The U.S. military-service academies--at West Point (Army), Annapolis (Navy), Colorado Springs (Air Force), and New London (Coast Guard)--are at the center of several debates, both military and civilian. The military is downsizing, and the federal budget is under scrutiny: Do the academies deserve to continue if they are not producing better…

As a new GI Bill moved through Congress in 2008, a handful of influential politicians grew concerned. Would such a generous education program trigger an exodus of service members during two wars? At the Pentagon's urging, the lawmakers proposed a fix: Give troops the option to transfer their benefits to a child or spouse. That policy quickly…

As colleges add services for the growing number of student veterans, they find that many women in that population seem reluctant to participate. On many campuses, officials find that only a sprinkling of women take part in programs and services designed to support veterans. The low turnout appears to be at odds with the number of female veterans…

The nation's veteran population is expected to swell by a million or more in coming years as the military winds down more than a decade of conflicts. How veterans adjust to life out of uniform has become the subject of heightened scrutiny in the military community and beyond. As today's returning service members confront a stagnant economy--and a…

This article features four colleges and how they take on veterans' issues in research and real life. These colleges are (1) Syracuse University; (2) Purdue University; (3) University of Southern California; and (4) University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Last year Syracuse established the Institute for Veterans and Military Families to focus…

The opening lines of Shakespeare's sonnet on the destructive power of sexual desire are equally potent as a description of the emotions aroused by warfare. Poets are the best witnesses to the dark connection between violence and the erotic, the link between sexual desire and military aggression. Initially justified by perjured claims about weapons…

This paper reports on an entrepreneurial camp at Texas A&M's Mays Business School for disabled veterans. The program began at Syracuse University's Whitman School of Management last year and expanded this summer to Texas A&M, the University of California at Los Angeles, and Florida State University, all of which completed camps for 16 to 20…

With its forces stretched thin by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army is looking to significantly expand the number of Reserve Officers' Training Corps programs on college campuses for the first time since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, which led the Army to close more than 80 programs. At the University of Maryland-Baltimore County…

When Senator Jim Webb, a Democrat from Virginia, introduced his "21st-Century GI Bill" last year, he predicted that it would give veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan the same educational opportunities that World War II veterans received under the original GI Bill of Rights, signed into law more than a half century ago. Webb's…

In June, Congress enacted the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act, commonly called the GI Bill of Rights for the 21st Century. Supporters claim that it does for current veterans what was done for those who served in World War II. The expansion of educational benefits to veterans should be applauded. Any attempt to equate the economic and…

In this article, the author discusses the importance of liberal arts education in the preparation of soldiers for war. He draws on his experiences teaching students from Army and Air Force ROTC programs and on Elizabeth D. Samet's book "Soldier's Heart: Reading Literature through Peace and War at West Point" to illuminate the purpose served by…

In September 1965, not long after news broke about a Pentagon-sponsored program to study social conflict in South America, the Social Science Research Council played host to a meeting on overseas research. Feelings were raw. Opposition to the Vietnam War was mounting, and many scholars worried that the Pentagon's studies of conflict and…

Senators James H. Webb Jr. and Chuck Hagel, in their eloquent call for a new GI Bill for today's veterans, convincingly argue that troops deserve more educational support than the government provides. The senators, both Vietnam veterans themselves, point out that today's educational benefits cover only 13 percent of the cost of attending Columbia…

This article describes how researchers work with military to create the next generation of training technology. This article also describes the features of Flatworld, a virtual military training technology. Flatworld is one of many projects under development at the Institute for Creative Technologies, a research group that is supported primarily…

Some protesters contend that a Defense Department policy barring homosexuals from becoming commissioned military officers contradicts campus regulations against discrimination. The controversy concerns ROTC cadets, whose scholarships may be in jeopardy if the corps were banned from their campus. Cadets also find the summer training builds…