On Thursday, November 13, the university opened the Aggie Student VETS Center at The Oaks, the former chancellor’s residence. “VETS” stands for Veterans’ Educational Transition Support.

The VETS Center is the UNC system’s first stand-alone, on-campus facility dedicated to veteran students. It includes a computer lab, a gathering place for veteran students, and A&T’s chapter of the Student Veterans of America, which will be organized next spring.

The VETS Center will serve as an extension of A&T’s Office of Veterans and Disability Support and will provide advising and counseling services.

“It’s a one-stop shop for veterans and their dependents,” said LTC (R) Joshua T. Jones, director of the Office of Veterans and Disability Support.

The center will offer workshops on job-seeking skills such as resume writing and interviewing for jobs. Veterans have different needs in these areas than most undergraduates, since they have a greater degree of job experience and professional skills to present to potential employers.

The workshops will be supported by the center’s corporate sponsors, Cintas Corporation, Northrop Grumman Corporation, and the Veterans Administration.

Veterans who begin college or return are a distinctly different group from typical undergraduates. “Most of our veterans are non-traditional students and have families,” Jones said. Nationally, 85% of veterans in college are over the age of 24; 47% have families.

Providing a gathering place is especially important, Jones said. “Veterans have a propensity to want to talk to other veterans, people who’ve shared their experiences,” he said.

A&T has been honored for three consecutive years as a Military-Friendly School by G.I. Jobs magazine. The university’s Army and Air Force ROTC units (the Aggie Battalion and Detachment 605, the Screaming Blackbirds, respectively) are open to students at all of the Greensboro Consortium institutions: Bennett College, Elon University, Greensboro College, Guilford College, Guilford Technical and Community College, High Point University, and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.