Dispatches from the SVA National Conference: R.J. Jenkins

Every year, the Student Veterans of America National Conference (NatCon) brings veteran education advocates from across the nation together. At this year’s conference, Columbia’s Center for Veteran Transition and Integration (CVTI) was honored with the 2024 William Pearson Tolley Champion for Veterans in Higher Education award. 

Among the CVTI contingent was R.J. Jenkins, CVTI’s Director of Education, who led two NatCon panels and participated in another. He shares his NatCon experience, plus his thoughts on the crucial nature of veteran community and support in academia. 

Can you share a bit about your role at CVTI and the work you do with student veterans at Columbia?

In my role as CVTI’s Director of Education, I lead the Center's efforts to develop and deliver content that helps colleges, universities, and employers all across the country build more robust cultures of support for veterans and transitioning service members. Early in my time at the Center, I worked very closely with dozens of Columbia student veterans to create ‘University Studies for Student Veterans,’ a free online curriculum that empowers student veterans with critical academic skills for success in the college classroom. My current work, building capacity for veteran-serving professionals in higher education and workforce settings, is deeply informed by the time I spent listening to and learning from my extraordinary student veterans at Columbia University's School of General Studies.

What makes the SVA NatCon and advocacy for veterans in higher education so important? How do you see CVTI and Columbia’s veteran community fitting into that picture?

Student Veterans of America does a lot of important work in this space; They conduct much-needed research that informs how we think about and serve student veterans, they do impactful veterans advocacy work on Capitol Hill and beyond, and they connect student veterans to meaningful employment opportunities. Personally, however, I am most grateful for the community building they do, especially at SVA NatCon. This annual conference—the largest gathering of student veterans in the world—is a unique opportunity for student veterans and veteran-serving professionals to gather and have critical conversations about why this work is so important and how we can continue to do it better.

This year was an extra special NatCon for CVTI as we were honored to receive the 2024 William Pearson Tolley Champion for Veterans in Higher Education Award. This award recognizes a visionary leader whose dedication and advocacy have transformed the landscape of higher education for student veterans. While we appreciate —and are deeply humbled by—this acknowledgement, we understand that our work is both inspired and made possible by our own incredible veteran community right here at Columbia. Watching our student veterans enrich the Columbia classroom has taught us some really valuable lessons, and our job—and privilege!—is to use that learning to improve the lives and experiences of veterans, transitioning service members, and their families at Columbia and beyond.

One of the panels you led at this year’s SVA NatCon was called “The Ultimate Imposter Syndrome,” focusing on the experience of civilians like yourself who have dedicated themselves to serving veteran communities. Can you share a bit about what inspired this session and what response you received during and after the session?

I have been working on impostor feelings—what they are, how we talk about them as a society, how we understand and misunderstand them—for several years. Most of my work on impostor experiences has focused on helping veterans and veteran-serving professionals build a new narrative context around impostor feelings that reads them neither as a damaging psychological phenomenon to be managed, mitigated, treated, or cured, nor as personal or professional liability, but rather as an organic byproduct of aspiration, striving, risk-taking, and growth. 

I was at a conference a year ago, and a super smart colleague of mine, Betsy Montañez, approached me and said, ‘Do you ever talk about the unique impostor feelings that come with being a civilian working in this space?’ And honestly, the question blew my mind. We decided that day that we would put together a workshop about why we should stop apologizing for and start owning our civilian-ness as we engage in the critical work of veteran advocacy, and what strategies we have used to connect with our student veterans in an authentic, trust-building way. The response to the session has been really humbling. It turns out a lot of folks were hungry for this message.

Can you share about the other two NatCon sessions your were in (leading “Defense Against the Dark Arts” and sitting on the panel of “Student Veterans, Firearms, and Suicide”)?

In theory, veterans of the United States Armed Forces are revered, celebrated, and hailed as heroes; In practice, however, veterans often face lazy stereotypes and damaging misconceptions in spaces ranging from the college classroom to the corporate boardroom. These misconceptions threaten to undermine our understanding of who veterans are, what they need, and the unique value they bring. ‘Defense Against the Dark Arts: Dispelling Damaging Misconceptions About Student Veterans Using VCT’—a collaboration between me and the inimitable Dr. Abby Kinch, Vice President of Research at Student Veterans of America—was our effort to introduce fellow practitioners to Veteran Critical Theory (VCT), and to discuss practical strategies for using VCT to dispel harmful typecasting, build stronger cultures of support, and foster a more nuanced understanding of the diverse student veteran population…all while feeding our mutual Harry Potter obsession!

Sitting on the ‘Student Veterans, Firearms, and Suicide: What You Need to Know’ panel was a deeply humbling experience, mostly because it made me aware of how much I still have to learn about the acute problem of suicide, the concepts and science of lethal means safety, the integration and practice of talking about access to firearms during suicidal crisis, and the cultural challenges of conversations about firearms for those at risk of suicide. Ted Bonar, who facilitated the session, has such a gentle, knowledgeable, and humane way of discussing this difficult topic; I would recommend any college campus to invite him to talk about how we can all empower ourselves to be better allies with regard to this important topic.