By Hannah Fermanich
NMU has found its place on “G.I. Jobs” magazine list of 2012 Military-Friendly Schools.
Over 7,000 schools throughout the nation are evaluated using surveys and research to determine the 2012 Military-Friendly Schools list.
NMU was a part of the top 15 percent of schools that were deemed to provide the most assistance for veterans. Service members wishing to acquire an education, sealing its place on the list for the third consecutive year according to the “G.I. Jobs” website.
“I’m glad that NMU has been recognized for its efforts,” said Lt. Col. Kyle Rambo. “Even though it was voted military- friendly, NMU is still trying to keep going and make it better for service members.”
Universities are evaluated based on four different categories including non-financial efforts for recruiting service members through programs offered, financial assistance offered to students, how effective the university’s recruiting efforts are, and the different accreditations the school has earned according to the “G.I. Job” website.
One of the reasons that NMU has been placed on this list is for its financial contribution towards past and present service members attaining their education through NMU.
For incoming high school students and current college students interested in the ROTC program, NMU offers scholarships that include 100 percent coverage of tuition and fees, $600 a semester towards books, a monthly stipend ranging from $300 to $500, a housing allowance, and the possibility to qualify for the student loan repayment program, Rambo said.
“The financial aid office is very understanding that it can take longer for some government grants towards school to go into effect,” said Simon Zelinski, a ROTC cadet and junior biology major.
On top of the scholarships already available to service members, NMU participates in the Yellow Ribbon Program for out of state students.
The program is designed to compensate for the remaining out of state costs that the original scholarships don’t cover according to the G.I. Job’s website.
NMU also works with students to ensure the time they spend in training counts towards their academics. Students who spend time in different training courses or have done so in the past are eligible to receive academic credit towards their degree.
“The school involves us in the Wildcat football games and instructors are also more flexible about giving time off for training,” Zelinski said.
The Veterans Affair’s Center through NMU provides information to soldiers wishing to come back as a student. They work with the soldiers to make sure they receive the academic credit that they have earned and to ease the transition back into school.
The university also works hard to ensure that service members coming in with credits are able to transfer them, said Cpt. Benjamin Hormann, executive officer and assistant professor of military science.
A mentorship program is also available for cadets, allowing seniors to help freshmen with classes and getting into the flow of school and training, Hormann said.
There is more available to service members than just academic and financial assistance. NMU’s campus and the surrounding community offer a sense of support and encouragement to veterans.
“Whenever I’m out to lunch in my uniform, I always have someone coming up to me to shake my hand and thank me for my service,” Hormann said.
The military science department is looking to create a meeting place for service members to socialize and connect with each other. They are also currently working on restarting a veterans group on campus to help soldiers reconnect and to talk to people with similar experiences, Rambo said.
G.I. Jobs is a magazine publication dedicated to helping veterans succeed after their time spent in the service.
David • Oct 6, 2011 at 4:08 pm
I am a retired US Navy veteran and until this past spring a student at NMU. I spent 4 semester there before leaving to take a job with US Steel in Ecorse, MI. Each of the past two years The North Wind has published an article similar to this one when NMU was voted “military friendly”. And after reading each article I stopped and asked myself, “in what ways is NMU truely military friendly, and how can it become MORE friendly to veterans?”
Within a couple of weeks of starting my first semester I contacted Mr. William Bernard,Associate Provost for Student Services and Enrollment, about forming a student veterans group with the ultimate goal of becoming a chapter of Student Veterans of America. I recieved a lot of help from Mr. Bernard and am confident that he has the best interest of NMU’s veteran students at heart. Unfornately, my attepmts to form that group never came to fruition as there seemed to be a general lack of interest from my fellow veteran students. But, from what I could tell NMU is definately friendly towards veteran students from the Administration end.
As long as the paperwork is filed correctly and on time the VA seemed very good about paying for veterans tuition. While I never spoke to anyone in the Registrars office about it, I’m sure that from a bill collections standpoint, the veteran students were definately welcomed. Again, NMU is seen as military friendly.
All of my professors where aware that I was retired military. When a 40 year old freshman is in class, they tended to ask questions about my background. I honestly expected to get some grief from them. After all I heard for years about the “liberal leanings” of educators and their distrust of the military in general, but I never felt that way. I felt that I was a welcome addition to all of my classes by my professors. Some even openly voiced their pleasure in having veteran students in class over high school graduates. They appreciated the discipline that military people bring to nearly everything they do. Here, I found NMU to be very military friendly.
I also expected some negativity from the student body when I first started and I was happily surprised to get none. Or very little. I often found myself answering a lot of questions about where I had served, the places I had visited, and what being in the Navy was really like. Again, military friendly!
When I first joined the Navy in 1989, fresh out of high school, I trained to be a Nuclear Mechanical Operator. I spent the first two years of my navy career in school. Learning mathematics, nuclear physics, electrical power theory and generating equipment, nuclear reactor technology, thermodynamics (heat transfer and fluid flow), chemistry, materials science and metallurgy, health physices (radiological controls), reactor principles and fluid power. When I submitted my navy training transcripts for credit evaluation I was awarded some credits, but NOTHING that counted toward the major that I originally wanted to pursue, Secondary Education Physics. For all the years of study and 20 years experience as a nuclear reactor operator on submarines I received 40 “general elective” credits. What a joke! From this perspective, and lets be honest, how much credit veterans will receive for their former military training, this is THE biggie, NMU is sorely lacking. Other than my GI BIll the only real benefit that a full 20 year military career gave me over a freshman right out of high school is that I didn’t have to take HP 200 because I received credit for that class for graduating boot camp. NMU is very, very unfriendly to veterans when it comes to granting credit for experience and training in the military.
NMU could be more friendly toward veterans and draw more in by taking some very simple steps:
1. Actively recruit them. Upon leaving the military, all members are required to attend some type of Transition Assistance Program class. It’s usually a week long seminar aimed at helping them reacclimate to a civilian life. Resume writing, job search tips, and discussions of VA benefits etc. But colleges and universities are allowed to give presentations at these seminars. NMU could contact Family Service Centers at major military basis and ask to send representatives of the school, preferably other veteran students, to talk about the school and how “military friendly it is.” This would draw them in I believe.
2. At the beginning of the fall and winter semesters during orientation, have presentations specifically for veterans students. Specifiaclly with financial aid and the VA representative. Veterans needs are quite different from other students and need to be addressed separately. Don’t force them to find all the answers themselves because in some cases they are not getting very valuable information.
3. Address the issue with credit for military training! The acedemic departments need to work with the registrars office to give accurate and meaningful evaluations of training and award credit where it has clearly been earned. I know a retired Army veteran who is currently a NMU student who taught orienteering and field navigation for the army but was refused HP 252B Orienteering credit. HP251 Backpacking, HELLO! In my own case, I’m trained to calculate estimated critical rod heights, and can discuss in detail the benefits of a reactor designed to use a moderator with a negative temperature coeeficient but I can’t get credit for PH201?
4. Promote the formation of an NMU chapter of the Student Veterans of America! They do great work on the behalf of veteran students and are rapidly becoming as big and recognized as the VFW and American Legion in Washington D.C.
These 4 simple steps would go a very long way to helping NMU to become military friendly in ways that are more tangible than another feel good article for The North Wind.
David Wright
United States Navy (retired)
former NMU student