FALCONCAST: Student Veterans and the Veterans’s Center at Fitchburg State

In this episode of FalconCast, Dave Gambone (COMM '25) sat down with Shanna Sallah in April 2024 to explore her work supporting  student veterans on Fitchburg State's campus.   Shanna, who oversees the Veterans Center alongside her role at the Office of Student Affairs, discusses the veteran's work-study program and the personal connection that makes this work so meaningful.  The Veteran's Center is a vital space on campus, fostering camaraderie among veterans, with monthly meet and greets and other activities. "This is the place for the veterans, this place is yours."

Episode transcript can be found here.

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This episode was produced by David Gambone and Jaden Blake (COMM '27) ; edited by Drew Tremarche (GAME '25) and Dante Melo (GAME  '25); and sound mixed by Gio Colon (COMM '25) .   FalconCast Season 2 was produced by members of the Spring 2024 Podcasting class at Fitchburg State University.

Click here to learn more about Perseverantia. Join us for programming updates on Instagram. Or reach out with ideas or suggestions at podcasts@fitchburgstate.edu.

Transcript

[ FalconCast theme fades in ]

[ 00min 04sec ]

David Gambone (Host):
On this season of FalconCast, we dive into the extracurriculars and campus involvement that Fitchburg State University offers.  We get into the time management, community, personal growth, and responsibility these clubs and sports promote. Switching between different campus organizations, we explore what it means to be a part of something bigger than yourself here at Fitchburg State. 

I will be your host, David Gambone. Join me as we learn more about the people involved on campus. 

[ 00min 32sec ]

Dave G (Host):
And we're back with the FalconCast. I'm Dave Gambone, your host today, and today I am joined by Ms Shanna Sallah –  

[ FalconCast theme fades out]

– who is not only a staff assistant at the Office of Student Affairs, but you also have some other pretty cool things going on. Right? What else do you do over here at Fitchburg State? 

Shanna Sallah (Guest):
So more recently I have taken over as not only the manager of the Veterans Center but also the boss of the work-study program for the veteran work studies. 

Dave G:
Wow, that's awesome. So how long have you been doing that? 

Shanna S:
I think it was about October when the former Dean of Students left. He was the one that was doing it and it kind of got dropped in my lap when he left. 

[ 01min 16sec ]

Dave G:
So for the veteran work-study stuff, is that strictly with veterans on campus? 

Shanna S:
It is – yes, our veteran students. We have up to, I believe it's eight per semester  that we can hire and they work in the veteran center for us and get paid through the VA. 

Dave G:
Awesome. And what do they do in the Veterans Center? 

Shanna S:
They really just staff the Veterans Center and be available to speak to other veteran students, families, dependents when they come in and ask questions and have resources available for when other people come in and need to know other things on campus.  Or if there's resources available to programs that they may need as a veteran. 

[ 01min 56sec ]

Dave G:
That's awesome, and so do you guys meet regularly? 

Shanna S:
We do.  So, the veteran work-study group themselves, I meet with those guys every other week.  So it’s like a staff meeting.  And as part of it, what we do is try to do programming on campus.  And one of the things we have actually started doing is – we call them our veteran student meet and greets. 

We've been doing them about once a month and we invite other veteran students to come and have a snack, have a coffee, a little bit of fellowship.  Just come and have a good time and come see the Veteran Center and know that it where it is, what is offered at the Veteran Center, and just come and hang out with other veteran students here at Fitchburg State. 

[ 02min 41sec ]

Dave G:
Sounds like a pretty cool program. So, as you know, you had mentioned that you're the boss of this group. How does it fit into your life? 

Shanna S:
So it's actually pretty fun. It's something that, like I said, I fell into it and in my regular role I'm not a boss, but it's fun. 

It's a great group of guys. I currently have six, I believe, that I work with. And you know just making sure that I get the time sheets in and you know run staff meetings and you know make sure they get paid and all the administrative stuff. 

Working with the VA can be challenging sometimes and but it's fun. I really enjoy it. 

Dave G:
That's awesome. Why did you join? I mean, obviously it fell into your lap, but that was last semester, right?  So this semester you had the choice, to you know, either continue or be replaced. Why did you want to stay? 

Shanna S:
Yeah, I actually asked to take on more. So I was originally only doing the work study portion and I actually asked and was granted to be the Manager of the Work – I'm sorry the Veteran Center itself, because I wanted to do more. 

So just working with the veteran students as the work study kind of ignited a passion to work with these veteran students and I wanted to do more.  I wanted to do more. So I wanted to, you know, do as much as I could and, you know, just kind of build the program up and get involved and do more. 

I do come from a military family. I have three different grandfathers that served in different capacities in different military branches, so it's just something that, you know, it kind of ignited a passion to help the students here on campus and be able to run different programs and just build a program from the ground up. 

[ 04min 40sec ]

Dave G:
No, that's super cool. Would you say that you've personally gotten something out of this group that you don't know that you would anywhere else? 

Shanna S:
Oh, absolutely. I mean, like I said, that passion to help.  And it's kind of paying it forward too. As we get new veteran students coming through the doors, we're trying to get programs in place that our current guys didn’t have.  But can we do to help the transition for new veteran students coming in the door.   What can we offer to help with the transition of new veteran students to make it easier to have them have a better time on campus as a new veteran student. So I mean I'm getting all of those kinds of things out of working with these guys. 

[ 05min 21sec ]

Dave G:
For sure that's awesome. Do you think that you've had to sacrifice anything to be part of this group, or has it been – has there been any speed bumps or roadblocks or anything you've had to navigate and difficulty since taking it over? 

Shanna S:
I mean, I didn't really have any training – so I had to, like, learn on the fly, you know.   I had to learn where the money was in the budget. I kept having to be like, “guys, I don't know where the money is, let me find out,”   So it delayed quite a few things for a while until I could figure it all out.  Like I said, working with the VA is a little challenging sometimes. 

Dave G:
Can you elaborate a little bit about that? 

[ 05min 57sec ]

Shanna S:
I mean, it's all online. I don't have anybody to call when I have a problem. When one of the guys says “I didn't get paid,” I have to go, and you know, just file something online and wait for a response.  

And you know, I can't just pick up the phone and be like, “hey, one of my guys didn't get paid,” you know. So I just it is some of that is just, you know, a little challenging, but you know we get through it and the guys are super patient.  

[ 05min 57sec ]

Dave G:
So yeah, I feel like you kind of have to be when it comes to the VA, right?  [ laughs ]  I don't really have any other choice.  Well,I can tell you that the VA experience is probably as close to the military experience as you're going to get.  [ laughs ]  

Is there a part of of your job that you love? 

[ 06min 38sec ]

Shanna S:
I mean, I love my whole job, to be honest.  Like the the student affairs part and the veteran part. 

But really getting involved in working with the veteran programs and all that, it's really expanded even just in the last few, last few months. 

I got to go to a statewide veteran conference that was for all representatives of colleges. I went to that. I'm sitting on a consortium for state – it was the same people but they're, you know, trying to – the state is really getting involved in trying to work with the colleges and help out the student veterans in lots of different ways. So I'm sitting on that. 

I'm on a panel with Veterans Inc. So, like there's a lot of different things that this has led to that I'm getting involved in.  And it's all to try to benefit our students and other, you know, across the state college students that are our veteran students. 

[ 07min 42sec ]

Dave G:
What are some of like – do you have like three, three goals for this year, you know between now and next fall for veterans here on campus?  Is there anything that you have kind of in the you know on the horizon that's coming up that that you'd like to work for or work toward? 

Shanna S:
Yeah, I think one of the things is getting that onboarding.  We were working on like an orientation kind of, you know, veteran student to veteran student orientation kind of thing.  And a lot of the guys that didn't have that thought it would be super helpful. 

So, just “hey, I'm a veteran student, let me show you around. Like this is the veteran center, this is you around, this is the Veterans Center. These are the resources.” 

So that's one of the big things – just beefing up the programming. Just right now, really, the only thing we have going on is the meet and greets, but the guys are passionate about getting other things going.  And just getting more things going is, you know, one of the biggest things. Um, you know, now that we know where the money is, now that we have the guys getting paid and just all of that is kind of a well-oiled, well-oiled machine is just now “okay, let's, let's see what else we can do. We'll see what else we can get into.”

[ 09min 02sec ]

Dave G:
So before you got into the VA work study group, what got you into student affairs? 

Shanna S:
I actually fell into that job too. [ laughs ] 

I actually was formerly in the corporate world working in insurance, and I was a licensed insurance agent.  And with the pandemic and everything that turned very sales-ish.  So we mutually parted ways, and I was on state websites looking for state jobs and actually came across this job working for the student affairs office.  

And it was just interesting that everything that this job entailed I had from just my entire career. So I applied and history being what it was, a couple weeks later I got a phone call and started a few weeks after that. So I actually had no background in student affairs but I had a very beefy admin assistant type background.  So – and now I love my job. I love working in my office. I love – you know, I get to do lots of different things.

[ 09min 59sec ]

Dave G:
Yeah.  So how long have you been working here at Fitchburg State? 

Shanna S:
It's been about two and a half years now. 

Dave G:
Wow – so they kind of threw you into this, this head of the VA work study group pretty early in your in your tenure here. 

[ 10min 09sec ]

Shanna S:
Yeah, yeah.  I'm enjoying it. 

Dave G:
That's great. What would you say to people who don't know anything about the VA work study, or that this program even exists, but might be interested? 

Shanna S:
I mean, for us the biggest thing is – I really try hard to make sure – the program's open to anybody that's on VA benefits, but I try to make sure that I give the positions first to our true veteran students. 

And – but that's, I mean, a very interesting point that a lot of people do not know that it exists and that it's part of their benefits.  

So, just knowing that it's out there.  And I've actually run into a couple of students and actually offered it to them because they didn't know.  Like “hey, are you here on veteran benefits? Hey, by the way, would you like to maybe work as a work study for us?” 

Yeah, you know, I've actually had a couple of people be very incredulous that it actually wasn't even real. You know.  [ laughs  ], but they're like yeah, “no, I'm actually offering you a real job here, you know.”  [ laughs ]

Dave G:
Yeah, it's kind of a surreal thing. You know “what do you mean, I get a job?”  Especially, you know, veterans might be a little wary. You know – “what do you mean? VA?”  [ laughs ] 

[ 11min 30sec ]

Shanna S:
Yeah, and I think they're taught to be that like very incredulous until you check out the facts.  [ laughs ]

Dave G:
For sure, for sure.  Yeah, I can definitely see that being a bit of an issue. 

Um, so there's probably some events coming up on campus. Is there anything happening in the month of April in regard to the VA work study group this month? 

[ 11min 48sec ]

Shanna S:
Yep, so we do. Actually, I just sent out notification today – to all of our veteran students. 

But we have coming up, April 24th, it's a Wednesday – we're going to do our last meet and greet event here in the Veterans Center.  It's going to be that afternoon, 2 to 3.30. 

And it's just another – we'll have snacks and coffee and hopefully our veteran students will stop by and, just you know – again, like I said earlier, have some fellowship. Just come, hang out, shoot the breeze. Just you know, have some cool time to talk. Come see the Veterans Center, see what we have to offer. 

This is the place for the veterans, this place is yours. 

[ 12min 27sec ]

Dave G:
Well, those are all the questions that I have for you today. Thank you so much for taking the time to spend time with us and speak with FalconCast about, you know, all these things going around here on campus.  

[ FalconCast theme fades in ]

And thank you for all that you do for our veterans here on campus. I really appreciate it. 

[ 12min 42sec ]

Shanna S:
Well, thank you very much for having me, David. I'm really honored that you asked me. 

Dave G:
Of course!  Awesome.  Well, that's going to be it for us.  And we'll catch you next time on FalconCast. 

[ FalconCast theme ends ]

[ 12min 55sec ] 

[ Perseverantia Theme fades in ]

Andrew Tremarche:
This is Andrew Tremarche. I’m a game design major at Fitchburg State University.  And you’re listening to Perseverantia, the Fitchburg State University Podcast Network. 

[ Perseverantia theme fades out ]