Alumnus Urges Fellow Veterans to Say 'Thanks' to WCC

When Steve Heintz, a Vietnam veteran and a 1970 graduate of WCC, picked up the November, ’09 issue of the Alumnews, he was immediately struck by the lead headline: "Kappa Sigma Kappa Awards First Scholarship”. He thought back to the late 60’s, when he was a member of the Veterans Club at WCC, and remembered the friendly rivalry his group had had with the Kappa Sigma Kappa fraternity brothers. By the time he had finished reading the article, an idea was taking shape in his mind. If KSK members still cared enough about the college to fund a scholarship, why shouldn’t he and his fellow veterans do the same? Steve called the WCC Foundation to find out how to start a scholarship fund. Now, a few months later, he’s on a mission to locate alumni who belonged to the Veterans Club, which was active on campus from 1966-1973. His goal is to build an active constituency of past club members and to encourage them, among other things, to help establish an endowed scholarship in the name of WCC veterans. Westchester Community College actually owes its existence to men and women who served in the United States Armed Forces. The college was established in 1946, under the name of The New York State Institute of Applied Arts and Science, primarily to help returning World War II veterans acquire the skills they needed to find employment. In a rented space in the Battle Hill School in White Plains, 226 students shared classroom space with elementary school children. Of these 226 new college students, 225 were men and the majority of them were newly-returned veterans. As years passed and the college grew, veterans continued to make up a large percentage of the student body as new wars were fought in Korea and Vietnam. In the mid-sixties a group of vets got together and formed a club so they could meet to socialize and talk about their shared experiences in the military and the new challenges facing them in the civilian world. Dean of Students Angelo Delgrosso was faculty advisor for the club and it ‘caught on’ and grew rapidly. When Vietnam veteran Steve Heintz joined the club in 1967 there were more than 80 members. In his last year at WCC Steve served as president of the Veterans Club. He remembers those years, and those people, with great fondness. "The club provided us with great camaraderie and a great social life,” said Steve. "We were a ‘giving’ organization. We raised money, lots of money, for scholarships or charities or for anybody who was in need. And when we weren’t raising money we had a great time just sitting around over a beer and talking about our military days, how we were adjusting to being home, and what we wanted to do with the rest of our lives.” He recalls the club’s friendly rivalry with Kappa Sigma Kappa, a social fraternity at WCC that also had a large membership. "We tried to outdo each other in everything”, said Steve. "We competed for members. We tried to sponsor more events than they did. And as far as raising money for a cause, we were always trying to see who could raise the most.” Apparently that spirit of friendly rivalry never ended. When Steve read about the KSK scholarship in the Alumnews, his first reaction was "we should do this too”. So right now Steve Heintz is busy trying to locate the members of the old WCC Veterans Club and convince them that today’s students need help as much as the students of forty years ago. "We were all about giving then; why shouldn’t we be about giving now?” said Steve. "Every one of us has a lot of reasons to be grateful to WCC. We were given an opportunity to attend college, an opportunity we wouldn’t otherwise have had. It enabled us to get an education, get a decent job or maybe start our own businesses. We’ve all had pretty good lives thanks to Westchester Community College. It’s time to pony up and give something back.” If you are a veteran who attended WCC at any time, please contact Steve Heintz at Stephen.Heintz@SNET.net, or register online at www.mysunywcc.org, or call the Alumni Office at (914) 606-6559 -- or all of the above