Vet-Only Courses Could Come to QC - CBS4 - WHBF Quad Cities, IL-IA News Weather Sports

Vet-Only Courses Could Come to QC

By Natalie Zarowny
nzarowny@cbs4qc.com

Colleges and universities around the country are offering veterans only courses as a way of catering to military students.

And that initiative could be coming to the Quad Cities soon.

Caleb Redell is a National Guard Veteran, and first semester student at Scott Community College.

He said he can see a veterans-only course being beneficial for folks in his situation.

"It's somewhere that you can go, you know, that everybody that's in that room has something at least baseline in common with them," said Redell.

Redell said sometimes, it's hard for vets to relate to students who haven't been through the same situations.

"Most of them are gonna be non–traditional students, older, they might have families already, so it's a little harder to connect with some 18-year-old kid sitting in your class, what do you really talk about?," said Redell.

As for all Eastern Iowa Community Colleges, the head of military student affairs said they're in the beginning stages of developing a veterans-only course.

"It takes a long time to be able to even offer those classes, and finding the right faculty to teach it," said Rebecca Geiken, in charge of military student affairs for Eastern Iowa Community Colleges.

Whenever they do start offering those classes, they'll most likely be modeled off a successful program at the University of Iowa.

"I'll sit back and kind of gauge people a little bit before I really start talking to them, opening up I guess," said Redell.

Veterans-only courses are also in the works at St. Ambrose University.