Senior Brian Hawthorne, the president and co-founder of the GW Veterans Organization, calls for students to reach out to veterans at GW.

On Friday, Oct. 23, GW hosted a first-of-its-kind symposium on veterans’ success in higher education. Bringing together educators from across the country with veterans’ rights advocates, mental health professionals, political leaders and student veterans, we spent the day learning about the many challenges facing veterans in the college environment. We also discussed how coming together as a community can really make a tangible difference in the concept of “supporting the troops.” The conference was well attended, and as a veteran myself, I can say we came away feeling that the discussion we started will translate into a real difference for vets around the country.