By Valentina Mendoza Gonzalez, [email protected] • June 30, 2026 

In the lower level of Newcomb Hall, the Veteran Student Center has been a gathering space for military-affiliated students since 2021. Shane Hale, Assistant Director for Military-Affiliated Student Support, runs the office that connects student veterans to resources, to each other, and to the broader life of the University. The Student Veterans Association (SVA), UVA's chapter of the National Student Veterans of America, is where much of that community takes shape.

Mike Rose graduated this spring with a degree in physics after serving in the Navy. Terry Thornton Jr. is an undergraduate student at the Frank Batten School, studying public policy and leadership. Before coming to UVA through the Posse Veterans Scholarship Program, Terry served in the Marine Corps and later as a commissioned Aviation Officer, a path that eventually led him to earn his FAA commercial helicopter pilot license. Both were active leaders in Student Veterans of America (SVA). We sat down with them to talk about leadership, belonging, and what it means to continue serving in a different kind of uniform.

You both came to UVA from very different paths. What brought you here?

Mike: UVA was always a dream. I came in the middle of Covid, which made the beginning strange — Grounds was so much quieter than it should have been. But I found the veteran community pretty quickly, and that felt like something real. SVA gave me two things: a place to just be a veteran among people who understood that, and a space to figure out what leadership could look like here.

Terry: I never seriously considered UVA until the Warrior Scholar Project — it's an academic boot camp for veterans at universities across the country, and I went through the program at Harvard. A professor there saw something in me and said I needed to go back to school. The Posse Veterans Program is what made UVA possible. The whole premise is that the transition goes better when you don't make it alone — you come in as a cohort, a team of ten veterans, all moving through it together. That philosophy made sense to me before I even arrived.

What was the transition actually like?

Terry: I came in saying I was going to hit the ground running – and I did. First year I joined the Washington Debate Society, went to UVA Black Alumni Society meetings, introduced myself to as many people as I could. I didn't see myself as someone who didn't fit in — I saw myself as someone showing up friendly to people. That's an important distinction. I wasn't looking for a place to belong. I was looking for a place to contribute.

Mike: It wasn't seamless for me. I had family responsibilities that meant I couldn't fully immerse the way another student might. But the way I thought about it was: if you keep your hand out asking what this place has done for you lately, you stay stuck. Getting back and giving back is what moves you forward. That's what pushed me toward SVA and toward doing more, not less.

How did your military experience shape how you led at UVA?

Terry: I've always led the same way — as a servant leader. The idea [is] that you get in and do the work, that you show up for people before they ask. There's always something that needs to be done. If you need help, I'm the friend that's there to help. I also have a truck, so most of the time I'm the one being called.

Mike: For me it comes back to first principles — it's both a physics instinct and something I carried out of service. I ask why. For myself, for the people I'm leading, for the mission. You need buy-in and support in order for it to function. You need to ask why. At UVA that meant challenging the way things had always been done inside SVA and building something more collaborative. Not just executing — [but] asking. "We hold these questions," as I like to put it.

What was harder than you expected?

Mike: Finding the right posture. When you come from a background where there's always more to do and more to give, the instinct is to do more. But I had to learn when to ask for help and when to look outside the veteran community entirely. When the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan, a group of us in SVA started an Afghan refugee drive at UVA. That was a moment of recognizing that our instinct to serve didn't have to stop at the edge of our own community.

Terry: For me it was figuring out where I actually belonged and not spending energy where I didn't. I've read two books I keep coming back to. One is Tribe — it's about what veterans lose when they leave the military, that sense of belonging to something larger than themselves, and how to find it again. The other is Let Them — about not spending yourself on spaces that won't receive you. Together they became a kind of philosophy. Find your people. Give what you have to the community that shows up for you. Let the rest go. "You may not fit in with everybody," I tell veterans considering UVA. "But once you find your tribe, you'll be okay here."

What do you envision for UVA's student veteran community?

Mike: I was also a member of the Club Polo team at UVA, and we had a vast alumni network. Student veterans need a sustained, generational network that doesn't require each new class to start from scratch. Students can't do it alone. It's vital to continue to grow. Continue to find ways to serve. Being at UVA is a very special honor. So, earn it every day. Your community needs you. Be humble but continue to earn your place here.

Terry: Authentic friendships [and] a community that knows how to rise to what this place asks. We have to unlearn to relearn — veterans arrive already formed in certain ways, and being a student here requires a particular kind of intellectual humility. Saying: I'm still a work in progress, I still have so much to learn [can be an important step]. At a certain point in life, that's hard to sit with. But it can be done.