Keith Walter Dow is a poet from New England where he is studying to receive his Master of Social Work. His newest book, Karmic Purgatory is available everywhere now and his other work has been published in Fact & Memory, In Love &...War: The Anthology of Poet Warriors, Coffee or Die Magazine, and OAF Nation. He is the co-founder of Dead Reckoning Collective, a publishing company exclusively working with military veterans to share their stories in all written genres. He is a devoted father and a partner to the essayist, Jessica Danger.

This Week on Veterans in Academics! 9/30/21

Tiahna Pantovich was born and raised in the Washington, D.C. area. She joined the U.S. Army my senior year in high school and after graduation to become an Arabic Crypto Linguist. Tiahna loved Monterey, and she loved working with languages. She now speaks four languages with ease, and she is mastering two more. She has three college degrees and is two semesters away from earning her fourth. She plans to pursue Doctorate, Tiana is an author and has her own private practice providing therapy to those who have experienced trauma.

Coby W. Dillard is the director of Military and Veterans Affairs at UT Tyler, where he directs the university’s efforts to holistically support its population of student veterans, active/Reserve/Guard members, and their families. His work and research focuses on military-related students and their transition in and through the academic community. A Navy veteran, Coby has written and presented on ways that educational institutions can improve their support services for this unique student population. His higher education career began at Tidewater Community College (TCC) in 2010, where he worked as a VA work-study, financial aid assistant, VA Certifying Official, and finally as an academic advisor at the college’s Center for Military and Veterans Education. He continued his work with military-related students at Regent University from 2016-2017 and returned to TCC as its first Veterans Resource Liaison in January 2017. Prior to his arrival at UT Tyler, he served as the coordinator for Veterans and Military Services at UC Santa Barbara, where his department was recognized with the Villa Service to Students award for 2019-20. He is a graduate of TCC (2012; AS, Social Sciences), Norfolk State University (2015; BS, Interdisciplinary Studies), and Regent University (2017; MA in Human Services Counseling). He also holds a certification as a Clinical Military Counselor.

Coby is also an avid soccer fan, and regularly gets compliments on his office scarf wall in Zoom meetings!