Broward College will host a Veterans Open House and Tribute on Monday, Nov. 9 from 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the A. Hugh Adams Central Campus, 3501 SW Davie Rd., Building 10 (gym) in Davie. The event will include representatives from several organizations that provide services to veterans for healthcare, employment, and more. There will also be information about the new Post-9/11 GI Bill education benefits, and what Broward College has to offer student veterans.
The “Veterans Open House and Tribute”, free and open to the public, will have a brief program at 12 p.m. and a presentation by a panel of experts, including student veterans. Questions from the audience will be answered by the panelists. Information tables staffed by representatives of community resource organizations will be available throughout the event.
Refreshments will be served. Drawings will be held for prizes including gift certificates for books and courses.
“Mostly, people don’t know what’s out there,” said Shane Weber, a Broward College student veteran and reservist, and also a part-time employee who is staffing the veterans’ answer center on the college’s North Campus in Coconut Creek. He said many student veterans get their information “from the ‘Joe network.’ They hear things from other soldiers.” Weber, 26, who served for five years in the Navy, will be the moderator of the panel discussion and question-and-answer segment of the Nov. 9th event. The issues faced by student veterans are many, including delays in VA payments for books and living expenses (tuition is paid by the VA directly to the school, and these are backlogged as well), lack of information about education benefits and how to access them, physical and hidden disabilities (such as PTSD) that may require academic accommodations they may not know are available, and difficulty navigating the systems of the VA and the institution of higher learning.
There are new veterans’ answer centers on each of Broward College’s three main campuses, and also one full-time, collegewide veterans’ affairs coordinator to help student veterans get the information they need and access the benefits they’ve earned. Broward College ranks among the top 100 schools in the country in the number of student veterans. In the 2008-2009 academic year there were 975 student veterans enrolled, with 535 of them new admissions. The college has launched several initiatives to support their success.
Savannah Hawes is a Broward College student and Air Force veteran and reservist who is using her GI Bill benefits to finance her education. “The new GI Bill is amazing,” she said. “There’s a big difference from the old GI Bill. It’s such a blessing.” Hawes, 26, the mother of two young boys, is planning to transfer to a four-year university’s pre-med program, and to go on to become “a pre-intervention cardiologist.” She will participate on the panel at the “Veterans Open House and Tribute.”
The population of student veterans at all Florida colleges and universities, and across the country, has grown tremendously since the new Post-9/11 GI Bill took effect on Aug. 1 of this year. With its greatly enhanced education benefits, enrollment of veterans is expected to continue to increase. In Florida community colleges alone, there are more than 14,000 student veterans on the GI Bill this term, an increase of more than 40% since last year. For more information visit www.broward.edu/sfs, or e-mail veterans@broward.edu.
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