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Nervous about starting at Michigan State? Worried about your class schedule, living away from home, or where to even start? The Spartan Orientation Station (SOS) is a podcast hosted by New Student Orientation staff and was created by students for students. This podcast will launch twice a week throughout the summer, and each episode will feature a unique interview with campus departments discussing their services, common misconceptions, and fun Spartan engagement opportunities. When you need help at Michigan State, it is okay to signal SOS! Don’t worry – MSU is there for you.
Narrator 0:08
You're listening to the Spartan Orientation Station on Impact 89 FM. The podcasts by students for students. Now, this week's episode.
Eva 0:18
Hello everyone and welcome back to the Spartan Orientation Station. Today we'll be talking about the Student Veterans Resource Center, also known as the SVRC. My name is Eva Ignash. I'm a fourth year student majoring in International Relations and Political Science Prelaw with minors in Political Economy and European Studies.
Myles
My name is Myles McGee, I'm a third year student majoring in Business.
Andrew 0:40
My name is Andrew. I am a second year student majoring in Political Science Prelaw and History.
Speaker 2 0:45
This Student Veterans Resource Center is dedicated to promoting the educational, career, and personal advancements of service members, veterans and their families at Michigan State University. Today, we are joined with Patrick Forystek, the director of the SPRC. Thank you for joining us today and talking more about the Student Veterans Resource Center.
Andrew 1:04
So tell us a little bit about yourself and your military connection.
Patrick1:08
Well, thanks for having me today. I am a Marine Corps veteran. I've been at Michigan State since November of 2018, so almost five years, depending on when you listen to this, maybe even longer than five years. I grew up in Michigan, went to college after high school, and was not ready for it. Didn't do great. You know, it's funny. Looking back, I was probably doing a little bit better than I thought I was. But I didn't do great. Joined the Marine Corps; was in the Marine Corps for four years, I did a couple deployments, got out, and decided I wanted to go back to school. Had a really great experience with the veteran office at the school I went to. You know, go into school, just like a normal student started working in the resource center there. I decided I really, really liked that type of work and just kind of stuck around in student affairs. Worked at U of M Flint for a few years as a student and then as an interim coordinator, went on to a different school in metro Detroit, where I was the VA certifying official and just sort of handled everything. And then, like I said, in 2018 came over here to MSU.
Eva 2:11
That's great. So since you've been here for so long, what types of services and resources do you and the SVRC provide for students?
Patrick 2:20
Oh, I love this question. I get this periodically, a lot. Essentially, my office functions as a--as a hub of a wheel sort of, right. So the student veterans and the military connected students tend to start with my office, and we refer out. So we help students with everything from their application process, you know, what college life is going to be like. We work with, you know, high school seniors, for military dependents, we work with people that are still active duty, walking through the application process. When they're on campus, and you know, current students, we help with academic success programming workshops, I mean, you name it. This week, we've got yoga going for dependents for veterans, self-care socials going, gosh, and some student groups doing some work as well. Hard to answer that question, concisely, but essentially, we invite any military connected students, if they if they don't know where to go, to start with our office, and we'll, we'll connect them to the right place.
Myles 3:17
Okay, so out of all the services that you talked about, what do military connected students most come to your office for?
Patrick 3:25
Oh, I think, I think the easiest answer to that question is, is GI Bill benefits. That's, that's the main thing students start in our office with. You know, they come and say, “Hey, you know, I have a benefit, I don't know what it is, I don't know how to use it.” You know, some have a little bit more knowledge. And then we take over from there. So we walk them through that process, how to set up their benefits, how to, you know, navigate MSU with those benefits, what those benefits actually pay for, and what they're responsible for. I mean, beyond that, it is, you know, I could bring data with me and probably give you some, a rough idea, but it's so random. You know, we have students that come in with housing insecurity, food insecurity, some students have really minor issues, that we just need to connect themto an advisor. But I think, definitely, the biggest one, and especially for listeners, if you're not sure how to use your GI Bill benefits, and you just want a quick crash course in it, we can help you with that.
Andrew 4:13
All right. So I know you just mentioned connecting students with resources. Do you also host events for student veterans?
Patrick 4:20
We do, we do. So I mentioned we have yoga going. We've done that for a couple years now where we have a faculty member on campus that's, probably licensed is the correct word, she is a certified instructor. She teaches classes, and this year for the first time, we separated, and we have a dependent yoga session in the mornings, periodically, and then a veteran one in the afternoon. And like I said, we do, oh gosh, those self-care socials, which we're retooling those right now. Different workshops. We have a Veteran’s Day event coming up. We're doing Veteran's Day brunch again, which we haven't done since, 2019 will be the last time. We stopped doing it because of COVID. Welcome back picnics in this, in the fall. We do some really great Memorial Day planning for Memorial Day events in the spring. Yeah, yeah. Yes, to answer that question, yes, we do host events for student veterans.
Eva 5:08
What exactly is VITAL?
Patrick 5:10
That's a fantastic question. I'm so excited to talk about that today. So VITAL is an acronym. It's, it's V-I-T-A-L, Veterans Integration to Academic Leadership. And I always forget that acronym. And I always have to look it up. But essentially, what VITAL is, is it's a program to embed a case manager in college campuses within the VA Medical Centers [unclear]. So we fall into the Battle Creek VA Medical Center. We did not have a VITAL program before this last year. Now that we have it, we have a person that comes in has office hours, four hours every other week, through the fall semester, and we're going to revisit that in the spring. But right now, it's four hours every other week. And that individual can walk students through applying for it and setting up their VA healthcare. They can do care coordination; they do faculty and staff training internally, so our, you know, the MSU employees and the people that students interact with the most have, have a base understanding of the needs of veterans. This program is specifically for veterans, because they're the ones that are using the VA health care in this capacity. So unfortunately, they're the only ones that the VITAL coordinator can help, but just a phenomenal resource to have, and we have a great partnership with the Battle Creek VA. And like I said, really proud of this one, because the schools that I've worked at before, we fell under Ann Arbor’s VA Medical Center, and they had one, and we had a phenomenal experience. And I'll give you an example. You know, and it may be, like I said, the people that listen to this, it'll give you an idea. So I had a student that had a dental issue, right. So we got out of the military required and qualified for dental care, which isn't common. When he went to the VA for an active infection, it was going to be months before he could get an appointment, which is, not to be dramatic, potentially life threatening. We connected him with Ann Arbor’s VITAL coordinator, and he had a dentist appointment within a week. And that's just a small sample of what a VITAL coordinator can do. It's, it's essentially a person that can help the, you know, our veterans navigate that VA Healthcare System.
Myles 7:11
Okay, so do you partner with any RSOs or other offices on campus?
Patrick 7:15
Yeah, absolutely. So a handful. I was thinking about this question. It's kind of tricky, because I don't want to forget anybody. But we have a Student Veterans of America chapter here at MSU, we actually have a couple because the law college has one as well that we partner with. The, oh, they're going to get annoyed at me for this, but AMOPS, and I will never remember the acronym for that, I apologize. But the osteopathic medicine program has a veteran's group as well. Gosh, Broad, the MBA program, I believe, in--it may be all of Broad, but I think it's just the MBA program--has a veteran's group as well. So I assist with those were necessary. I'm the advisor for the SVA, but the other groups come to me periodically for you know, speaking engagements and resources and different things. Other offices on campus. Gosh, I'm, so I'm the only person that works in the Student Veterans Resource Center. So this is critical. I have to partner with other offices to get work done. And it's usually really fun though, I try to partner with other identity-based groups. You know, in the past, I've worked with the Gender and Sexuality Campus Center to do book clubs, around different, different identities of veterans might hold. But, that one, same thing, I don't want to, I don't want to leave anybody out. So I will just say, yes, we do partner with a lot of other offices. And if any other offices are listening, I'm always open to ideas, too.
Andrew 8:30
All right. So how do you offer academic assistance to student veterans?
Patrick 8:36
This one, not so much. We do periodically offer referrals. I'll be honest with you, MSU does a really good job of providing academic resources to students, and I don't need to duplicate those services. So my answer to this question would be, hey, so a student veteran comes to my office, or a military connected students comes in, they have a question, they're having trouble in a math class, I'm gonna refer them out. We do have a really great partnership with the Writing Center, and for the last couple of years, we've had a liaison with the Writing Center in the office. It's probably one of the better examples of a really strong partnership. But outside of that, everything's just referrals, you know, finding out what that student needs and working with other university resources and making sure there's a warm handoff when possible, so they're aware of and get access to those resources.
Eva 9:20
So, looking at more of student assistance. How do you offer monetary assistance to student veterans and what funding options are open to military connected students?
Patrick 9:32
Yeah, so funding is going to be the same for a military connected student as anyone else. So you know, whether or not you're using any GI Bill benefits, you're still eligible for financial aid, you're still eligible for any funding that any other student would be, would have available. We offer a couple of scholarships through my office, they're limited to, I say, preference to veterans. So those ones are going to be specifically to our student veterans. Um, but we did just get a couple donations from some really great local donors, and I now have, I should say, I have one and I'm working on a second emergency fund, so students can come to us if they do have short term unforeseen needs. Those are going live, so I can't, I can't refer you to them quite yet, but they should be live soon. Outside of that, again, going back to my trusted answer of referrals, when students come in with needs, if, you know, if possible, we try to connect them to the Support Our Spartans Fund through Student Life Engagement, you know, different emergency funds are on campus. And for students that have it available, especially with veterans, there's a lot of third party nonprofits, so we'll refer them out to the Michigan Veterans Affairs agency for the Michigan Veteran Trust Fund, or you know, gosh, I don't even know how many funds they have available to them, but we will refer them there so they can find funding elsewhere, too.
Myles 10:46
Okay, so where's your office located and what are your hours?
Patrick 10:50
Yeah, so we're in the basement of the Student Services Building right across the street from the Broad Art Museum. The hours are Monday through Friday, 9 to 4. It's kind of tricky, so I recommend checking our website, checking, you know, we have a, what is it called, like a Google, you know, business. And I make sure that's updated, all the time, if we're closed for holidays. I'm in the office Tuesday, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. The office is open, though, Monday through Friday. So if you're coming to look for services and support, I'm pulled away for meetings all the time. So I might not be there. But if you're just coming by to use the space, Monday through Friday, 9 to 4.
Andrew 11:26
All right, thank you. And then one final question on our end: What is your favorite part about working at MSU?
Speaker 4 11:32
Oh, I love the campus, like, the physical campus. It's beautiful. I was laughing, so I manage our social media page, and the main MSU page put out a post about fall, and I was so excited because this is, like, the best time to step on crunchy leaves. So yeah, just walking around campus especially in the fall, but anytime a year, especially if I see students I know, and stopping and have a chat with them. That's my favorite part. Lots of good parts, but, but campus is definitely my favorite.
Eva 12:00
Okay, so thank you for coming in and speaking with us and our new students. Make sure you are looking out for future episodes of the Spartan Orientation Station.
Narrator 12:11
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Spartan Orientation Station on Impact 89 FM. Let us know what you think by connecting with us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram at msu_nso.