USC CIR – News

School hosts statewide event on military children’s education

The USC School of Social Work co-hosted the Military Child Education Coalition’s California Public Engagement conference, where more than 100 influential policymakers, community leaders, educators, religious leaders and military officials gathered to create the first statewide plan to support the education of military children in California.

Professor Ron Astor, who leads the school’s Building Capacity in Military-Connected Schools project, and Anthony Hassan, director of the USC Center for Innovation and Research on Veterans and Military Families, chaired the event, which took place Sept. 20 at the Radisson Midtown. The goal was to bring together decision makers to identify future directions in […]

Op-Ed: Making universities and colleges more military friendly

Op-Ed by Ron Avi Astor

Relations between academia and the military services are not known for their cordiality. The flash point was the Vietnam War. Campuses across the country were incubators of the anti-war movement and arenas for major protests. Many units of the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps were shut down, especially at the Ivies. More recently, the government’s “Don’t-Ask-Don’t Tell” policy for gays was a source of friction at some universities.

The repeal of that policy and the fading of history have helped clear the way for better relations, most pointedly symbolized by the return of the ROTC to Harvard after […]