Portland State Magazine Fall 2021

FALL 2021 // 31 S oon after I started teaching at PSU in 2004, I noticed the veterans were not participating in class. Many individuals at the time were returning from either Operation Enduring Freedom or Operation Iraqi Freedom and didn’t feel that the civilian world would understand what they were going through. A chance encounter with the then- dean of the School of Extended Studies Mike Burton led from one thing to another and we decided we needed to do something about the situation. We started meeting with a third veteran off campus and eventually formed a veterans task force. At the time, despite PSU’s founding, the campus climate was one of hostility toward the U.S. military. And, even though my students knew that my area of research included the military, I never disclosed that I had both served on active duty and was, at that time, still serving in the reserves. I conceived of the idea that we should study these veterans’ needs during their academic pursuits at the university. We collectively learned what we had anecdotally surmised all along—that student veterans indeed felt estranged. Yes, they were attending the university as students, but they didn’t feel connected to the university as a community. We convinced the State Legislature to give us the seed money to do a pilot for one year for what we then called the Student Veterans Service Office. Given the success of this project, Gov. Ted Kulongoski—a veteran himself— helped push House Bill 2178, which said any higher education institution within the Oregon university system that received funds from the state had to create a student veterans service office. The federal government got wind of what we were doing at PSU. General Eric Shinseki, who was the head of the USVA [United States Department of Veterans Affairs], visited in 2009 to give us accolades. A few years later, the Student Veterans Service Office was renamed the Veterans Resource Center. What was created at PSU, based on my research, was used as a model for creating veterans resource centers around the country. Little did we know that something this small could have resulted in such a phenomenal thing for the benefit of so many. U.S. AIR FORCE AND U.S. AIR FORCE RESERVE G.L.A. Harris G.L.A. Harris, former public administration faculty, taught at PSU for 17 years and was instrumental in the creation of PSU’s Veterans Resource Center.