WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — Earlier this month, William & Mary hosted a group of active duty and veteran military members for an academic crash course.
The program is part of the Warrior Scholar Project, which offers a one-to-two week educational boot camp that serves as an introduction to the college setting. More than 2,000 active duty military and veterans have already been through the nationwide program’s array of boot camps and workshops since it began in 2012.
From June 4-9, a group of eight students participated in a humanities boot camp, staying on campus for a week while learning from William & Mary professors, who covered everything from essay writing to the Federalist Papers.
“William & Mary student veterans are the reason we sought after it,” said Charlie Foster, the engagement director for the school’s Office of Student Veteran Engagement. “They said this is something we should try for, and in my role, I feel like I can connect those past student veterans to current student veterans.”
Including William & Mary, more than 20 campuses are hosting the Warrior Scholar Project this summer. According to Foster, William & Mary has around 300 military and veteran students attending at any given time.
“Before the actual lights go up, the curtain parts and it’s show time, they’re able to try (college) here with real faculty — William & Mary’s world-class faculty — with great fellows who’ve been it before, showing them where they are on the map,” he said. “Showing them the lay of the land to orient them to what it’s going to be like.”
This is the second year that William & Mary has partnered with the program. In 2022, they participated virtually.
Britney Domine and David Kelly are two of the program’s fellows, having both been through it themselves. Now, they help out at boot camps.
“From my personal experience, you get to learn, ‘Wow, veterans can actually go to schools like this,’” Domine said. “Maybe you don’t necessarily want to do that, maybe a different school is a better fit for you, but it’s one of those things, like, that you could aspire to that. That is a possibility.”
Kelly is currently a junior at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where he studies psychology as well as speech, rhetoric and communication. Part of the reason he decided to be a fellow was because he knew from his own time in the program how participants might be feeling during a transitional stage.
“I had a lot of anxieties about how I would make the transition from service to school,” he said. “One of the cool aspects of the program is … you get to ask personal questions, or questions you normally wouldn’t be able to, to current students who have (made that transition). (Fellows) are able to act as a liaison to facilitate that. Like, ‘Hey, these are the anxieties you have. We had those and here’s how to mitigate it.’”
Mike Ottersbach was one of the eight participants to take the humanities crash course at William & Mary this summer. He said he applied because he’s always looking for opportunities to better himself.
“Education is extremely important,” said Ottersbach, who is in the Army. “But I’ve delayed it for a very long time during my career. So, as I near the end of my career, I think it’s very important that I focus on education. And I heard that this program provides excellent tools for both preparing and completing a degree.”
Ottersbach hasn’t made a final decision about when he’ll decide to leave the service, but he said he wants to make sure he has his options open when he does.
“I would strongly encourage younger, older, all veterans of any stripe who are considering or want to go back to higher education to attend this program or a similar program,” he said. “The perspective is vital, and the information is extremely useful.”
