“Have you killed anyone? Have you shot someone?” These are just some of the routine questions students at Baruch College ask when they find out some of their classmates are U.S veterans. With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over, many soldiers are returning home to continue life where they left off, in college and university classrooms.
Veterans Integration to Academic Leadership, VITAL, is an outreach program created solely to help U.S. service men and women feel welcome and relaxed with their adjustment to college. Information desks set up at different colleges in America, including the Baruch College Campus in New York City, give veterans access to several areas. “I think it’s something very right the government is doing on behalf of people who served in our country,” said Yvette Branson, an initiative coordinator for the pilot program VITAL at Baruch College.
After the danger of war becomes routine for these veterans, integration back into normalcy is a challenge for some. Studies done with PW Research Organization in 2012 showed only 5 percent of veterans asked said they would have an easy time putting down their weapons to pick up a text book, sparking the idea for VITAL.
Still a pilot program, VITAL intends to assist in the transition from soldier to student in several different ways, encompassing the different needs of veterans. All services are free and range from Veteran Work Study opportunities to T’ai Chi with civilians who volunteer to help. Those civilians can be students and even teachers at Baruch–or whichever college where the program is located. Veterans are only allowed to participate if they have a civilian partner and vice versa. Through these paired or group activities, veterans get a chance to ease back into life before the war zone. Information sessions will also be available to the VITAL faculty and volunteers in order to create a
better understanding between them and the veterans.
“I would like to get a better insight since we learn about wars in school,” said Julian Jimenez, a rising college freshman, when first told about the VITAL program. A survey done around the Baruch Vertical Campus showed that many students and faculty did, in fact, know that they were among former soldiers, but the majority did not know of VITAL. When further questioned on whether they would volunteer to help veterans, few were honest and said no, but many said if they could fit it into their busy schedule they would be willing to help. It would be the civilian’s turn to serve those soldiers who once put their lives on the line to protect America.