Student veterans are ready to combine their voices to help others transition from military service to college life. In a recent meeting, a group of veterans decided to create the Student Veterans of UNM, a group dedicated to providing the support that fellow vets need when entering college.
Photo (l. to r.): The officers of the new Student Veterans of UNM include Tomas Trujillo, treasurer, Zack Mutchler, vice-president, Jeremy Zimmerman, secretary and Darrin Kowitz, president.
The new group is the brainchild of Darrin Kowitz a doctoral student in sociology.
“For me personally, forming this organization lies at the intersection of my identities as a veteran, a student, and a sociologist, all within the context of the current state of US military and veteran policy,” said Kowitz, who also serves as president of the newly formed organization.
Kowitz, who served in the army during the 1990’s, created the group to support veterans attending UNM.
“We live in a society that produces large numbers of military veterans, and in particular over the past 5 years, combat veterans,” Kowitz said. “There are around 500 student veterans at UNM, and until now they've had little, if any, institutional structural support.”
One of the problems that many veterans who have left the military find is they must pay for their first semester tuition out of pocket, then get reimbursement when their GI Bill kicks in.
The Student Veterans of UNM is only part of a larger effort to help the university become more hospitable to military veterans. Kowitz, along with Student Veterans of UNM faculty advisor Lee St. Pierre, has been working with President Schmidly’s office to create a UNM Veterans Outreach Center.
“We know that only roughly ten percent of eligible veterans in New Mexico are using their educational benefits,” Kowitz said. “The goal of the center would be to increase that number.”
Kowitz hopes that working cooperatively with the university will benefit both veterans returning from their service and preparing to integrate back into civilian, and scholastic, society, and the University of New Mexico.
“We’re still in the early stages of the project, but both President Schmidly and I share a commitment to the veterans of New Mexico,” Kowitz added.
Kowitz has also received support for the new center from U.S. Representative Heather Wilson, an Air Force Academy graduate, and New Mexico Secretary of Veterans Services John Garcia.
The next meeting for this group is scheduled for Tuesday, June 3 at 7 p.m. A meeting location has not been determined yet. If you are interested in joining the group, please contact Darrin Kowitz at dkowitz@unm.edu.