{"id":8095,"date":"2018-10-04T21:22:00","date_gmt":"2018-10-05T05:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernhowl\/?p=8095"},"modified":"2018-10-05T15:37:44","modified_gmt":"2018-10-05T23:37:44","slug":"a-legacy-of-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/a-legacy-of-support\/","title":{"rendered":"A legacy of support"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

Bailey Thompson | News Editor<\/span><\/p>\n

Throughout his time at Western, Director of the Veterans Resource Center Andrew Holbert has diligently helped student veterans acclimate to the college environment and provided them with a home at the Veterans Resource Center. Under his guidance, the WOU Student Veterans of America won a national award and Western was able to legislatively assist in the betterment of veterans\u2019 programs all across Oregon. He will be sorely missed by veterans and non-veterans alike after his departure on Oct. 5. <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q: How long have you been working at Western?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

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A: \u201cI\u2019ve been here since September of 2015. So, that\u2019s almost three years.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q:What is your current position?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A: \u201cI\u2019m the Director of the Veterans Resource Center, so I oversee all of the programming\u2026 I\u2019ve also been the advisor for the Veterans Club since I got here. When I first started I brought that back and I\u2019ve been advising them. And last year\u2026 they were the National Club of the Year. Our vet center and vet program are the best in the state right now.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q: What\u2019ve been your favorite things about working with the Veterans Resource Center?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

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A: \u201cI get to work with my own population, my own culture… There are so many negative narratives out there for veterans: the homelessness and the drug abuse…those aren\u2019t the realities… if non-veterans are hearing those narratives, then you better believe veterans are going to hear them as well…I\u2019m challenging them to know that there\u2019s a better narrative \u2014 that they don\u2019t need to be a part of these other narratives. This isn\u2019t what defines you. You can pave your own way.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q: What do you feel is the biggest thing you\u2019ve learned while working in this position?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A: \u201cI did a lot of legislative work\u2026 I ended up going and testifying on senate bills that involved veterans\u2019 education. And, most recently, Senate Bill 143\u2026 That grant ended up saying \u2018here\u2019s money to make a vet center and hire (a full-time director)\u2019, so for that to be the reality for the entire state now, that was really cool.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q: What are your future plans for after you leave Western?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A: \u201cI\u2019m going to be working for a senator\u2019s office out in Las Vegas and I\u2019ll be his veteran aide. I\u2019ll go from working with 200 veterans to working with 32,000 veterans\u2026 It\u2019s not necessarily where I want to go…but I wanted to stay in veterans\u2019 advocacy. Getting hired (at Western) to do that full time…was the best job I\u2019ve ever had. I used to say that about the Marine Corps, but no, this <\/span><\/p>\n

is the best job.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Q: What\u2019s one thing you\u2019re going to miss about the Western community?<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A: \u201cEverything. It is very, very difficult for me to leave\u2026 There were days that I\u2019d just walk around the vet center and try to just be really slow and methodical and look at everything \u2013take it all in\u2014because the vet center has changed. It was just a stark room with a few pieces of furniture, and now it\u2019s just incredible. It\u2019s a community center. It\u2019s changing how veterans are participating in college\u2026 we do LGBTQ veterans events, we\u2019ve done women veterans events\u2026 I\u2019m going to miss how our community is so tight here on campus that you can make a real-world impact.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Contact the author at howlnews@wou.edu<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Paul F. Davis<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bailey Thompson | News Editor Throughout his time at Western, Director of the Veterans Resource Center Andrew Holbert has diligently helped student veterans acclimate to the college environment and provided them with a home at the Veterans Resource Center. Under his guidance, the WOU Student Veterans of America won a national award and Western was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1094,"featured_media":8096,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"modified_by":"The Western Howl","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1094"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}