Serving the University of Toledo community since 1919.

UT recognized as a top school for military education

Sam Derkin, Staff Reporter

image_pdfimage_print

The University of Toledo was named a top school for military and veteran education in the Guide to Colleges and Universities section of Military Advanced Education (MAE) magazine.

According to UT News, MAE magazine evaluates military support policies, such as military culture, financial aid flexibility and support services both on-campus and online.

“Most of these awards are based upon an analysis on what an institution offers to their students — that’s their service members and their families,” said the military liaison for the Military Service Center, Lt. Haraz Ghanbari.

Ghanbari said a questionnaire comes out in MAE magazine looking for statistical data on how many students a university has, how much staff and the support groups available at the university. The questionnaire also includes student workers within the office and how many personnel a university has to work directly with veterans on campus.

“So we [the Military Service Center] try to make sure that when a veteran comes in we can take care of all of their needs at one location instead of sending them around,” Ghanbari said. “We partner real closely with adult transfer and military admissions, which is in the front of the suite, so once a student’s admitted and they annotate on their application if they’ve had military service, adult transfer military admissions will bring them back to our office.”

Ghanbari said one of the services UT provides is a robust military lounge in Rocket Hall, which was finished last year with donations from the community.

“That’s another great opportunity for vets to get with other vets,” Ghanbari said. “People aren’t typically designed to go at life alone and so in the military we have a saying, ‘you have your battle buddy or your shipmate,’ so this is kind of an opportunity to get together with other folks that are going through some of the same challenges as you.”

Although Ghanbari said he was grateful for the recognition, he stressed the importance of looking toward the future.

“That award in a nut shell recognizes the university for all of the things that we’re doing to help our student veterans and dependents,” Ghanbari said. “It’s great to be recognized by outside organizations but, as the military liaison at the university, I can tell you there’s still more work we can be doing. And we’re going to continue to explore way to partner with other organizations in the community and to continue to elevate our support services for our veterans.”

One of the organizations the service center has partnered with is the UT chapter of Student Veterans of America. Dan Hatfield and Tyler Lange are the president and vice president of SVA as well as student workers in the service center.

Lange said that the organization is a good way for older veterans and veterans to connect and create a community.

“It’s the camaraderie; it’s a good way to interact with people who have gone through similar experiences and most of the time veterans go through extremely unique experiences so they don’t really relate to anyone else,” Lange said.

As a student worker, Lange said the office is open to helping all veterans as much as possible.

“Some people stop in, looking to go to UT and end up knowing a lot more and a lot more benefits that they can receive when they walk out the door,” Lange said. “It’s a one-stop shop. You come in here, even if it’s not related to educational benefits, we’re going to know the answer. And if we don’t know the answer, we’ll get the answer for you.”

Ghanbari said the service center is interested in helping all military personnel regardless of whether or not they find UT to be the right fit.

“We might not offer every program that every veteran wants,” Ghanbari said. “So if I can still help a veteran in this area and direct him to another institution, it’s about doing what’s right for the veteran; sometimes it’s not always doing what’s right for the institution.”

Ghanbari said working with other schools in the area was an important tool to providing better services to veterans.

“Bowling Green might be our rivals on the gridiron or on the basketball court but at the end of the day they’ve got veterans on their campus as well. So if there’s things that we can share with Bowling Green to help their veterans we’re going to do it, and we have done it,” he said.

Ghanbari said he was grateful for the recognition of things the Military Service Center has done and for the support from UT staff and the community.

“The things that we’ve done in this office wouldn’t be possible without the support of others across this campus — from other students, to staff and faculty, to senior administration, as well as the support of the veteran service organizations in town,” he said. “This award isn’t reflective of the efforts just in this office; this award is reflective of the support that members of this community have for our student veteran population, which I think speaks volumes.”

Print Friendly

Leave a Comment