Career Center

Hiring Salary Range: $52,000-$55,000 DOQ

Veterans Coordinators hold the most senior counseling/advising role and are responsible for counseling and advising on the most complex and complicated of matters regarding Veterans Administration education benefits, student academic and degree progress, as well as financial matters. They have direct responsibility and accountability for increasing graduation and retention rates, especially among student veterans and service members. Veterans Coordinators collaborate with administration, college advising, and college student services offices through escalated cases, as well as outreach efforts across the campus community to promote collaboration and improve services to students. 

The Veterans Coordinator position requires an in-depth understanding of academic information, registration, financial aid, academic records, and student financial billing in order to facilitate direct impacts to the University’s retention and graduation rates for all students in addition to a specialized knowledge in veterans’ benefits, resources, and educational challenges. They develop success plans with veteran students to ensure a successful transition as a college student. They are also required to critically analyze and act on complex appeals, waivers, and petitions. Veterans Coordinators have the authority to apply their independent discretion and professional judgment without supervisor approval on various situations, which may have significant impact to the institution. They are responsible for ensuring compliance with federal regulations as it relates to veteran educational benefits with U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, and serve as experts for internal and external audits. 

The Veterans Coordinator serves as a supervisory resource and provide mentoring and leadership for One Stop Counselors on veterans’ benefits and to Veterans Administration work-study staff. This position leverages multiple counseling methodologies, student development theory, and learning outcomes to be experts in working with the University’s diverse populations. Additionally, they handle some of the most challenging behaviors and difficult situations that can surface when speaking with veterans, students and parents about academic success and financial matters. 

Veterans Coordinators also develop and lead programs to enhance the veteran student experience which assist the institution with its mission and goals of increased retention, graduation, and other student success measures. They develop curriculum, train, and mentor new staff.  They develop curriculum for courses and workshops and are responsible for teaching these workshops upon request of those looking to understand the veteran population more deeply. 

They provide leadership for various committees to promote professional development and student success. Veteran Coordinators have the responsibility to lead, design, and implement strategic initiatives and programs for student veterans. Skills in professional judgment and critical problem solving are paramount to the success of this position when bringing together multidimensional components of knowledge and collaborating with various stakeholders including directors, associate deans, and assistant/associate vice provosts.

Counseling  & Advising (30%)

• Serve in the only University role dedicated to student veterans and service members to counsel, advise, investigate, problem-solve, and resolve issues from prospective, current, and former students, parents, faculty, staff, collegiate units, other third parties, and the public. Must professionally counsel on the most difficult and challenging of escalated cases and problems.
• Deliver a holistic counseling experience related for veterans’ benefits, course enrollment information, academic records, financial aid, billing and payment with a continuous focus on academic success and degree progress, financial wellness, student retention and graduation rates. 
• Assist with high profile student cases that require collaborative outreach and communications with the President’s Office, University Relations, Government Relations, Office of the General Counsel, Behavioral Consultative Team, Disability Resource Center, Academic Health Center, Veterans Affairs, Department of Defense and other collegiate and administrative entities by providing expertise, data, and advice.
• Advise on in-depth financial aid  and veteran’s benefits questions ensuring adherence to all regulatory compliance concerning education benefits, financial aid applications, financial aid eligibility, disbursement and refunds, cost of attendance budget components, different aid types, loan comparisons, special circumstances, and estimated family contributions for tuition and fees.  
• As a certified Personal Financial Manager, this position conducts one-on-one financial literacy and financial wellness counseling meetings for students and parents. Curriculum is developed and maintained regularly to meet the changing needs of the economy. Student and parent advising meetings are highly individualized and require on-going curriculum enhancements, pre-meeting research, and post-meeting follow-up.
• Monitor individual progress of students’ financial and academic components, and provide personalized plans or interventions to ensure students budget appropriately, maintain low levels of debt, and academically succeed to prevent impacts to financial aid, timely degree progress, and graduation.
• Interpret University, state, and federal policies and procedures; exercise professional judgment authority to implement changes and make exceptions to policies without supervisory approval.
• Collaboratively create success roadmaps with students to help them in their degree program in pursuit of graduation. This process must be coordinated by working collaboratively with the college, academic advisers, and the ASR Student Degree Progress group. 
• Expected to continually look for ways to improve services to student veterans and other student populations by internally or cross-functionally developing new initiatives or success measures that will contribute to retention, graduation, student satisfaction, and other student veteran success measures.

Veterans Benefits Certification (20%)

• Analyze and report student eligibility for federal military education benefits in accordance with regulatory compliance for over 600 students each semester. 
• Serve as single point of contact for the reporting and billing of veteran/military education benefits at the University which accounts for roughly $9 million annually.
• Navigate complexities of over 270 academic majors’ requirements to determine Veterans Affairs education benefit eligibility.
• Analyze military discharge papers to determine residency for student billing.
• Research and report registration changes to Veterans Affairs in order to ensure students receive the appropriate benefits for their enrollment.
• Serve as a subject matter expert with Veterans Affairs audits to ensure student's records are in compliance with regulatory requirements.
• Regularly communicate with financial aid and third party billing units regarding veteran services including, but not limited to, policy changes, issues, and documentation requirements.
• Report grading outcomes to the Federal Tuition Assistance authority.
• Analyze requirements and determine eligibility for Minnesota GI Bill.
• Develop strategies and initiatives to better serve student veterans.

Curricular and Program Development, Teaching, Committees, and Community Outreach (20%)

• Curricular development leadership: Lead the curricular development regarding veterans’ benefits and resources for on-going training programs for staff and student orientations.  Ensure that the comprehensive curriculum covers all technical and operational instruction, student counseling methodologies and strategies, and training on student development theory and customer service and standards. Ensure the curriculum includes a strong student development approach for understanding the psychological, emotional, and social development of student veterans in higher education. Ensure that appropriate assessment scenarios, learning outcomes, and role playing activities are created as part of the approach to the curriculum and instruction. Collaborate with system campuses on the delivery of curriculum. Collaborate with other University staff (e.g., academic advisers, faculty) to create appropriate educational sessions and materials to ensure they are properly informed on enterprise-wide initiatives that impact students.
• Financial literacy program/curriculum development: Develop curriculum, advising standards, and learning outcomes for one-on-one financial literacy and financial wellness counseling sessions with students. Individually tailor advising appointments by preparing pre-session research, collaborating with the student on financial goals and objectives, and creating post-session follow-up to ensure student’s goals were met. Work with faculty to integrate our workshop curriculum into their course(s) and serve as the recognized expert in educating students on the importance of financial literacy. Develop programmatic enhancements to the Live Like A Student financial literacy/education program and other financial wellness initiatives including outreach strategies and communication tactics such as social media, digital signage, website, classroom presentations, and community engagement. Topics include budgeting, money and debt management, credit cards, identity theft and scams, loan repayment, credit reports and credit scores, and making smart personal spending decisions to better prepare students for life during and after their University experience. Work with faculty on integrating financial workshops into course lectures. Responsible for the development of grant funding ideas, as well full accountability for the grant writing and submission process. Counselors are required to obtain personal financial management certification in order to provide expert personal financial advice and counseling. 
• High level University-wide initiatives: Provide leadership on various projects and initiatives that have One Stop and Academic Support Resources involvement. Examples include the PeopleSoft Upgrade, the new MyU Portal, and the Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) system, which are large
• scale initiatives which have long-term impact to the operating practices for students, faculty, and staff across the University of Minnesota system. Provide input on decisions made during the creation and development of these specific projects to ensure the outcomes meet the needs of all of the stakeholders. 
• Community Outreach: Expected to deliver high quality, professional public engagements and presentations that target critical student outcomes for all students and specifically for student veterans. This role is also responsible for leading outreach to collegiate units to ensure we are sharing critical information that improves the academic advising experience for student veterans. Represent the University’s goals, programs, and policies in its recruiting, student success, retention and graduation efforts through outreach to students, parents, staff, faculty, and other University community members. They coordinate with the Office of First Year and Orientation programs to facilitate and develop specific session for student veterans. This also includes new student and parent orientation reaching over 10,000 individuals annually, as well as on/off-campus venues on nights and weekends for metropolitan high schools, under-represented groups, and other requested internal/external presentations such as Financial Aid Nights, Campus Preview Days, Admissions events, Welcome Week, GradFest, TRiO/Upward Bound, the Council of Undergraduate Deans, Associate Deans meeting, and the Academic Advising Network. Organize large scale annual events to honor veterans in the community and on campus.
• Professional association involvement: Veterans Coordinators contribute to professional associations in various ways through membership, association committees, and conference presentations, workshops, and trainings. University of Minnesota Veterans Services staff are national leading experts in higher education for student veterans.  They attend the Pat Tillman Foundation’s annual Leadership Summit as University partner representatives. Other professional association affiliations include: Institute for Student Services Professionals, Upper Midwest Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, and Minnesota Association of Financial Aid Administrators.

Coaching and Leadership (20%)

• Serve as an accessible and knowledgeable coach and mentor for all One Stop Counselors, Veterans Administration Work-study students and Customer Relations Representatives (CRR) to assist with examining unusually complex situations.
• Serve as a managerial resource for veteran services if a One Stop Assistant Director is not available.  
• Provide counsel to the management team, interpreting business issues and providing suggestions for or leading efforts to implement and improve the One Stop and University Veterans Services organization.
• Collaborate with management to identify and share counselor feedback and contribute ideas for change management.
• Lead service expectation sessions and meetings with college advisers and faculty advisers in regards to veterans services.
• Provide leadership and expert advice to the Student Veterans Association.
• Coach One Stop Counselors, Veterans Administration Work-study students and CRRs when working with extremely high-care student veterans situations with retention risks to identify additional financial aid or degree success solutions.
• Identify training issues and create solutions with new curriculum for refresher training on veteran services. 
• Select, interview, and hire applicants to fill student employee positions in University Veteran Services (UVS).
• Develop and facilitate training of new student employees in UVS.
• Provide leadership and expert advice on student veteran issues for staff, faculty, and all system campus staff.  
• Lead and develop new student veteran orientation materials.

Appeals, Waivers, and Petitions (10%)

The comprehensive analysis of individual appeal cases requires a high level of independent discretion and professional judgment to make critical decisions that directly impact student retention and success. Veterans Coordinators also mentor One Stop counselors on unique appeals for student veterans and work with students on appeal disputes. Appeal examples include, but are not limited to: 

• Tuition Refund Appeals–Analyze medical, mental health, death, academic mis-advisement, military deployment, and other types of extenuating circumstances supported by documentation that corroborate a student’s request for a tuition refund after late withdrawal from a course(s). Analyze facts of the case from multiple angles including confidential documentation from students and supporting information from medical and academic professionals. Prepare a case to present to the committee after a thorough review of the financial aid, financial and health insurance claim impacts and information from other University offices. Exercise professional judgment to override University policy and procedures. Appropriately intervene and give future guidance to students. Work with the Office of General Counsel as appropriate on appeals that require legal expertise.
• Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) Appeals- SAP is the result of a student’s poor academic performance. Individual SAP committee members review appeals to determine if a student has experienced extenuating circumstances. The decisions of these appeals have significant impacts to student degree progress.

For each of the above mentioned appeals as well, as the many other kinds of tuition, financial aid, and registration appeals, waivers, or petitions, Veterans Coordinators must:

• Exercise a high level of professionalism and independent discretion to override university policies.  
• Accurately counsel students on the impact to their degree progress and financial business based on the type of waiver, appeal or petition submitted.  
• Review student eligibility for financial aid in accordance with all regulatory compliance based on current enrollment. Coordinators must be adept to circumstances that could put the student in a worse financial situation if an appeal was approved. 
• Analyze the award opportunities to determine what additional aid can be granted pending appeal approvals.\

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Bachelor’s degree plus 5 years of experience, or a Master’s degree plus 3 years of work experience
• 1 year of experience working as a One Stop Counselor or 1 year experience working with veterans/service members or GI Bill educational benefits.
• 2 or more years of experience in a customer service related field with the ability to react to customers quickly, accurately, and professionally.
• Certification as a Personal Financial Manager.
• Excellent oral and written communications skills, ability to write clear, concise communications using effective writing skills.
• Sensitive to cultural diversity and ability to communicate and interact effectively with people of all ages and diverse backgrounds.
• Proven ability to work effectively as a team member.
• Ability to analyze and interpret data and make independent decisions; responsible for decisions.
• Must be able to effectively present information and represent the University of Minnesota at outreach events, both on- and off-campus, which will include evening and weekend hours and travel. 
• Highly motivated, focused and results-oriented. Ability to meet expectations in a fast-paced and dynamic, customer-oriented environment.

PREFERRED QUALIFICATIONS:

• Military service member or veteran
• Experience and knowledge working with the following systems: PeopleSoft Campus Solutions, SalesForce Constituent Management Software, ImageNow, Parchment Transcripts, APAS, APLUS, and Graduation Planner.
• Master’s degree
• 3 years of experience working in One Stop Student Services
• Demonstrated leadership qualities.
• Demonstrated project management skills.
• Ability to manage multiple-priorities.
• Desire to move into a management role.
• Experience counseling on student financial aid, registration, and student accounts receivable information in a higher education environment.
• Knowledge of and experience with the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, including institutional and unit policies, procedures and processes.
• Working knowledge of spreadsheets, word processing, and Google Docs.