Needs and challenges faced by military and veteran students will be examined at a conference for higher education professionals June 9-11 at the University of Wyoming.

Representatives from UW, Wyoming’s community colleges and technical schools will participate in the first “‘Wyoming Veterans in Higher Education Conference” at the UW Conference Center at the Hilton Garden Inn. The UW Veterans Services Center and Northwest College (NWC) Veterans Program host the program.

Discussion will focus on the increasing number of veterans on the state’s higher education campuses and how Wyoming institutions can better serve and meet the unique challenges faced by these students.

Marty Martinez, UW Veterans Services Center senior project coordinator, and Brett Burtis, NWC Veteran Services director, patterned the conference after similar events held in other states.

“I believe this is the first conference of its kind in Wyoming, but I hope it will be the first of many,” Martinez says. “This conference provides the opportunity for Wyoming’s higher education community to share information about effective programs, policies, services and best practices that each of our institutions are using to help our student veterans find greater success in their education pursuits.”

Martinez adds that he and Burtis contacted each community college, and all school representatives agreed this type of conference is needed. They received financial support from the Wyoming Veterans Commission.

While most of the speakers and presenters are UW staff members, Martinez emphasizes the conference is not intended to highlight the UW and NWC veteran programs, but to offer ideas for the other institutions to evaluate, modify and possibly use at their schools.

“When I attend this type of training at other national level conferences, I learn about new ideas and programs in use at other colleges or universities,” he says. “In bringing those ideas back to UW, my job is to assess the program to determine its feasibility at UW, or to identify how it can be modified or scaled to match our resources, needs and goals.”

Martinez says he hopes to achieve a sharing of ideas and best practices that can be evaluated, modified and implemented at each institution to improve services and programming for military student veterans.

A reception and registration is from 5-7 p.m. Monday, June 9. Another registration is scheduled at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday, June 10, with the conference slated from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. A reception is from 5:30-7 p.m. in the Roach Room in the UW Fieldhouse North. The conference concludes Wednesday, June 11, from 8 a.m.-noon.

For more information about the Wyoming Veterans in Higher Education Conference, contact Martinez at (307) 766-6909 or email mmarti77@uwyo.edu.

More From Laramie Live