Disabled Military Veteran and Instructor: Making Sense of an Uncertain Activity

My Social Identity And Teaching

In 2016, I taught a first-year college course for the first time. I was determined to change the way students approached their studies. I was determined to bring the Army values I had learned into my classroom. I was determined to demand perfection, discipline, and personal responsibility for all assignments and projects. After all, I had seen individuals of the same age show incredible feats of personal courage, loyalty, and self-sacrifice in the military—why should the university be any different? I walked into class the first day dressed in a suit and tie with my professional looking briefcase and began to lay down the law from my syllabus. I would be unwavering, I would be a force for good, I would be the instructor who changed expectations of the university, I would be … foolish.

What I did not realize as a young instructor was that first-year college students often did not share the same life experiences I did. Receiving my end-of-semester course evaluations was a humbling experience. Students found me to be unapproachable and uncaring. The communication I had used in the military and the leadership style I had learned during service had to be adapted and adapted quickly. To compound these issues was the fact that I had invisible disabilities. Students did not realize that if they told me something in class and I forgot, the reason may be due to my traumatic brain injuries and not because I was dismissive. Students did not realize that if I was grimacing after class it was because my neck, back, and shoulder were on fire from standing for an hour, not from being mean and unapproachable.

But these were often their perceptions, at least according to student evaluations, and these perceptions were a type of rationality which served as their reality. I began to read about how to be more approachable; I took stock of what was important for students to accomplish in the classroom; and I adjusted my communication to meet my students where they were. This process did not happen overnight, but it did happen. In this chapter, I detail my experiences transitioning from the military field to the college classroom and offer practical advice for interacting with both students and other faculty members in the academy. My hope is that this chapter helps veterans and/or those with (in)visible disabilities find ways to communicate these issues to their students while maintaining high academic standards.

In my attempt to offer both practical and theory-driven advice to other military veteran instructors, I must acknowledge other key identity markers which likely influence how students perceive me. I am a straight, white, six-foot-plus man, and as such I may prove intimidating to some college students. Dressing in a suit and tie and carrying a nice briefcase may add to these identity dimensions in how students perceive me. Therefore, I urge readers who identify differently than I do to seek out additional materials (e.g., Howe & Meeks, 2019; Hunniecutt, 2020; van Gilder, 2018; Wilson et al., 2021; Zogas, 2017) to better understand how other identity constructs intersect with veterans and disabilities.