VA Deputy Secretary Holds Student Roundtable at NSU

Donald Michael Remy, the Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, visited Nova Southeastern University on Wednesday, Jan. 18, and held a roundtable discussion with several student veterans. Joining the deputy secretary was Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz; NSU President and CEO George L. Hanbury II; and Jane Che, the Senior Adviser to Remy. Matthew Chenworth, NSU’s Senior Director of Military Affairs organized the event at NSU’s Alan B. Levan Broward Center of Innovation at the Alvin Sherman Library on the Davie campus.

NSU student veterans were joined by students from Broward College and Florida Atlantic University. The students ranged from Air Force, Army, Marine, and ROTC cadets. Among their questions were PTSD support, housing allowance issues, whole health initiatives, burn pit compensation, and veteran suicides.

Deputy Secretary Remy had an additional support team on hand to ensure that each question posed was properly answered and follow-up opportunities were available. President Hanbury highlighted to extensive support and programming that NSU provides for its student veterans, and also invited Remy to return to NSU in the future.

Before coming to the VA, Remy was the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Legal Officer at the nonprofit National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), where he oversaw all strategic planning, operations, budget management, and legal affairs for the $1 billion enterprise. Remy earned his bachelor’s degree from Louisiana State University and a Juris Doctorate from Howard University School of Law.

After the roundtable session, Deputy Secretary Remy sat down for a quick Q&A session.

How many of these roundtables has the VA had?

About seven or eight of them.

What have been your takeaways from the sessions?

“There is a constant theme: How do I get the educational benefits that I have earned. The other thing is that I find our students are absolutely engaged in the thought that they put into the questions they ask and the answers received from those questions.”

What is your key objective of these roundtables?

“To know the needs of our student veterans. Our student veteran population is a population that has earned the right to have benefits and access to those benefits, and they have questions about their health care and those benefits. Our goal is to hear from them, to answer their questions, and to improve their circumstances.”

Do you track and follow up with the student veterans who attend these events?

“All of them. That’s why we have a team of experts here and when questions are posed that we don’t have immediate answers to, our experts will reach out them and pass out cards so that people have access to the information.”

Do you see yourself returning to NSU in the future to have another roundtable?

“I really enjoy Florida and visiting the campuses here. It’s been great to be in Broward County. Anywhere that there are veterans we go because we want to hear from them and make sure that they get access to benefits, services, and health care that they’ve earn. And so, it may very well be the case that you’ll see me here again listening to our students in this community.”

Posted 01/22/23