For Those Who Serve: The CSU Veterans Initiative

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The “For Those Who Serve” initiative will catalyze CSU efforts in support of two major objectives:

• Strengthening educational outreach to veterans, active duty personnel and their families to help them attain a college degree; and
• Providing a wide array of community-based activities to address veterans’ health needs.

Educational Focus: California is home to an extraordinary number of veterans and service members. For example, the state leads the nation in number of veterans: approximately 2.2 million of the nation’s 24 million veterans reside in California, with an additional 27,000 veterans migrating to California annually, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The average age of these exiting veterans is 27.3. Ninety-six percent of exiting veterans are enrolled in the Montgomery GI Bill. The USDVA estimates that approximately 70% utilize some portion of their benefits, but sources at military.com have suggested that less than half actually use their education benefits toward the completion of a degree. While current usage of benefits is difficult to pin down precisely, it is clear that veterans (and active duty service members) are underutilizing the outstanding and affordable public educational options available to them in California.

The good news is that the California State University is responding as a leading entity in California’s Troops to College initiative, which encourages veterans to pursue higher education. All 23 CSU campuses have established veterans’ support teams. Each campus supports a lead contact who guides veterans in the identification of special assistance programs, registration for classes and degree programs, and financial aid. Many of these campus contacts have provided feedback that suggests that veterans who are considering higher education would benefit significantly from the development of comprehensive educational centers. These centers would provide such services as: workshops on educational pathways to achieve career goals, financial aid information, and critical academic enrichment services to interested veterans, active military personnel and their families. These centers would be overseen by campus lead contacts, with CSU student leaders coordinating key program elements. We anticipate that many of the CSU student leaders employed to coordinate programs to serve veterans would be veterans themselves, thus completing the circle of service between former and current active duty military. To implement these programs, the CSU would develop formal partnerships with entities such as military bases, social service agencies, non-governmental support and advocacy groups, and VA hospitals that would serve in an advisory role in creating the centers. Once the centers are well-established, service-learning students could provide academic enrichment activities to active duty members, veterans, and their families and dependents. College service-learning students could provide K-12 tutoring to the veterans’ dependents, who are often underserved, as well as provide advice on pathways to college.

Health-related Focus: CSU campuses would develop new partnerships for a wide range of curricular and co-curricular health and community-based activities with organizations that are providing crucial services to military personnel and their families. For instance, campus-based military clubs could collaborate with local service providers to host one-day events offering legal advising, college counseling and health services.

Students in such disciplines as engineering, graduate counseling, nursing and other allied health majors are in a unique position to work with community partners in meeting the diverse health needs of military personnel, their families and veterans. This effort will also enable CSU students to further their skills and knowledge in relevant fields of study. For example, graduate students in counseling programs would help meet the mental health needs of currently enrolled veterans in the CSU, as well as potential enrollees, by providing free counseling services to campus-based offices, such as health/counseling centers, veteran’s centers, or at community organizations during non-traditional work days and times. Similarly, service-learning students in engineering and kinesiology (both veterans and non-veterans) could be placed at the local VA hospital assisting with various services. For example, while kinesiology students are providing physical therapy services to veterans, engineering students in a biomedical engineering course would develop new training equipment for the hospital. Activities during the first year of “For Those Who Serve” would focus on developing new partnerships with local service providers and designing service-learning courses.

The CSU requests $900,000 from the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (L-HHS-Ed/FIPSE), which will be matched by roughly $450,000 in state funds. This funding would enable the initiative to get up and running at fifteen campuses: Humboldt State, CSU Chico, CSU Sacramento, Sonoma State, San Francisco State, CSU Monterey Bay, CSU Fresno, CSU Bakersfield, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, CSU Northridge, Cal Poly Pomona, CSU Fullerton, CSU San Bernardino, CSU San Marcos, and San Diego State.

Additional information:

Community Service Learning and California Veterans Initiative

Jim Gelb, Assistant Vice Chancellor
CSU Office of Federal Relations
(202) 434-8060

Judy Botelho, Interim Director
CSU Chancellor’s Office, Center for Community Engagement
(562) 951-4749