A flag raising was held this morning in celebration of Syracuse University’s newest building and to mark the start of this week’s fall semester. The National Veterans Resource Center took eight years to complete from conception and was funded entirely with philanthropic gifts.
The center comes at a time when Vice Chancellor and Founder of the IVMF, Mike Haynie says SU is experiencing record enrollment.
“About 1400 military connected students enrolled at SU, so that population is our student veterans as well as our ROTC cadets and also our active duty military, you know you saw some of them raise the flag today, and then also military children.”
Haynie says the current GI Bill allows parents to pass it on to their child. Indigenous populations are also making up a significant part of student veterans. That’s no surprise to the Onondaga Nation’s Sid Hill.
“We have the highest percentage of any ethnic group to join the military of all the natives across the country. I mentioned before that a lot of our young men didn’t have to be drafted they just voluntarily enlisted,” Hill said.
The $64 million NVRC building has unique accessibility features that allows movement seamlessly from one level to the next via large ramps. A larger celebration of the new center we be scheduled at a later date.