East Tennessee State University student Brandon Paul spent nine years serving his country as a member of the Coast Guard. Stationed at various locations throughout the United States, Paul is now a junior who plans to apply to the university’s dental hygiene program this semester.
The support he has received at ETSU helped propel him forward.
“The Veterans Affairs office on campus has been a complete blessing to have, and the staff, especially David Haselroth, consistently goes above and beyond for the military-affiliated students on campus,” he said. “I honestly couldn’t imagine attending without this office.”
It’s experiences like this that helped ETSU again earn the Military Friendly® School designation for the 12th consecutive year. A prestigious honor, institutions that earn these designations are evaluated using both public data sources and responses from surveys.
“ETSU has been recognized as a military-friendly campus for well over a decade,” said Dan Bishop, director of Veterans Affairs at ETSU. “We should be proud that our efforts are consistently recognized for our support of the veteran student population, and more broadly, the sons and daughters of our veterans that are here at ETSU.”
ETSU has hundreds of veterans and military-affiliated students, which includes military spouses. They receive priority registration for classes each semester, exclusive access to social and study space at ETSU’s Military-Affiliated Student Resource Center, membership in the ETSU chapter of the Student Veterans of America and personalized support from Veterans Affairs.
Scholarships and out-of-state tuition waivers are also available, in addition to work-study positions for students using GI Bill® benefits.
This honor should make ETSU proud, Bishop said, but it shouldn’t generate complacency.
“We have something special here. ETSU has consistently produced generation after generation of servant leaders who have sought a life focused on meeting the needs of the Appalachian region and the nation,” he said. “We should cherish that tradition and encourage the next generation to pick up the torch of service, whether it be in uniform, medical scrubs, in the classroom, or countless other professions focused on taking care of others. How can we as a university support that call to service?”
To learn more about scholarships and other benefits available to military-affiliated students at ETSU, visit etsu.edu/veterans or contact [email protected] or (423) 439-6819.
