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GIJOBS.COM | FEBRUARY 2018 | G.I. JOBS 9 JUST NORTH OF NEW HAVEN, Conn., at the foot of the series of traprock ridges preserved as Sleeping Giant State Park and within easy commute of the bustle of New York City, lies a quintessential private university you may recognize from its respected history in political polling: Quinnipiac University. Known for its exactness and thoroughness, the Quinnipiac University poll is featured regularly in The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and by national and global network news broadcasts like CNN and Reuters and is considered the gold standard. For the 2017-18 survey cycle, Quinnipiac University is also the gold standard for Military Friendly ® Schools among private institutions offering programs through the doctoral level. Exactness. Thoroughness. Purpose. It is what you might expect of a university whose marketing class in 1988 gave rise to the most prolific, accurate and respected public opinion research center in the country. These traits perfectly describe the feel of the campus, the pace of growth and the framework of an evolving veterans and military student program. In many ways, these traits also reflect the transformation of the Military Friendly ® Schools program over the past several years. EXACTNESS: Measuring Meaningful Outcomes Military Friendly ® Schools know their veteran students and have access to those students in ways that other institutions do not. Quinnipiac's deep experience in public opinion research reveals itself in the depth of data they track for each veteran student. Unsurprisingly, the data they collect goes well beyond the requirements in our survey process. For instance, they have identified that navigating VA educational benefits is a primary factor outside of academic readiness that contributes to student completion and graduation. To this end, the school has developed strong expertise across campus functions in assisting students in the timely access and reasonable use of their benefits. With a number of students matriculating from partnerships established with local community colleges, GI Bill benefits often don't cover the total requirements for degree completion. Here, the school has tapped its extensive alumni network to create additional supports, scholarships and work-study opportunities for veterans, whom they realize are non- traditional students with unique needs. Where many institutions seek to maximize the amount of benefit dollars they collect, Quinnipiac demonstrates a remarkable level of fiscal responsibility with veteran benefits and in counseling their veterans on appropriate management of those resources. Their counseling process includes a semester-by- semester check-in that routes class selections through the program to ensure courses are taught to the major, and that any changes or scheduling conflicts can be resolved rapidly. While veterans have high visibility, they are encouraged to work through the campus procedures in place, to seek advice from a variety of resources, and to engage in process improvements - including taking a leadership role on campus and in the community. The Military Friendly ® Schools program solicits an immense amount of non-publicly available data, which both encourages cross-campus discussions and incentivizes data collection and measurement, which leads to better outcomes for military and veteran students. THOROUGHNESS: Providing Comprehensive Service Another hallmark of Quinnipiac University's military and veterans program is the thoroughness of its approach. This was so much the case that I specifically asked Jason Burke, the director of Veterans and Military Affairs, how he prioritized all the requirements of his office while growing the program. His answer made it clear that understanding the core issues, and addressing those issues in a systematic way, was key to scaling the program and providing the degree of coverage possible in a university with more than 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students spread across multiple campuses. According to Burke, "The biggest burden our veteran students have is navigating the VA to ensure benefits payment, and certainly, there's so many nuances to the VA system … even the experts have to check … so I don't expect the veteran student to know how it all works, but we do expect them to be accountable. Ultimately, we seek to strike a balance." That "balance" is clearly weighted toward supporting and addressing the financial, personal, medical and life needs that veteran students face, allowing the veteran students to focus on integrating with students, finding success in their studies and even taking leadership in reaching out to the broader veteran AM