Utility Workers Military Assistance Program: UMAP matriculated its 730th graduate in 2021. Since 2012, this successful partnership, that includes City Colleges of Chicago, Peoples Gas, and Dixon Center, provides training and guaranteed high-wage jobs in the Electric and Gas Industry to veterans in Illinois. UMAP’s sister program in Michigan with Consumers Energy has provided careers for 110 veterans. With Dixon Center’s assistance, UMAP has now partnered with Southern California Gas to train transitioning service members and veterans for careers in the utility industry throughout California.
In collaboration with BRAVO VICTOR, a research-focused non-profit organization in the United Kingdom that is pioneering advances to improve the lives of visually impaired veterans, Dixon Center has created Operation Blinded Veterans, an initiative that will establish two research scientists who will work in proximity and collaborate with researchers at the VA, National Institutes Health, and Defense Health Agency. These research fellows will collaborate with their colleagues across government and academia to conduct analysis and longitudinal research on the prevalence and effect of traumatic brain injury (TBI) on vision impairment. This research will lead to better solutions for addressing the needs of blinded and vision-impaired veterans, improving the lives of them and their families.
In 2013, Dixon Center for Military and Veterans Services connvened key players in the military education social and civic sectors. Over 25 organizations came together to discuss one critical component of success for our active-duty Service members, veterans and their families: Education. The convening aimed to re-conceptualize how these organizations accomplish their mission and deliver services. This convening resulted in a call to action published in the Imagining Collective Impact Improving Education Opportunities for Military Families—a call to action centered on new ways to organize and drive impact.
Dixon Center has served as a resource for dozens of universities, colleges, trade schools and local communities to help them support veterans and military families in education. Educators turn to Dixon Center to learn about the special needs such students present and develop ways to accommodate them within classrooms and on campuses with appropriate support services, effective instructional strategies, and targeted academic and social advisement.
Dixon Center for Military and Veterans Services has been facilitating the integration of military and veterans into existing organizational programs in order to increase impact. Over the years this has included myriad of education and training support organizations. As examples of who these institutions are, they include groups like No Greater Sacrifice, Military Childs Education Coalition, Veterans Curation Program, Rosalyn Carter Institute for Caregivers, and Military Family Research Institute at Purdue University, and many more.
