Inver Hills Community College Helps Soldiers Make Transition to Students

They come into her office stressed, troubled by memories of their military service, or lost in a complex bureaucratic system.

Sue Flannigan hopes they leave with a sense of direction.

Since 1982, Flannigan has served as a link between and students who are military veterans. Over the years, she’s seen veterans from the Vietnam War, the Gulf War and other conflicts. But never has she dealt with as many veterans as she is now.

Flannigan, the school’s veterans services coordinator, estimates that as many as 800 military veterans—many of whom saw service in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—currently attend classes at Inver Hills. More than 300 of those veterans access veteran support services, Flannigan said. To serve the needs of those students, the school has a substantial support network—a network that helped the school earn its status as a Beyond the Yellow Ribbon organization earlier this year.

A Difficult Transition

The college’s goal, Flannigan said, is to make veterans “100 percent whole” when they return from deployment. Often, that process starts at the college’s Veterans' Lounge—a support center where students who are veterans help incoming veterans re-acclimate.

“I think that’s it’s important for us to all be able to help each other,” said 27-year-old Eric Hansen, an Inver Hills student who was deployed to Iraq for a year as a truck convoy commander. “It’s hard to get back into the civilian swing of things, when you first come back, especially with college. It’s lot of pressure and a lot of things we don’t have to deal with in the military.”

Returning veterans, Hansen and Flannigan said, face a set of unique challenges.

“When they’re placed on a deployment and they come back, and they’re thrown back into society, a lot of things are going on in their minds,” Flannigan said. “A lot of it is probably stress related, a lot of it not knowing what they need to do to get into school.”

Many of them, Flannigan said, aren’t sure how to access potential benefits from the Post-9/11 GI Bill—a helpful but complex piece of legislation that gives veterans financial assistance to pay for school tuition, a monthly housing allowance and other aid.

Some need help dealing with war-related health issues. Others, she added, are having trouble adjusting socially and psychologically and could be suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

“If someone slams their books down, you might see a student hit the floor because it triggers something,” Flannigan said.

Connect the Dots

Flannigan’s office does its part to help connect students to the resources they need, but she has some assistance from representatives from the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis and the St. Paul Vets Center regularly visit the campus.

One of those representatives, Steve Johanns, is a transition patient advocate with the Department of Veterans Affairs. Johanns meets with a handful of Inver Hills students once a month, when he visits the campus. Much of his work at the school involves teaching veterans about the benefits they’re eligible for under the GI Bill or other programs, like the departments vocational rehabilitation service.

“The key is, we make sure they’re aware of what’s out there,” said Johanns “It’s not the easiest system to figure out in the world, but if you get somebody who’s been around the block a few times … it makes it a lot simpler.”

Inver Hill’s Veteran’s Lounge, situated in the college’s Activities Building, is also a crucial cog in the support network for veterans on campus.

“It’s just a place where we can all get together and hang out with people, and some people talk about their stories when they were over seas to get it all out,” said Debbie Nelson, an Inver Hills student who, like Hansen, was deployed in Iraq. Both Nelson and Hansen pitch in as staffers at the lounge.

The college also provides scholarships, networking opportunities and workshops for veterans. In addition, Inver Hills supports service members and military families by hosting events like the 2010 Holiday party for the local Inver Grove Heights National Guard Unit and a Veterans Day celebration.

Annette Kuyper, the state’s director of military outreach, said only companies and municipalities who go “over and above” in their efforts to accommodate veterans receive a Beyond the Yellow Ribbon designation. Inver Hills is one of 15 companies statewide to have received the designation.

In order to be eligible for the designation, the company must form a company-wide steering committee and submit an action plan to the state.

“These networks of support, whether they be a company or community, are truly making a difference for military families,” Kuyper said.