Veteran’s day was Novemeber 11. Nonetheless, I didn’t hear anything on the
The California Report
about Humboldt State University’s Veterans Upward Bound (VUB) program which
lost its funding this past August
. Humboldt’s VUB was the only program of its kind on the West Coast — you’d think that warrants some coverage.
The VUB has since been able to remain open — using left-over money from their last funding cylce — but they will be closing their doors for good at the end of this month.
According to VUB Director Cai Williams (pictured above), prospective students keeping calling her office, but she has to turn them away for lack of a program.
Williams had hoped that Congressman Mike Thompson would be able to wrastle up funds for VUB, but despite his good intentions, he came up empty handed.
“These guys deserve something,” Williams said about the veterans who are returning home to the West Coast from Iraq and Afghanistan only to find that there is no program to help ease their transition into college.
“I’d like to see the state pick this up – the state wasn’t to blame for this, it was the feds – but they need to be putting money into this,” Williams said. “Because when these guys [veterans] come out they need help getting into college.”
This article appears in Gold From Green in a Gray Area.
How would TCR know about VUB closing? They need a publicist.
Quite honestly, I fail to see the need for such a program. Veterans should have no problem at all entering or adjusting to college just like anyone else.
About publicity, it’s just not good marketing to keep talking about a campus program shutting down. Instead, write an after-the-fact report that Herbie Hancock performed on campus.
About worthiness, I see VUB as an extension of the GI Bill. The dirty little secret is that most vets don’t end up enrolling in college (military recruits do tend to be low income, under-educated folks). If you’ve pledged your life for me, I’d like you to receive a lot more than just a college education. Likewise, people who have seen combat return to us as changed individuals. In reaching out to help these people, it’s great that organizations exist to get them off the street, let alone into classrooms.
To put it another way, what precisely do people mean when they say ‘support our troops’? When your military service has ended, and you walk away scarred for life, does that end my obligation to you?
VUB is in the same category as the Adult Re-Entry Center. Albeit, people argue that the program can be discarded, and point to the fact that the Veterans can simply adjust like every other student. However, just like older students returning to school (ARCH people), the experience is different from the traditional student. This program at the very least, as well as ARCH, provides these students with a support group consisting of other Veterans returning to school. I am very sad to see this program go away.
What a tough break for the VUB program, HSU, and the northcoast Veteran community. I attended the VUB program, I attended the MSI program after that, and then worked in the VUB office to help other Vets while I attended HSU.
To ask why a program like the VUB is needed, is like asking why are Veterans helping Veterans? The answer is easy – it’s what we do.
You have no obligation to a Veteran, our obligation was to you, we expected nothing from you in return.
Don’t give us your sympathy instead offer your respect to someone doing a job believed to be one that protects our country, our freedoms, and the people we love.
Thank you to Luke, Cai, Russ, and the others who made the VUB office what it was. I am who I am today because of the work we did.
Best wishes to my family and friends of the VUB.
Cliff