One student population that is often overlooked in campus DEI initiatives is the population of military-affiliated students. In this episode Kenneth James Marfilius joins us to discuss ways to support and include this segment of our student population in the classroom and on our campuses.
Ken is the Director of the Falk College Office of Online and Distance Education and is an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work at Syracuse University. While on active duty, Ken served in the U.S. Air Force Biomedical Science Corps in multiple roles: as an active duty clinical social worker, mental health therapist, family advocacy officer in charge, and as manager of the alcohol and drug prevention and treatment program. He has taught courses on topics such as social work intervention, military culture, and social work practice, psychopathology, and others.
Shownotes
- Holian, L., & Adam, T. (2020). Veterans’ Education Benefits: A Profile of Military Students Who Received Federal Veterans’ Education Benefits in 2015–16.
- Resource: VA College Toolkit
- Home/Front: Conversations across the civilian-military divide. National Public Radio.
- Veterans’ Education Benefits: A Profile of Military Students Who Received Federal Veterans’ Education Benefits in 2015–16
- Social and Personal Identity Wheel Guides from LSA Inclusive Pedagogies
- Cornell’s Teaching & Learning in the Diverse Classroom MOOC
- Russ Poulin (2021). “U.S. Regulations for Online Classes.” Tea for Teaching podcast. Episode 206. September 22.
- Fain, Paul (2020). New Data on Veteran’s Education Benefits. Inside Higher Ed. February 6.
Transcript
John: One student population that is often overlooked in DEI initiatives are military-affiliated students. In this episode we discuss ways to support and include this segment of our student population in the classroom and on our campuses.
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John: Thanks for joining us for Tea for Teaching, an informal discussion of innovative and effective practices in teaching and learning.
Rebecca: This podcast series is hosted by John Kane, an economist…
John: …and Rebecca Mushtare, a graphic designer…
Rebecca: …and features guests doing important research and advocacy work to make higher education more inclusive and supportive of all learners.
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John: Our guest today is Kenneth James Marfilius. Ken is the Director of the Falk College Office of Online and Distance Education and is an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work at Syracuse University. While on active duty, Ken served in the U.S. Air Force Biomedical Science Corps in multiple roles: as an active duty clinical social worker, mental health therapist, family advocacy officer in charge, and as manager of the alcohol and drug prevention and treatment program. He has taught courses on topics such as social work intervention, military culture, and social work practice, psychopathology, and others. Welcome, Ken.
Ken: Thank you, John.
Rebecca: Today’s teas are…Ken are you drinking any tea?
Ken: I have a chai tea in this September fall day here in Syracuse, New York.
Rebecca: Sounds like a perfect flavor for the season.
John: And I am going off season with a spring cherry black tea.
Rebecca: Don’t wish the best seasons away, John. Fall is the best.
John: I really like this flavor.
Rebecca: I have an East Frisian tea, which is a black mix from my new favorite tea spot.
John: Could you start by telling us a little bit about your background in the U.S. Air Force?
Ken: Sure. So I received what’s called a Health Professional Scholarship Program direct commission during my graduate studies. And during my graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania, I did some work with veterans, specifically working on the inpatient psychiatric unit, at the VA Medical Center. Upon graduating, about two weeks after graduation, I was shipped off to commissioned officer training in the Nashville Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama. In post-training, I would go to my first duty station, and almost instantly begin seeing active duty service members. We served, almost 100% of the time, just folks in uniform at this particular installation. And within the mental health clinic, there’s three areas. So traditional mental health, seeing anywhere between six to eight clients a day, and again, in this situation, both uniform. And there’s the family advocacy program, and I served as director of that program for some time. And that’s really both prevention, but also treatment. And so you can look at it as sort of a stood up DCFS or CPS on the installation. So we would get referrals for child and adult maltreatment cases, and that would range from anything from physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional neglect, etc. And then there’s the ADAPT program, which is the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention and Treatment program. I also served as director forf that program for some time. And similarly, we would get referrals. It could be a command-directed referral, it could be a self-referral, it could be a medical referral, etc. Anything from low-level treatment to inpatient treatment, we would get referrals from issues that might have occurred off the installation, ranging from public intoxication to DUI, etc. So that’s sort of the three arms specifically in Air Force mental health that I operated in, in addition to other roles. I transitioned out of the Air Force in 2016, moved back to the northeast and worked as director of the HUD-VASH program, which is the Housing Urban Development VA Supportive Housing, under the Healthcare for Homeless Veterans Program at the Syracuse VA Medical Center. And during that time I also designed, and still do teach, a course on military culture and mental health practice. That’s a bit about my background in the Air Force, the VA, and also now at the institution.
John: A few weeks ago, when the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan, there was a lot of political discussions about this, where each party was blaming the other for how that came about. And one of our colleagues, who has a son at West Point, was concerned about how this might be addressed in classes since we do have many veterans in our classes. The concern was basically that the impact of those discussions might be hurtful to those people who had risked their lives serving in Afghanistan. What might be a good way of addressing these topics that would be sensitive to those people who have served?
Ken: Yeah, thank you John. Yeah, so you mentioned, sort of, politics and let’s stay away from that and focus more on wanting to express support and empathy for all of our military members and their families who have invested and sacrificed so much for and with our allies and our partners in Afghanistan. I would be remiss if I didn’t first acknowledge the Gold Star families. A Gold Star family is an immediate family member of a fallen service member who died while serving in a time of conflict. And unfortunately, we now have a new cohort of Gold Star families with the most recent attack at the airport in Kabul. So they’ve been at the forefront of my mind. And it’s very normal for family members, and also veterans, and those actively serving right now, to have a sense of sort of loss, grief, suffering, that can feel overwhelming. It’s also normal for them to be experiencing all different types of difficult and unexpected emotions. They range from shock to anger, even potential denial, guilt, or disbelief. With the current situation that has unfolded in Afghanistan now, it is in the living rooms of all Americans. For a long period there it has almost been the forgotten war, because it has gone on for so long. And I’ve heard from active duty and veteran populations, that there’s really this sort of feeling of the need to do something in this moment, rather than feeling helpless. And so, it’s important to note that these feelings about the current situation are normal reactions to abnormal and complex and ongoing situations. They don’t make veterans weak, but actually make them strong. So acknowledging that it’s acceptable to experience them. And paying attention to those feelings, while talking with fellow veterans, active members, family members, and friends, is actually a sign of strength. So what can we do as instructors, faculty members, or even staff members, working at institutions of higher education? When you’re in the classroom, there’s really no way to pinpoint or acknowledge who’s the veteran in the classroom, right? You might be able to sort of run a report on the back end, if you’re so inclined, or perhaps it’s self-reporting, it comes out during initial introductions. I still think it’s important to not just assume, and particularly not just assume that it’s going to be a man, right? Because there’s a significant increase in females raising their right hand and serving in our military, which is a phenomenal thing. And that ultimately increases the amount of female veterans who will also be attending our classes. Given the nature of the recent long-duration wars in Operation Enduring Freedom, OEF, and OIF, Operation Iraqi Freedom, we have folks who are going back to study in institutions of higher education across the country, who have either witnessed combat operations or know of someone who’s gone to combat operations. And so, to your initial question, it’s important for we, as instructors, as professors, as staff, to be aware of those situations. And so how do we do that? Well, there are services. I know here at Syracuse we have a wealth of services on our installation. We’re the number one private institution in the country for veterans, and there’s the Office of Veteran Success, there’s the Office of Veteran Military Affairs, there’s different types of certificate trainings, the Institute for Veteran Military Families. We also have what’s called an “Orange Door” program. So in different colleges and departments across the institution, you have an orange sticker, if you will, or door hanger, to let veterans know who may be passing by your office, that there’s an advocate there that can help talk to you. Again, it’s not an academic advisor, but it could be sort of a life situation, or career decision, or something that’s just going on culturally. So I think it’s important to have these advocates, in any way or fashion, at different institutions so veterans do feel welcome and accepted. Now, actually in the classroom… So we have to understand that there is a divide between military life and civilian life. And what does that mean? Well, in the military, it is hierarchical, it is paternalistic, at times, in nature, it is very structured, it is collectivist and not necessarily individualistic, it is mission-focused. So there’s a shift there. When we come back, and we transition from active duty to veteran life, it is potentially a sense of loss, or “What is my identity? How do I find my way?” Often, you know, if we’re speaking specifically about undergraduate study, you might have an individual who just got out of high school, an 18-year-old, with a veteran who might have been through combat operations and might be 27 years old. So I think we have to acknowledge that there are differences. They’re not necessarily peers in that sense, because there’s different life experiences. It’s very positive for both the 18-year-old and the 27-year-old to interact and discuss those different experiences and not to alienate. And so, that level of understanding, that level of training, that level of conversation… in faculty meetings, in staff meetings, needs to be occurring because veteran populations fall under the umbrella of diversity, and they represent this sense of diversity, and we must honor that. There’s some times I’ve heard anything from a veteran hijacking a conversation, if you will, sort of talking about their experiences, to veterans feeling as if they’re not quite sure how to enter the conversation from what they’ve witnessed or experienced. So you mentioned, at the top of the hour here, that you talked about this idea, that sort of politics and blaming this way or blaming that way, and then the veteran’s sitting back and like, “I wasn’t involved in that, I was out there to do the mission. I raised my right arm to sacrifice myself with my brothers- and sisters-in-arms, and my experience is fundamentally different.” Because the mission is not what’s being talked about at that time. So understanding that there is a range. You and I, Rebecca, can be at the same place at the same time and witness the same exact traumatic event. You may come out feeling okay. Yes, was it traumatic? For sure. I may come out feeling as if there’s an impact on functioning. That functioning could be occupational functioning, it could be in the classroom, it could be social functioning, familial functioning, that could potentially lead to something like post-traumatic stress, and what we call post-traumatic stress disorder in the DSM-5. And it’s important to not just conflate and/or categorize like, “Oh, you’ve been in combat operations or you’ve been in the military so what about PTSD?” Mental health, and we can get into this a bit more, but mental health is much broader than just talking about PTSD as it pertains to veterans.
Rebecca: A lot of things that I’m hearing you talk about, Ken, that are making me think about my own experience in the classroom, but just also the conversations I’ve had with colleagues, is that I was looking up statistics just to see, like, I wonder how many students in higher ed are military or veteran populations. And the number I was finding was somewhere between 5 and 6, depending on the report, and in graduate studies about 7%. But I also think that often, when we’re talking about our student populations, this is a population that doesn’t come up in conversation. It’s completely invisible, similar to students with disabilities. It’s a population that sits there and may not be visible, necessarily. It’s an identity that’s existing in our classes, that we almost don’t recognize is present. Can you talk about ways in our classrooms where we can honor an identity that maybe isn’t seen without pointing out a specific person?
Ken: Yeah, that’s a good question. And I think it is sort of this overarching respect, human dignity. Understanding that we all come from different walks of life, whether it’s an individual that has a disability, or veterans alike who are both veterans with a disability, right? So there’s a couple of factors there.
Rebecca: Indeed.
Ken: But also to include cultural backgrounds, right? And race, and gender, all these are sort of present and need to be acknowledged. And so how I operate as a professor is, I’m not going to, first day of class, be like, “All right, all veterans in the classroom raise your hand!” or go through it like that. I’d say, “Let’s set some ground rules and expectations for a welcoming environment, and that, ultimately, I’m not here to tell you what to do. We’re here to interact with one another and learn from one another.” I tell them that I expect to learn as much from you as you do from me and maybe even more. So every class that I have every semester, I’m learning something new. And the way to do that and cultivate that is to provide that sort of sense of safety, regardless of subject. Provide that sense of safety so we allow these individuals to feel comfortable engaging in that process, both direct and indirect levels of communication. That one individual, like I mentioned, who might not talk too much in class, is potentially constantly observing, actively listening, taking in this information, and has sort of a byproduct of that entire process. I also want to talk about trauma. So, I’ll sort of go back and forth from talking about, in my specific research and teaching, it’s obviously military and veteran focused, but what we’re seeing is trauma affects children. There’s this notion of Adverse Childhood Experiences, or ACEs, that’s in the research. And so if it’s affecting children, well, they’re basically children and then before you know it, they’re graduating from high school, and they’re 18 years old, and now they’re considered an adult. But those traumatic experiences don’t leave them. Just like with a veteran, those traumatic experiences don’t necessarily leave them. So, the effects of trauma on children are far more pervasive than often us adults can even imagine. What does that mean and why am I talking about that, how that can impact the classroom? So following a child’s exposure to a traumatic event, or a veteran’s exposure to a traumatic event, there are a range of symptoms that may occur. Anything from a sense of arousal, being on edge, or constantly being worried, or the sense of rumination. There’s negative mood and cognition, so blaming oneself, or diminished interest in pleasurable activities or even school. Avoiding, consciously trying to avoid some level of engagement, not thinking about that specific event. And even re-experiencing, that can play out in potential nightmares or constantly replaying it over in one’s mind. So the symptoms resulting from this trauma can directly impact the student veteran, or the student’s ability to learn in the classroom, because they may be distracted by this level of intrusive thought about that particular event, preventing them from really paying attention in class, studying, or doing well. We also know exposure to violence has an effect on IQ and one’s ability to ultimately read. So as a result, some students may avoid going to class altogether. And so I think it’s important to have this sense of…what is trauma, who it affects, and not just looking at trauma as PTSD.
John: And certainly there have been a lot of additional sources of trauma. Now trauma has always affected a large share of our students but I think the number of students who have been affected has gone up quite a bit with the pandemic. And it’s also become much more obvious to faculty who are more directly observing trauma that might have appeared to be hidden to them in the past. What can faculty do to address the trauma that has affected so many of our students for any reason?
Ken: Yeah that’s a great question, John. I always come from the idea that we can’t address something that we don’t know about. So I think the first step is to educate, and it’s really on us as individuals and ultimately as a collective, is taking this seriously, right? And so how do we educate? Well, there’s sort of this idea of formal education, going to seek it out, reading about it, researching about it, going to events, but it also is talking with our colleagues about it, and actually experiencing it. So first and foremost, what is trauma-informed care? It sort of now has become a buzzword and I don’t look at trauma-informed care just for a mental health provider. If you really want to effectively implement trauma-informed care, it needs to be the frontline staff, the administrative assistant that might be interacting with these students first, it needs to be additional staff, it needs to be the janitor or the custodial, it needs to be the professor in the classroom. So it has to be a collective effort, and really sort of a cultural shift within the entire organization. Trauma-informed programs and services are really based on that understanding of some of the vulnerabilities that I mentioned or triggers a trauma survivor may experience and how they may impact the way that the individual accepts and responds to services.
John: You mentioned how one symptom of trauma is disengagement and lack of feeling of connection with classes. What are some symptoms that faculty might observe that might provide a clue that there’s an issue there that needs to be addressed?
Ken: Sure. There could be disengagement, but there can also be a level of confusion, difficulty concentrating. Let’s say that you’re noticing that there’s a shift in behavior, whether it’s through a written assignment, or maybe that individual was engaged and is no longer engaged. And I think there’s a balance there too, right? Because you want to be careful, and this happens quite a bit, is not to just call that individual out in the classroom because that would only make the problem worse, alienating and isolating that individual. So what I like to do is potentially talk to the student after class, just do a general check-in or maybe it’s an email and say, “Can we hop on a Zoom? I noticed a shift in the behavior, I just want to know that you feel supported by me as the instructor.” And that lends to an additional conversation where, okay, I am supporting this individual, this individual understands that they’re being supported, but they may need another service. And so we can’t just sort of be the end-all-be-all, the nexus of our students’ lives, we have to be able to be knowledgeable of the resources at our disposal and leverage those resources. And if we’re talking about veterans, specifically, what type of resource? Are we talking about academic resources, we’re talking about counseling? We have, at Syracuse University, right across the street is the Department of Veteran Affairs. We have, like I mentioned, peer-to-peer programs, which are often very successful in having veterans talk… specifically with the most recent incident in Afghanistan, having that sort of peer dialogues about, “Hey, what are you feeling? Are you feeling this too?” And just have that sense of normality, to say, “Oh, I’m not going crazy,” if you will, “This is normal.” And then situations may resolve on their own, or there might be sort of a level of psychological distress, acute distress, that needs to be tended to. And so, if it needs to be elevated to potentially having to see a mental health expert or provider, making sure that we’re training to get them to the resources that they need.
Rebecca: One of the things that I’ve been experiencing this semester is certainly an observation of students who are actually more open to talking about mental health generally. And that, when students are experiencing some distress in that area, actually being a little bit open about it, which makes it easier to refer them to resources. But also sometimes it becomes an impairment in being able to learn in the classroom, and that some additional accommodations might need to be had. And so some of those students may never have thought about reaching out to an office like Accessibility Resources or a disability office for supports. But these are students who are now getting support because we had a conversation, and it’s something that they never, ever would have thought of doing on their own and maybe wouldn’t have done on their own. I just thought it was something that was a definite shift from what I’ve seen previously.
Ken: Yeah, this is such a great point. Again, you don’t know what you don’t know. So the asset is you, Rebecca, right, that you’re aware of these services. And I even talked to my students about this, who will be clinicians in the field of mental health providers is, we have to acknowledge that we’re not going to know at all, but we need to know where to connect them to. And so, with that being said, you hear a lot about the increase in younger individuals, and specifically students at the undergraduate and graduate level, seeking out these services. And I think we have to come from this notion that there is strength in seeking help, right, there is a purpose in caring for one another. Reaching out for social support ultimately protects all of us. It protects you, it protects your family, the ones who care about you, your communities. I say that a stronger veteran community is a stronger American society. Same goes for other students. I like to talk less about stigma, and more about the inherent strengths of the human condition. We all have them. We must continue to find them, use them to help one another. And the beauty of technology today is that this could be done via text message. It can be done over a phone call. It can be done in a virtual Zoom session. Again, there’s so many options at our disposal, and it’s a unique opportunity in our society to actually leverage them to benefit all of society. And so I want to look at the increase in individuals seeking services as not necessarily a negative, but actually a net positive, and I think this gets conflated in saying we have a mental health crisis. It’s like, well where the same individual is saying, “Now we actually have these services.” And so it moves from, in which we are, a very much a reactive society to a prevention-based society. And so if we can get folks into services sooner, then there’s better outcomes. We know this in research, there’s better outcomes across the lifespan.
Rebecca: One of the things that I’ve been doing this semester, and really probably has been promoted by the pandemic, but something I will definitely continue doing beyond the pandemic is actually just bringing up mental health as a thing that we should be concerned about as individuals. And students have responded really positively to just even having that on the agenda for a moment, just acknowledge that that’s a thing that we should be thinking about. So that’s really definitely, I think, shifted the conversations we’re having in class and the desire for community. So I’m feeling a lot of the things that you’re talking about as it being a real positive that people are being a little more willing to talk about these issues. One of the things that I struggle with sometimes is thinking about how sometimes we talk past each other when we have really different experiences. And one of those can be military and civilian talking past each other because they have such different life experiences often. I mentioned before we were recording that I had listened to season six of NPR’s Rough Translation podcast called Home/Front: Conversations Across the Civilian-Military Divide. And there’s a series of episodes that talk about how people see different circumstances differently or experience the same thing differently, as you were mentioning before, Ken. Can you talk about strategies that we can use in the classroom to help us not talk past each other, but help us explain and listen?
Ken: So I think I’m going to talk here, from my sort of veteran experience, but it has a lot to do with civilians, if you will, also. So I’ve seen firsthand that serving in the military, in and of itself, is often not the sole reason that a veteran may experience mental health challenges. Actually, sometimes, it’s quite the opposite. So it certainly can be, and often is, a contributing factor. However, what I’ve seen in my work as both an active duty mental health provider and my work in the VA, is that mental health challenges—that may be anything from trauma, or depression, anxiety, suicide—is a very complicated and complex topic, and it does not discriminate. So we do know that prior trauma is a significant risk factor for the development of PTSD and mental health disorders… complex trauma. What we see in the research again, ACEs. So, let’s break that down, what is that? So traumatic experiences that occurred during childhood and adolescence. We have evidence to support that does have an effect on one’s health across the entire lifespan. Multiple ACEs pose a significant risk for numerous health conditions: PTSD, substance use disorder, depression, suicidal ideation. Research points out individuals with military service have higher ACEs scores, but why? Well, individuals who experienced traumatic experiences during childhood may seek sanctuary in the military. This can be very positive. We should also be exploring the associations between childhood trauma and mental health problems, both in veteran populations and our overall student population, and how this impacts the rise in depression and PTSD. For prevention, we really need to hone in on these predisposing factors and have an awareness of the vulnerabilities. Because nearly half, nearly half of the suicides in recent wars have been from individuals who never deployed. You also need to be psychiatrically evaluated before you go on a deployment, so you’re looking at physical and mental fitnesses. So I believe that to really sustain improvement in the veteran health, we must first understand the critical need to sustain the improvement in the overall public health, because these veterans are civilians before they enter the military. And when they transition out, they’re often integrated right back into the communities that they came from before service… they’re part of the social fabric of our society. So with that being said, the military mirrors society, which makes this a societal issue, and a community-wide effort in response. And so we need to create awareness, to have these conversations that you’re talking about, Rebecca, about the complexities of experiencing mental health challenges, and its impact not just on the veteran but their loved ones, not just on the student but their loved ones. It’s imperative that we work together as a society and work together on sustaining the improvement in the overall public health. Because again, a strong nation leads to an even stronger military and veteran population, both physically but also mentally. You’ve heard me say now “community-level” a couple of times and so it’s like, what can we do at the community level? We need the right services in place, communities that have the means to allow these individuals to not just survive, but ultimately to really thrive. So if we attack this head on from a prevention standpoint, we need to be providing our children and adolescents with parent-support programs, job trainings, mentors, access to education, not just access to education, but actually access to quality education. Family-centered schools, including embedded mental health services, or embedded trauma-informed care conversations. And survival services like access to medical, dental, mental health care, safe stable affordable housing, access to food, and breaking down barriers. Because if they don’t have access to these basic survival services, how do you expect them to have a critical conversation with a trained mental health provider when they’re worrying about where their next meal may come from? And the single most important factor in developing resilience in children who become young adults, this can also be said for adults, is to have a stable and committed relationship with a supportive parent, caregiver, or other adult. And that needs to be done on the local, county, and national level, and across our institutions.
Rebecca: A lot of this seems like it needs to happen way before they get to us in higher ed.
Ken: Correct. Before they get to us in higher ed, and as they continue on their journey in higher ed.
Rebecca: Are there things that we can do in the meantime, while we’re helping to advocate for these things in higher ed? I’ve heard you talk about certain services, and of course we would want to advocate for those on our campuses. I know we have many of these things on our campus, for sure. But what about within this classroom space? Is there something we can do at a classroom level?
Ken: Sure, this question also comes up. It’s like, folks in the community often ask, like, “How can we help?” It’s like “oh, the magic eight ball…” this is what you can do. I don’t think there’s one single answer. I do think though, number one is through actively listening, expressing empathy, being willing to be part of what I call an integrated network of support, building folks up, not tearing them down. One mental health provider can be a huge help. However, they cannot be the nexus of one’s life, there must be linkages to support in place.,,,for veteran populations to replicate that camaraderie that they experienced in the military, which is a significant protective factor. Perhaps most notably, Rebecca, is expressing to these individuals that they’re not alone in this process that we call life. And it’s important to engage in the language, so they don’t feel othered, begin to isolate themselves, which only perpetuates the cycle and the risk involved with developing depression, or anxiety, or even post traumatic stress disorder.
John: Going back to Rebecca’s point about people talking past each other, and your earlier discussion of the diverse array of students we have in our classrooms with very different backgrounds. We’re having a reading group on inclusive teaching on our campus, and a major theme from that is encouraging faculty to treat diversity as an asset. Are there any ways that you use to encourage people to express their different identities and to bring that as an asset into the class discussions?
Ken: So a specific exercise and assignment that I try and do in all of my classes, you might be familiar with it, Rebecca and John, is there’s one sheet of paper, and it’s called an identity wheel. And you break it off, and you begin to critically evaluate and do some deep thought about: “Where do you come from? And why do you identify this way?” And how identities change over time, and that is a positive thing. And so I have to talk about one’s core belief system. Before the age of seven, we believe everything that we’re told. And so, often, like-minded people in our communities around the country gather together, that even goes for race. And so, in some ways, that’s close-minded, because you haven’t been exposed. And so, beginning there, at what point did you start to critically challenge yourself, that, “Hmm, what I was actually told, I’m not quite sure if that’s true, or that’s factual? Where did that start?” And then ultimately, “Why did it change? What were you exposed to? Was it a teacher? Was it a peer? Was it a sporting event? Did you go off to some type of camp?” Often the first time that this happens is when they leave their high school and go to college. They’re exposed to individuals of different cultural backgrounds, different religions. It’s like, “Oh, I never even met someone who was from that particular religion.” And so, I think the best way to continue to first, have an understanding of where it comes from, what is our core belief system. Being willing to challenge our core belief system. This is the diversity conversation on how we treat others, but it’s also how we treat ourselves and ultimately, the impact that it has on our mental health. So if we do not have a firm awareness of our core belief system, it really affects the way that we think. Ultimately, it affects the way that we behave, it has an ultimate effect on how we feel. So it’s always a really good starting point to say, “Okay, what do I identify with? How do I identify myself?” Someone says, “Hey Ken, introduce yourself.” Is it, “Hey I’m a veteran, I’m a professor…” Like, that’s a starting point, but I want to get a little bit deeper into that, and to the students, I say, “You don’t necessarily have to share that in the collective, but I have to get you thinking from that frame.” So, that will help you in your academic journey, that will help you in your interpersonal relationships, but it will also help you in your, sort of, professional and your career trajectory in life.
Rebecca: Yeah I love those wheels, a great way to open doors into many conversations and a great thing to do early on in the semester, for sure. We can provide a link to an example of that in the show notes.
John: That was one of the topics in Cornell’s inclusive teaching MOOC that we participated in a number of times and taken faculty through. And that is something that many of our faculty have introduced at the start of the class to help people recognize their identities and their perspectives, and to talk about the value that all these perspectives can bring to the discussion.
Ken: And consistently engaging in this process, talking about the education, it’s also sort of continuing self-exploration. How can I continue to engage in a dialogue with those around me, and not this sort of constant debate, right? The media is filled with debate and competition. We can get a lot further as humanity, not just here in the U.S., but across the world, if we can engage in dialogue about these differences, and how we can continue to sort of build each other up in sort of a united front.
John: Do you have any other suggestions for our listeners?
Ken: You asked the question earlier, “What can we do more of?” And another question that’s floated my way is, “Is there a need for more mental health services?” My answer to that is, I actually think that, in many ways we’ve become, in certain areas we’ve become, specifically in higher education, resource rich. So I think it’s this idea that it needs to be the right services in place. And to all the family members, caregivers, veterans, civilians, who are wondering what they can do, sometimes it’s very simple. It’s call the veteran, call the military member and ask how they’re doing, call the student and ask how they’re doing. Like I say in the veteran community, you never know that that call, it just saved someone’s life. Especially an individual who was going through, potentially, a traumatic situation or is alone by themselves for quite some time at their house and getting that phone call can really change some things around. So I think it’s we, as a collective, need to keep it very simple, and start there and have that dialogue, reach out and be supportive of one another, and then we can start to create those linkages.
Rebecca: Imagine that, just being a nice human being.
Ken: There you go.
John: Your earlier discussion of the need for support for veterans reminds me of a conversation we had a couple weeks ago, in a podcast that related to new federal regulations. Russ Poulin talked about a concern with the way in which the Department of Ed is treating veterans differentially, depending on whether they’re taking online or face-to-face classes. And that’s been a fairly significant issue in the last couple years during the pandemic, especially when more classes moved online, in that the housing allowance was available only for people who were taking at least one face-to-face class. And they could take the others online. But if they were taking all courses online, they were not eligible for the same housing allowance. And that seemed to be a little bit inequitable, especially during a pandemic, when many classes moved online, and some of the funding disappears for people from one semester to the next, depending on the modality of their courses that semester.
Ken: Yeah, this is a big question because it’s a systems issue and what that system is honoring, honoring residential instruction over online instruction. So this is one byproduct of that. Now if you want to look at, first off, COVID has accelerated the use of online, not just online education, but the way that we communicate. And we’ve found out, in some degree, it’s more effective and efficient. Also the quality, the traditional online, is very different from what online looks like today, in both the asynchronous sphere but also the synchronous sphere. And online education is an access issue, right? We’re talking about equality, we also talk about diversity. I see, now as director of online, that it’s a different student who is applying for the online course, a student who may have work experience, like veterans who have served in the military. They also have families, and so it’s very difficult for them to uproot their family, let’s say, from Texas, but they want a Syracuse University education, and financially and their kids are in school. Now we provide them with that opportunity to get the same sort of faculty expertise within the respective department. Also high-level tech and interaction through video conferencing like Zoom that we all use right now. And so when you sort of drill down to it’s like, okay, the quality of instruction is still there. We’re actually reaching a different type of student, not just veterans, but I also see more people of color who are applying for online education. And why is that? And so I think we have to continue to sort of unbundle what’s going on and not create a dichotomy between residential and online education. Obviously, for some professions and what you need to perform, that may look a little different. But overall, with technology, we’ve gotten really creative on how we can deliver this content. In some spaces, online is of higher quality potentially, because of all the tools that you can use at your disposal. So, I think from your question, the BAH, the Basic Allowance for Housing, for folks who are potentially in service, but folks who are using the GI Bill based on geographic location of what they get their BAH from. And we have to look at honoring online education as the same quality as going to get a residential education. It’s a social justice issue.
Rebecca: Indeed, and something we all need to advocate for.
John: One of the things I’ve noticed in my online classes, and I’ve been doing this for 20-some years now, is that a relatively large proportion of the students in my online classes are active duty personnel. I had one student who, during the Iraq War, apologized for not being able to participate because they were on radio silence. He was on a ship there, and he was not able to communicate because there was an attack that was about to take place. And many of these students were among the best students I’ve ever had, they were really focused, they were really disciplined. They always got their work done on time, and it was always really enjoyable having active duty service people in class because they set a great example for other students. And online education has opened up many more possibilities for people in the military to build a foundation that often continues after their service ends. Could you talk a little bit about that role?
Ken: I’ll backtrack a bit. So I served as an Air Force officer with individuals on the enlisted side who served with me, who did not have a college degree, who might have joined right out of high school where the traditional high school student goes off to college, right, at 17, 18 years old. And what I’ve found is, they are my right and left hand. And they’ve been doing, you know, mental health intake assessments, free screenings, briefing me on the particular case, whether it was an alcohol and drug case, or a family-advocacy case, or a military case where I would get the file and I met with him for 45 minutes prior. And done incredible work in prevention and outreach—whether it pertains to PTSD awareness, mental health, suicide—and then I realized that these folks have real-world, real-life experience. But when they get discharged, or when they transition out of the military, they don’t have a piece of paper to show for it. So they have to go back and then get a whole four-year degree. In addition, in some cases, 10, 15, 20 years of this military experience. And so what online education provides, is an opportunity for, if they’re in uniform, they can begin, potentially part time, taking courses at a reputable institution, because they’re qualified to do so, not alienating them from doing that. And so I’ll use Syracuse as an example. I’m down in Louisiana and I really want to attend and get a Syracuse University education. I can have the opportunity to take online courses while I’m in the military. So when that transition does occur, I’m not only prepared with my real-world experience, but I also have the system backing of what that degree provides for a particular profession. And that’s a significant asset for our military and veteran population and their family members, because their family members are also residing with them, whether it’s on the installation, or on post, or off post in that geographic location, which may even be overseas. So thank you for bringing that up, John. I think that we have to continue to have conversations about access to education, and what that truly means for our military veteran populations, but even our everyday civilians.
Rebecca: I can imagine, too, the ability to have that consistency. Being able to take classes from the same institution when you might be moving around, or changing location, could be really helpful, because that helps have something be consistent.
Ken: Absolutely. And they can start online part time at an institution. And I’ve seen this situation occur, and they can even go residential, if they so choose, on campus when they do transition out of the military. So it gives them a sort of foundation or a head start, so they’re not starting from the first day of college once they get out of the military.
Rebecca: After a really different amount of experience, right, like someone coming straight from high school into a college situation. That goes back to your earlier point about having a first-year student in a college setting being in really two different moments in their life.
Ken: Absolutely. And the experiences are different, but I’ll tell you the symptoms are the same. So when that 18-year-old goes off to college and leaves his or her home for the first time and goes into the dorm room, there’s anxiety involved. There might be some level of depressed mood or lack of concentration, adjustment-related issues, mixed features in some way. Same thing goes for that 18-year-old I saw in my office in uniform. There is anxiety that goes along. There’s depression, right, there’s adjustment-related, there’s phase-of-life circumstances, which is completely appropriate. It’s good that they’re coming to seek these services, to sort of work through them, for longer-term success in one’s life.
John: We always end with the question, what’s next?
Ken: What’s next for me is that I have a book called Diary of a Disposable Soldier. I’m close to getting it published. And on a weekly basis, I would go over to the Syracuse VA Medical Center in the cafeteria and meet with a veteran who was disabled, unable to type for oneself but could ultimately speak. He had found a diary that he had when he served in combat operations in Vietnam. And so he had, after 50 years, had come to grips that he wanted to tell his story. And so I’ve helped him along with several other individuals, get this work completed. Unfortunately, he passed in December. And so it’s my mission, in the coming weeks and months, to get this published and get it out there for friends, for family, folks that he’s served with in Vietnam, and other individuals who are curious about one’s experience during the Vietnam War.
Rebecca: Sounds like a really important and powerful work we can all look forward to reading soon. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. It was really great hearing your perspective and thinking through so many important issues related to veterans but also just to our wider community.
Ken: Thank you, Rebecca. Thank you, John, so much. Wish you both a wonderful weekend.
John: Thank you for joining us.
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John: If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes or your favorite podcast service. To continue the conversation, join us on our Tea for Teaching Facebook page.
Rebecca: You can find show notes, transcripts and other materials on teaforteaching.com. Music by Michael Gary Brewer.
John: Editing assistance provided by Anna Croyle.
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