Program for the 18th Annual Texas A&M University System Military-Affiliated Symposium, held October 5-6, 2026 in Frisco, Texas. The document includes welcome remarks from Dr. Monteigne Long, a full schedule of plenary sessions, concurrent sessions, and networking events across both days, and detailed abstracts for several presentations.
This is the official program for the 18th Annual Texas A&M University System Military-Affiliated Symposium, held October 5-6, 2026 in Frisco, Texas. It is designed for higher education professionals, veteran service staff, and military-affiliated student support personnel attending the event.
The document opens with a welcome letter from Dr. Monteigne Long, Director of Veteran & Military Services, introducing the theme 'Scaling Impact: Practice, Data, Partnerships.' It lists the organizing team including Kaylee Lewis, Madison Smith, and Hannah Johnston.
The Monday schedule covers registration, opening remarks by Dr. Long and Tom Palladino of the Texas Veterans Commission, and plenary sessions on optimizing conference outcomes and the VEERA awards. Four concurrent session blocks run from 1:00 PM to 5:30 PM, featuring topics such as purpose-driven student-veteran success, participatory research methods, on-demand mentorship, adaptive horsemanship, and the Hazlewood database.
Tuesday's program includes six concurrent session blocks and a Solutions Exchange with roundtables and workshops. Topics range from policy strategies for veteran education, entrepreneurship bootcamps, donor relationships, and Wounded Warrior Project programs, to cultural reintegration metrics and career development.
The document concludes with detailed abstracts for several presentations. These cover VET+MAP's purpose-to-impact intervention achieving 84% success, participatory methods like Photovoice and Digital Storytelling, on-demand mentorship models, Wounded Warrior Project partnerships, Tarleton State's adaptive horsemanship program, and the new Hazlewood database system.