Veterans of the Armed Forces have always been a significant portion of UMass Boston's student population, with an estimated average of 950-1,000 enrolled on campus annually. It is thanks to veterans that the University is home to the William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences, founded in 1982. Named after its first director of veterans affairs, the Joiner Center combines the study of war and its aftermath with veterans' issues and advocacy.
"The Center's focus is local, but our issues are national and international in scope, and that's the right model, especially in a university like this," says Kevin Bowen, director of the Joiner Center. "So many of our students are here because of some conflict somewhere in the world."
The Center's activities range from advising student veterans, to sponsoring conferences on the needs of veterans on the local and national level; hosting Vietnamese scholars, teachers and writers; and sponsoring workshops, including its well-known Writer's Workshop, now in its 11th year, and a summer workshop for teachers who want to incorporate the teaching of the Vietnam War into their curricula.
The Center brings in speakers, sponsors poetry readings, and undertakes a variety of research projects. It is also home to several unique archival collections from the Vietnam War, including the Captured Documents Collection - - 700,000 documents, including diaries, battlefield orders, and correspondence of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians. Several archival collections of photographs from the war are also held by the Joiner Center.
The Center's focus on Vietnam, almost three decades after the end of the war, remains strong. "From 1973 to 1988, there was a sort of amnesia, along with the embargo on exchanges between Vietnam and the United States. In 1988, when Vietnam began to let our veterans return, there was an opportunity to undertake important academic research, and the Joiner Center was in a unique position, as both a veterans and an academic institution. This was something that the Vietnamese could understand and respect," says Bowen.
The Center's efforts resulted in a number of initiatives and programs. A growing relationship with the Vietnam Writers Union has resulted in exchanges, translation projects, and other activities. Mountain River, an anthology of poetry by Vietnamese writers in translation, edited by Bowen, Nguyen Ba Chung, and Bruce Weigl, was published in October.
An annual veterans conference in Washington D.C. sponsored by the Center, brings veterans together with members of Congress to discuss matters of concern to veterans. In addition, a study focusing on finding ways to increase small business opportunities for service-disabled veterans nationwide, has received a $360,000 grant from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Paul Camacho, the Center's director for special projects, will conduct the study with assistance from Henry Turner of the Minority Business Assistance Center.
Now, as the end of the 20th Century nears, it is a natural time to reflect on the mission of the Joiner Center, says Bowen. "The world has changed, but our constituency remains veterans. The war experience has been transforming for us, but it reaches into larger issues. In the 1960s, the American people thought about themselves in a global context, and since then, that vision has shrunk. But not for many veterans. Their battlefields now are places like veterans homeless shelters, landmine campaigns, and the world's veterans foundation," says Bowen. "These people came out of the Vietnam war experience, and this is heartening and amazing to me at the end of the Century."