Celebrating a Decade of Support for Student Veterans

For the past decade, the Military and Veteran Center (MVC) at The University of Texas at Dallas has been a home for student veterans and military-affiliated students, providing programs and resources that foster success in college and the professional world.

Officially opened in the Eugene McDermott Library on Sept. 14, 2012, the MVC celebrated its 10th anniversary this year in its current location in the Student Services Building Addition. At the anniversary celebration, UT Dallas was awarded the 2022 Veteran Education Excellence Recognition Gold Award from the Texas Veteran’s Commission’s Veterans Education Program. Established by the Texas Legislature, the award recognizes universities and colleges that provide excellence in education and related services to student veterans and military-connected students.

Dr. Rafael Martín, vice president and chief of staff at UT Dallas, acknowledged the work of MVC’s employees in offering such a high level of service to an honored part of the Comet community.

“The center’s staff works daily to ensure that our military and veterans feel like a part of our University and that they have the resources they need to succeed as Comets,” Martín said. “A sense of belonging is what we want every Comet — faculty, staff and students — to feel as part of our institution, and the MVC is a vital resource to foster those feelings among this important and respected group.”

Lisa Adams, director of the MVC, acknowledged that philanthropic contributions from alumni, friends and corporate partners have allowed the center to provide holistic support for those it serves, including scholarships, emergency funding, a Veterans Day event and special recognition ceremonies at graduation. To date, more than $300,000 has been raised for the MVC, including three endowments that support programming and student scholarships.

Kris and Laurel Fitzgerald recently established the first endowment to directly support the operations of the MVC. The Richard S. Fitzgerald and Garnet R. Wright Opportunity Fund for the Military and Veteran Center provides unrestricted funding for critical priorities and initiatives. Named for Kris and Laurel’s fathers — both U.S. military veterans — the fund has been used to sponsor a special cord ceremony for student veterans each semester.

“We’ve always believed that it’s our duty to help those who protect us be as successful as possible,” said Kris Fitzgerald, former chief technology officer of NTT Data Services, current chair of the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science Executive Council and member of the UT Dallas Executive Board.

For the Fitzgeralds, supporting student veterans at UT Dallas was a way to facilitate the core mission of a public university, helping leaders whose careers and values strengthen the broader community.

“Universities are all about student outcomes and having an impact on their communities,” said Fitzgerald, who also serves as a guest lecturer in the Jonsson and Jindal schools. “To have programs that help make veterans successful in college is right there in their charters. It promotes student success and allows the community to benefit from these strong students, many of whom will give back after graduation. It also shows younger students that if they choose to serve their country, the community will be there to support them in that endeavor.”

In 2012, UT Dallas Professor Emeritus Donald Hicks and his wife, Sherry, established the Donald E. Hicks Memorial Award for U.S. Armed Forces Veterans, providing scholarship support for honorably discharged armed forces veterans who served on active duty and are enrolled as fulltime students at UT Dallas. Named for Hicks’ father, a World War II veteran, the scholarship they created is a way to thank those who volunteered to serve their country.

“It made a big impression on me as a boy to learn that my father had volunteered to serve in World War II as a 19-year-old,” Hicks said. “Now we are a half-century into an all-volunteer military in the United States. These are young people who willingly choose to serve. They are special people, and this scholarship is a small way for us to thank them.”

As a founding faculty member of the School of Economics, Political and Policy Sciences, Hicks taught student veterans at UT Dallas for over 45 years, a witness to their purposeful commitment to academic and professional development. A veteran of the U.S. Navy himself, Hicks was drafted into service during the Vietnam War after his first year of graduate school. Thanks to fellowship support from his university, he was able to finish his doctorate after concluding military service.

“Veterans enrolling in college are trying to piece together every bit of funding they can through the GI Bill and other scholarships. If we had more philanthropic support for veterans, you would see a lot more of them returning to school,” he said.

Alumni Charlie Quinn MBA’08 and Tina Quinn BS’12 also created an endowed scholarship for veterans at UT Dallas. The couple established the Charles and Christina Quinn Award for veterans in the Naveen Jindal School of Management in 2014.

In their own lives, the couple saw firsthand the importance of extending educational opportunities to veterans. Charlie is a West Point graduate who served in numerous infantry combat command and staff positions for over a decade in the U.S. Army, and Charlie’s father and brother — along with Tina’s brother, brother-in-law and two nephews — all served in the U.S. armed forces.

“There are a lot of people at UT Dallas, and especially the Jindal School, who care about recruiting and helping veterans,” Charlie said. “Enlisted guys do most of the work in the military but often come out of their service time with limited options. Education can change their lives.”

UT Dallas’ corporate partners are also playing an integral role in promoting veteran student success. Since 2012, Raytheon Technologies has sponsored the MVC’s Veterans Day event and contributed $45,000 in scholarship aid through the Raytheon Veteran STEM Award. Steven Ford MS’13, EMBA’13, associate director of program management at Raytheon, has served on the center’s Community Advisory Board since its inception.

“Raytheon Technologies understands the strategic and tactical talents that military veterans can offer,” Ford said. “Our military veterans work across all disciplines, lead our businesses, engineer our products and manage our supply chain. We were one of the founding members of the MVC’s Community Advisory Council and have proudly supported UT Dallas veterans with scholarships and funding for veteran-focused campus events. The investments we make in the veteran community ensures the next generation of veterans are prepared to meet their post-service goals.”