This story was originally produced by the Valley News. NHPR is republishing it in partnership with the Granite State News Collaborative.
Dartmouth College is looking to double the number of undergraduate students who have served in the armed forces.
President Sian Leah Beilock announced the college’s intentions during its annual Veterans Day Breakfast last Tuesday, according to a Dartmouth News article.
Currently, there are 13 veterans who are enrolled as students at Dartmouth College and more than 60 who are part of the college’s graduate programs including Tuck School of Business and Geisel School of Medicine.
School officials are working with those students to recruit additional veterans, Anne Hudak, interim dean of undergraduate student affairs, wrote in an email. They are also working with nonprofit organizations that support veterans pursuing higher education, including Service to School and the Warrior Scholar Project.
“We are looking for those who have excelled in their academic experiences and are looking to take the next step in completing their degree,” Hudak wrote.
Having more veteran undergraduate students will contribute to a more “vibrant community” on campus, she said.
“Our veteran students are a majority of our nontraditional student population,” Hudak wrote. “They have life experiences to share.”
Hudak, who started working with veterans at Dartmouth in 2018, said she was inspired by the late Dartmouth College president James Wright, a Marine Corps veteran who led the institution from 1998 to 2009 and was an advocate for having veterans on college campuses.
She reached out to Wright for advice over the years until his death in 2022.
“During his tenure, he traveled to Washington, D.C., and to VA medical centers to speak with veterans to help identify concrete pathways to higher education,” Hudak wrote. “I am committed to advancing and sustaining his legacy in every way I can.”
