Veterans Helping Veterans at Pitt-Greensburg

On the Pitt-Greensburg campus, all students who are current and former members of the military can take advantage of priority enrollment, course-scheduling preferences and personalized support. The school is home to an ROTC program, which offers academic scholarships and stipends while training students to become officers in the U.S. Army. It also offers a wide variety of unique veteran-focused programs. This includes:    

The SITREP program (Service, Initiative, Transition, Resource, Education and Partnership), which connects student-veterans to staff and resources that can aid their academic journey. Two Pitt-Greensburg employees launched the program—Alum Alex “Red” Bittner, a soldier in the Army Reserve who is now the school’s assistant director of admissions, and U.S. Air Force veteran Lisa Reffner, the school’s VA certifying official.

The Vet2Vet Peer Mentor program, which pairs incoming military veterans with veterans who are established in the Pitt-Greensburg community to help give the newcomers a go-to resource for navigating campus life.   

The Veterans Action Team, which is led by students who served as well as faculty and staff and aims to keep the needs of student veterans front and center.  

The school’s veteran-centric approach works. Just ask Jake Snyder, who graduated from Pitt-Greensburg in 2021 after a 20-year career with the U.S. Army. Snyder majored in history—minored in political science—and finished at the top of his class. He also owns bragging rights for serving as the campus’s first-ever Vet2Vet Peer Mentor. “From the moment that a veteran enters Pitt-Greensburg, they are welcomed, cared for and assisted throughout their academic progress,” says Snyder. “They are not a number.”

Information accurate as of Nov. 11, 2021.