{"250821":{"#nid":"250821","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Student Veterans Find Home at Tech","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EWhen Scott Gilliam enrolled at Tech for the second time in 2012, he vowed it would be different from before.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI decided I\u2019d just keep my head down, not talk to anybody, and just get it done,\u201d he said, referring to his pursuit of a bachelor\u2019s degree, which initially began in 2004.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe third-year business administration major first came to Tech to study architecture straight out of high school in Marietta. After not doing as well as he\u2019d hoped freshman year and encountering other personal challenges, Gilliam left Tech and joined the Army. He first served as a reservist before receiving orders to go to Afghanistan in 2009.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EHis first semester back at Tech, this time as a business major, he was sidestepping fliers on Tech Walk when he wondered to himself if there was a student organization for veterans. A quick Google search on his phone told him a group of student veterans happened to be meeting in the building right next to him in five minutes.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ESince then, Gilliam\u2019s trajectory hasn\u2019t exactly been \u201chead down.\u201d He now serves as secretary for the Georgia Tech Armed Forces Student Association, a chartered student organization that formed from the initial group of veterans he met last fall. He has connected with other military vets on campus and also works as a student assistant in the Office of Emergency Preparedness, a section of the Georgia Tech Police Department.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cI wear a lot of different hats throughout the day,\u201d he said. \u201cI go to work, then to class, then might be talking to President Peterson at a veterans event, then I\u2019m just taking a math quiz the next day.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThrough his various involvements, Gilliam tries to balance wanting his classmates to know why he looks older than them with not wanting to make a big deal of his situation. Though he feels he sometimes exudes an \u201cold man tinge,\u201d he\u2019s happy to be back at Tech. He never thought of finishing his degree anywhere else \u2014 Tech was always home.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ETech is undergoing an evolution as a campus that\u2019s not just welcoming, but nurturing, for veterans. This year, the Division of Student Affairs established a Veterans Resource Center and hired its first director, David Ross, who served 20 years in the Air Force.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThere\u2019s a movement in the country right now to give back to veterans,\u201d said Ross, who came to Tech from a teaching role at Valdosta State University. Tech is included in the GI Jobs 2014 Military Friendly Schools list, but Ross intends to continue to enhance campus support for veterans, whose needs vary from those of regular students.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cNontraditional students have a whole different outlook on why they\u2019re going to school,\u201d he said. He also aims to help the rest of the student body become better informed on how a veteran\u2019s life as a student may differ from their own.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThere can be a disconnect between academics and military requirements, with some veterans still on active duty lists and receiving orders while they are students. Long-term, Ross would like to see a note in class syllabi addressing veteran services, similar to what is included about disability services, to make it clear both to veterans and non-veterans what accommodations are available and why they are provided.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0022Nontraditional students have a whole different outlook on why they\u2019re going to school.\u0022\u003Cbr \/\u003EOther pockets of programs and activities supporting vets are springing up across Tech \u2014 from the classroom to the lab and beyond.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EJames Wilburn, who works in Professional Education at the Savannah campus, oversees a military transition program, VET2, that\u2019s designed to help integrate veterans into a civilian working environment. The program was recently highlighted by Savannah\u2019s local NBC affiliate, as was Wilburn for being willing to support the program out of pocket during the government shutdown.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA new work-study program is providing a scholarship for a cohort of 14 student veterans and potentially connecting them with jobs at Hewlett-Packard. The Workforce Opportunity Services program is designed for veterans who have served since Sept. 9, 2011, and provides mentoring and other training.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EJennifer Orth-Veillon, a Literature, Media, and Communication professor, put a military spin on her summer English 1101 composition class. The class examined nontraditional memoirs written by soldiers from WWI to Iraq, evaluating how they manipulated language, history, style, and image to render a true telling of their war experience.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOn the research front, the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) is\u0026nbsp;developing a system\u0026nbsp;that can measure the physical environment of an\u0026nbsp;IED\u0026nbsp;explosion and collect data that can help correlate what a soldier experienced with long-term medical outcomes, especially traumatic brain injury.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe Georgia Tech Military Affinity Group,\u0026nbsp;GTMAG, provides a connection for alumni who are veterans, hosting events on campus and welcoming\u0026nbsp;current students as well.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EOne challenge for providing services to veterans is identifying who they are in the first place. The Office of the Registrar manages benefits coming in for those students who elect to use them, but not all do. For the first time this year, the Georgia Tech admission application included an optional question for applicants to self-identify as veterans.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt\u2019s weird to think of yourself as a veteran,\u201d Gilliam said. \u201cI think of my grandpa as a veteran.\u201d\u003Cbr \/\u003ESetting up veterans\u2019 services in a way that\u2019s accessible can also influence participation; Gilliam notes that living situations alone can make it more difficult to engage with other students. He lives on his own, farther from campus than most students, making evening group project meetings or study sessions a challenge.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERoss knows that not all students will want to associate with their military service, but the Veterans Resource Center is here to serve those who do.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cIt\u2019s amazing how much Tech has changed in a year,\u201d Gilliam said, both as a place for veterans and as a campus overall. \u201cGetting involved has made it feel like home again.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Tech is working to enhance the campus experience for student veterans.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Georgia Tech is working to enhance the campus experience for student veterans."}],"uid":"27469","created_gmt":"2013-11-04 11:08:56","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:15:14","author":"Kristen Bailey","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2013-11-04T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2013-11-04T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"250801":{"id":"250801","type":"image","title":"Scott Gilliam Serves in Afghanistan","body":null,"created":"1449243813","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:43:33","changed":"1475894931","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:48:51","alt":"Scott Gilliam Serves in Afghanistan","file":{"fid":"198101","name":"afgh_1.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/afgh_1_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/afgh_1_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":49837,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/afgh_1_0.jpg?itok=OqXmWx41"}},"250791":{"id":"250791","type":"image","title":"Georgia Tech Armed Forces Student Assocation","body":null,"created":"1449243813","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:43:33","changed":"1475894931","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:48:51","alt":"Georgia Tech Armed Forces Student Assocation","file":{"fid":"198100","name":"gtafsa_2.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/gtafsa_2_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/gtafsa_2_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":79584,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/gtafsa_2_0.jpg?itok=YAelpirI"}}},"media_ids":["250801","250791"],"related_links":[{"url":"http:\/\/veterans.gatech.edu\/","title":"Veterans at Georgia Tech"}],"groups":[{"id":"1269","name":"Student Life"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[{"id":"525","name":"military"},{"id":"167069","name":"student affairs"},{"id":"167141","name":"Student Life"},{"id":"10681","name":"veterans"}],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71871","name":"Campus and Community"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:david.ross@vpss.gatech.edu\u0022\u003EDavid Ross\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003EVeterans Resource Center\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":[],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}