Service, continued: Voices from Yale’s veteran community

Yale’s military community is represented in nearly every corner of campus.

In the classrooms of Yale College and the graduate and professional schools, service veterans are prepared to be leaders in the civilian world. The university’s ROTC students are trained to be leaders in the military. And in departments and programs campuswide, military veterans bring the lessons and values of that experience to their work as members of Yale’s staff and faculty.

While it is difficult to pinpoint exact numbers, it is estimated that there are several hundred military veterans, active duty members, and reservists on the faculty and staff, as well as more than 170 student veterans (including more than 120 graduate students and approximately 50 Yale College undergraduates and more than 80 Air Force, Naval, and Army students in the university’s ROTC program.“The depth of military and veteran experiences on campus makes our community stronger,” said Holly Hermes, Yale’s liaison for veteran and military affairs and an active Air Force reservist. “We are thankful for those who have served and all those who support our service members. Veterans and active members of the military bring valuable experience and perspective to Yale’s classrooms and workplaces, and we are a better community because of their contribution.”

This week, in honor of Veterans Day, Yale News sat down with members of the university’s military community, including a Naval surface warfare officer who is now a Yale graduate student pursuing a joint degree with a focus on international development and impact investing;  a junior studying for medical school who enrolled in Yale College after serving more than a decade in the U.S. Air Force; and an immigrant from Haiti who enrolled in the U.S. military when he was 33 and who is now an operation manager for Yale Public Safety and a sergeant in the U.S. Army Reserve.

In a series of videos, they describe what inspired them to serve, how their experiences have shaped their lives and their work, and what led them to Yale.

Watch a playlist of these videos on YouTube.

Kisshan Sankar

Frederick, Maryland
Yale School of Management/Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs (M.B.A./M.P.P.), Class of 2025
U.S. Navy, Surface Warfare Officer, 2015–present

Suzanne Akuley

Bronx, New York
Postdoctoral Fellow, Biomedical Informatics & Data Science, Yale School of Medicine
U.S. Army, Major (Retired), 1998–2018

Thomas Ghio

Santa Cruz, California
Yale College (Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology), Class of 2026
U.S. Air Force, Technical Sergeant, 2011–2021

Court Johnson

Cary, North Carolina
Yale College (Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies), Class of 2025
Naval ROTC Marine Option Midshipman

Herold Joseph

La Vallée-de-Jacmel, Haiti
Operations Manager, Yale Public Safety
U.S. Army Reserve, Sergeant, 2019–present

Members of the Yale military community have a new place to convene on the Yale campus: The Yale Veteran and Military Affairs office is now located at 35 Broadway. The location, which is also home to Student Accessibility Services (SAS) and Restorative Practices, includes a fully accessible space hosted by the Good Life Center @SAS that is open for all students to study and relax in a welcoming, stress-free environment.