when a veteran is a novice: a new constituency and a new opportunity

When a Veteran is a

Novice: A New

Constituency and A New

Opportunity

Diane Campbell, Associate Professor-Librarian

Rider has an enthusiastic veterans’ program.

In 2009, the Rider Veterans Association was started to better

support our student veterans. In 2013, two veterans put a flag in

the campus mall for every soldier who has died since 10/7/2001,

more than 6,800 of them.

Veteran Entrepreneurial Program

Goal is a complete business plan

Open to all veterans

The program is longer than most others

In-person classes

Program Structure

Two three-hour workshops

Six weeks of classroom training

One year of mentoring

Class size is limited to 15 students

Best Practices Research

“The only thing that continuing education students and

instructors have in common is that they have nothing in

common; their diversity creates unique information literacy

challenges.” (Lange, Canuel,& Fitzgibbons, 2011, p. 70).

“Perhaps the biggest challenge is working with a population that

has greater or different needs than those commonly served by a

university library. The range of educational backgrounds and

academic preparedness is wider than in a typical university

course.” (Hoppenfeld, Wyckoff, Henson, Mayotte,& Kirkwood,

2013, p. 301).

Best Practices

Embed the librarian

Active learning (hands-on)

Explicit recognition of diverse backgrounds

and library anxiety

Detailed resources online

Our Veterans

Twelve men, two women

Ages 24 to 59

Seven African-Americans, 3 Hispanic-origin,

4 White, non-Hispanic-origin

One High school grad, 5 “some college,” 2

Associate’s, 3 Bachelor’s, 3 Master’s

Eight have owned or do own their own

business

Business Research Workshop

Scheduled the week before classes began

Three hours, 6:30 to 9:30 pm with 1

scheduled break

Cover material that is normally covered in 7

1.5 hour instruction sessions

Handout & Research guide

“What is most valuable about this

workshop?”

-hands on going through the different tabs

-the guide that was built along the lines of the course, the

amount of material was perfect

- although information overload, great source of information for

business/plans research

- the instruction was excellent and easy to grasp and the

computer classroom made for an excellent enrollment to explore

the material

- access to all the research sites and the ability to reach out to a

professional that is willing to help

- information is power and this was an excellent source of

information. These are invaluable lessons for market research

- all of it

“What is least valuable about this

workshop?”

- n/a

- the cold room

- n/a

- n/a

- a lot of information in a short period of time

- too much to learn in too little time. Enough

time for fundamentals though.

- everything was valuable

“What other improvements would

you recommend in this workshop?”

- maybe breaking the class into two night sessions versus one

- more time

- perhaps this workshop should have been 1 hour longer

- resource videos of instruction would be helpful, not only as

prep for class, but a resource to visit on any occasion to polish

materials

- maybe adding an additional session in order to get into more

detail about research

- I just needed more time to learn the system and ask questions

- Longer, at least 6 hours

Lessons Learned

Create tutorials, these are motivated learners

Timing of the session needs to be during

rather than before classes

Or embed into class sessions

Graduation, June, 2014

References

Hoppenfeld, J., Wyckoff, T., Henson, J., Mayotte, J., & Kirkwood, H.

(2013). Librarians and the Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans:

Helping disabled veterans with business research. Journal of Business

& Finance Librarianship, 18(4), 293-308.

Lange, J., Canuel, R., & Fitzgibbons, M. (2011). Tailoring information

literacy instruction and library services for continuing education. Journal

of Information Literacy, 5(2), 66-80.