ILLUSTRATION: RICARDO SANTOS; SOURCE PHOTOS: LARA KIMMERER (TOP LEFT) AND COURTESY OF SUBJECT
The acceptance was long sought and hard-won. Born in El Paso, Texas, Rutledge had spent much of his adult life in the US Army—including a 15-month combat tour during the 2003 invasion of Iraq that left him with chronic back pain and recurring PTSD. He finished his undergraduate degree in 2009 but was rejected by every graduate program he’d applied to. Undeterred, Rutledge vowed to become the best candidate he could be. He completed a master’s degree in biomedical imaging at the University of California at San Francisco, then ran clinical trials in oncology and neuroscience laboratories at Stanford University.
Acceptance at MIT felt like the realization of a lifelong dream. And it was, except for one thing.
“One of the first things I did when I arrived at MIT was to look for other veterans here,” says Rutledge. “People who have served in the military have a special form of camaraderie, a bond that you don’t get from any other organization I’m familiar with. But there was no [integrated] organization that connected veterans on campus, nor was there a dedicated office to help veterans tap into their GI Bill benefits or other resources.”
In his first few months on campus, Rutledge met a few fellow veteran students. That initial group formed the MIT Student Veteran Association (SVA), electing Rutledge as president after students returned to campus in 2021 following the pandemic. “We had three primary goals,” says Rutledge, who hopes to complete his PhD in 2025: “Build a veteran community. Advocate for veterans on campus. And establish an office at MIT that would manage veteran issues.”
By the end of the 2021–2022 academic year, SVA membership had grown from 10 to 65. The group worked with then Vice Chancellor for Undergraduate and Graduate Education Ian Waitz to create the Office of Student Veteran Success and hired fellow vet Liam Gale as its program administrator. “My job is to help student veterans transition to life at MIT,” says Gale, an Air Force veteran who served in various regions around the world. “I help connect student veterans to outside organizations including the US Department of Veterans Affairs and various nonprofit organizations that offer benefits and support for veterans and their families—everything from tuition to relocation services to childcare. Starting at MIT can be intense. The last thing new students want to be doing in their first few weeks is spend hours on hold trying to find the right person or office to help them.”
Today, there are more than 200 veterans enrolled at MIT. Most are graduate students, and many are enrolled at the MIT Sloan School of Management. “We work to help each veteran develop their own definition of success at MIT,” says Gale. “One thing we encourage them to do is ask for help. Veterans tend to be self-reliant, to solve problems on their own. We want them to know they can reach out to administrators, to fellow students, and of course to us, with questions about everything from benefits to academic deadlines.”
Gale is pleased that his office helps incoming veterans find community and support at MIT, with access to services, programs, and social events that benefit them and the entire MIT community. “Regardless of the branch in which they served, every veteran has a sense of professionalism and selfless service,” says Gale. “They know how to focus on a task and see it through to completion. As almost all our veterans were supervisors, they are also great coaches and mentors, willing to share their experience and to give back. They will make sure to leave MIT a better place than it was when they arrived.”