Growing up with little money in a single-parent household, the thought of attending an Ivy League university or traveling the world with the Navy seemed like a pipe dream to Ebonnie Goodfield.
Joining the Navy
But her mom, Eugenia, soon realized she was raising a strong-willed child. The daughter she gave birth to a day before her 16th birthday had survived many obstacles and, as she was blossoming into an intelligent, goal-oriented adult, Eugenia knew her daughter had craved more in life than their home in Port Jefferson, Long Island could offer. So, when Goodfield told her mom she was joining the Navy, becoming the first woman in her family to enter the military, Eugenia figured any protest would prove futile.
“She eventually said, ‘You know what, when you set your mind to something, there’s no stopping you, so I’m going to have to just get on board with it,’” Goodfield told Military.com. “The Navy recruiter I talked to was very candid and honest and invested in his recruits. That sold me. Then, when I found out I would be able to travel the world, and a lot of Navy careers transition well into civilian jobs, I was hooked.”
Goodfield joined the Navy in 2010. She worked as an electrician and was deployed to two Westpacs before receiving a medical discharge in December 2015. Her military career was followed by five years with the New York Air National Guard in a civilian role, from 2017-2022.
“My sights were set on college; I never really intended to join the military when I was younger,” Goodfield said. “But coming from the background I did, I didn’t feel like college was an affordable option, and I also didn’t have the discipline and the tools I would need to really be successful in a college environment; I knew nothing about it. I didn’t have any examples of what it would look like, so I decided to join the Navy.”
After 11 years serving the military in both active-duty and civilian roles, she was ready for college. But where to attend? There were many choices, but Goodfield kept coming back to Columbia University.
Columbia Welcoming to Veterans
In the Air National Guard, Goodfield worked as a liaison to help family members after their loved ones were killed in a helicopter crash in Iraq in 2018. After four airmen were killed, Goodfield assisted families of the victims in coordinating benefits, helped the health and wellness team provide mental health resources, served in a public relations role when the media and the community in Suffolk County, New York wanted answers on how the crash occurred, and, perhaps her most important role, making sure remains of the fallen airmen were safely transported back to the base on Long Island.
While her duties were all-encompassing, Goodfield believed there was more she could have done to help family members, but lacked the social work training and education to do so. She applied to Columbia because it had a strong social work program, and then realized the university had another welcoming sign – veterans.
“It wasn’t until after I got accepted and came to campus that I realized they had such a large veteran population. I lucked out in that regard,” Goodfield said.
“But really, just the programming being tailored to all of my identities was what attracted me to it in the first place.”
More than 650 veterans and their dependents are enrolled at Columbia. The university also boasts the Ivy League’s largest student veteran organization, the Military Veterans of Columbia University (MilVets). Columbia has a large contingent of veterans enrolled in its School of General Studies, and at its Morningside campus, the Center for Veteran Transition and Integration (CVTI) provides support for veterans transitioning to life as a student and a civilian.
David Keefe, Director of Military and Veteran Community Engagement at CVTI, said Columbia offers some of the most extensive services to veteran students of any campus in the country.
“Columbia provides robust financial support through the GI Bill and Yellow Ribbon Program, paired with tailored onboarding, resource navigation, community-building, and early academic skill-building,” Keefe said in an email. “The university-wide Veteran & Military-Connected Resource Guide further streamlines access to benefits, policies, and wellness support across all schools. (In addition), CVTI offers individualized resource management, orientation guidance, faculty and staff training, veteran-inclusive teaching workshops, and public online courses that serve tens of thousands.”
Keefe said the university’s commitment to veterans was formed after World War II, when the school received an influx of students using the GI Bill. Columbia reinvigorated its veteran programs after post-9/11 veterans took advantage of similar college funding.
For Goodfield, not only was she the first woman in her family to attend college, but she also graduated in 2024 with a bachelor’s degree in general studies and is pursuing a master’s degree in social work. She plans to graduate in May 2026.
“The Columbia (General Studies) program billed itself as the premier destination for non-traditional students,” Goodfield said. “And as a working mom, married at the time, a veteran, I wanted to go to a school that would accept me and challenge me, not just a place that wants to fill a quota.”
Once on campus, Goodfield became very active in Columbia programs. The veteran is a member of the University Senate and the Columbia Alumni Association Board. Goodfield also helped form the Women Veterans of Columbia University, the first group of its kind in the Ivy League. Through her advocacy work, Columbia has examined and updated some of its anti-bullying and inclusion directives.
Columbia knows veterans, typically older than traditional students, often come to campus with complex issues. Keefe said faculty and staff are there to listen.
“It’s a practice of listening and witnessing to reshape campus culture so veterans are not treated as a monolith, but as a multitude of diverse communities with complex identities, backgrounds, and experiences,” Keefe said.
When Goodfield came to Columbia, while she noticed the university offered many programs for veterans, it was mostly for male veterans. She was determined to change that.
“When I first came to Columbia U, I wasn’t an advocate for women vets, I was an advocate for veterans overall,” she said. “It was through some of those same biases and restrictions that I saw within the veteran community that really pushed me toward focusing on women vets specifically. All of that was centered around trying to create advanced equity toward women veterans on campus,” Goodfield said. “When I decided to apply for graduate school, I knew I was a policy-focused individual, and I saw that the Columbia School of Social Work had a macro program for policy practice. With this work falling under social justice, I thought, This is the perfect opportunity for me to bring about systemic change.”
Transition From Service Proved Difficult
When Goodfield received a medical retirement from the Navy in 2015, she struggled to find her next step.
She and her husband became homeless trying to raise their son, just a baby at the time. Goodfield received a lifeline when she was recruited to work for the New York Air National Guard.
“I was able to find a position that catered to my veteran identity, and it was a lot easier for me to adjust to civilian roles considering how I was still in that climate but still in a civilian role serving those individuals,” Goodfield said. “There was a lot of financial strain, being homeless and trying to raise a child, especially coming from a single-parent household; I really didn’t have a financially supportive network that I could fall back on.”
Goodfield’s time in the Navy provided confidence, knowing she could do significantly more than she thought she could. As an electrician, she became an E4 (petty officer third class) and worked on combat systems, navigation equipment, air and lighting, fiber optics, and televisions and phones.
“Before I joined the military, that was something that I would not have been intelligent enough to do, but not only did I do that, I qualified to be one of two master helmsmen on the ship. I was training peers who outranked me,” she said. “It really shaped me into somebody who took goals and instead of seeing them as unattainable, learned how to change them into measurable, bite-sized pieces that I could tackle. It shaped me as a professional.”
Sailing halfway around the world, meeting people, and experiencing new cultures was terrific, but life on a ship can be lonely and isolating.
“Think about if you had to live at your job for seven months straight without the ability to leave the office and your colleagues,” Goodfield said. “That really helps civilians understand, wow, that seems rough. You can’t get off the ship if you feel like it. You can’t leave people just because you have a personality disagreement. When you have emergencies back home, whether it’s divorce, loss of a loved one, sickness … you’re not allowed to abandon the mission and go back home.”
Challenges came and went, but Goodfield’s most rewarding experience came when her crew rescued a group of 13 Iranian fishermen held captive by Somali pirates for more than a month in the Arabian Sea. The rescue came during a particularly tense time between the U.S. and Iran.
“But there wasn’t an American soul on that vessel who didn’t want to save and protect a human being,” Goodfield said. “We were able to give them back their lives. It also taught us a grounded lesson. You do the right thing for the person next to you because they are humans. It really helped reinstall the value of humanity. Today, with so much divisiveness, that’s something important for people to remember.”
Advice For Veterans Pursuing Education
Looking back on the past decade, the first-generation college student and military enlistee, raised in a poor household by a single mother, has come a long way from those dark days of homelessness after she left the Navy.
Resiliency is not a foreign word to Goodfield. And if she can succeed at an Ivy League school, Goodfield believes other veterans can too.
“Don’t sell yourself short. Growing up, I never would have thought, You know, Columbia University and that scene from the ‘Spiderman’ movie? I could go there,” she said. “But now I’m here, and I’ve become a successful student.”
Goodfield said a veteran’s service time can be valuable, a springboard to a bright future.
“Use your benefits to create a stable position for yourself, but also follow your passions because that’s where you’re most going to be successful,” she said.
