It isn’t always easy being a military veteran and a college student. Student veterans tend to be older; they often have different needs and face different expectations of their abilities.
Angelina Trillo, Oregon Army National Guard medic, first-generation college student and the daughter of a single dad who is also an Army veteran, has made it her mission to change that. Her efforts recently earned Trillo, Oregon State University chapter president of the Student Veterans of America, the title of 2023 Student Veteran of the Year.
“My dad was a medic in the Army in the ‘90s; he raised me as a single father since I was a toddler,” said Trillo said, who knew from a young age she would serve in the military. “It was just him and I against the world for most of my childhood. I am very passionate and very dedicated to improving the world in some way. I feel like trying to tackle the whole of the problem is too much, so I really found the community that I feel connected to, and I have devoted a lot of time and energy towards just making higher education more accessible for people in the military community.”
During Women’s History Month in March and as Oregon celebrates Oregon Women in the Military History Week, March 18-22, Trillo is in the spotlight for her ongoing efforts that have already made a difference in veterans’ lives.
“Angelina is a spitfire” said William Elfering, director of Military & Veteran’s Resources at OSU’s Holcomb Center. “She’s awesome. She’s really connected emotionally with the student-veteran community and the veteran community at large. She’s still currently serving and takes that responsibility very strongly. Here at the university, she worked through the student government as military and veteran coordinator to help improve the situation for current and future student veterans on campus.”
Trillo was raised in Colorado and moved to Oregon after her freshman year at the University of Colorado Boulder. She graduates from OSU this month with a B.S. in political science and plans to pursue her graduate studies in Public Health Policy and Administration this fall at one of nine programs she’s applied to and been accepted in.
Student Veterans of the Year are chosen through a nomination process. Anyone can nominate a student veteran, but the nominations are kept confidential, said Abby Kinch, chief of staff of Student Veterans of America.
Earlier this month, Trillo spent several days in Washington, D.C., as the public face of the Student Veterans of America lobbying legislators for student veteran policy changes. Topping Trillo’s list is the “Veterans Promise Deferral Admission.” The program, first adopted in the U.S. by Grand Valley State University in Michigan, ensures qualified high school graduates a spot at the university when they return from active duty. Meanwhile, they have access to advisers, online classes and other university resources.
Trillo hopes to see the program adopted at OSU but doesn’t plan to stop there. “I think it has potential for the whole state to increase recruitment,” she said. “Seventy percent of service members return to their home state upon exit. Why not incentivize Oregon residents to serve and go to school?”
Angelina Trillo training with her unit at Camp Roberts in California.Courtesy of Angelina Trillo
Angelina Trillo meets one of the Alpacas at the Crescent Moon Farm in Terrebonne last fall.Guthrie Stafford
Other priorities on Trillo’s list include ensuring members of the Army Reserve and National Guard receive the same education benefits as those on active duty when performing the same work, and the call for improved data on how student debt impacts student veterans, service members and their families.
On campus, Trillo has been instrumental in advocating for student veterans as a diverse population, with unique qualities and needs, Kinch said. She’s led the charge to revisit the policy on currently serving students like herself in the Army Reserves or National Guard during drill weekends or activations. “There may be a time when students in the National Guard are sent away to help deal with the aftermath of a natural disaster and they may not have access to the internet or other resources in order to complete assignments and so (this would make) accommodations for having delays in submitting assignments or attendance considerations where attendance is required.”
One of Trillo’s most significant successes has been in expanding mental health services. She’s worked on the OSU campus to create positions for military psychiatric service providers and to expand the Veteran Resource Center budget to support other aspects of mental health, like social engagement, Kinch said.
Trillo’s interest in mental health comes firsthand from her experience both as a medic and as a student. Services to veterans are “extremely important, especially for those who experience trauma during their time in service,” Trillo said. “Traditional on-campus counseling is designed for the traditional student, with traditional student problems. Service members in higher education are significantly more likely to be older, have children, balance work and school. Many of us have disabilities-both visible and invisible, some of our students have been in combat zones, or have pulled bodies from hurricanes. They are dealing with different things than their classmates, and therefore they need their own support.”
Don Phillips first met Trillo when applying for the position at OSU of Coordinator of Veteran and Military Connected Student Mental Health and Wellness. He was hired for the position in August 2023.
“I would say that the existence of my position is due in part to Angelina as a driving voice for veterans on campus,” Phillips said. A former Army medic, OSU student and president of the OSU veteran’s organization in 2015, Phillips understands the cultural aspects of the veteran community, he said.
“From that, I am able to talk to veterans who come to me to say they are doing poorly at school or struggling with anxiety,” Phillips said. “I also get to be in their spaces, so I get to go to military resources center. I give a face to the mental health person for veterans on campus. There was no veteran coordinator before I started. There were counselors, and veterans could see counselors, but none of those individuals were specifically assigned to the veteran community or were specifically knowledgeable about the culture and community. That’s the result of the advocacy that Angelina did.”
— Lori Tobias, for The Oregonian/OregonLive