Phil: I have seen students vanish. Homeless kid. Homeless Air Force veteran. He vanished. But there is nothing I can do about that. David, at the veterans office, came to me and said that one of my students was living in a shelter. I mean what in the F in the actual fuck. What in the actual fuck. And he doesn’t want to come to class because he doesn’t have clean clothes. Please, seriously?! Yea I have seen failures. I know as a professor I have the ability to shape that kids experience, the only thing that is in our power is to point him in the direction of appropriate services. It is not an academic matter at that stage.
Elizabeth Shouldn’t it be an academic matter at that stage if a student is paying fees ?
Phil: The fees do go to other campus services and mental health resources but we don’t have fees that go anywhere towards providing housing. You can go to the gym to shower but that sucks as a life option. There isn’t a social work agency on campus.
One of my students got arrested. He said to me that he happened to have a knife, and the cop, who was a vet too, saw that he had a Purple Heart. I found a lawyer, also a Vietnam vet, and we went to court with him. Took the day off…. The judge did say “So you are a Vietnam Vet and your professor is here?” [laughsThe case was dismissed thankfully.I mean, you do what you can do. I guess that’s a success? I will call it a success. To get the case dismissed and he got no record.
But what else can the college realistically do, if the students don’t come to me?
The question you should be asking is what we should do with the faculty in that they are better aware and how they should handle student veterans?
And it’s hard because students have to be treated the same. The only accommodations we can give are those mandated by disabilities services. So if you have TBI and you are with disability services, no problem. But if a student is asking for time off, and they don’t want to admit they have a PTSD problem, and I know that they have this problem, I can’t do anything about it. It’s not fair to the rest of the class.
Elizabeth: Do you think faculty members should go through training on how to deal with student veterans?
Phil: We talked about it. Military cultural competence. And it is available to faculty members. And it’s gotten mixed reviews. It’s offered by CUNY central. You can’t get faculty to do anything [laughs]. So we can’t force them but we are trying to make them aware. So one thing we trying to do, we got a student who is maybe on academic probation, so we should be sending out notes from the Veteran Services office around midterms saying “Hey faculty member, do you know this student is a vet? Can you report to the office about their status and progress.” That’s a fair request.This allows the veteran office to intervene.
Elizabeth: But do the faculty members actually do this?
Phil: They are supposed to respond to those requests.
Elizabeth: But they all don’t do it?
Phil: They all don’t do it.
Elizabeth: So perhaps it should be mandatory –
Phil: Possibly
Elizabeth: for those students that have disabilities or are student veterans
Phil: The language of the email indicates that you must do it but again there’s no penalty. [end]
