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National studies indicate roughly half of the military veterans that start higher education pursuits using their earned GI Bill benefits will leave school without earning a degree. Veteran student graduation and retention rates in the College of Engineering & IT at Georgia Southern University are compared with national and statewide rates to support the need for a more effective approach to improving the number of veterans who will see a positive return on their earned benefits. The pedagogical concepts supporting the structure and implementation of a mentorship program designed to improve the retention and graduation rates of military veterans pursuing STEM are presented. Social support theory principles defining the structure of the mentorship effort which utilizes military veteran volunteers already serving on the college or university faculty and staff are presented and discussed. The Stress and Coping, Social Constructionist and Relationship perspectives of social support theory are evaluated for their ability to identify the principle issues producing the stress felt by the students and mitigate their impact. Cohen’s Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) is used to measure perceived stress in the mentorship program and identify students in a state of high stress who may require intervention. Data collected from intake and exit surveys, Cohen’s PSS and personal interviews is presented and discussed. INTRODUCTION In 2007, approximately 75,000 service members were serving at nine military installations across the state of Georgia. Given its long history as a regional comprehensive university, Georgia Southern has received a small but consistent stream of military service members, veterans and dependents using GI Bill benefits to pursue higher education goals. Since 2001, military veterans have constituted, on average, less than 1% of each entering class or roughly 15-20 students. The College of Engineering and Information Technology (CEIT) was founded in 2012 by merging engineering technology programs from the College of Science and Technology (COST) with computer science and information technology programs in the College of IT (CIT). CEIT eventually received ABET accreditation in 2014 retroactive to its founding. The first freshman class with veterans that could graduate with an ABET accredited degree entered the college in 2008. Since then, on average, approximately 4-9 veterans have entered with each freshmen class. Analysis of student data obtained from the university reveals that 46% of the veterans who started their academic studies in pursuit of a STEM degree in 2008 graduated four years later. This

A STEM Mentorship Program to Improve Veteran Student Efficacy at Georgia Southern University - Year 1