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Rolph was selected from more than 120 nominees and nine other finalists for the 2018 Student Veteran of the Year award, given annually at the SVA national conference to recognize student veterans who are servant leaders on their campuses and their communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cReally it\u2019s an acknowledgement of the work that you\u2019ve done, and it\u2019s an investment in that your journey is only getting started,\u201d said Jared Lyon, SVA president and CEO. The winners, he said, are \u201cwithout exaggeration, the people to watch.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Emily Richardson, co-faculty advisor for QU4Troops, described Rolph as an \u201cincredible leader.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cChris has brought the voice of veterans to the Queens University community, and to the Charlotte area,\u201d she said in an email. \u201cWithout Chris at the helm of our student veteran association QU4Troops for the past 18 months, we would not have been as successful as we are today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Rolph credits that success back to the university and the support he\u2019s received from the administration and his fellow student veterans there, as well as from businesses, nonprofits and individuals in the larger Charlotte community who have invested in QU4Troops.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rolph said he also wouldn\u2019t be who he is without his girlfriend, Amanda, a high school crush with whom he later reconnected. The two now live together in Charlotte, and she has helped him grow up from the cocky teenager he once was, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cVery little of it has to do with me,\u201d he said. \u201cFull credit needs to be on the people that I lean on every hour.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rolph is slated to graduate from Queens University with a bachelor\u2019s degree in business administration this May. Though he\u2019s not yet sure what his career path with be, he hopes to find a position where he can continue to lead and energize others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But he\u2019s not ready to say goodbye to the student veteran community just yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI want to be an advocate,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have tried to do our absolute best to represent student veterans and to change the narrative about veterans in higher education. I think I\u2019m going to work my butt off to keep doing it and to do it more and to do it at a bigger scale and to keep it up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A 25-year-old Air Force veteran has won the Student Veterans of America’s highest individual honor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":62093,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"4":{"categories":["education-transition","daily-news-roundup","newsletters"],"primary_category":""},"5":{"categories":["education-transition","daily-news-roundup","newsletters"],"primary_category":""},"6":{"categories":["education-transition","daily-news-roundup","newsletters"],"primary_category":""},"7":{"categories":["education-transition","daily-news-roundup","newsletters"],"primary_category":""}}},"categories":[9,142,143,35],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3414],"class_list":["post-54852","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education-transition","category-education-report","category-good-news-report","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"EB7CP2ASRJBUPKYT32DZIYDIVA","arc_canonical_url":"\/education-transition\/education\/2018\/01\/07\/former-airman-named-sva-student-veteran-of-the-year\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n