Promoting Veteran Success and Regional Collaboration at Minnesota State Moorhead

CVTI was happy to participate in Minnesota State Moorhead's Veterans Resources and Services Fair hosted by their Veteran Success Team. The event created a unique opportunity for Moorhead's military-connected students and employees to connect with folks representing a wide range of valuable campus and community resources and partners.

Our Director of Education, R.J. Jenkins, was especially honored to deliver the opening address for the event, a talk entitled "Beyond Veteran Friendly: Building a Campus Culture That Truly Empowers Veterans and Their Families." R.J. enjoyed offering the remarks, but his favorite part of the day was speaking to dozens of student veterans, campus allies, and community advocates about how we can build stronger cultures of support for our veterans and military-connected students not just on college campuses, but everywhere!

Having the chance to meet a wide range of regional partners at the event in addition to folks representing Moorhead's campus resources reminded us how crucial it is to foster collaborations between stakeholders to create community-based ecosystems that lift up veterans. Minnesota State Moorhead's event was an excellent example of this approach at work. Programming like this allows student veterans and regional players to connect, communicate, learn, network, and find ways to build stronger outcomes together.

At CVTI, we love seeing and participating in what other organizations do to promote veteran success because we always learn something new! This event really highlighted for us what's possible when individuals, organizations, and municipalities refuse to work in silos and, instead, link arms in the work. But that takes sustained relationship building, trust, and coordination, and our colleagues at Moorhead modeled that beautifully at their event.

Special thanks to Aaron Krenz, Danelle Wolnick, and Josh Clarke from Moorhead's Veteran Success Team for trusting us to be a part of the program. We love when connections at national conferences become abiding institutional partnerships and impactful collaborations that span states, regions, and time zones. Here's to more in the future, Minnesota State Moorhead! Thank you for all that you do to lift up your military-connected students and colleagues!

Testimonial

Earlier this month, we had the amazing opportunity to build a meaningful collaboration between Minnesota State Moorhead’s Veteran Success Team and R.J. Jenkins, Director of Education at the Columbia University Center for Veteran Transition and Integration.

This collaboration was grounded in a shared belief: that military‑connected students deserve more than just access; they deserve to feel that they truly belong here.

Together, we worked to build a multi-day program for students that sent a clear message: you matter, and you have a place on this campus. These weren’t one‑off events for visibility’s sake. They were designed to build connection, trust, and community, because we know that belonging is foundational to student success.

One of the highlights of this collaboration was our Veteran Resources and Services Fair. This wasn’t just about gathering resources in one room. It was about demonstrating, both to students and to ourselves, what empowering our veterans and service members looks like in action. By working alongside campus and community partners - in close onversation with CVTI - we challenged the idea of providing “lip service” to supporting our military-connected students and instead asked harder questions:

Are we actually meeting students’ needs?
Are our services easy to find and access?
And are we creating systems that support students long‑term, not just during high‑visibility moments?

Through conversations with R.J., we also had the opportunity to showcase the work that our team at Minnesota State Moorhead is already doing. At the same time, we reflected honestly on where we can grow. We explored new ideas for expanding services, strengthening engagement, and addressing gaps that military‑connected students often experience.

 A key part of this collaboration was learning from what’s working elsewhere. We discussed what other campuses are doing successfully to engage military‑connected students, whether through programming, partnerships, or advocacy, and considered how those models could work here, or at least be adapted to fit our students and our campus culture.

Finally, this collaboration helped us think strategically and long‑term. We didn’t just ask, “What programs do we offer?” We asked, “How do we become permanent, visible, and essential fixtures on campus?” We discussed where the Veteran Success Team fits within the campus culture and how positioning and collaboration can strengthen both our effectiveness and our sustainability.

Overall, this partnership reinforced the importance of collaboration, reflection, and intentional action. It affirmed that supporting military‑connected students isn’t about labels, it’s about showing up consistently, building relationships, and creating systems where students can truly thrive.

Thank you to CVTI and to R.J. for being such a good faith partner to us in this work. Your genuine interest in what we're doing, your willingness to listen, learn, and help, and your belief that none of us should have to do this important work alone has made all the difference as we aspire to build even stronger support for our students. Thank you for helping us build our confidence not only as individual professionals, but as an institution.

Danelle Wolnik
Assistant Veterans Resource Outreach Director
Veteran Success Center | Grants and Sponsored Programs Office
Minnesota State University Moorhead