Colonel Hopkins Learns About Vet Center
Astronaut Michael Hopkins, who was the featured speaker at this year’s campus commencement ceremony, visited with Dean Tanya Gallagher and Assistant Dean William Goodman to learn more about the Chez Family Foundation Center for Wounded Veterans in Higher Education. Among his many assignments in the Air Force, Colonel Hopkins served as a special assistant to the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon before joining NASA’s 20th astronaut class in 2009. He and with two Russian cosmonauts joined the International Space Station for a six-month mission on September 25, 2013. Seventy million miles and two space walks later, he returned to Earth on March 10, 2014. He was joined in the meeting with Dean Gallagher by his wife Julie, who earned her bachelor’s degree in Health and Safety Studies, the forerunner of AHS's Community Health degree program. Colonel Hopkins’ degree is in Aerospace Engineering.