Student veteran enrollment in higher education has increased significantly following the Post-9/11 GI Bill (Molina & Morse, 2015). The professional literature of academic libraries includes several examples of outreach to this growing population, most of which involve marketing to student veterans differently, customizing existing services and spaces for student veterans, and honoring student veterans for their military service. But reaching out to student veterans can be difficult. Student veterans frequently have work and family responsibilities competing for their time and attention, and, as outreach librarian and former Army sergeant Sarah LeMire notes in her 2015 ACRL contributed paper, they are often reluctant to participate in programs that make them seem more needy than other students. We expanded our library’s outreach to student veterans by hosting a symposium for student veterans to present their research projects. This approach is distinctive insofar as we address potential participants foremost as competent researchers, emphasizing their strengths rather than their needs. We also collaborated with various campus offices to integrate student veteran researchers into campus-wide research showcase events. This paper shares strategies for working with student veteran researchers and for securing buy-in among relevant campus stakeholders
