In an effort to ensure student veterans successfully attain undergraduate degrees, Pomona College has partnered with the national nonprofit Warrior-Scholar Project (WSP) to host a humanities academic boot camp for veterans from Aug. 1-6.
The intensive curriculum is free for enlisted and former service members and is designed to help veterans learn strategies to become better students. This virtual academic boot camp is an all-women cohort this year and up to 15 currently enlisted military personnel and military veterans will participate.
The Warrior-Scholar Project curriculum is designed to help participants wrestle with fundamental issues that lie at the heart of the humanities and social sciences, according to Adam Sapp, Pomona College’s assistant vice president and director of admissions.
“The veterans who participate will spend time discussing and writing about life’s big questions, and they will have time to reflect on how a liberal arts education might be to their benefit. Our partnership with WSP is not only a signal that we welcome and support military veterans here, but it’s also a reminder about something we all know at Pomona: that a liberal arts education matters now more than ever,” adds Sapp.
Veterans will learn from Pomona Professors John Seery (politics), Tomás Summers Sandoval (history), David Menefee-Libey (politics), Assistant Director of College Writing and Language Diversity Jenny Thomas and Scripps Professor Rita Roberts (history).
Summers Sandoval’s work—including a stage play he wrote—is immersed in veteran issues and stories. He says he identifies with the boot camp participants as a first-generation student himself and believes this program is one way to address the particular needs of veterans.
“I care deeply about the success of students that don’t ‘fit the mold’ of higher education. Veteran students are older than the average college student. They are most likely to work a job while going to school and more than half of them are first-generation students,” says Summers Sandoval.
Pomona College actively seeks to enroll qualified individuals who have served in the United States Armed Forces and is a member of the Yellow Ribbon Program through the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. The College meets the full demonstrated financial need of all applicants, making a Pomona education accessible to eligible veterans, regardless of financial need.