On the Mark: Dario DiBattista

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Mark Ginsberg: Welcome to On the Mark, where we have candid conversations about the meaningful and consequential work that's happening here at Towson University. I'm Mark Ginsberg, president of Towson University, and of course, TU is located right here in Towson, Maryland. And on this podcast, we're introducing you to members of our university community who are engaged in high-impact research, teaching, and student success practices.

Today, I'm proud to spotlight an important topic, the support for our student veterans. And I'm joined by Dr. Dario DiBattista, Director of TU's Military and Veterans Center. Dr. DiBattista is a combat veteran of the United States Marine Corps. Thank you for your service. And has spent more than 18 years working in higher education across student affairs, residence life, and also as a faculty member. He's also a creative writing instructor for the Veterans Writing Project and has contributed to numerous military and veterans publications.

Also, Dario just recently received his doctoral degree from Frostburg State University, one of our peers in the University System of Maryland, completing his dissertation research on lived experiences of Gen Z student veterans in higher education. He also holds a master's degree in creative nonfiction writing and poetry from Johns Hopkins. Dario, thank you for joining with us and thank you for all you do in support of our military veterans and who they are and what they do and what they've accomplished. And maybe we can begin our conversation with what might be an easy question, but actually it's a pretty complicated one in that what is the Military and Veterans Center? Not just ours, but how do they function on college campuses? What do they do and why are they important?

Dario DiBattista: Thank you for having me today, President Ginsberg.

Mark Ginsberg: Oh, great to be with you.

Dario DiBattista: It's a great honor to be here and represent student veterans and military-connected services at Towson University. Many offices do do similar things. Here at TU, we believe in providing outstanding support and services to student veterans and their family members. So, really, that's partnering up across the board, the entire institution to look at systems and structures, how they're supporting veterans and their families, and shoring up those connections, relationship building, coalition building.

So, we're the Military and Veterans Center, but in ways, we're military veteran enrollment services. Helping veterans take their education from the military, transfer it to college credit. Making sure we're able to process their educational benefits, GI Bill, other related sort of educational benefits. Federal tuition assistance for those currently serving, providing community space for them, programming, health well-being, social. Creating community for them to be connected, feel included, and have opportunities, and really just being a first stop shop for anything that they're looking for. Our student veterans are uniquely prepared to succeed exactly because of their military service, but they're really coming from one very rigid paradigm to another and just looking for support in navigating that experience.

Mark Ginsberg: I know once a Marine, always a Marine.

Dario DiBattista: That's right. Yeah.

Mark Ginsberg: A veteran is not the right thing to say. You're still a Marine in so many ways.

Dario DiBattista: We say not as lean and not as mean, but still a Marine.

From combat to college campus

Mark Ginsberg: Well, I think you're just as lean and just as mean, but of course this is radio, so it's hard to make that known. But tell me a little bit about you yourself, had a personal experience going from active duty to becoming a student. Always remaining a Marine but also being a student who was a member of the armed services. Talk a little bit about some of the challenges maybe that you faced and that are endemic and ubiquitous to what many service members face.

Dario DiBattista: Sure. So, I'm part of the millennial wartime service generation. Other generations often, you might hear a Vietnam-era veteran referring to Vietnam era.

Mark Ginsberg: Yes. Right.

Dario DiBattista: Making the distinction that they did not go overseas, but the vast majority of people who served when I did – 2001, 2007 – they were over Iraq, Afghanistan, other places, Horn of Africa, Philippines, global war on terror, but almost everybody went and sometimes multiple deployments. And that was certainly mine. So, I was pretty fresh off the battlefield coming from the Marine Corps to college. I didn't actually qualify for educational benefits because the post-9/11 GI Bill hadn't been passed yet.

Mark Ginsberg: Ah-hah.

Dario DiBattista: But I did my research and found that Central Connecticut State University would give me free tuition because of my service, and I didn't know anybody there and I was not from Connecticut and I needed a place to live.

Mark Ginsberg: No kidding.

Dario DiBattista: I convinced them to hire me as a resident assistant as well.

Mark Ginsberg: Aha. You were one of the savvy ones during that era.

Dario DiBattista: Yeah. But to your point, I found the transition very jarring. [Laughter] There were some cultural elements of being in the Marine Corps, having served doing civil affairs, nation-building stuff, but attached to infantry units, just a certain way of talking, communicating. Not appropriate, [Laughter] I will say for anywhere else. And I had to really just kind of readjust, re-culturalize, and assimilate into the collegiate environment. I happened to choose political science because I was interested in it. There was a lot of veterans in the political science program.

Mark Ginsberg: Yes.

Dario DiBattista: And that really was quintessential for me. It was that peer support of having people who had been there, they were there a little bit longer, telling me to suck it up, make sure to do the work.

Mark Ginsberg: Yeah. Right.

Dario DiBattista: Again, maybe using more colorful language than that...

Mark Ginsberg: [Laughter]

Dario DiBattista: ...but really just that peer support was so crucial for being there. And that's what I'm really passionate about doing here at Towson University. We have our student veterans here and they're navigating that experience, but in particular, our student staff are really our frontline for connecting with them, offering that ambient mentoring. "Hey, here's the class that you want to take. Here's the best deal on campus," but also, "Hey, here's how you be a college student. Here's how you translate your strengths from the military, what you do have, and use those and highlight them here to succeed at TU."

Mark Ginsberg: You talked a little bit about your own experiences and I'm wondering about the commonality of just thinking about your own experience and what you're perceiving and seeing and observing with what some of the most maybe common challenges are that our vets have as they assimilate from military life, not just to civilian life, also to campus life, as you just described it.

Dario DiBattista: Sure. And I want to underscore, even though, of course, going from combat to college is a challenge, that was my experience, just being in the military itself is challenging. You're going all over the world, dealing with very dangerous circumstances, training, weapons. You're in really intense paradigms and training scenarios. One does not have to serve in Afghanistan and have a silver star to be challenging for the transition, but I think so much of it is really just going from one regiment where your day is decided, all of it.

Mark Ginsberg: Very structured, very structured environment.

Dario DiBattista: What colored socks you wear, where to get breakfast, where you're going to live, healthcare's covered, all that stuff to getting out and having to make thousands of decisions a day and having to navigate in different ways. And for a lot of veterans, there's not a direct translation of that.

Mark Ginsberg: That's got to be difficult. That's got to be difficult going from that very, very structured environment where some of those key life decisions, daily life decisions you're talking about even being made for you is, all of a sudden, you're thrust into being the master of your own universe.

Dario DiBattista: It's very challenging, and I think [Laughter] that's why you see a lot of veterans like me with beards is one last thing to figure out every day.

History of TU's Military & Veterans Center

Mark Ginsberg: Dario, our Veterans Center here is something that I'm very proud of and very proud of you for having really prompted and allowed this to happen, made this happen, that we're ranked as one of the top schools in the nation. Not just in the state, but one of the top schools in the nation for veterans. And that's because of the work of the Towson Military and Veterans Center. It was established in 2010. Tell us a little bit about its history. Tell us a little bit about how it was formed and tell us a little bit about its evolution over the last 15, 16 years now.

Dario DiBattista: Sure. And thanks for asking, President Ginsberg. So, the godmother of the center, and she might not like that term, but she lets me use it, is a woman named Tracy Miller. She's retired faculty. Her son, Nick Ziolkowski...

Mark Ginsberg: Yes.

Dario DiBattista: ...he was unfortunately killed overseas during the Second Battle of Fallujah.

Mark Ginsberg: Yes, tragically. Tragically so.

Dario DiBattista: And one of his friends who did survive did wind up coming to Towson University, but Tracy saw that him and a lot of his peers were needing student veteran peer-to-peer support. They were needing a space for them to be included but also be connected to one another. And she was really the champion of making sure the center happened and the creation of professional staff overseeing that. Patrick Young was our inaugural director, a friend of Nick Ziolkowski.

Mark Ginsberg: Yes.

Dario DiBattista: He's currently county council.

Mark Ginsberg: Yeah, I remember. The Baltimore County Council currently, that's right.

Dario DiBattista: Mm-hmm. And he laid a great foundation. But really, again, a lot of these centers came about as a result of a timely need. You had the post-9/11 GI Bill that had just gotten passed. You had hundreds of thousands of veterans like me getting off the battlefield, wanting to use those benefits, but there was a need for re-evaluating. Where are we at? Who's the current population now? What sort of supports and services are here and how can we refine and improve them? And that's really what I've tried to do in my leadership there. Again, working with our partners, building a coalition of support with enrollment services, but also our student affairs partners, right? Career Center is one of our great partners, for instance. But our veterans already have resumes.

Mark Ginsberg: Yes.

Dario DiBattista: So, the question is less how do you create a resume, [Laughter] more so than how do you translate military skills? Again, with the counseling center, our veterans have different sorts of mental health challenges, often resulting from their service that they're doing here.

Mark Ginsberg: Sure. Sure. Frequently so.

Dario DiBattista: Creating partnerships with Department of Veteran Affairs, doing ally training with the counseling center so they can best serve our student veteran populations, understand their specific needs. And again, doing that across the board with our Academic Affairs partners, helping train faculty on how best to support student veterans, working alongside them when folks are being called up to active duty – unfortunately, this is happening a lot more these days – and really just supporting their transition.

Mark Ginsberg: That is members of the Reserve, for example, are here.

Dario DiBattista: Yeah.

Mark Ginsberg: Yeah.

Dario DiBattista: Yeah. And providing that support. And I'm happy to say President Ginsberg, and probably wouldn't surprise you, every faculty staff I meet across the board is happy to help any way they can, provide whatever support they can, and that's across the board and up and down.

Building community for student veterans

Mark Ginsberg: When I talk to vets on campus and have the opportunity to do that actually fairly frequently, one of the things they tell me almost universally is how the Military and Veterans Center here at TU creates a sense of community, the very important sense of community and interconnectedness among military vets and other vets, but also with vets and the larger TU community. How have you gone about doing that and how important is that sense of community to the success of the center?

Dario DiBattista: Again, and thank you for asking, it's that collaboration across the board. We have a wonderful relationship with Admissions. When a student or veteran applies to TU, they get an email from me that says, "Hey, I'm Dario. I'm a veteran. I've walked in your shoes. I know that transition. Here's a link to the Military and Veterans Center so you can learn." When they get accepted, they get another email from me. "Hey, here's how you get started on using your benefits. We have military-connected breakout sessions. This is part of orientation. This is with our new student and family program partners." The support of our leadership, my boss, Dean of Students, and Senior Vice President of Student Affairs, and creating those connections across the entire Student Affairs Division and beyond. But really, without violating anybody's agency, I just want to put my arm around them and let them know, "Hey, I'm Dario. I'm here for you. This community's here for you. What do you need and what can we do for you?"

Mark Ginsberg: Yeah, I've been reading a little bit about student veterans and one of the folks who has written about it recently was quoted as saying, "Student veterans come to higher education with challenges, but they also come with strengths, and they come from strengths that differ perhaps in very important ways from traditional college students," that is college students who had not served. Sometimes people talk about the challenges that vets have readapting and adjusting and assimilating back from military service, but sometimes we overlook the strengths and the assets, and I'm curious for you to talk a little bit about that you've experienced yourself, but you've now worked with literally hundreds of veterans who have overcome the challenges but brought to our campus the strengths.

Dario DiBattista: Our veterans bring unique backgrounds, unique training. Sometimes we forget that they've been in a community practice, not dissimilar from the collegiate one. In the military, you're constantly evaluated on how good you are at your job, how committed you are to professional development and growth, and proving that through testing, evaluation, assessment, and that dedication to growing throughout the ranks.

Mark Ginsberg: Every day, I imagine.

Dario DiBattista: Every day.

Mark Ginsberg: Literally. Every day.

Dario DiBattista: Under some of the highest-stakes circumstances.

Mark Ginsberg: That's right.

Dario DiBattista: And for a university like ours that creates leaders for the public good, our veterans have already raised their hand for their public good. So, what a great opportunity for them to take their military training, their backgrounds, their strengths, partner that up with a world-class education here at Towson University and then go be leaders in the communities and beyond. We do great work for our student veterans here, and the vision is for them to succeed and get as far as they can, and we're providing that education on how to maximize benefits, how to go farther than they can, role modeling that, uplifting stories of student veterans who are getting PhDs, getting terminal degrees, getting master's experiences here at TU.

And then we want them to go out in the community and be those leaders for the state of Maryland, but also for military-connected students wherever they wind up. We, again, are creating that community for them to be with one another, to have that camaraderie, that connection, feel that inclusion, but I'm always reminding student vets, if you are the same personally in your own human journey on day one as you are then when you graduate, you've done it wrong.

Come to the Veterans Center, connect with our community here, but get out. Connect with other student orgs, take advantage of the other departments and divisions who are offering student services, programming, educational enrichment opportunities, service learning, civic engagement. We want them to do that all, and again, that's why I'm so thankful to be here at Towson University because we can provide for all that and encourage that and role model and do that partnership ourselves.

Mark Ginsberg: Veterans are like many students on campus, also different in some fundamental ways, as we've talked about, but students, regardless of where they come from, it's easy for a university, a large university, for people to feel isolated. And maybe in particular for veterans who've had very different experiences than maybe a college student they're sitting in class with, if they're a 23 or 24 or 25 or even older vet coming to campus sitting in a freshman class with a 18- and 19-year-old, they could feel a little bit isolated sometimes. Strikes me that part of the work that you've done is to combat that isolationism with the sense of community and interconnectedness as well as the resources because there are a ton of resources that you and your team are providing to these folks.

Dario DiBattista: Yes, and again, reminding them though that while you might have a  meteorically different background than somebody who graduated from Perry Hall High School at age 18 and started at Towson University.

Mark Ginsberg: Yeah, yeah.

Dario DiBattista: Well, they're your peers now.

Mark Ginsberg: They're your peers. Right, right.

Dario DiBattista: So, you should make that connection, and you should learn how to navigate with them.

Mark Ginsberg: That's great.

Dario DiBattista: So, even though it's uncomfortable to be with people with different backgrounds, particularly in that transition and the immediacy of it, again, just going from one very rigid paradigm to another, we want them to create those connections and interactions because those are the folks they're going to be working with when they graduate.

Researching Gen Z student veterans

Mark Ginsberg: You're in really quite a unique position. You're a very respected, highly respected leader on our campus here. You're leading a fabulously important program that has a significant impact on the lives of many, many students who are here. But you're also a scholar, a scholar who has researched this topic and have just written about this topic, and in fact, did your doctoral dissertation on this topic. Tell us a little bit about your research and what your dissertation research was about and some of the things that you discovered as part of that process.

Dario DiBattista: Thank you. I'm paraphrasing one of my favorite leaders on TU's campus, Dr. Vernon Hurte, Senior Vice President of Student Affairs. He talks a lot about we always want to connect with our students, but we always want to be ahead of where they're going because our field is always evolving. Our students are changing. They're representing different general cohorts. And particularly in the time of AI, COVID pandemics, they're dealing with a lot of different things and sometimes experiencing micro-generational experiences within that. If you were a freshman in college in 2020 or a freshman in high school, in many ways, your identity and experiences is wildly different.

So, I wanted to get ahead of that. Again, the Towson University Military and Veterans Center was founded and considered for people like me. Again, wartime service, millennial-age veterans. So, again, with that, you could rightly create programming and supports for mental health, PTSD. Many veterans were coming off the battlefield with traumatic brain injury.

Mark Ginsberg: Yes.

Dario DiBattista: So, working with Accessibility and Disability Services Office to deal with that and making considerations for that. But our student veterans today have different experiences. So, I wanted to look at the Generation Z cohort of student veterans and what sort of challenges they were having in their transition. And the really interesting thing I found in my study was that you can think of Generation Z student veterans as being extremely Gen Z. So what do I mean by that? We know that mental health is a major concern issue of the Generation Z cohort.

Mark Ginsberg: Yes, yes.

Dario DiBattista: Well, guess what else tends to exacerbate and challenge your mental health? Military service.

Mark Ginsberg: Yeah, for sure.

Dario DiBattista: We know that Gen Z are struggling to connect. They're feeling isolated. They're feeling othered. We also know that our veterans are all experiencing similar things. So, really in doing that work and seeing those considerations, but also understanding their strengths in the classroom, which I observed across the board, faculty leaning on them, them volunteering to lead group assignments, breakout activities, a natural leadership of their peers when they had on-campus employment.

We want to, again, create those community connections for them. We don't want any veteran to struggle alone, to not feel connected, not feel included. My colleague, Becca Cossaboom, our assistant director, has always reminded me community care is suicide prevention. Creating a place for them where every day they can come, even if it's just to get a coffee and somebody will acknowledge them, say hello, and ask how they are is monumental. Sometimes, again, in a large institution where not everybody's doing that everywhere. And again, understanding that mental health is challenged, needing a social network, and also that sometimes systems and structures are not necessarily designed for them. And being that bulwark and that navigator and that collaborator to create those improvements and ease their transition.

Mark Ginsberg: Well, fascinating research and very, very important principles. You were studying particular veterans. There was some case study, I imagine, that you were involved in there. My guess is you learned some things that maybe you hadn't even thought of before. What were some of those aha moments when you looked at the data set and you began to discover what you're hearing and what you're perceiving?

Dario DiBattista: Yeah, and I did a phenomenological study studying the experience of experience. For that, I participated in the student's experience. I went to their classes. I went to their houses. I went to wherever they studied. We talk about the realm of experience is referred to as life world. That's where are the students physically, literally. And I went and observed and asked them questions, and I noticed them all doing a lot. Many volunteering for...

Mark Ginsberg: Interesting.

Dario DiBattista: ...extra duty, special roles. Many of them working two, three part-time jobs, maxing out on credits. Something about the military experience, culture, wanting them to do more and work hard and be really focused and really, really almost aggressive in their day-to-day everything. But I was looking at them and I was like, "Why are they doing so much?"

Mark Ginsberg: Right.

Dario DiBattista: And I'm a director... 

Mark Ginsberg: Yeah.

Dario DiBattista: ...working at Towson University.

Mark Ginsberg: Yeah, yeah.

Dario DiBattista: I'm doing a full-time doctoral program and I'm...

Mark Ginsberg: You're almost looking in the mirror.

Dario DiBattista: ...spending 10 hours a semester with each participant.

Mark Ginsberg: Yeah.

Dario DiBattista: It was instructive and wonderful for me to connect with them and see them understanding about themselves, but realizing that's not sustainable. And again, this is a thing I admire about Gen Z. I think, despite some of the challenges they're facing socially, mental health, they're values-driven, they're looking at the world and the system structures and paradigms that are existing within and wondering, "How is this working for me? And if it's not, how might I improve it?" And again, I think that goes to the leadership of student veterans on campus coming here and bringing that past experience, but also that leadership to say, "Hey, here's what I do need. Here's what would work better for me. Here's how we can all work together as a collegiate community in supporting us and all students."

Biggest challenges veterans face today

Mark Ginsberg: When you look at the data nationally, there are about 18 million veterans, apparently, in the United States, about almost 7% of our entire population, pretty sizable. In Maryland, it's been said that there are a little bit less than 400,000 vets, about 360,000+ vets. Almost 8% of the Maryland population are veterans. We're are a little higher than the general population. And of that group nationally, there are almost 800,000 veterans who are students, who are either enrolled in U.S. higher education institutions or have been using the GI Bill.

That's an enormous number of students who are enrolled in higher education in the United States. As you think about that group, Dario, as you think about the 700,000, 800,000, even the 18 million, what are some of the biggest challenges that they're facing that our student veteran centers are able to address? If you were to capsulize, I guess, that set of challenges. And let me preface what I'm saying, too. I don't want to put you in the box and say that everyone has experienced these challenges, but you've seen trends over time. You've seen them in the center and you're a researcher. You've seen them as a scholar. What would a typical veteran be faced with?

Dario DiBattista: Again, I think that isolation is real. Very often it's self-isolation. I'm coming from a camaraderie, a fellowship, a brotherhood, sisterhood that very often the stakes were life or death. The anxiety and the responsibilities palpable and severe, and maybe not wanting to connect with others because they don't understand that. They don't understand that fellowship, that camaraderie, that connection, and maybe thinking, "Somebody else can't possibly understand this, so why would I want to connect with them?" I think that's myopic and not necessarily helpful for somebody in transition because, again, whether you're coming to Towson University because you did 20 years and got out, or you did 4 years and got out, or you were medically separated from the service, this is your new mission.

Mark Ginsberg: Yes. This is the new mission. That's a good way to describe it, yes.

Dario DiBattista: You want to come here. You want to crush it. You want to succeed. You want to take your military strengths and translate them to crushing it here. But what the center really does is acknowledges them. It sees them. It creates supports for them, whether seen or unseen.

Mark Ginsberg: Right, right.

Dario DiBattista: And then constantly checks in with them to ensure that those are working. Builds those coalition of supports across the universities through all of the divisions to verify that those are working as well as they could and seeing if they can be improved and revisiting that regularly, annually. And during that transition, they're vulnerable. I hate to use that term, but it's true. And the science does back it up, the literature. Higher rates of PTSD, feelings of underutilization, navigating career transitions in limited success because inability in communicating that effectively. Any transition is hard for anybody, but it's particularly for our veterans. So, connecting those resources, reminding them we're here, never violating anybody's agency, but peer to peer, "Hey, you really need to take advantage of it."

And it's come back to me, President Ginsberg. My students [Laughter] fairly have at times accused me of not doing what I preach. My student veterans encouraged me many, many times to apply for VA disability, which I finally did 20 years later, and I was able to get it, and it's changed my life. And I would have never experienced that if not for the community that, yes, I've helped create and foster and put together.

Mark Ginsberg: Well, that's a great anecdote too about the power of community and the power of connection and the power of caring.

Dario DiBattista: It's come back to me.

Mark Ginsberg: The power of caring.

Dario DiBattista: Yeah.

Mark Ginsberg: I was going to ask you, Dario, and you may have just answered this and if you did, that's fine too, but you might have some other thoughts. How did you measure success? How did you measure success for our center and how it is you might suggest other centers measure success? You just talked about a lot of things, but I'm wondering if there's other elements that you might add to that long and very important list.

Dario DiBattista: So, I'm proud, again, to work with our partners in particular.

Mark Ginsberg: That connectiveness again.

Dario DiBattista: Yes. We're constantly doing strategic planning, assessment evaluation, all of that. We have the numbers of persistence, graduation, all that, two year, four year, etc. Wonderful. Great story. Real numbers. But to me, it's zero, Mark. And by that, I mean in my entire time here, we've never lost a student veteran to making a bad decision about their taking their own life. And that's not something I can control, but it's something I can influence.

Mark Ginsberg: And I know you have because I know how student veterans find not only you as a mentor but find the experience here at the university because of the work that you do. So, I want to say that to you personally, as a colleague and friend, but the work that you do has had, I think, an enormous impact, and I only hope that the work you do here is replicated a thousand times at other universities.

Dario DiBattista: Thank you. And again, in doing that and providing that collection and doing our impact reports and related reports and evaluations and being obsessed with data, we are creating a clearinghouse of a model that is replicable at other universities. And it starts with you, President Ginsberg. It's that direction from the top of saying, "This is something that's important to our community, something I do want to support," and then having that go down. That means a lot to me that we're able to get that support and have that connection. And then the incredible enthusiasm of TU's professionals, staff, and faculty across the board of wanting to support our student veterans. It's truly a wonderful community. And I would not be here if it was not for that.

Mark Ginsberg: I appreciate you saying that. I also believe that we are a place that welcomes.

Dario DiBattista: Yes.

Advice for veterans considering college

Mark Ginsberg: Not only invites but welcomes people. And if you're going to have a community that you believe is inclusive, it means welcoming all. Let me ask you one more question. Time is running short. These conversations always go so fast. I'm imagining that there are many veterans who are not currently enrolled in higher education who may be listening to this program. What advice would you give to a veteran who's considering enrolling at a university, whether it be Towson or another university?

Dario DiBattista: So, firstly, make sure you're maximizing your benefits. State of Maryland is an outstanding place to become a student. Between your post-9/11 GI bill, something called Chapter 31, Veterans Readiness and Employment, and State of Maryland scholarships, there's a way for you to become a freshman through your last day of medical residency and get that 100% paid for, which is awesome. So, understanding that, but also taking the time to reach out to any prospective school and get a real pulse check on what sort of support they're going to provide for you. I make the joke that every school is military-friendly. Anybody's going to shake your hand and take your GI bill money, but who's going to empower your experience?

Mark Ginsberg: Yeah. Right.

Dario DiBattista: Be your champion and be your advocate...

Mark Ginsberg: A genuine sense of connection.

Dario DiBattista: ...and provide that connection. And that's who's picking up the phones, who cares about you, and who lives it, shows it, and reveals that. And we're doing that in droves here, and it's coming back. That's why we see our military-connected population growing every single year.