5 minute read
Fertile Ground
A brief conversation on the Daniels Center with MTSU President Sidney A. McPhee
This year, the University is celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the creation of the Charlie and Hazel Daniels Veterans and Military Family Center. Tell me your thoughts about reaching this milestone.
I’m proud to say that the Daniels Center is the most comprehensive veterans and military family center at a university in Tennessee. It’s proof of the University’s ongoing commitment to military personnel and student veterans.
MTSU’s 3,200-square-foot and growing Daniels Center provides service and support for the thousands of veterans and family members who attend MTSU. Everything a student veteran needs to succeed is available through the center, from getting advice on courses and completing government paperwork to getting questions answered about benefits and employment opportunities.
Located in Keathley University Center in the middle of campus not far from both Military Memorial and Normal Way—and not far from where planes used to take flight and land on the campus airstrip—the Daniels Center is a one-stop shop for student veterans.
Even prior to the Daniels Center’s opening, MTSU boasted a long and proud history of offering programs and initiatives in support of student veterans. Talk about that.
As far back as the 2000s, a motivated group of MTSU staffers and professors who were veterans themselves formed a Veterans and Military Affairs Committee. They met regularly to discuss concerns like how to deal with students and professors’ getting called to active duty midsemester. They wrote policy and submitted the work for University approval. We were very much fertile ground for the establishment of a true military center. We had already done a lot of the work.
In 2004, a campus committee began fundraising to create a Veterans Memorial. Unveiled in 2009, it recognizes the contributions of alumni and others who have served in the nation’s armed forces since 1911. The memorial hosts a variety of annual events that honor veterans and future military leaders. No other college campus in America boasts a similar Veterans Memorial.
In 2011, MTSU became the first institution of higher education in the state—and one of the first in the country—to partner with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ new VetSuccess on Campus program. A VA mental health counselor was later added to expand services offered on campus. Such continuous progress paved the way for organizers to finally gain support for additional veteran-focused campus initiatives—notably, a full-fledged veterans center.
Everything a student veteran needs to succeed is available through the center.
I have heard you say, though, that to get there, the University needed a “true general” to lead the charge.
We did. And we achieved that through the fortuitous hiring of retired Lt. Gen. Keith M. Huber, a three-star general who spent 38 years in the U.S. Army, 14 of them as a general officer. When he retired from the military in 2013, his résumé had no corporate equivalent: His workdays sometimes involved combat. His business trips were tours of duty. His operating budget was $960 million. His meetings were often with heads of state or the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
After he became a civilian for the first time since heading to West Point at age 18, the general still wanted to serve. So, he contacted academic institutions throughout Tennessee that had ROTC programs and offered to speak at commissioning or awards ceremonies—or anywhere else he could provide education or inspiration.
When he spoke at MTSU, I was among those present and inspired. I had been looking for a way to build on the University’s long track record of partnering with the military and educating veterans. After assessing MTSU’s veteran environment, General Huber agreed to permanently join the University—but on a few conditions. One was that MTSU construct a true student veteran support center.
How did the Daniels family get involved?
Beverly Keel, now dean of MTSU’s College of Media and Entertainment, felt strongly that Huber should meet her good friend and legendary country music performer and Grand Ole Opry member Charlie Daniels. Keel arranged the meeting, which turned out to be a trip with Huber, Daniels, and David Corlew, the leader of Daniels’ Journey Home Project veteran assistance program, to Fort Benning, Georgia, to see the Best Ranger competition.
The May 2015 trip went well, to say the least. By August 2016, less than a year after the MTSU military center opened, it was officially renamed the Charlie and Hazel Daniels Veterans and Military Family Center following two significant financial gifts from the Daniels family.
How has the Daniels Center grown in scope over the past decade?
Initially, the center’s primary concern was onboarding veterans and/or family members, trying to ensure their transition to civilian life was seamless. While navigating residency, prior learning assessment, and the GI Bill® are still items the Daniels Center attends to, its focus has gravitated toward academic success and tapping into VA non-educational resources. We are laser-focused on ensuring that our students get strong advising and degree-planning and that they make good grades.
Is it true that the center will help veterans anywhere in the state, nation, or world, regardless of a connection to MTSU?
Veterans with a need do not have to be related to MTSU to visit our campus and visit our offices! The center will also help anyone, anywhere over the phone. The Daniels Center is now a field office for the Tennessee Department of Veterans Services, and there is a Veterans Service Officer on site Monday through Friday.
