Beth: But when I first started, it wasn’t a narrative that was really talked about a lot. And so that was the challenge that I had of talking them through who these folks were. And as soon as they started interviewing them as students, they started being successful on their campus. You know, you can look at Columbia as a great example, you know, with over 500 student veterans. We get it. Columbia gets it. You know, and I think even when I first started, I couldn’t say it at the time because I worked for the government and couldn’t show preference to any one particular outside organization, but, Columbia was always, in my mind, really leading the way and what they were trying to do even back then. I think there’s a lot of great colleges and universities that are doing good work today. But back I looked at Columbia as sort of the gold standard for how it can be done and how it can be done right.
Elizabeth:What were some of the challenges that you experienced when working with these programs?
Beth: Well, I think across all of them, and for us today as a center, is people knowing that these resources exist. A lot of it is word of mouth. You know, I would say even within the Marine Corps, you know, LSP being a Marine Corps program, you have the ability to market it directly to Marines. And it was still a challenge for people to hear about it. I mean, that was always my goal was with LSP I didn’t want a Marine who qualified for LSP to leave the Marine Corps, without knowing about it. They could choose not to participate. That’s perfectly fine. But I didn’t want to hear the “Gosh, I wish I would have known.” So, you know, so we had that challenge within LSP. And I think, you know, many nonprofits and many programs that are out there have the challenge of getting the word out that this program exists because, again, they’re going to get information as they’re going through the transition from the military, but then getting connected either to the V.A, to some of the programs that are available, some of these great nonprofits out there that are doing good work, can sometimes be a challenge. So that’s probably one of the biggest things that we deal with, even as a center-based at Columbia. How do we get the word out that it exists and it’s here to help people.
