Ribbons for our veterans

by Dave Jones
November 09, 2015

Visitors to the Quad this week can’t miss the yellow ribbons tied around every tree. The ribbons, long a symbol of support for soldiers sent to combat, went up Nov. 3 and will come down this Thursday (Nov. 12), the day after Veterans Day.

On campus, the tradition of adorning trees on the Quad began in 2011. The brainchild of Felipe Grimaldo, a Marine Corps veteran who graduated from UC Davis in 2013 after serving two tours in Iraq, the effort was an attempt to bring Veterans Day to the forefront and show support for active-duty and past service members.

WOMEN VETERANS ALLIANCE

Two UC Davis staff members are featured on the Women Veterans Alliance blog. Click on their names to see their profiles and photos.

Megan Kennedy — Admissions analyst and adviser, Undergraduate Admissions. She's an Army veteran and a UC Davis graduate (2014).
Sara Reed — Director, Shared Services Center; Air Force veteran and reserve officer.

The blog also features alumna Kathy Takayama '86, Navy veteran.

The Sacramento-based Women Veterans Alliance, founded in 2014, brings female service members and veterans together to help empower one another, through networking, career and professional development, and mentorship.

Added ribbon locations

This year, the placement of the ribbons expanded to the columns of the Welcome/Conference Center and to the trees of the Vanderhoef Quad at the campus’s south entry.

“The yellow ribbons offer a learning and teachable moment,” said Hope Medina, who oversees the Transfer Reentry Veterans Center as assistant director of transfer and retention services in the Student Academic Success Center. “When I’m out there on the Quad, like this year, I fielded two or three questions from undergraduates who wanted to know what the yellow ribbons are for. We like to take the opportunity to show them our veterans are a student population we recognize.”

Added Victor Garcia, veterans adviser in the TRV Center, “There is a history of yellow ribbons, and this is our way to say we support and remember the men and women serving.”

Bringing veterans together

The tradition also helps bring together the campus veterans community, not just students (we have about 200 student veterans), but staff and faculty, too.

Adam Korzeniewski, a junior transfer who served in the Army from 2010 to 2014, got involved through the TRV Center. He said the yellow ribbons are a good way to demonstrate pride in our veterans.

“As a transfer, I just got here and this is my first time doing this,” said Korzeniewski, who is majoring in political science with a public service emphasis. “I hope people realize what other people had to go through so they can be here.”

Vital support services

The TRV Center is just one resource for veterans on campus. A year ago, the Veteran Constituency Group was founded to support and advocate for student veterans, staff and faculty.

Former Army Reserve cargo specialist Megan Kennedy, a 2014 UC Davis graduate who now works as an admissions analyst and adviser in Undergraduate Admissions, is the constituency group's secretary. She pointed to work that has already been done, including adding veteran status to the Principles of Community.

“We tend to partner with student veterans a lot because our big combined goal is education and awareness,” Kennedy said. “A lot of the campus community is still not aware that we even exist. Veterans themselves tend to not self-identify for various reasons, so we want them to know we are here, we won’t ‘out them’ if they don’t want that. But everyone needs support, and we want to make sure we offer a place for the military-affiliated.”

Memorial Union a new hub

Kennedy added that next year’s Veterans Day should feature an even bigger commemoration, as the newly remodeled Memorial Union is slated to be unveiled around the same time.

The MU is a memorial to Aggies lost in war, and as part of the remodel, veterans services will move into the building. The veterans center will include staff offices and study space, and will give veterans a place for social events, speakers and workshops.

“I really see this as creating a permanent home for our student veterans,” Medina said. “We want student veterans to identify that space as their own. Then we hope to expand those services that we offer to students — things we’ve only thought of in the past.”