Centurion

Issue date: 2/23/10 Section: Campus News

"The Veteran's Club wants
you," that is the message from
club adviser Matt Cipriano, a
U.S. Army veteran and the
director of Student Life
Programs, to the approximately
150 military veterans
enrolled at Bucks. Over the past year there
has been renewed interest in
Veteran's issues and the
Veteran's Club. The Veteran's
Club is in the process of being
revitalized after being dormant
since 2000. Cipriano sees the
Veteran's Club playing an
important role in the academic
and personal lives of veterans.
Although more and more
military veterans have been
taking advantage of the educational
benefits available to
them, Cipriano pointed out that
veterans were largely isolated
from each other here on campus.
For a long time there was
little focus on veteran's issues
and veterans had yet to establish
their presence on campus.
BY: JOHN MACDONALD
Centurion Editor
"That has changed over the
past year. Now the veterans
are coming together," says
Cipriano.
Cipriano sees the revitalized
Veterans' Club as a vehicle
for providing veterans with
information about the wide
variety of services available to
veterans. Veterans are unaware
of the panoply of available
services. Cipriano said that he
went to a meeting on the topic
at the Naval Yard and was
shocked at the number of government
agencies and programs
available. "One of the
things that I would like do, is
to bring various officials in to
explain about their agency and
the benefits it provides to veterans."
There has been much
greater awareness of Veteran's
issues on the community college
level and a lot of resources
are being made available to
address those issues. Cipriano
said that he has money made
available by the Collegiate
Consortium for programs that
benefit veterans.
One of the things that he
would like the Veterans Club to
do is to organize trips to broaden
veteran's cultural perspective.
"Something like a trip to
Washington, D.C. , perhaps. It
wouldn't need to be wholly
educational. It would be fun as
well," said Cipriano.
Most importantly, the
Veterans Club provides a
venue for the veterans themselves
to determine and
address their own needs.
Cipriano believes that by participating
with each other,
"those needs will bubble out."
One hopeful sign that veterans
are coming together more on

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