It’s a day when people and institutions across the country honor past and current military men and women for their service to the nation.
The University of Louisville Office of Military and Veteran Student Services has planned several activities throughout the week for veteran students, faculty and staff, as well as a campuswide event on Thursday. UofL Today will honor veterans with related stories each day this week, and feature historical tidbits in the UofL Today e-mail.
But while special recognitions bring to the forefront people and groups that deserve honor, veterans, active duty personnel and their families on campus and in the community are and long have been part of UofL’s daily consciousness.
Veterans and military personnel are an integral part of the UofL community. Some 225 veterans are UofL faculty and staff. Some employees still are active military personnel in reserve and National Guard forces.
The number of veterans enrolled as students has grown steadily through this decade. More than 800 UofL students are veterans; another 100 active duty men and women take classes at the university — many of them online from points around the world.
In January, UofL opened new space for its Office of Military and Veterans Services, designed specifically to help the growing number of veteran students transition from the warzone to the classroom and then into the work force.
The university’s commitment to helping these students succeed resulted in GI Jobs magazine naming UofL a Top Military Friendly school for the past two years. Only 15 percent of the nation’s 7,000 colleges, universities and trade schools engage in the level of recruitment and academic support of military students needed to receive this designation.
UofL work with veterans and military personnel also includes:
- Sponsoring the Veteran Symposium for Higher Education each year, to help other schools develop veteran friendly campuses.
- Providing on-post and online educational opportunities through the Fort Knox Extended Campus.
- Participating for more than 35 years in GoArmyEd, which provides educational programs to members of the U.S. Armed Forces and the local community.
- Giving valuable hands-on experience to medics from the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division Medical Corps from Fort Knox before their deployment to Afghanistan in December.
- Helping Army personnel at Fort Knox develop a program designed to optimize soldiers’ health and fitness.
- Providing faculty physicians, residents and student physicians to serving the 40,000 veterans and active duty personnel who seek medical services at the Louisville VA Medical Center.