Southwest Tennessee Community College Scoop Newsletter
In This Issue...
- Message from President Tracy D. Hall
- Finance and Administration welcomes three new team members
- Southwest security focus of recent Pizza with the President
- Upward Bound students meet local professionals at Taking the Next Steps conference
- TSBDC hosts Lunch n’ Learn on new tax law
- Saluqi Basketball has banner year
- Southwest faculty and staff are a hit at national ATD conference
- African American History Month closes out with read-in
- Local engineers council honors Southwest student
- Welcome aboard, new team members
- Smash-Up fundraiser honors military hero April 7
- Southwest honor society earns 5-Star rating
- Dates to Remember
- Saluqi Athletics Corner
- Southwest Veteran’s Affairs presents training aimed at empowerment
- Help Wanted: Reconnect Ambassadors
Southwest Veteran’s Affairs presents training aimed at empowerment
Veterans Empowerment Training facilitator Marcus VanCleave
Nearly 40 Southwest students, faculty and staff attended the Veterans Empowerment Training event presented at the Macon Cove and Union Avenue campuses last month. Southwest’s Office of Veterans Affairs presented the seminar to educate the campus community on resources and services available to help United States military veterans better transition into civilian life and succeed in college.
“I had no clue that a lot of our veteran students have trouble letting us know that they are veterans,” Enrollment Specialist Cortez Nunley said. “A lot of times we as employees talk to our students, but never take the time to listen,” he added. “When you take time to listen, you find out something you didn’t know.”
Southwest Veterans Affairs Coordinator Tonya Birdsong says such training is imperative to ensure the Southwest community does all it can to meet the needs of veterans. “Because veterans are a diverse population with an incredibly wide range of experiences, it is impossible to take a one-size-fits-all approach to servicing them,” she said. “As veterans enter into higher education classrooms, they face daily transitional challenges that affect their academic success.” Birdsong says Southwest is creating and fostering veteran-specific programs not only to serve veteran students, but also to position Southwest as “one of the most military-friendly campuses in West Tennessee.”
Tennessee Department of Veterans Service State Coordinator Marcus VanCleave facilitated the seminar in his agency’s quest to serve more than 30 campuses in West Tennessee and more than 90 campuses statewide. VanCleave is no stranger to military service. A combat veteran who served during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, he recently transitioned to the civilian workforce after reaching the rank of staff sergeant in the United States Marine Corps.
The seminar presenters also included Arthur Johnson, transition patient advocate at the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Memphis VA Medical Center and Denesse Torpoco, Global War on Terrorism readjustment counseling outreach specialist at the Memphis Vet Center.
To learn more about veterans services at Southwest, call Tonya Birdsong in the Office of Veterans Affairs at 901-333-4174.