Lilly Endowment awards $5.8 million for Purdue-based program to help Indiana colleges serve student veterans

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A $5.8 million gift from Lilly Endowment Inc. will help launch a Purdue University-based program that will assist higher education institutions across Indiana in helping students who are either entering college for the first time or re-entering after time spent away in the military.

The initiative, called Operation Diploma, will be announced Friday (March 13) at the spring meeting of the Indiana College Access and Success Network at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

"Making sure all students have access to the resources necessary to succeed at college is a goal that Purdue cares deeply about," said Purdue President France A. Córdova. "We are extremely grateful to Lilly Endowment for its generous gift for this project, which will provide the support that members of the military need to excel in the campus environment."

Operation Diploma, which will be administered by Purdue's Military Family Research Institute and the Center for Families, will have its own staff dedicated to helping colleges address needs in the areas of admissions, academic advising, financial aid and veterans' benefits, student services, and counseling and disability support services.

The program will make grants to higher education institutions throughout Indiana to support their efforts on behalf of student veterans and also will make grants to student veterans' organizations on campuses.

Shelley MacDermid Wadsworth, a professor of child development and family studies at Purdue and director of the Military Family Research Institute, said studies have shown that students who have served or are currently serving in the military often feel frustrated, alone and misunderstood when they arrive on campus.

"A college campus differs greatly from life in combat, and there are currently few places for service members to turn to if they encounter problems or have questions," she said. "Military members often face academic, financial, physical and emotional challenges. Operation Diploma is designed to address these major needs to help ensure that military members feel welcomed and not alienated by the college experience."

Wadsworth said issues such as how students can receive credit for military training courses; minimizing deployment-related disruptions in students' educations; and dealing with traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress and other disability support services are areas in which traditional students and college personnel sometimes don't have much experience, especially in a state such as Indiana where there are no large active-duty military installations.

"Our goal with Operation Diploma is to help military members feel that they are understood and supported by staff members, professors and other students and, ultimately, to increase their chances of completing their education," she said.

The staff of Operation Diploma also will work with administrators, staff and faculty at Indiana institutions to spread awareness of veterans' concerns, support the creation and sustainability of student veteran organizations around the state; and provide training, networking and customized reports for institutions that participate in the project's programs.

The program funding begins this spring and continues through summer 2012.

In 2007 Lilly Endowment gave $8.9 million for the Military Family Research Institute to help military personnel and their families better adapt to the challenges of repeated deployments and the stresses of raising and connecting with their children during wartime. Of that funding, $1.5 million was used to create a permanent home for the institute at Purdue in the Department of Child Development and Family Studies. The institute will be housed at the Bill and Sally Hanley Hall upon completion of the building. Construction is expected to begin in the summer.

The Military Family Research Institute is one of the leading academically based organizations in the nation that conducts research about, with and for military families.

Lilly Endowment Inc. is an Indianapolis-based, private philanthropic foundation created in 1937 by three members of the Lilly family through gifts of stock in their pharmaceutical business, Eli Lilly and Co.

In keeping with the wishes of the three founders, Lilly Endowment exists to support the causes of community development. The Endowment affords special emphasis to projects that benefit young people and promote leadership education and financial self-sufficiency in the nonprofit, charitable sector.

The Military Family Research Institute, an interdisciplinary research program, receives funding from Lilly Endowment, the Office of Military Community and Family Policy in the Department of Defense, Sesame Workshop and other organizations. The institute is part of the Center for Families in the College of Consumer and Family Sciences, which focuses on improving the quality of life for families and strengthening the capacity of families to provide nurturing environments for their members.

The Indiana College Access and Success Network was formed six years ago with funding from the Lumina Foundation for Education to promote greater collaboration of public, private, two-year and four-year institutions in the state to improve student access to higher education. For more information, contact Drew Koch, Purdue director of student access, transition and success programs, at (765) 496-3618, akkoch@purdue.edu.

Writer: Kim Medaris, (765) 494-6998, kmedaris@purdue.edu

Sources: Shelley MacDermid Wadsworth, (765) 494-6026, shelley@purdue.edu

Gretchen Wolfram, Lilly Endowment, (317) 916-7304, wolframg@lei.org

Related Web site:

Military Family Research Institute: https://www.mfri.purdue.edu/

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