It’s not every day a student arrives on campus with their whole life tucked away into a single military duffle bag, but for Kelvin Nyamalor, a student veteran at Syracuse University, that was exactly how he arrived.
“I came here during the spring semester last year,” Nyamalor says. “There was a snowstorm coming, and some of the offices were closed, so I couldn’t get everything I needed to get into the dorm. One of the other student veterans took me in that night and the next day brought me back to campus. While I was getting settled, another student veteran took me out shopping. I didn’t have anything—no pillows, no covers, nothing. I only had my stuff in my duffle bag.”
After high school, Nyamalor enrolled in Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA), where his English professor, Jill Biden, former second lady of the United States, spoke highly of Syracuse University, where her husband, former Vice President Joe Biden, had attended law school. Nymalor applied to Syracuse University and was accepted, but paying for the tuition was going to be a problem.
Nyamalor was in the position of realizing several of his dreams all at once. He could join the military, receive education benefits, get his U.S. citizenship and become a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army. He seized the opportunity and immediately after he finished his two years at NOVA attended basic training at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri.