You Belong Here
Members of the Cornell Undergraduate Veterans Association (CUVA) talk about their experiences at Cornell.
CUVA and NROTC Spotlight: Mary Fisk
My name is Mary Fisk and I am the Student Veteran Advisor and Program Manager at Cornell. I have served 22 years in the Marine Corps. My MOS, while I was in the Corps, began as a Field Radio Operator, then Systems Chief, then Communications Chief (Private First Class – GySgt); later on in my career, I chose the First Sergeant route. The First Sergeant is the technical, tactical, and administrative adviser to their commander at the company level. As a field radio operator, I worked with all manner of man-packed and mobile communication systems…from HF, UHF, VHF to multichannel and frequency-hopping radio systems. My responsibilities as Student Veteran Advisor & Program Manager are below:
- Have an immediate and direct impact on our undergraduate veteran population, providing comprehensive academic, personal, financial, and professional advising to enrolled military veteran undergraduate students and leveraging other key points of contact across campus as needed.
- Serve as the primary point of contact for veteran students
- Be a critical partner in the recruitment of first-year and transfer students who are veterans and provide information about program guidelines and institutional policies and procedures to prospective students and the Cornell community.
- Assemble and lead a campus-wide student veterans’ resource group
- Establish and maintain relationships with student veteran resource partners both internally and externally
- Develop, implement, and oversee student veteran educational programs
- Assess what’s working and what should change by reviewing and evaluating the effectiveness and success of support programs and advising for veterans
- Work with student veteran groups