Serving those who’ve served

While campus may be closed in honor of Veterans Day, California State University, Long Beach offers more than a day off to military-veteran students.

“Benefits certification is one of the most important things that we do,” said Marshall Thomas, CSULB’s director of Veteran Services and a military veteran. “This is us telling the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs that an individual veteran is enrolled in the appropriate courses, therefore, the VA can pay for the student’s tuition, housing allowance and everything else that he or she gets.”

Advocacy is another important aspect that CSULB’s Veteran Services focuses on. One of Thomas’ duties is ensuring that the campus has policies that follow the law, such as making sure military-leave policies are done properly. Thomas also advocates outside of the university as well.

“Locally, we have something called Region 8 Veterans Directors Consortium,” Thomas said. “Veterans directors, school-certifying officials and advisors from all the community colleges, CSUs, University of California, Irvine and other private schools that are not-for-profit in this region get together every other month and work on veterans’ issues as a group.”

While CSULB’s Veteran Services mainly concentrates on serving veteran students, it also focuses on educating campus faculty and staff on what it means to be a student veteran through the VET NET Ally Awareness program. The program features a four-hour seminar that has various topics that include: the reasons people have for joining the service, military culture, and the transition out of the service as well.

“Vet Net Ally was a student project – I was the student that created it as my doctoral dissertation at CSULB,” Thomas said. “In addition, I’ve presented it to more than 20 other colleges and universities, both in California and as far away as Michigan. The goal is to support student veterans by educating the campus community, and let the veterans knows that they’re on a very welcoming and supportive campus.”

Veteran students are not the only ones that get to reap the services the campus has to offer. In instances, where veterans have transferred their military service benefits to their children or spouses, CSULB’s Veterans Services office is able to serve them as well. In total, the office currently serves over 1,100 veteran students and family members.

Due to the services and programs CSULB implements for veterans, it has earned a spot on G.I. Jobs’ list of Military Friendly Schools for the seventh consecutive year.

For more information on the university’s veteran services, click here.

Written by Ruben Diaz