The University of Northern Iowa has been selected as a military-friendly university by G.I. Jobs magazine for the fifth year. This honor recognizes UNI as an institution that embraces military students and works to ensure their success is significant. 

According to Julia Huer, UNI's military and veteran student services coordinator, each year the magazine sends out a survey with a list of questions to evaluate schools to see if they meet their criteria for a military-friendly school. These questions ask if the institutions track retention, possess a veteran’s center, have an official veteran’s student organization and provide general resources on campus.

Huer says that the survey represents how UNI rates compared to other schools nationwide regarding how well the school serves its veteran population.  Each passing year, the survey gets more in-depth as schools strive to improve. 

“The best indicator of how well we are doing is what the students say, but the military-friendly survey is one way to outreach to potential students who aren’t here yet and let them know that they will have a home if they come here.  While students on campus are seeing that and know that it’s just a way of showing that idea and that we support supporting veterans,” said Huer.

That support comes in part from the Military and Veteran’s Student Service Center.

The veteran’s center on campus explains exactly what they do and what their goals are in their mission statement: “Our role is to support military members, veterans, and their families at UNI as they transition between military duty, college, and new careers. We are committed to faculty and staff education, on and off campus resource networking, advocacy, and listening to each student to ensure that each military affiliated students’ voice is heard and they are empowered to achieve success in class and beyond.”

Having such a center increased UNI’s rating on the G.I. Jobs’ survey which potential military students can view on their website. Potential military students may look for a high rating for military-friendly schools.

 Molly Skovronski, senior real estate major at UNI and command post controller for the Air National Guard said “when I was looking into what school I wanted to attend, I wanted to find one that would fit a certain criteria, one of which was how well it treated veterans and its military students. Based on that and where it was located, UNI was the best fit for me.”