MSVA banquet honors vets, celebrates new office

Groups also bask in approval of new resource center.

By Katy Bergen

Published Nov. 11, 2008

A single rose with a yellow ribbon tied around the stem reminded the attendants of the Mizzou Student Veterans Association banquet of the friends that were not there to celebrate with them.

Veterans rose their glasses to their fallen comrades.

The toast was one of the few somber moments at the second annual MSVA Banquet at Eckles Hall. Carol Fleisher, Veteran Services representative and a chairwoman of the Veteran's Task Force, read aloud a letter from Chancellor Brady Deaton approving the MSVA's request for a veteran resource center.

The Student and Veterans Service Office will serve as the first step for veteran newcomers to the university and those returning to MU. The office will address any issue veterans may face returning back to school, including academic advising, financial aid issues, tutoring and other learning services.

"From a broad perspective, the main issue veterans have coming back to college is basically the situation change and the impact that a transition going from a military environment to a school setting brings," said Daniel Sewell, Mizzou Student Veterans Association President. "It's not that we need special help. We need tools to be successful."

The offices will be implemented by the first week in December through the efforts of a 21-man Veterans Task Force, formed by Chancellor Deaton last year. The costs will be covered by general funds.

"He explored ways to make Mizzou an even more veteran-friendly campus," said Fleisher about Deaton.

The need for a "one-stop shop" was apparent in every proposal the task force came up with to address veterans' needs. Lafferre Hall was chosen as the location of the Student and Veterans Service Office after Marty Walker, dean of engineering and a veteran, suggested the task force utilize the extra space in the Engineering Building.

Junior Billy Froeschner, a four-year member of the Army and a veteran of the Iraq war, values the support the Student and Veterans Service Office will offer veterans.

"There are a lot of mental hurdles that we have to cross, like getting used to studying," said Froeschner. "It is a change of systems."

Sewell said the center would help veterans immediately upon their return.

"Veterans have been trained to lead and to do a lot with a little," Sewell said. "This center will provide the little help that is crucial in the beginning of a veterans investment to his or her education."

The MSVA banquet kicked off Veterans Week, a series of events on campus this week inspired by today's national holiday.

"We decided to package existing programs and create new programs to create many activities around Veterans Day," said Kathy Murray, assistant director of Campus Activities, who was responsible for organizing the committee of different student organizations that planned the first official Veterans Week this year.

"It is exciting. I'm ready to see what happens as the week unfolds," MSVA Vice President Jordan Worley said.

Murray said she has only received positive feedback about the upcoming week and that some people were surprised to learn there are almost 300 veterans on campus. There are more than 800 veteran employees at MU, Fleisher said.

"I think it's important for all Americans to honor the services that members of the armed forces have done," Sewell said. "Even to this day so little of our nation serves, between one and two percent. Its important to remember the small fraction of our society that volunteered and said 'No one else will but I will.'"