45:42","date_gmt":"2020-11-11T19:45:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=128447"},"modified":"2020-11-11T13:49:35","modified_gmt":"2020-11-11T20:49:35","slug":"uccs-student-veterans-continue-to-give-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/?p=128447","title":{"rendered":"UCCS student veterans continue to give back"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a>
Student workers in the Office of Veteran and Military Affairs worked remotely this summer to help fellow student veterans gain access to their military educational benefits. Photo credit: Allison Daniell Moix, 2018.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Moving from military to civilian life can be challenging\nenough. Then, try navigating the process of applying for the GI Bill and other Department\nof Veterans Affairs education benefits that help veterans, service members and\nqualified family members pay for college tuition. Then, try figuring it out\nduring a pandemic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately, more than 1,500 student veterans recently applying for benefits at UCCS had help. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This summer, a team of student workers in the Office of\nVeteran and Military Affairs \u2013 many of whom are veterans themselves \u2013 worked\ntogether to create new systems and processes that allowed them to process students\u2019\nmilitary educational benefits remotely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jeff Deickman, a Ph.D. student pursuing his doctorate in educational\nleadership, research and policy with an emphasis on e-learning, said that the\nwork felt personal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith so many students struggling because of the change to a\ndigital learning platform for almost every class, the work that I and the other\nveterans on my team did turned into more than just processing benefits,\u201d Deickman\nsaid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe turned into coaches and helped assist with the rules\nthat the VA has for students. We gave reassurance about classes, reminded\nstudents that their benefits will continue and gave them updates on the\nbenefits rules.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jessica Newman, who also works for the Office of Veteran and\nMilitary Affairs, said that the transition to a remote system was difficult. The\nteam had to learn new remote client software, communicate with both current and\nincoming student veterans, and juggle their own remote classes and work\nschedules, too. But the team pulled through. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was a tough transition, to say the least, but the team\ncame together and made it happen \u2013 not only for the summer term, but the fall\nterm as well,\u201d Newman said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Deickman says that tough transition was an opportunity to\ngrow. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne positive aspect is that in order for us to make it\nwork, we had to persevere,\u201d he said. \u201cIt gave us skills that not only help make\nus more marketable, but that allowed us to work as a team.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One thing is for sure: having already served their countries,\nthe team of veterans only continues to give back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Office of Military and Veteran Affairs at UCCS, together with the McCord-Herbst Student Veteran Center, provide collaborative transition assistance and social and academic support for all UCCS veterans, military-affiliated members of the Mountain Lion community and their family members. To learn more, visit the Office of Veteran and Military Affairs website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than 1,500 student veterans recently applying for military educational benefits at UCCS had help this summer \u2013 from a team of fellow student veterans. (More)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":128450,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,49],"tags":[332,79,368,60],"class_list":["post-128447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all","category-campus-announcements","tag-more-news","tag-office-of-veteran-and-military-student-affairs","tag-student-affairs","tag-student-success"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/UCCS-Summer-2018-5979-scaled.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1mBpJ-xpJ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=128447"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128452,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128447\/revisions\/128452"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/128450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=128447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=128447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=128447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}