From Dr. Paul Tontz, Director of Veterans Services, CSUSM: “As new participants to PAVE we are thrilled to have Jonathan Ramer on board to help facilitate our PAVE program. With minimal staff to help with programming and support, Jonathan jumped in and has been an extremely valuable member as our graduate assistant and Team Leader. Within his first week, Jonathan helped facilitate the onboarding of our new Peer Advisers, has already created several launch programs to inform our new students about PAVE, and has independently launched several PAVE-focused social media accounts. Additionally, Jonathan has gone out of his way to become integrated in our veterans services team and has shown a strong presence on campus in collaborating with our other student life centers. This is a crucial part of resource referral for our students. We will be sad to see Jonathan graduate in May, but both my direct supervisor and myself have been extremely impressed with his level of commitment, passion and enthusiasm in ensuring the success of PAVE on campus.”

From Jonathan Ramer: “The proudest moments of the PAVE team, even though this Spring 2022 is our inaugural year, is discussing the direction of where PAVE is going and how it is going to get implemented here at CSUSM. Ideas are being discussed all the time and we’re developing ways to help all of the military affiliated students. My favorite part about being a Team Leader is getting the opportunity to learn and develop my team building skills. One of the important aspects I stress to our PAVE team is that we are a collaborative group, where even though I have the title, it is our team and I do not see myself above the two Peer Advisors. We are all Peer Advisors. In addition, I am learning to develop how to take feedback and make corrective actions, since I encourage them to always speak their mind about ideas, events that can be done, and how to streamline development of CSUSM PAVE.”