KU News Release

Graduation stories: Student uses military, academic experiences to help veterans

Daniel Parker

LAWRENCE — Daniel Parker spent months in Iraq gathering intelligence and information to help to prepare his Marine Corps brethren for battle. But when he enrolled at the University of Kansas, it was the information he couldn’t obtain that spurred him to action.

Parker, a political science major from McPherson, enrolled as a 23-year-old freshman in 2005 after serving two tours of duty in Iraq. The son of Craig Parker of Fredonia and Sherrilyn Gerdel of Kansas City, Mo., he’s graduating this semester with a degree in political science.

When he got to campus, he set about looking for scholarships, services and benefits for students who had served in the military. A conversation with a fellow student veteran led to the idea for a student group that would not only help veterans find their way through school, but help them thrive. The KU Collegiate Veterans Association was born and has made real progress in Parker’s four years on Mount Oread.

“We wanted to create a social fabric for veterans coming back to school,” Parker said. “Something that could help them succeed and not have to worry about red tape.”

Among the first successes the group had was working with university administrators to institute a payment plan that allows veterans to pay tuition over the course of a semester. Such a plan was necessary because veterans receive GI Bill payments monthly and often have difficulty paying the balance of their tuition at the beginning of a semester.

The monthly payments also tend to cause problems when it’s time to purchase books. As any student can attest, textbooks aren’t cheap. Parker and the association worked with KU Bookstores to craft a plan that allows veterans to pay for books over 90 days, interest free.

Parker came to KU after being on active military duty for five years, which allowed him to enroll full-time without problem. Many students are National Guard or Reserves members, though, and can be called up in the middle of a semester. This often leads to difficulty for students who haven’t finished a semester or who want to re-enroll at a later date. The group worked with university officials to form a policy that allows students who are called to service to complete 18 months of duty and return to class without losing credit.

The association has not been content to restrict its work to one campus. Parker and his fellow veterans lobbied the Kansas congressional delegation to pass the most recent version of the GI Bill. Among the benefits of the new bill are payments for tuition, as well as living stipends.

Another of the group’s ideas was a veteran’s lounge, study area and resource center. They worked with Frank DeSalvo, associate vice provost for Student Success, and David Mucci, director of KU Memorial Unions, to secure a space in the Burge Union. Next semester, the union will have a space with information and resources for veterans and a place for students who have served to network and study.

“We’ve been trying to get a veteran’s resource center since day one,” Parker said. “We’re very excited about this. We don’t have the funding for a full-time staff member right now, but this can be one more place to help answer veterans’ questions.”

Parker’s advocacy for veterans has received notice not only from his KU peers but also from others outside of the university. He was invited by Robert Ackerman, a professor at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas to co-author a chapter in the sociology textbook “Creating a Veteran Friendly Campus: Strategies For Transition and Success.” He wrote about his experiences advocating for veterans at KU and his work with the association, networking with groups at other universities and collaboration with politicians.

Parker joined the Marines while in high school. He was part of the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003. In August of that year, he was sent to Liberia to help quell political unrest when President Charles Taylor refused to leave office. By early 2004, he was back in Iraq. He saw time in some of the more peaceful parts of the country as well as some of the most volatile, including Fallujah and throughout Al-Anbar Province. His role was to gather intelligence and relay it to troops about to go out in the field.

“You’re painting the whole picture of the battlefield,” he said. “Not only what the terrain is, but who the enemy is, how many of them there are, what their beliefs are, who their leader is, what kind of weaponry they have.”

Parker now is finishing his honors thesis, an analysis of the Veterans Administration.

“The VA has a horrible rep. But if you look at it closely, it’s one of the best medical systems in the world,” Parker said. “So I’m looking to see if they deserve this reputation and I want to find the gaps that people fall through and how that can be changed.”

After his academic career, Parker hopes to continue working in advocacy, either with Veterans of Foreign Wars or the Veterans Administration. Although he has seen success, he has also seen plenty of frustration, which he said reminds him there is always more work to be done.

“We’ve accomplished a lot of the things we’ve wanted to,” Parker said. “And the things we haven’t, I think we eventually will. The politicians and bean counters often see these issues as a numbers game, but there’s always a person involved. That’s what I hope to help people realize.”

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