Each year, OVMA brings the campus together to honor veterans. The day starts before sunrise with a Veterans Day 5K run/walk, followed by an official ceremony at the NVRC with a guest keynote speaker, and ending with a reception in the Bisignano Grand Hall.
Event details:
- Date: Wednesday, November 11, 2026
- Time: Ceremony 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM, followed by a lunch reception from 12:00 to 1:30 PM
- Location: Ceremony in the K.G. Tan Auditorium and lunch reception in the Bisignano Grand Hall, National Veterans Resource Center (NVRC), 101 Waverly Ave, Syracuse, NY 13244
- Keynote Speaker: United States Air Force veteran J. Michael Haynie, 13th Chancellor and President of Syracuse University.
- Cost: Free
Tradition
At Syracuse University, honoring those who have served is part of who we are. The University’s commitment to veterans and military students goes back at least as far as World War I, when the Students Army Training Corps was established, and the War Department reorganized it into the Reserve Officers Training Corps in 1919, creating a permanent military department at SU. That means more than a century of military tradition on this campus.
That tradition grew after World War II. Chancellor William Pearson Tolley served on the presidential committee whose proposal shaped the GI Bill and promised those entering service that a place would be waiting for them at Syracuse when they returned. The University admitted 9,464 veterans, nearly doubling the student body. In 2014, Chancellor Kent Syverud reaffirmed SU’s commitment to becoming “the best place for veterans.”
For our community, veterans are not a footnote to the SU story. They are central to it. As OVMA Executive Director Ron Novack puts it, “Every day is Veterans Day at Syracuse University.”