Over a century of serving those who served
This Veterans Day, we look back at the service members GGU has been proud to teach, from World War I to this fall.
Veterans have been part of Golden Gate University's story almost from the start. GGU began as an evening school for working adults in San Francisco. In the early 1900s, veterans home from World War I enrolled in its law programs. They came to class after a day's work, the way our students still do.
In 1967, GGU was invited to teach degree programs at Hamilton Air Force Base in Marin County. Within a year, it was teaching on three bases. The Military Base Program grew to nearly three dozen installations across the country, from Mather Air Force Base in California to Norfolk Naval Base in Virginia, with 36,000 students. Classes were designed around military schedules, and commanders valued the program as much as the students did.
Those students went on to serve at every level. GGU alumni include four astronauts and several generals, among them General John Jumper, former Air Force Chief of Staff, and General John Campbell, former Army Vice Chief of Staff and commander of forces in Afghanistan. Most of the stories are quieter. Service members earned degrees on base after duty, then carried them into the next chapter of their lives.
The newest generation
In 2020, GGU opened the Helen Diller Center for Veterans of U.S. Military Service, launched with a $2 million grant from The Helen Diller Family Foundation. The center was established in honor of alumnus Richard Rosenberg (MBA '63, JD '66). Rosenberg served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War and Vietnam War eras and rose to the rank of commander in the Naval Reserve. He later became chairman and CEO of Bank of America. Today, the Center's team works with student veterans and military families from their first application through their next career.
Over two days this October, almost 2,000 student veterans came to GGU's Lake Merced campus for Campus Weekend, the in-person experience built into every hybrid program. They spent it on group projects with classmates and faculty, then stayed for shared meals and time to connect. They are Marines and sailors, soldiers and airmen, and for one day they traded their screens for a shared room. We spoke with a few of them. One served as a plane captain, keeping F-18s ready to fly. Another cared for fellow soldiers as a combat medic, then went on to tell their stories as an Army journalist. Among them, too, was a military spouse who has stood beside a service member for 18 years.
We asked them where they served, and why they chose GGU. This is their roll call.
Thank you to every veteran and military family in the GGU community. It has been our honor to serve you for more than a century, and we are proud to keep doing it.
Learn more about GGU’s history of serving veterans.
