Jackson State University News April 2017 JCSU hosts conference on veteran student issues Less than 1 percent of the U.S. population has ever served in the armed forces, but this demographic is growing exponentially in Charlotte. To better serve this population, Johnson C. Smith University proudly hosted the Charlotte regional conference of the North Carolina Student Transition Resource Initiative for Veteran's Education (NC STRIVE) on April 5, 2017, furthering the organization's mission to enhance veteran student success. Representatives from more than a dozen North Carolina institutions of higher learning attended, along with military students and their families, to learn about the options available to assist student veterans in achieving their goals. Dr. Cheryl Curtis, JCSU's director of Educational Enhancement Services and Dedicated Veteran Advocate, sat on the NC STRIVE steering committee that facilitated the planning of this regional conference. "We were the first of three conferences to be held across the region," Curtis said. "I've attended the others, and people are in awe of the job we did at JCSU. Everything about the conference exceeded expectations." This year's NC STRIVE focused on the behavioral health of the military student/veteran, with a keynote address on Student Veteran Success and Post-traumatic Growth delivered by world-renowned expert Richard Tedeschi, University of North Carolina Charlotte professor of psychology. There were panel discussions on federal, state, and community resources. The most-attended discussion was a student panel which included current JCSU social work major Sameerah Williams. Williams and other students shared insight on their college experiences as veterans and which policies affected them positively or negatively. As a result of the conference's success, the North Carolina Governor's Working Group on Veterans, Service Members and Their Families asked Curtis to lend her expertise toward their goal of moving NC STRIVE beyond conferences. How would that look? "Strengthening the cultural competency of higher learning institutions is an immediate focus," Curtis said. "Some of the occupational skills they built in the military, such as leadership and determination, readily translate to the civilian workplace, but others don't as easily. So they need higher education, and faculty and staff that understand military culture and their unique challenges. That's how we'll support this population's transition to the higher education landscape." SANDRA M. PHOENIX HBCU Library Alliance Executive Director Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library 111 James P. Brawley Drive SW Atlanta, GA 30314 404-978-2118 (office) 404-702-5854 (cell) http://www.hbculibraries.org/ sphoenix@hbculibraries.org<mailto:sphoenix@hbculibraries.org<mailto:sphoenix@hbculibraries.org%3cmailto:sphoenix@hbculibraries.org>> Honor the ancestors, honor the children. Follow us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hbculibraryalliance1/ and Twitter https://twitter.com/HBCULibAlliance Check out "PULSE!" The HBCU Library Alliance's News Source! - https://hbculibraryalliance.wordpress.com/