TCU’s Veterans Services is working to open communication between students, faculty and staff with a new event called “Vet Talk.” 

The talk was organized by Mark Kamimura-Jimenez, the assistant vice chancellor, who oversees veterans and intercultural and international services along with the quality enhancement of Student Affairs. 

“The ‘Vet Talk’ was set up to provide a conversation between our student veterans and myself,” said Jimenez.

The Veterans Services role on campus is to be a resource for military and veteran students with their admission, enrollment and financial aid. Veterans Services also provides academic advising and disability assistance to veteran programming, benefits information and counseling.

“My grandfather and many of my immediate family are all veterans – this is an extraordinarily important community to me both personally and professionally,” Jimenez said.

Jimenez said that the veteran student population at TCU is comprised of 388 students and is continually growing as new students come in. There are 252 student veterans and 136 dependents who use a financial aid – such as the G.I. Bill. 

Since Jimenez is a new employee at TCU, he created this “Vet Talk” to gain a better understanding of the veteran community.

“It is important to me to learn about our student veterans’ experiences at TCU and how I can support their success on campus,” said Jimenez.

The goals of the Vet Talk are very similar to those of the Student Veterans of America organization. The organization, The Student Veterans of America, has over 1500 chapters around the world that serve thousands of student veterans and alumni veterans.

The organization’s mission is to provide student veterans with “resources, support, and advocacy needed to succeed in higher education and following graduation.”  

TCU partners with this organization to help provide services and support for our students.

“The first event had a great dialogue about many important topics and we hope to continue that next week,” said April Brown, director of veterans services, in the bi-weekly newsletter.