Veterans in Academics Veterans in Academics

Keith Walter Dow is a poet from New England where he is studying to receive his Master of Social Work. His newest book, Karmic Purgatory is available everywhere now and his other work has been published in Fact & Memory, In Love &...War: The Anthology of Poet Warriors, Coffee or Die Magazine, and OAF Nation. He is the co-founder of Dead Reckoning Collective, a publishing company exclusively working with military veterans to share their stories in all written genres. He is a devoted father and a partner to the essayist, Jessica Danger.

This Week on Veterans in Academics! 9/30/21
Tiahna Pantovich was born and raised in the Washington, D.C. area. She joined the U.S. Army my senior year in high school and after graduation to become an Arabic Crypto Linguist. Tiahna loved Monterey, and she loved working with languages. She now speaks four languages with ease, and she is mastering two more. She has three college degrees and is two semesters away from earning her fourth. She plans to pursue Doctorate, Tiana is an author and has her own private practice providing therapy to those who have experienced trauma.

Coby W. Dillard is the director of Military and Veterans Affairs at UT Tyler, where he directs the university’s efforts to holistically support its population of student veterans, active/Reserve/Guard members, and their families. His work and research focuses on military-related students and their transition in and through the academic community. A Navy veteran, Coby has written and presented on ways that educational institutions can improve their support services for this unique student population. His higher education career began at Tidewater Community College (TCC) in 2010, where he worked as a VA work-study, financial aid assistant, VA Certifying Official, and finally as an academic advisor at the college’s Center for Military and Veterans Education. He continued his work with military-related students at Regent University from 2016-2017 and returned to TCC as its first Veterans Resource Liaison in January 2017. Prior to his arrival at UT Tyler, he served as the coordinator for Veterans and Military Services at UC Santa Barbara, where his department was recognized with the Villa Service to Students award for 2019-20. He is a graduate of TCC (2012; AS, Social Sciences), Norfolk State University (2015; BS, Interdisciplinary Studies), and Regent University (2017; MA in Human Services Counseling). He also holds a certification as a Clinical Military Counselor.
 
Coby is also an avid soccer fan, and regularly gets compliments on his office scarf wall in Zoom meetings!

Veterans in Academics:
Derek G. Handley is an assistant professor in the English Department’s Public Rhetorics & Community Engagement program and affiliated faculty in the African and African Diaspora Studies Department at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is a retired Navy Commander who earned his Ph.D. in Rhetoric from Carnegie Mellon University using the GI Bill. His book project, “‘The Places We Knew So Well Are No More:’ A Rhetorical History of Urban Renewal and the Black Freedom Movement” looks at the rhetorical strategies and tactics used by African-American communities in Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, and St. Paul MN as they resisted urban renewal. Before coming to UWM, Derek was a Chamberlain Project Fellow in English and Black Studies at Amherst College and a Predoctoral Mellon Fellow at the James Weldon Johnson Institute for the Study of Race and Difference at Emory University. He has taught at Lehigh University, the United States Naval Academy, and the Community College of Allegheny County. His research interests include African American Rhetoric, Urban Studies, and the Black Freedom Movement.
 
Here are some links to Derek's Projects that he discusses on the show. 
https://www.writingandrhetoricmke.com/blog/mapping-racism-and-resistance-in-milwaukee
 
https://uwm.edu/news/how-rhetoric-shaped-resistance-to-urban-renewal/
 

BriGette McCoy
Doctoral Student of Instructional Technology, Recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society Citizens Honor Medal, Army Veteran. 
 
About Brigette: 
 
EDUCATION
 
Doctoral Student Instructional Technology Georgia State University Atlanta GA 2021
Certificate Disruption Innovation Entrepreneurship Georgia State University May 2021
Master of Science Instructional Design Georgia State University Atlanta GA May 2020 
Courses MS, Education Design & Media Technologies, Full Sail University, Winter Park, FL 2009-2011
MS Theology Pastoral Counseling; Clinical Ministry, Restoration Theological Seminary, Morrow, GA 2006
BS, Psychology, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC 1999
AAS Medical Office Administration Gaston University Gastonia NC 1996

RESEARCH INTERESTS
Social Justice intersections with technology, new media, ethnography research, instructional educational tools and diversity, AI , VR AR and equitable digital infrastructures of learning,

WORK EXPERIENCE
 
WVSJ Network CEO- 2008- Current 

BOARD MEMBERSHIP
 
▪ CEO Women Veteran Social Justice Network 2008-Current
▪ Ethics Board Chair Protect Our Defenders 2013- Current
▪ Scholarship Chair National Association of Black Military Women 2019-current
▪ Chair City of Atlanta Veteran Affairs Commission 2020-Current
▪ Chair City of Atlanta Veteran Affairs Commission 2014- 2020
▪ Board Advisor Service Women Action Network Military Women’s Coalition 2017-2018
▪ Vice-Chair Federally Employed Women Diversity and Inclusion Committee 2016-2018
▪ Vice President Warrior Songs Arts and Music Non Profit organization 2014-2018
▪ Board Advisor The War Horse Journalistic Non-Profit Organization 2016-2018

ACADEMIC AFFILIATIONS AWARDS HONORS
WomenLead Alum 2020
The Ph.D. Project Alum 2020

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATION AND COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP
 
Women Veteran Social Justice Network (Founder)
City of Atlanta Veteran's Affairs Commission (Chair)
Protect Our Defenders (Board Member)
Federally Employed Women (Past SE Region Diversity & Training Co-Chair/Treasurer)
Warrior Songs (Past Vice President & Advisor)
Disabled American Veterans (Life Member)
Veterans of Foreign Wars (Life Member)
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (Past Georgia State Steering Committee Member)
AMVETS Post 44 (Past Committee Vice-Chair)
The War Horse (Past Advisor on Women Veteran's Coverage)
Vietnam Veterans of America
Atlanta Business League, SHRM, AAPD

PUBLICATIONS 

Behind The Rank
 
OpED The Guardian
 
McCoy B and O’Hara C (2016). WVSJ and digital social impact: creating online community networks and using mobile technology. The American Institute of Stress Combat Stress. 5(1), 61-66. 
 
McCoy B and O’Hara C (2016). Overcoming military sexual trauma: moving forward through identification, connection, and empowerment. The American Institute of Stress Combat Stress. 5(1), 66-72. 

AWARDS
2020 Congressional Medal of Honor Society Citizens Honor Medal
2019 Georgia State Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities Agency Award Cultural Competence  Camaraderie Champion Award
2016 National Association of Black Military Women Honored Service Veteran Woman
2014 WNBA Atlanta Dream Inspiring Women Award 
1990 Army Good Conduct Medal 
1990 Army National Defense Service Medal
 

Vietnam War, Micronesia, Full Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs   **Link to Glenn's new book at the bottom of the page**
Glenn Petersen has been a professor at the City University of New York’s Baruch College and Graduate Center since 1977; he teaches anthropology, international affairs, and geography. He’s worked as an ethnographer in the Pacific Ocean’s remote Micronesian islands, studying Micronesians’ traditional forms of chieftainship, their struggles to achieve independence, and the ways they’ve adapted their own political theories to constitutional forms of government. He served as a member of the Federated States of Micronesia’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations after they achieved independence. War and the Arc of Human Experience, which Rowman & Littlefield/Hamilton just published, is his sixth book. He lives in New York City, is an avid Yankees fan (it’s just a short walk from his home to the stadium), and recently became a grandfather for the first time.He was in the US Navy 1964-68, and as 19-year-old second class petty officer flew 70 combat missions in 1966-67 as a radar intercept controller/flight technician on E-1Bs off the USS Bennington on Yankee Station.​
 
Available now! 
War and the Arc of Human Experience - 9780761872351 (rowman.com)​