The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 38, No. 2 & Volume 39, No. 1 - 179

Social Camouflage

Participants noted that, because of their military experience, they had changed as individuals . Moreover, this change was permanent and impacted their worldview and interactions with others . . . . Participants explained that the military had matured them; not only were they older than most of their non-military college peers, but the realities of military culture had hardened them .

the student population; only recently have they been acknowledged and studied as a subculture. they try to blend in (diramio et al., 2008); selectively disclose their identity (livingston, 2009); and, in essence, camouflage themselves from their peers (livingston, Havice, cawthon, & Fleming, 2011). the implied importance of campus environment (and an institution’s ability to augment this environment with integrated support) is the fourth theme. Finally, an important but understated fact in most of this literature is that the overwhelming majority of participants in these studies were male.

METHODS
livingston (2009) studied student veterans’ social transition after they re-enrolled in college following a military deployment. He employed qualitative grounded theory methodology to answer the following research question: How do student veterans manage social transition after re-enrolling in college? the study was conducted at a large public institution in the southeast. the researcher worked through two campus gatekeepers to gain access to the student veteran population; at the time of this study, the institution’s student veteran population was estimated to be 250 persons. livingston (2009) utilized convenience sampling to minimize time constraints and access issues (Barbour, 2008). more specifically, an email invitation (which was approved by the research site’s institutional review Board) was sent by the researcher through two listservs: that of the Veterans affairs certifying official and that of the administrative assistant to the dean of undergraduate studies (the two gatekeepers). Potential participants were instructed to respond directly to the researcher if

during mobilization and through deployment but struggled to regain that balance upon re-enrollment. Bauman suggests that institutions need to maintain connection and communication with students while they are deployed and, further, that campuses should be prepared to offer a full array of transitional, social, and academic support to veterans upon their return to campus. several themes are evident from the aforementioned literature. the first and most obvious is that veterans undergo a significant transition when entering college, one that differs in many ways from that of other students. the second theme is that they struggle to balance their identity between being a soldier and being a student, a theme which dictates the type of support they need and will utilize. the third is that they seem to be an invisible part of

V o l u m e 3 9 , No. 1 • 2 0 1 2

179

The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 38, No. 2 & Volume 39, No. 1

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Journal of College and University Student Housing - Volume 38, No. 2 & Volume 39, No. 1