Military service provided new passion to help veterans get better acclimated to higher education

Because he is a veteran who experienced the passage from military service to higher education, Michael Kirchner has been well suited to conduct research on these transitions for more than a decade.

“You hope there is a bigger impact beyond the work that we do, both as scholars and practitioners,” Kirchner said.

In recognition of his impact at Purdue University Fort Wayne since 2017, Kirchner has been named a recipient of a 2025 Featured Faculty Award. The associate professor of organizational leadership will receive the honor with three others during a reception on Wednesday.

Kirchner understands the specialized needs and unique experiences of veterans who are typically older than traditional college students.

Needing money for college in 2000 and believing he’d never be deployed, Kirchner enlisted in the Army National Guard, and then came the tragedies of 9/11 a year later. He served one tour in Iraq with a field artillery unit, leaving the military in 2006 to start his academic journey.

From 2020 to 2024, Kirchner was the director of PFW’s Office of Military Student Services, helping hundreds of veterans use their benefits through the GI Bill while also implementing several veteran-centered events that have become PFW institutions.

“PFW has been awesome by empowering us and providing a resource center and funds that we need to be able to create these programs,” Kirchner said. “Pre-2020, we didn’t have a Military Appreciation Day. Now, five years later, more than a thousand people annually attend the program in September. The program not only raises awareness about the military-affiliated population we have on campus, but there’s an educational component as well. We think about the knowledge gap that exists between those who serve in the military and civilians; it’s quite large.”

MSS is intentional about trying to bridge that gap, Kirchner said, hosting stations at events that allow civilians to try an MREs, which stands for meals ready to eat, feel what it’s like to carry the weight of a military backpack, or try some of the exercises required of soldiers.

There’s also the “Serving Those Who Serve” brunch held around Veterans Day, which honors military-affiliated students and staff, but also all students majoring in service-oriented fields of study.

“They are having an influence not only in our community, but across the country,” Kirchner explained.

In the classroom, Kirchner said he loves making content come to life and hopes to transform how students view leadership.

“Organizations can have tremendous products, they can have tremendous sales teams, but if the culture is terrible and we are not taking care of the people, that is not a place anybody really wants to work,” Kirchner said. “Hopefully, as students leave not only my courses but our program, they are constantly thinking in the back of their mind, `What is my role in terms of shaping and improving the work culture and workplace that I know?’”