This chapter includes strategies for meaningful and useful assessment for military-connected students. The authors define and clarify the distinctions among the population, address common assumptions and perceptions, and link implications and strategies for assessment and research to specific population characteristics.

Disruption of educational pursuits due to orders for military activation is inconvenient and discouraging to students who are soldiers. Deployment was an issue at institutions of higher education during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in 1990 and 1991 and during the peace-keeping mission in Bosnia in 1996. Four weeks after the attacks of…

Students who have experienced conflict as members of the military come to college expecting to be supported, if not honored for their service. One way that campus administrators can facilitate transitions for student veterans is to assist in founding and maintaining campus-based student organizations for veterans. Military service is a bonding…

The purpose of this chapter is to offer frameworks and considerations for student affairs professionals seeking to serve the transition needs of the current generation of student veterans. The historical intersections of the military and higher education, particularly with respect to the effects of the draft on students and higher education,…

Active-duty personnel, reservists, veterans, and their spouses or dependents represent 30% of the 10,000 students at the University of West Florida (UWF). With base realignment activities, a rise in the number of troops returning from deployments, and an increase in military-affiliated students on campus, the needs of veterans and their families…

Today, America is being challenged to meet the needs of unprecedented numbers of wounded and disabled veterans returning from military service. In past conflicts such as those in Korea and Vietnam, approximately three service members were wounded for every one who died. However, in the current conflict in Iraq, the ratio of wounded--including…

The number of women veterans attending college is increasing. This suggests that campus professionals need to become aware of how issues associated with mental health, sexual assault, and gender identity may influence how women veterans make the transition into the higher education environment. This chapter addresses the special needs of women…

Some reserve and National Guard personnel are enrolled in college. Much like those who choose not to attend college, reservists and Guard members who are students are challenged by issues of separation from family and employment. However, members of the reserves and National Guard who are college students must also separate from their educational…