In The News

I found myself being in numerous Newspapers, Online blogs, and on TV News outlets. Many of those are hard to find now-a-days, but several articles have been located. Those will be posted here in digital format for future reference as they are relocated.

Memorial Day 2009:  OCU’s New Veterans Program as Lead Story (interview)

OCU group helps military
Officials at Oklahoma City University created a military student organization aimed at helping military personnel afford a college education.

Military Affinity Group is open to all active military personnel and veterans.
“It’s more than just a social group where military students can share ideas about their college experience,” founder Derek Gordon said in a news release. “The main component is the financial aspect.”

The group’s focus is to find donors for an endowment fund to help students get an education at OCU after serving their country, Gordon said.
Veterans Represented In New RSO April 9th, 2008

Although the UA was established in 1871, a student population never has had official representation on campus until March 31, when U.S. military veteran students, as well as any current student in the military, officially became represented by the group MPPOC, Military Past and Present on Campus.

“My involvement began with a listserv email from Off Campus Connections,” said Derek J. Gordon, newly elected MPPOC president.

“A few UA employees had an idea to develop an organization to serve the military on campus,” he said. “[Co-staff adviser] Jeffrey W. Martindale arranged two luncheons and invited all military people on campus who responded to the e-mail. At that point, I wasn’t sure what to expect. But once I was there, I saw a great desire for an RSO dedicated to the people who serve this great country.

One of the veterans who helped organize MPPOC was UA geosciences undergraduate William D. Fink. After he enlisted in the Marine Corps in 1993, Fink was shipped out in ’94, right after his graduation from Springdale High.

“I was in Marine combat training at the School of Infantry,” he said. “We were doing some squad on the offense combat exercises and planning to take this bunker. They were lobbing these 60 mm mortar simulators at us, and one of them hit very close to me. [The explosion] took out my right eye, got some shrapnel in [the right side of] my head. I spent another year in a medical unit while they ran an investigation as to what went wrong. They diagnosed me with [post-traumatic stress disorder] and processed my honorable discharge.”

After that, Fink said he worked for the U.S. Postal Service as a postal clerk for seven years. But he found himself very uncomfortable working indoors and decided for his mental health that he needed a change.

After a few months at home, Fink decided to attend college by using his GI Bill Chapter 31, vocational rehabilitation for his service-connected injury. He enrolled in NorthWest Arkansas Community College in the fall of 2003 and received his associate’s degree in science, he said.

“Then I transferred to UA,” Fink said. “My original major here was geology, but I had a high wall to climb. The Calculus I class just blew me away.

“And even with all the resources offered to me from the UA … I had to switch my degree to earth science.”

Scheduled to graduate with his undergraduate degree May 10, he chose earth science for two reasons. He said he had taken many geology courses that would not all apply to his other degree choices, and he wouldn’t have to take Calculus II.

“The past several years have been incredible,” Gordon said. “I have taken part in developing and maintaining numerous organizations outside of campus. But even if one was to combine all of the excitement from the past, nothing could amount to what was felt in those meetings for the military.

“I knew that my skills would be best put to task getting MPPOC off the ground, and I ran with it. Everyone in that room wanted the same thing, and our strict backgrounds allowed us to reach the first milestone quickly and with unity,” he said.

“This is terrific news,” said Martindale, psychologist at the Pat Walker Health Center. “Congrats to everyone involved – I know many have really put a great deal of effort into this. I look forward to seeing the future growth of the RSO and services for vets and military members on campus.”

For Gordon, “there is much that can be done to assist incoming veterans, whether it be vet friendly housing, university enrollments and course planning, assisting with the disabled vets to ensure that they get proper access to an educational environment that will better their overall experience, and so forth,” he said.

“However, the key issue is the fact that there will be many MPPOC members who have gone before the newcomers. That is to say, the current members can assist the incoming veterans in their battle to become accustomed to the civilian lifestyle,” Gordon said.

“Furthermore, there will be a forum of people available to discuss experiences and to help the military brethren in their efforts to cope with the stressors of past military involvements,” he said.
MPPOC has applied for office space and Web site space, and the group is developing a listserv to help further its access to its members and any military service members – men and women. Gordon said he hopes to grow the organization by keeping veterans and active military up-to-date with UA news that might affect veterans and their families.

Gordon also sees an opportunity for the RSO to “stand up to any injustices that the university’s policies might direct toward the group” and to find funding for and administer veteran-directed student scholarships, he said.

Before he joined the military, UA undergraduate senior Emile Phaneuf – majoring in International Relations and Latin American Studies – said he wanted to go to college but wasn’t prepared directly out of high school.

“I had neither the finances to fund my schooling nor the mindset that is required to do well in an academic environment,” Phaneuf said. “But somewhere between spending two years in East Asia and hundreds of hours in [Mission Oriented Protective Posture] gear, I found that I was more than prepared for college.

“With the mindset that I gained in the military, I was able to go on to achieve a high GPA, win academic and journalistic awards, and even gain a scholarship to fund a yearlong study abroad in Brazil,” he said.

As Phaneuf began to meet more veterans on campus, he said he began to realize that veterans are among some of the brightest, hardest working and most well-rounded students at the UA.

“I, and most UA vets, are constantly on a mission to set a contagious positive attitude in our classes and on campus. We strive to be an asset to this fine university and the community,” Phaneuf said. “Veterans from all branches of the Armed Forces, including myself, are in the midst of making veteran history on campus. We’re forming an RSO to help vets make that transition into civilian life go a lot smoother.

“The individual needs of each vet after leaving military service vary vastly,” he said. “We are going to make sure that those needs are met. We’ve got a lot of great ideas and are looking for funding to start several new programs. The next few weeks are going to be very exciting.”

New RSO Targets Veterans March 14th, 2008

One of the oldest segments of the American society is also one of the least represented on the UA campus, but a group met Wednesday to discuss the need of representation for the country’s armed forces veterans.

Mental health clinicians Josette Cline and Jeff Martindale, both from Pat Walker Health services, led the discussion Wednesday before a representative group of six veterans in the Multicultural Center library. Those attending this inaugural meeting were interested in forming a new veteran Registered Student Organization.

The best estimate Cline gave for the number of veterans registered in UA classes was somewhere between 350-700 students.

“No one can provide us with the numbers of vets in school, and that’s nuts,” said retired Sgt. Maj. Birch Farley, who counsels veterans at the Fayetteville office of Workforce Arkansas and is a UA senior.

Farley said he spent 21 years as an army paratrooper and came to the meeting to lend his support to the veteran’s effort.

Potential members of the new RSO hope to assist all armed forces veterans to adjust from the military life into civilian life, as well as explore what a veteran needs to succeed on campus as a UA student.

“Vets need to realize how to go about getting benefits and getting everything taken care of,” said Andrew Suchanek, a junior math student and veteran. “I mean, I just came to Arkansas. I didn’t know anybody. It made it so much easier when I found the right people. When I came in the spring of ’07, I had no clue of what was going on.”

Suchanek said it took a while for him to locate people to help him. He had to find out where to go, how to fill out the paperwork, how to set up classes and how to get everything prepared to start back in school, all with the added pressures placed on him in his transition from military to civilian life.

“I mean, you all will agree, it’s crazy. It’s not the same,” Suchanek told the group. “You’re dependent upon yourself. You’ve got to know when to wake yourself up, take care of your business. There’s nobody out there to tell you what to do anymore.”

He, along with the other veterans who attended the meeting, said they wanted to help form a pathway to guide other military veterans, to show them the right things to do and where to go. The group’s consensus expressed the need to make the student transition process a lot smoother for future military veterans.

The process started when Derek Gordon, active duty Air Force and current UA student, met Cline in the health center in October.

“We just started talking about vets not knowing where to go around [the UA campus] to get help,” Gordon said.

Gordon volunteered to be the president of the new RSO, and Hosa Rentsendorj, finance major, said he would be treasurer, the two necessary positions to apply for RSO status.

Gordon called a second meeting for 4 p.m. today in the Multicultural Center to establish the organization’s name, complete necessary paperwork and write a veteran’s RSO Constitution.

Three Represent UA Fort Smith at AEF Meeting (Posted: November 9, 2005)

Two students and a faculty member from the University of Arkansas – Fort Smith were selected to attend the Arkansas Environmental Federation meeting on Nov. 7-9 in Hot Springs.

Representing UA Fort Smith were sophomores Derek Gordon and Mary MacVittie, both of Fort Smith, and Dr. Kai Chang of Fort Smith, assistant professor of chemistry.

Gordon, a Southside High School graduate, is an earth science major. He is the grandson of Linda James (Kern) Hall, formerly of Scranton. MacVittie is an education major originally from Altus.

This is the first time for UA Fort Smith to be invited to send participants to the conference. Students participated in mentor-for-a-day sessions with AEF member companies and educational staff.

The Arkansas Environmental Federation was founded in 1967 and is a non-profit education association with more than 400 members, the vast majority of them businesses and industries that deal with environmental, safety and health regulations on a day-to-day basis.

Featured speakers at the conference were Dr. Roy Spencer, principal research scientist at the University of Alabama and former senior scientist for climate studies at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., and Dr. Lawrence Coleman, professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

Topics presented at the meeting included global warming, HazMat disposal and chemical spill control and prevention, as well as technical sessions on air, soil and water.