Contact:
Elizabeth Blevins, Director, Office of Communications
Office: (740) 351-3810; FAX: (740) 351-3179; Cell: (740) 464-4854
940 Second Street – Portsmouth, Ohio 45662
E-mail: eblevins@shawnee.edu 
Web site: www.shawnee.edu

The Shawnee Student Veterans Association, a chapter of the Student Veterans of America (SVA), was officially recognized in March. In April, several of the veterans took part in rappelling off the roof of Clark Memorial Library on campus at SSU. In the photo, Andrea Werner, president of the organization, is shown rappelling from the library roof wearing the official Shawnee Student Veterans Association T-Shirt.

           A new Veteran’s organization has been formed at Shawnee State University for veterans and their families. The Shawnee Student Veterans Association, a chapter of the Student Veterans of America (SVA), was officially recognized in March. The SVA has 247 university chapters throughout the United States.
           While many members of SVA are recipients of the new GI Bill at their respective institutions, many of these students lack adequate funds to pay for school. In order to facilitate the activities of individual members on chapter activities, SVA will provide access to scholarships to facilitate SVA chapter activities on and off-campus. These funds will be managed by SVA and distributed to students on a school year basis. The Shawnee veterans are looking for grants and funds that may be available to help also.
           “If a veteran or his family needs help with financial aid, benefits from the VA, or if they are having trouble in school, they can come to us and we can direct them where they need to go for help,” said Andrea Werner, president of the SSU Veterans Association.
           The organization wants to be able to help veterans not only with school but if an emergency comes up, they want to help with home emergencies. The group is working on a Website and plans to have it launched sometime this summer.
           Recently, Werner traveled to Flint, Mich., to attend the Southeast Regional Conference of the Student Veterans of America and she was named director for Women Veterans working with female veterans to find out their concerns, needs, and obstacles they face.
           “The organization is not just for Shawnee State students,” Werner said. “It’s for every veteran who may be considering coming back to school or having trouble with benefits of some kind and we will try to help them.”
           According to research from Supportive Education for the Returning Veteran (SERV), there will be a 40 percent increase of veterans returning to school within the next three years.
           “That’s why it is so important to get our organization off the ground,” Werner said. “We are a university that could receive a lot of those veterans and we need to be able to let them know that this is a place where they can succeed and graduate with a sense of pride in knowing they were able to do it.”