Texas Tech\u2019s Office of the Provost hosted the Uniformed Service Symposium Friday at the United Supermarket Arena to launch the newly formed Uniformed Service Center.<\/p>\n
The symposium invited veterans, first responders, families and Lubbock community members to learn and ask questions about the USC to a panel of faculty and veteran alumni. The panel included D\u2019Juan Wilcher, Greg Dotson, Provost Ronald Hendrick and Wendy Masiello.<\/p>\n
Military and Veteran Services liaison and symposium moderator Patrick Albritton said the USC is meant to establish a central location for veteran information and reduce confusion from veteran students by offering personal assistance to help with benefits, resources and forms.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want a one-stop shop where they don’t have to hunt and peck to figure out what’s going on and how to do things,\u201d Albritton said. \u201cResources already exist, and we want a location where all those resources and the smart people to help find them are located together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Albritton said the USC hopes to build a close relationship with veterans and community members by not only helping them, but teaching them how to access services or fill out forms like Hazzlewood applications on their own.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead of just having that frequently asked question page, I want almost a concierge,\u201d Abritton said. \u201cThere is this person that explains it to you and you go, \u2018Oh, now I get it now. I can fill that out.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
One failing of Tech\u2019s current veterans program, Albritton said, is that information regarding benefits is spread out and outreach fails to get the attention of prospective veteran students.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of times when we look at the military, they’re looking for something quick to make a quick decision,\u201d Albritton said. \u201cThey want to know, how can they afford it? Does it meet their expectations? And if they have to spend too much time looking, they’re moving on.\u201d<\/p>\n
When discussing how to draw in more veterans to Tech, retired U.S. Army veteran and Tech Alum Greg Dotson said the university needs to focus on not only supporting veterans, but their families as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to make Tech a family destination,\u201d Dotson said. \u201cWe have to help student veterans and their whole family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Albritton said the symposium was a stepping stone toward helping build the USC, and he intends to regularly reach back out to the uniformed service community to hear their wants and needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about getting back with those groups of people and asking who really wants to help work and advocate for this program,\u201d Albritton said. \u201cIt\u2019s about building the foundation of a vision then working with the administration on the next steps to bring it to fruition.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas Tech\u2019s Office of the Provost hosted the Uniformed Service Symposium Friday at the United Supermarket Arena to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[168,170,169,223],"class_list":{"0":"post-60222","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-lubbock","8":"tag-lubbock","9":"tag-lubbock-headlines","10":"tag-lubbock-news","11":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}