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Greetings All!

On November 9 members of the Student Service Members, Veterans & Families met with Dr. Renique Kersh, the new Vice President for Student Affairs at UMBC. This meeting served as both a follow-up to our meetings with President Sheares-Ashby, as well as a chance to meet Dr. Kersh and share the goals and concerns of SSMVF. The full room and online participants included representatives from OCSS, the Registrar’s Office, the Center for Democracy and Civic Life, The UMBC Graduate School, the Academic Success Center, and students including military service members and military dependents. We discussed the brief history of our new student service member group, the many reasons why multiple previous groups were short-lived, and ways to improve the SSMVF experience at UMBC. Dr. Kersh was a great listener and took note of our many suggestions, including: (1) UMBC establish a single military Point of Contact (POC) for military affiliated students; (2) Change the SSMVF student organization from a “temporary” club to a permanent entity overseen by the single POC, and (3) Follow common best practices among colleges and universities for serving military-affiliated students. We hope our conversation with Dr. Kersh was the first among many, as we work towards improving the UMBC experience for future SSMVF Retrievers.