{"id":16531,"date":"2021-11-11T13:20:46","date_gmt":"2021-11-11T19:20:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/?p=16531"},"modified":"2021-11-19T07:59:38","modified_gmt":"2021-11-19T13:59:38","slug":"american-studies-institute-hold-veterans-breakfast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/2021\/11\/11\/american-studies-institute-hold-veterans-breakfast\/","title":{"rendered":"American Studies Institute hold veterans breakfast"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Written by Shannon Keyser <\/em>| Photo by Madison Meyer<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The American Studies Institute (ASI) held its annual veterans\u2019 breakfast in Cone Chapel Thursday. The event lasted about an hour and included a brief presentation by Col. James Gant. Veterans from the Searcy community were invited and served a complimentary breakfast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe want to honor those that have served in any branch of the military,\u201d associate professor of history and ASI executive director John Richard Duke said. \u201cAs I look down the RSVP list [for the breakfast], I know just about [everyone]. Sometimes you forget that they spent part of their lives serving the country in this way, so you want to honor that and honor them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some students also attended the breakfast and talked with the veterans while they ate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very informal type of thing,\u201d ASI co-president senior Seth Sims said. \u201cWe get to sit and talk with them about their experiences and their life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The breakfast aimed to show appreciation not only for veterans in the community but also for student veterans on Harding\u2019s campus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cVery often, student veterans feel left out,\u201d History Department chair and ROTC faculty liaison Dr. Shawn Fisher said. \u201cThey are typically older, and they don\u2019t fit in on campus quite as well. Something like a veterans\u2019 breakfast is a way to make a gesture to those students [to show] that they are remembered, that their service is respected and that the campus cares about them.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Student veterans and current service members comprise around 0.5% of the student population on campus, and Fisher said that it can be easy to overlook these students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThough [non-traditional students are] a small percentage of the total student body, they\u2019re important,\u201d Fisher said. \u201cAs we think about ways to engage with the student body, it\u2019s important to remember that everybody that is sitting next to you in the classroom may not be like you. We know to think about that in terms of ethnicities and other [subjects] such as that, but sometimes military service is not on everybody\u2019s mind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ASI\u2019s underlying values motivate it to host the veterans\u2019 breakfast, Sims said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s important to show some sort of commemorative memorial day activity,\u201d Sims said. \u201cWe are the American Studies Institute, after all, and one of the aspects of ASI is history. Having something where we honor Memorial Day and honor our veterans just comes with the name. It\u2019s something that we gladly represent and are a part of, and we are happy to host.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of ASI\u2019s major goals is to form connections between students and community members, which activities like the veterans\u2019 breakfast help do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cASI strives to give people at Harding access to information and people that they wouldn\u2019t have access to [otherwise],\u201d Sims said. \u201cASI gives you an opportunity to meet community figures \u2026who have served and have incredible life stories and good advice to offer. I think that ASI is a great opportunity to reach out not just to Harding but Searcy as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The American Studies Institute (ASI) held its annual veterans\u2019 breakfast in Cone Chapel Thursday. The event lasted about an hour and included a brief presentation by Col. James Gant. Veterans from the Searcy community were invited and served a complimentary breakfast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15068,"featured_media":16532,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15068"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16531"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16533,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16531\/revisions\/16533"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelink.harding.edu\/the-bison\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}