º£½ÇÉçÇø

Intro (00:00):

Trailblazers in research, innovators in technology, and those who simply have a good story: all make up the fabric that is º£½ÇÉçÇø, where taking on the grand challenges that face our students, graduates, and higher education is our mission and our passion. Hosted by Mason President Gregory Washington, this is the Access to Excellence podcast.

President Gregory Washington (00:27):

It should go without saying that at George Mason, everything starts with the students. As our website says, we're All Together Different, and that certainly describes the thousands of people who come to study in our classrooms and labs. George Mason students have often taken a less traditional path to our doorstep. Many have had challenges that they've dealt with in their lives, or maybe they come to us from community college or are late life learners coming from the workforce, or as we're going to talk about today, they come from the military. No matter what path they took, non-traditional students are traditional students at George Mason and with our guest today, we're going to take a look at how George Mason works to open the doors for them. Keith Renshaw is º£½ÇÉçÇø's senior associate provost for undergraduate education and a professor of psychology in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Actually, he probably would prefer I put the professor first. <laugh>. He specializes in anxiety, stress, trauma, and interpersonal relationships with particular interest in the experiences of service members and their families. Keith, welcome to the show.

Keith Renshaw (01:53):

Thank you very much. Happy to be here.

President Gregory Washington (01:56):

So you have an interesting path 'cause you're non-military, correct?

Keith Renshaw (01:59):

That is correct. I'm non-military.

President Gregory Washington (02:01):

So how did you first get involved in the veteran community?

Keith Renshaw (02:05):

That's, yeah, it's something a lot of people ask me, because a lot of times they assume I, I did serve. My field within psychology is clinical psychology, and with that degree I had to do a year-long clinical internship, which I did at a VA hospital. Shortly after that, I got my first tenure track job, uh, and that was at the University of Utah, and it was in, uh, 2005. And so we were in the height of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, and you couldn't get away from all the reports about the impact of those deployments on the, the service members and, and in particular on their families. Um, and also on the folks who had, for instance, been in the National Guard and were being called up to deploy for 12, 15 months at a time. And I found myself really moved by those reports, and I wanted to do something.

Keith Renshaw (02:52):

I knew that myself, I wouldn't, uh, volunteer for the military. It just wasn't in me. And I had this overwhelming respect and almost awe for the people who would, and I wanted to find a way to use my own training to help. So one thing I considered was, uh, something called Give an Hour. This was a program back then that allowed you to donate sort of an hour of free therapy, uh, a week to, to somebody in the population. But as I thought about it, it felt too transient to me, and I wanted to do something that would be more sustainable. So what I did was tried to pivot my entire research program, which up to that point had really focused on anxiety disorders and adult relationships, to look at stress, trauma, and anxiety in the context of relationships within the military. Uh, and so through a series of connections, I started partnering up with the Utah National Guard and trying to find ways to design research studies to address problems they were seeing so that not only would I be able to sort of be giving back in some way through my work, I would be able to be directly impacting issues they were seeing and trying to help them form recommendations. And, and honestly, that work sort of launched my entire research career, which led me here to George Mason in, in 2009.

President Gregory Washington (04:08):

I guess you had early life experiences with veterans that helped shape your current thinking and involvement. Is, is that accurate?

Keith Renshaw (04:16):

I would say that is accurate. Um, my kids would object to your using early life experiences given that I was in my twenties. But yes, I, that's, that's the way I would think about it.

President Gregory Washington (04:25):

So, so talk to me a little bit about what some of those experiences were. What kinds of things did you see that kind of moved you in this direction?

Keith Renshaw (04:35):

So when I was at the VA hospital working with, with some of the veterans at the time, uh, I, I was at that hospital in 2001, so I was there on 9/11 and, and, and after. And so I was seeing a lot of the veterans who were coming from the Vietnam era and also from sort of the first Gulf War era. And what I saw, especially in the Vietnam era veterans, well actually in, in really in both populations, was just how disrupted their relationships had been after they came back. And that was a lot in terms of trying to understand what they were experiencing now that they were done, um, and, and how to explain that to others, or how they couldn't explain that to others. And I also saw just how, um, disrupted their sense of purpose had become, and I saw this throughout, there's this incredible sense of, of mission and purpose that these folks were experiencing while they were part of the military.

Keith Renshaw (05:27):

And when they left, they were often sort of grasping for some element of that afterward that they just couldn't recreate. And that was really causing them a lot of distress. And so I, I found myself wanting to find ways to think about both of those elements. How could I do things that might impact their relationships and how might I also be able to think about helping them, uh, regain and, and find that purpose outside of the military, uh, while also sort of helping them in the traditional, you know, sort of psychological sense as I was working with them in therapy and whatnot.

President Gregory Washington (06:02):

In 2020, you helped lead the formation and launch of the Military Veterans and Families Initiative at George Mason, the MVFI. Or I like to say M-V-Fi, you know? What was the inspiration behind the effort?

Keith Renshaw (06:21):

So when I got here over time, I started to get connected with other people at the university who also did something that touched on the service member, veteran family population. Um, at first it was researchers, people would, would introduce me to, you know, they'd say, "oh, somebody else is doing research with this group, you should really meet them." And so I would find out about this wide range of research we had going on here at the university from the kinds of things that I do, looking at sort of family adjustment, um, up through battlefield technology to sort of classified things people couldn't tell me about, you know, and all, all sorts of things. And, and if you look really at our, I, I know you know this, you know, if you look at our research portfolio, uh, over 50% of our federally funded projects come from the DOD over the past several years.

President Gregory Washington (07:03):

Yep, that is true.

Keith Renshaw (07:04):

So we have just an incredible range Yeah, pf, of, of research there. But I also met folks who are working with students. We had an Office of Military Services, uh, that started here under the leadership of Jennifer Connors, who's still their director now with her associate director, Ryan Barnett and some other staff. They serve the just huge number of students we have here at George Mason. When we started this work, about 10% of our student body self-identified as service member, veteran or family. Um, we're now up to almost 14%. We have well over 5,000 students, um, who are in this, this group. And so that really just sort of spoke to us as we all sort of talked to each other, we're like, wow, there's a lot going on here. But what I think really kicked us off to think about what we're trying to do with MVFI is seeing all of the other ways that we touched on this population that was embedded in our education and research missions.

Keith Renshaw (07:54):

So a couple of examples: I learned about the M-Vets Clinic. This is a clinic that runs through our law school. Every, every law school has their third year law students, they've gotta get practical experience. The way our law school does it is to give free services to veterans with certain types of legal issues. And the students sit first chair, and then there's a barred faculty member who sits, um, second chair with them. And so under the leadership of Tim MacArthur, that group has been serving veterans for years at this point. And then I also found that we had this, uh, incredible Veterans in the Arts program that's actually a nationally recognized research program led by Niyati Dhokai in our College of Visual Performing Arts, where in the context of research on how art impacts the service member, veteran, family community, um, they are serving thousands of veterans through free workshops.

Keith Renshaw (08:40):

They come in, they do the workshops, and they're, we're talking painting, photography. They're closing on 20,000 folks that they've served over the past decade or so in that program. And so we just had these unique types of ways that we serve veterans that I did not see at other universities. And so when we all got together and started talking, we wanted to find a way to connect these, because the two things we realized were, one, a lot of people didn't know about this unless you knew where to look outside the university. And two, a lot of even the people doing these efforts didn't know each other and didn't know about the efforts. And so we wanted to connect them. Um, and that was really the inspiration behind the, the effort was to try to connect the programs, grow them, and really raise the visibility because we thought we should be shouting this from the rooftop so that people know.

President Gregory Washington (09:27):

So really you see this more as a matchmaking kind of framework. It's, is that right?

Keith Renshaw (09:32):

It started as that, yes.

President Gregory Washington (09:33):

Okay. Well talk about what specific services you offer, and then let's talk about some of the successes.

Keith Renshaw (09:40):

Yeah, sounds good. So, so in addition to those, we, we've seen some other growth. Another really interesting program we had, um, was something called Educate the Educators. So back in the sort of mid 2010s, Michelle Obama and Jill Biden had a whole initiative around sort of recognizing all that military service members and, and veterans and families were doing. And one component of that was called Educate the Educators. They wanted to train teachers in how to know the challenges and the resources available to military children. And so Jill Biden actually came to our campus to announce the sort of initiative because we were already doing the work. Uh, Jennifer Drake Patrick, a faculty member in our College of Education and Human Development had developed, Educate the Educators modules that were being embedded into our curriculum for all future teachers within our College of Education and Human Development. So we were able to sort of really put a spotlight on that and help that shine. That is now actually professional education that is available to all teachers from preschool up through 12th grade throughout the state of Virginia.

President Gregory Washington (10:40):

No, that's pretty cool. I think people underestimate what young people who were in military, look, I was a young person in a military family and then, and served myself. As a young person, one of the things I oftentimes remember is that you would establish friendships, and your friendships were in, you know, two to four year cycles. Right. You, you establish these friendships and then the next thing you know, you're off to another duty station and you would essentially start all over. And these moves didn't come at, you know, the opportune time. And, and I remember, you know, just when life was getting good for me, <laugh>...

Keith Renshaw (11:23):

<laugh>

President Gregory Washington (11:24):

Trust, when things were getting really good, there was a move.

Keith Renshaw (11:29):

Boom, yeah.

President Gregory Washington (11:29):

And you start all over, right? And, and so I think it probably affects those young people relative to how they maintain and engage relationships. Because everything is temporary, right? I believe I have fewer lifelong relationships, right, because of it. I've had a couple of relationships endure everything. But I can see where it's, where it can be a problem.

Keith Renshaw (11:56):

Yeah. You're so spot on with that. And, and this is really one of the things that grabbed us when we started this work and, and why it's not just military veterans, right, or service member veterans. And it's, it's military veterans and families because the impact is so huge and, and honestly, when you meet the families, right. Um, and this, this was part of what really hit me in my early work, the amount of resilience and commitment that they have, but they don't necessarily get recognized, right. When they're walking through the airport, people aren't applauding for them, right, you know, I mean...

President Gregory Washington (12:28):

People don't say, thank you for your service.

Keith Renshaw (12:30):

No, they don't. Right. And, and boy, they should! And, and one of the things that, that we've actually been able to do that really speaks exactly to what you were just talking about, uh, here at George Mason, after we've started the MVFI, um, Jennifer Drake Patrick, that same faculty member, has also recently stood up with some support from us and some philanthropic donations we've gotten in, has been able to stand up, um, Student Ambassador days. So high schools in this area, most of 'em have Student Ambassador Programs. These are students who are sort of charged with helping new students transition in Right. And, and help them out. Obviously, the military children are a huge piece of that part. Yeah. Right. You know what I mean?

President Gregory Washington (13:04):

Without question. Especially here.

Keith Renshaw (13:05):

Yeah. And so, um, and they're coming in at all, at all times of the year and everything else. And so what we do now is we host those students. We brought, we bring students here to campus. They have a day on campus with our faculty and our students sort of training up in different ways to do this work and learning specifically about some of the challenges that the military children have and getting ready to work with them. And so we've been able to do that work and kind of amplify it. Started with one day with Fairfax, and now we have more than we can handle. Um, we got Prince William wanting to come in. We got Arlington, Alexandria, Loudoun, and, and so now we're, we're out there trying to find some more funds to, to support that work because we've got more demand than we can supply.

Keith Renshaw (13:45):

Um, so a another one that, that I'm really excited by to, to see how it's come is, was a success both in starting something new and then connecting programs. We took that M-Vets model and we have, uh, what's called the Center for Community Mental Health here at George Mason, operates out the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. It's led by Robyn Mehlenbeck. And they provide therapy and assessment to the community through clinical psychology students, social work students, and counseling students who are all in graduate programs, training to be therapists and assessors and whatnot, um, in their, in their future life. So it's a similar model to the M-Vets program. Um, there is a cost associated with that. They're one of the lowest cost things in the area, but there's still a cost. And we've actually been able to, again, raise philanthropic funds to support the provision of services free to veterans and now their families as well. So any veteran or family in the area who needs therap,y needs assessment can come to our clinic and can get that free through that service. We actually now have a second fund.

President Gregory Washington (14:43):

Wow. Do we, do we advertise that? Is that something that's known?

Keith Renshaw (14:46):

We do. We actually partner with the Department of Veteran Services here in Virginia to make sure that they know. And so we actually sometimes have people referred from Richmond, Roanoke, you know, to, to come up for assessments in particular, um, because those are hard to get and extremely expensive. A thorough, you know, psychological assessment. The community is gonna cost you anywhere from three to $5,000.

President Gregory Washington (15:07):

And they can get that free.

Keith Renshaw (15:08):

They can get that free.

President Gregory Washington (15:09):

Outstanding. That's amazing.

Keith Renshaw (15:11):

On the student side, um, we have actually started to work and connect a lot of our different student offices around campus to the Office of Military Services through this work so that everybody's kind of on the same page. So we now have a monthly group that meets, and we have representatives from the Office of Military Services, Registrar's office, financial aid, Student Accounts, Counseling and Psychological Services, um, Center for Community Mental Health. I'm gonna forget some...Career Services...so that everybody knows the different things that are going on. And everybody also knows, hey, if you get a veteran coming in, there might be special services available to them. Um, and, uh, and so we've been able to stand that up. We now are just about to launch, I think this is now confirmed: in Fall '26 we are for the first time, gonna be able to evaluate veterans prior educational experiences in the military, through their joint services transcript, for credit here at George Mason.

Keith Renshaw (16:03):

And we have not been able to do that for years just because it's, it's kind of a morass. But through the work of this group and through some advocacy from people in this group, um, we've gotten to the point now where our transfer credit evaluation team has put some technology in place. And we are, we are test running it now. And so, so far all looks good. And so we think that we're gonna be able to launch that starting Fall '26, um, where people are getting, uh, much more credit for their prior service. Because one, one of the things that I saw, at least in my time working with folks, is not only the incredible purpose and, and the incredible things that service members master during their time, but just how much of that doesn't show up on any kind of resume or transcript except for this joint services transcript. And so that is critical to being able to help them get toward that degree by not making them repeat things that they clearly have mastered in the past.

President Gregory Washington (16:55):

Oh, that's amazing. So, and, and that will then, will, it should equal more courses being--

Keith Renshaw (17:03):

Credited...

President Gregory Washington (17:04):

--Being awarded to students.

Keith Renshaw (17:05):

Right. So that they're not basically repeating the same thing that they already know.

President Gregory Washington (17:08):

Outstanding, outstanding. This Military Veterans and Families Initiative, how does it uphold Mason's values as an institution?

Keith Renshaw (17:16):

Yeah, in my mind, it's, it's almost the sort of epitome of the values. And the reason I say that is because this whole thing is about bringing together inclusivity and access for students and supporting those students with what they need to get to their next step. With the incredible research enterprise that we have here, and the expertise that we have with serving the community and being a, a place where we are, um, we are a public good, right? We are a state entity, and we are here serving the state. We're doing that by serving the community members. We're in one of the, you know, most veteran-rich, service member-rich, family-rich areas of the country. And we have all of these services that are training our students, um, that are accomplishing research while also delivering services directly to that population in our region. In addition, we are one of the biggest producers of talent in the region, in the state. And we know that in our region, we have a number of employers who are not only looking for great talent, but they have specific recruiting initiatives around veterans. And so we are supplying that talent basically by bringing these things together. So we're able to marry the student services with the research mission, with the community service mission of our university. So, to me, it really sort of represents everything. And it also is bringing in a whole set of, of folks who have had a different life experience than those who haven't been in the military.

President Gregory Washington (18:51):

You know, what you call that?

Keith Renshaw (18:52):

I think I know what you're gonna say.

President Gregory Washington (18:54):

You know what we call that here? <laugh>, we call that diversity. And that's a part of the piece that's always missing from the discussions that we have on this topic.

Keith Renshaw (19:05):

You are right.

President Gregory Washington (19:06):

That's clear. We don't run from it.

Keith Renshaw (19:08):

Nope.

President Gregory Washington (19:09):

But I think the broader public misses that we see this as part of the diversity, the rich tapestry of diversity that we bring to this community, and that we work to enhance, you know, we work to engage, and we work to incorporate in terms of what George Mason is all about.

Keith Renshaw (19:29):

And that kind of experience benefits not just the service members, the veterans and their families, benefits our students from seeing different perspectives, different backgrounds. I mean, you've got people who are coming here who lived all over the world, seeing all kinds of things, um, and that they're bringing that into our classrooms.

President Gregory Washington (19:47):

Yeah. I had a dinner last night with a group of students, and in that group, you know, we had former military students, and they were older than, you know, the traditional students in the group, and they brought a different set of life experiences to discussion. They're in the same classes. They have the same engagement. Uh, they, they work in the same groups. But they bring a different set of experiences. And that is valuable to other young people who are really, for lack of a better way of saying this, figuring themselves out.

Keith Renshaw (20:19):

That's Right.

President Gregory Washington (20:20):

A 2019- 2020 survey from the National Center on Education Statistics stated that veterans represent 3.7% of all undergraduate students in the US. Would you say that this data has changed since then?

Keith Renshaw (20:40):

I, yeah. So we don't have any comprehensive studies like that that they've done since that I have seen what we're seeing in some of the sort of, you know, sampling type studies, is that, that that number seems to be going up right, might be inching closer to 5%. Now, in addition, I think it's important to layer on top of that the veteran connected folks and the military connected folks, thinking about the kids, thinking about the, the spouses, right, 'cause military spouses, I, I just wanna sort of note, they often get left out of the conversation, you know, but they have their own issues with you, you mentioned it before, right, you know, just like the kids are moving every one to two to four years. So are the spouses. And so stringing together a set of educational or work experiences is difficult. So, so I think that that number is inching up. Um, it's certainly higher here at George Mason.

President Gregory Washington (21:31):

We're higher than those statistics. Is that what you would say?

Keith Renshaw (21:34):

For sure. Yeah. We're definitely higher than that on the veteran side. And then when you layer on top of that, the, um, the sort of, we, we also have, you know, we've got active duty and, you know, guard reserve who are here as well. And then we've got, you know, a very robust, uh, enrollment of, of dependents and spouses.

President Gregory Washington (21:49):

What are some of the unique experiences that veterans bring to the classroom?

Keith Renshaw (21:54):

You know, I think all kinds of things, right? So, on the one hand, you've got a set of folks who have often had pretty global experiences depending on where they've been deployed. And, and when I say deployed, I don't mean combat zones. I mean, you know, they, sometimes they're going off and doing other types of missions. Also every, you know, one to two to three, four years, there are changes of station, right? And so sometimes they're in Germany or sometimes they're over in Korea, and, and, and so they're bringing all of that life experience in. But they're also bringing the experience of being part of this broader mission, you know, this, this broader group with a fairly singular mission. And that kind of experience of being a piece of a team to a level at which most people haven't experienced, I, I think is just invaluable, right?

Keith Renshaw (22:40):

To hear about and, and, and to see. And then they've got just a world of logistical experience. You've got, you've got some, you know, veterans who are coming in having managed, you know, millions of dollars of equipment, hundreds of other--right, you know, service members being responsible for their lives. And, and then they're walking into the classroom, right. You know, and sitting down and making a presentation with other groups that that's gonna change the way they think about some of the issues we're talking about in the classroom. Um, that's gonna layer on different experiences with other cultures as well, you know, a lot of folks are out there interacting with, with people all over the world. Right. Right. And having to kinda learn that.

President Gregory Washington (23:19):

It's interesting when you juxtapose that you may have been serving in theater in a country, and then you are now in the classroom interacting with students from that country. Right?

Keith Renshaw (23:32):

Absolutely. Especially here. Yeah.

President Gregory Washington (23:34):

Oh, yeah. Without question. What are some of the challenges or barriers veterans face when returning to school?

Keith Renshaw (23:40):

So one, I think, is a logistical one, which is being able to sort of get credit for some of the experiences and training they have had that maps really closely onto the courses that they're now being told they have to take because they don't have a neat transcript that shows it. Um, so that, that's, that's a biggie. I think the, you know, I don't know if culture shock is the right word, but, but having to sort of transition from the world they've been in to a classroom setting can often be challenging. It can often be challenging, I think, even from things as simple as a vague assignment that is vague on purpose, you know, sometimes we give our students assignments where part of the assignment is figuring out, right, what they need to do. Sometimes these are folks who are very used to being told precisely what they need to do.

Keith Renshaw (24:23):

I had one student I worked with who's a doctoral student, and, um, and his phrase was always like, what's the target? Right? What, what, what do I need to hit? Right. And I was like, unfortunately, you gotta figure out that target. Right. You know, that that's part of it. Part of it is finding it. Um, and so, you know, so we would have these kind of back and forths, but, but I'm gonna layer on top of all of that. I think one thing that doesn't get enough attention, which is often the search for purpose and mission, right? I think what we're seeing now is a real struggle in that transition period from service to veteran, um, where you go from having this very clear mission and, and you're part of an entire group that is 100% devoted to that mission, and then you step out, it's all kind of open. You know, what now? And I think that sometimes that's a, that's a bigger struggle than we realize sort of as as, as folks are trying to figure out, what am I doing next? How do we layer on that sense of purpose, that sense of mission with that work?

President Gregory Washington (25:21):

MVFI's mission of providing critical support to military veterans, and family extends to developing curricula and learning opportunities for our non-military connected students to understand the unique needs and experiences of veterans and their families. Right. Can you talk about some of these hands-on opportunities for our students?

Keith Renshaw (25:43):

I'm so glad you asked about that. So, you know, we, we have those educate the educator modules, right, right. Which will, which sort of train future teachers. We use that as a springboard to create a similar set of modules for healthcare programs. So partnered up with a, with a nonprofit and a, a, a medical doctor who had been in the service and created a set of modules that trained folks in healthcare about different sorts of conditions they might see. And again, different resources available to veterans. Um, because what folks don't realize is the majority of veterans are getting their care outside the VA system. A lot of times people think, oh, I'm not gonna see it. Well, you are, right? And especially if you're going graduate and practice in this region, you're absolutely going to see it. So we wanna prepare those students. Some of the other interesting things we've been able to do, and this is what I want, what I hope to grow in the future, is to be able to connect students in particular classes with either veteran serving organizations, nonprofits in the area that have particular needs, um, or other sorts of efforts.

Keith Renshaw (26:44):

And so, I'll give a couple of examples. I was, uh, talking to somebody who was, uh, running kind of a nonprofit, and they were like, you know, we just don't have time to build out our website to sort of get our, you know, our, our marketing out there, et cetera. And I said, well, let me look around and turns out, and we have, not surprisingly, a set of communication classes that that's what they do. And they're always on the lookout for clients as sort of practice for the students to get hands-on training that semester, so I was able to hook them up. And the students got their experience while helping this nonprofit get their website off the ground. And on the way the students also got to sort of see some of the issues that the service member, veteran family community is dealing with because of the content of what they were working on.

Keith Renshaw (27:31):

We had a partnership with the Department of Veteran Services to, um, help run, uh, a suicide prevention program that they do that's called, uh, Virginia's "Identify, Screen, and Refer." And they needed a, a logo so that they could give people something that would show that they had completed a certain type of training. Well, we were able to connect them with a, a summer class in graphic design here, and the students as part of their final projects, each submitted designs, and then the, all the final designs were sent to the Department of Veteran Services, and they selected a winner, and then that student was able to come down and talk about it. Turns out it was a military kid. And in the middle of his presentation, the, uh, Commissioner of, uh, Veteran Services was there, stood up, uh, came up and gave him a military coin for doing such a great job. It was, it was just a really, really cool moment for one of our students. Yeah.

President Gregory Washington (28:23):

Outstanding. So why is it important for students to learn about the unique needs of military veterans and their families, other students?

Keith Renshaw (28:31):

Yeah. I, I see it as, as one: part of our broader approach to, as you said before, right? From the perspective of diversity, recognizing we live in a, you know, global and diverse world. And our students need to be prepared for that in all aspects. Not just in one aspect of diversity, not in two or three aspects, but all aspects. This is another one. In addition, a lot of our students are going out there and doing work that is where they're gonna be interacting with folks. And, and guess what? <laugh>, a huge percentage of our population is military or veteran connected. So developing competence to work with that group is sort of critical to success. If you're in a service field, you need to be prepared for that. And just, if you're gonna be a person who interacts with other colleagues, you should be prepared for that to some degree. And so I see it as another piece of what we are delivering to our students in terms of training them to be prepared to engage with the full range of diversity they're gonna experience when they leave this place.

President Gregory Washington (29:34):

Especially if you stay in this area.

Keith Renshaw (29:38):

Absolutely.

President Gregory Washington (29:38):

Right? Which more than 70% of our students do. You stay in this area for a job, it's a high probability you're gonna deal with people from the military.

Keith Renshaw (29:50):

For sure.

President Gregory Washington (29:50):

And so you need to have an understanding or even some life experiences where you've engaged with folk in the classroom and others. That's right. So you, you're an accomplished professor here at George Mason, and you've gotten multiple teaching awards. Right. And, you know, I always would envy you folk over in psychology because, you know, everything you do is so relatable. Yeah. <laugh>, which made it easier to win teaching awards.

Keith Renshaw (30:13):

<laugh>, I feel like you're, I feel like you're knocking down my award a little bit.

President Gregory Washington (30:17):

<laugh> Make it easier, because, you know, you deal with the human condition and everybody has a dog in the hunt. And they don't necessarily have that with differential equations. <laugh>, I, I get it. <laugh>. Um, but how have your experiences with the military community impacted your approach to teaching?

Keith Renshaw (30:36):

It's a, it's a great question. I'm gonna sort of put two elements to it. One is sort of my broader experiences, right? It's just kind of opened my eyes to a very particular slice of diversity that I would not have otherwise been aware of. And so that then makes me realize in my teaching, like I have to realize people in my classroom might have had any range of experiences that I'm not aware of. You know, when I started out early on in my teaching career, a lot of what I did relied on the relatability, right, of the material. And, um, you can make that be pretty fun. I realized, you know, over time that some of what I was making fun, um, I wasn't making fun of it, but I was making fun with it. But that was probably pretty personal to a student in my class, and I didn't realize it.

Keith Renshaw (31:25):

And so I was able to sort of shift my, as, as, as I had some more of these experiences, in particular, some of the experiences with the military folks, I was able to start to shift the way that I delivered my material, even to be a little bit more sensitive to that, I think, and to be, um, a little bit more aware. It also opened my eyes to the importance of exposing people to different perspectives in ways of thinking. And this one, I'll get a little more personal in, in this region, right? You make friends, right? You know, you meet people, um, who are coming in. And, um, number of years ago as I was sort of starting in this work, uh, you know, we had a military family kind of move into the, the neighborhood and kids were the same age, you know, and everything else.

Keith Renshaw (32:03):

So we, we spent a lot of time together and I ended up getting into some sort of in-depth conversations with their father who was a, a military member. And, and that really led to this kind of what now is probably going on almost 10 years of occasionally sort of stepping aside and having really deep conversations about issues where we have differing perspectives and trying to understand each other. And that has kind of formed the basis for how I think about what we need to be teaching all of our students, because we have far too little of people with from different perspectives trying to engage with each other, to understand each other, as opposed to put each other down or shut each other down. And in fact, that that really is driving some of the work I'm now doing in my current role in, in sort of senior associate provost for undergrad ed, trying to think about how do we foster these types of experiences in our students.

Keith Renshaw (33:02):

He came with me actually to an event we had last year pre-election that we hosted through our Office of Community Engagement and Civic Learning. And the Schar School sent over Jennifer Victor and Lucas Núñez, and there was this whole sort of, uh, engagement of students and staff and faculty around particular issues. Um, and it was all fact-based and sort of respectful, but trying to sort of think about different sides of the same issue and, you know, and, and where people were coming from. So seeing how that can happen and how intentional that has to be, particularly now, um, has really shaped my thinking about how to teach in a way that makes people confront other ideas from a perspective of learning more about it. Not just shooting it down.

President Gregory Washington (33:48):

As someone with extensive experience at this intersection of the military community and higher ed, what would you say is one way higher ed can improve themselves in, in terms of the support of veterans, the military and their families?

Keith Renshaw (34:04):

I would love to see higher ed push ourselves in thinking about the military veteran family community within diversity work. As you said, you know, I mean, this is, this is work that, that has to happen because it's who our student body is, right? So how do we make sure it's robust so that it's capturing the totality of what we mean by diversity? So I would love to see us incorporate this, you know, the sort of understanding of the population and understanding the totality of what the, the population goes through. Because I think a lot of times when people say, oh yeah, you know, I mean, I wanna make sure I know about the military veteran community so that I know how to recognize when somebody's got PTSD. And it's like, that's not the totality, right? I mean, you know, that is, that is such a small piece of things that I think I'm really glad we have awareness of it, but I think it's kind of overtaken and overshadowed the, the, the sort of totality of experience.

Keith Renshaw (34:59):

Let's recognize the, the benefits, let's recognize the rich sort of experience that folks are bringing to the table. Um, and let's start embedding that in trainings for faculty and staff so that we're aware of it and we can actually not only serve our students better, but leverage that experience to benefit all of our students more. And within that work, my real hope is that we don't just stay focused on veterans only, but we really broaden out to think about military spouses, military children, and the entirety of the family because that whole group brings a set of experiences to the table that we need to recognize and, and acknowledge.

President Gregory Washington (35:42):

That is good stuff. So what encourages you to continue working with and advocating for the veteran community?

Keith Renshaw (35:50):

Every now and again, with this veteran opportunities group, some sort of emergent issue pops up. And because that group is functioning so well together and, and so tight, we're able to sort of problem solve it. And we help a student who is about to lose their benefits, right? Or who is about to have to stop out because their benefits ended, and we figure out a way to keep them in and get them over the finish line. When, when I see those kinds of things, I get excited. And when I see the kinds of things we've been able to do, standing up the Student Ambassador Days, starting these services at Center for Community Mental Health for the folks, um, continuing the services we're doing through M-Vets. When I see those kind of impacts, as much as this is all done right now with just donated time and effort from folks across the university, it keeps you going and it makes you wanna keep doing it.

President Gregory Washington (36:38):

Outstanding. Outstanding. Well, we really, really appreciate you, and we appreciate the work you're doing for our students and for our veterans and their families.

Keith Renshaw (36:47):

There you go. There you go. Well, I appreciate the opportunity.

President Gregory Washington (36:49):

Outstanding. Well, we're gonna have to leave it there. Keith, thank you for joining us and for your hard work in helping º£½ÇÉçÇø students succeed. I am George Mason president Gregory Washington. Thanks for listening, and tune in next time for more conversations that show why we are All Together, Different.

Outro (37:13):

If you like what you heard on this podcast, go to podcast.gmu.edu for more of Gregory Washington's conversations with the thought leaders, experts, and educators who take on the grand challenges facing our students, graduates, and higher education. That's podcast.gmu.edu.