University of Montana Military and Veterans Services Office – Missoula, MT
Position Type: VISTA
Service Commitment: August 10, 2026 – August 9, 2027
Final Application Deadline: July 12, 2026
Car required?Recommended
Driver’s License Required? Yes
Position Summary:
The Military and Veteran’s Service Office (MVSO) located on the University of Montana campus in Missoula supports student veterans and their families. UM is home to nearly 1000 military-affiliated students, and UM is the nation’s 3rd highest percent of veterans on campus per capita in the nation. The goal of the VISTA project is to help student veterans and their families maximize their earning potential and occupation acquisition through increased utilization of quality data for retention and degree completion. The project will focus on collecting, analyzing, and leveraging data to influence institutional practices, procedures and policies that can directly benefit UM veterans and their families. The VISTA will accomplish this goal through using existing institutional systems to build a comprehensive data campaign for military affiliated students. The data campaign will inform the MVSO, helping reduce barriers and challenges associated with systemic struggles among student veterans and their families.
VISTA member will be establishing critical partnerships with the MVSO, Student Affairs, and other campus stakeholders that can define collaborative roles and ensure project accountability. These relationships will support a comprehensive “Military Affiliated Data Campaign” designed to identify and close system gaps. The member will collaborate with the campus offices to consolidate information and build refined charts, tables and visual aids for robust quantitative tracking. To complement these metrics, the member will design and implement qualitative data collection tools to capture the student voice. By disaggregating this combined data, the member will analyze specific trends in student persistence, retention, and degree completion. The project culminates in the development of action plans and executive summaries that identify barriers to success and provide data-driven recommendations to improve long-term outcomes for military-affiliated students.
Montana Campus Network for Civic Engagement (MCNCE) serves as the intermediary for this project. MCNCE is a CEO-led coalition of colleges and universities that support civic engagement, service learning, and volunteerism across the state. Every year we place cohorts of full-time, part-time, and summer AmeriCorps members with schools, colleges, nonprofits, and government agencies in Montana. The AmeriCorps projects we facilitate increase educational equity, break down barriers between higher education and community organizations, and address the root causes of poverty in communities across the state.
Benefits Include:
- $24,962 VISTA Living Allowance (full year) = $957.46 bi-weekly
- $7,395 Education Award or $1800 cash award
- Relocation Allowance
- Health Insurance
- Personal & Medical Leave
- Non-Competitive Federal Hiring for one year
- University of Montana access & resources
- Access to regular professional trainings through MCNCE & University of Montana
Professional Skills You Will Gain
- Communications
- Intercultural Relations
- Leadership
- Partnership Development
- Partnership Management
- Program Development
- Public Speaking
- Rural and Veteran Community Outreach
- Teamwork
- Time Management