VMC Student-Veteran Survey Spring 2015

In compliance with a state mandate in Ohio House Bill 488 the VMC surveyed the
student-veteran population to assess which VMC services are most important to
them, the top reasons students are using the Student Center and how comfortable
they are in it, how likely they would be to participate in future events, programs and
services, and to get a better understanding of general demographics of the
population in general. Dependents and spouses using benefits were included in the
survey but were filtered out of the results below as the primary mission of the VMC
is those students who have served or are currently serving in the military. Of the
668 known student-veterans 84 completed the survey for a return rate of 13%. The
survey was very representative of the known student-veteran body in regards to
gender, student level, and ethnicity. Older student-veterans slightly overrepresented the larger student body but overall the survey is believed to be a
reliable representative sample.
Current VMC Services
The survey found that by a wide margin the most important service the VMC
provides is the processing of educational benefits with a 77% response rate.
Academic support was the next most important service with 30% followed closely
by career and networking opportunities, social events, and student-veteran
organizations. All four were within 1 percentage point of each other. This supports
our theory that benefit processing is the most important service that the VMC
provides and without effective and efficient processing the other services are of
little consequence.

Reasons for Using VMC Student Center

The use of study space was indicated as a top reason for visiting the VMC Student
Center by 68% of student-veterans. Following that, 56% responded with computer
access and 53% with free printing. The fourth highest reason was socializing with
other military students with 38%. There is a 16% drop between the fourth and fifth
highest reason (free coffee). The responses indicate that students are primarily

using the space for academic reasons and secondarily the ability to interact with
other student-veterans. This is encouraging as the space was designed with the
intent of offering room for student veterans to concentrate on academics but also
provide a space where student felt like they belonged and could connect with other
student-veterans.

Student Comfort in the VMC Student Center

The students were asked a general question whether they felt comfortable in the
VMC student Center or not. Students overwhelming replied that they felt
comfortable with 93% (68) replying yes and 5% (5) replying no. When broken down
by gender the results are practically unchanged with 95% of males and 94% of
females indicating that they felt comfortable. Comments from those that indicated
that they did not feel comfortable mostly centered on the space feeling too busy at
times which to them was a result of too many non-military benefit users or guests in
the area. One student-veteran also indicated that they were not comfortable
because it was not a veterans-only safe space. The results show that overall the
space is seen as a comfortable place by a majority of students. The issue of nonveterans having access to the Student Center will continue to be discussed as it is a
known source of discontent with some veterans.

Likely Use of Future VMC Services, Events, and Programs

Responses to the likelihood of the use of future services, events, and programs was
broken down into three groups; definitely and unlikely to participate, equally
unlikely or likely, and likely and definitely would.
No service identified on the survey came back with a higher than 50% rate of
students expressing that they would be likely to or definitely would participate with
the exception of women specific activities when adjusted to include only females
who responded. Excluding the weighted category of womens specific activities the
highest service in this category was career workshops at 45% followed by 4 other
specific services between 27% and 29%. When adding the totals of those being
equally likely or unlikely to participate to those that would likely or definitely
participate career workshops remains the top service. This is followed closely by the
weighted women specific activities and then peer advising.

*Includes results from 17 female respondents only.

Similar to likely use of services, no one event or program had a response rate above
50%. Womens specific activities, when adjusted to reflect only female responses,
had the highest rate at 47%. Attending sporting events (43%), social events for
veterans (43%), and physical wellness activities (40%) were the next three highest.
When adding the totals of those being equally likely or unlikely to participate to
those that would likely or definitely participate the order does not change.

*Includes results from 17 female respondents only.

The results indicate that there is not one specific service, event, or program that a
majority of the students would most-likely use. However, the VMC believes in the
importance of every student and many of these are critical to their success
regardless of how many end up participating. This survey demonstrates the
necessity of offering a robust variety of services, events, and programs to meet the
needs of all student-veterans. The data generated in this survey provides guidance
on the most important services to concentrate on in the beginning, before
addressing the ones that are less desired, but efforts should be made to implement
them all in some form when the capacity exists to do so. For example, having
effective services that may only reach 10% of the overall student-veteran
population (68 students) is not only the right thing to do to make sure each student
counts but can also have a profound effect on the larger picture of student-veteran
success at WSU overall as well.