James Ivory Howell understands what it means when Georgia Perimeter College is called a military-friendly school.

The 32-year-old Marine Corp veteran, now on track to graduate from GPC in May, has experienced firsthand the strides the college has made in supporting military students.

Howell, an Alpharetta student who enrolled at the college in 2011, says when he first arrived on campus, it was difficult to find someone who specialized in guiding military and veteran students.

Not long after Howell’s enrollment, the college opened its Military Outreach Center, which provides resources and support services for active military members and veterans, as well as their spouses and dependents.

This past fall, Howell became one of 30 students to benefit from a newly launched Military Outreach Center initiative called Mentoring Veterans Program. Dubbed MVP, the program pairs the student veterans with faculty and staff who have volunteered to provide them with extra help.

“In a nutshell, the intent of MVP is to simply be proactive in engaging with student veterans, particularly those who are new or returning to the college scene,” says center director Mark Eister.

“The transition from military to college/civilian life has its own set of challenges, so having a mentor here at GPC gives the student veteran the opportunity to actively engage with someone throughout the entire semester, no matter what their issues or challenges might be,” Eister adds.

Howell agrees and credits his mentor, GPC faculty member Laura Lembeck, with keeping him focused. Lembeck, who earlier taught Howell math, is a volunteer mentor with the program.

“She helped me become a better student,” Howell says.

Specifically, Howell says Lembeck has assisted by providing consistent motivation and by teaching him study skills, something he says he needed because he’d been out of the classroom for so long.

Lembeck says being part of the mentoring program is a way for her to give thanks to current and former military service men and women.

“When I was assigned a former student of mine, I was elated,” she says. “James and I had a good relationship before this program, but now we have a more formalized structure within which to communicate.”

Undoubtedly, experiences such as Howell’s and Lembeck’s are partly why, for several years now, G.I. Jobs Magazine has named Georgia Perimeter a Military Friendly School. The distinction places GPC in the top 15 percent of schools in the nation offering military students the best services, programs, discounts, scholarships, clubs, networking and staff.

According to Eister, an additional 30 student veterans are receiving person support as part of the Mentoring Veterans Program for the spring semester.