Johnson County Community College will celebrate the official grand opening of its expanded Veteran & Military Student Resource Center (VMSRC) with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at noon Wednesday, Nov. 11, on Veterans Day.
The Overland Park campus center consolidates several veteran-focused services under one roof, according to the Johnson County Post. The expanded space helps students navigate VA education benefits, houses the VetSuccess on Campus program and includes the Johnson County Field Office for the Kansas Office of Veteran Services.
The center also features a new student lounge named for Spencer Duncan, an Olathe native killed in Afghanistan in 2011.
Duncan graduated from Olathe South High School in 2008 and enlisted in the U.S. Army Reserve. He trained as a CH-47 Chinook helicopter repairman and later became a door gunner with the 7th Battalion, 158th Aviation Regiment at New Century AirCenter near Gardner. He deployed to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, serving on a Chinook flight crew that supported special operations missions.
Duncan was among 30 American service members killed Aug. 6, 2011, when the helicopter known as Extortion 17 was shot down.
His parents, Megan and Dale Duncan, will attend the Nov. 11 dedication of the SPC Spencer Duncan Student Lounge. Their family's Spencer C. Duncan Make It Count Foundation has provided nearly $150,000 in book scholarships to JCCC student veterans over more than a decade, according to the college.
Kena Zumalt, VMSRC director, said the center's mission goes beyond one week a year. "Our commitment to veterans extends well beyond Veterans Week," Zumalt said, according to the college. "The Veteran & Military Student Resource Center gives veterans and military-connected students a dedicated place to find support, connect with peers and access resources, while also allowing JCCC to serve veterans and their families throughout Johnson County."
The move to a larger space came after five years of planning, Zumalt said in a September article published in the Johnson County Post. "We were just getting more and more squished into our space," she said. The center serves between 700 and 750 veteran and military-connected students each semester, according to Zumalt.
The ribbon-cutting caps JCCC's Veterans Week, which began Nov. 4 with a campus visit from Army veteran and author Jason Kander. Kander spoke with students in the CoLab before a free community conversation at Yardley Hall that evening. On Nov. 5, the college screened a short film from its veteran oral history project featuring Mexican American Vietnam War-era veterans.
The ceremony takes place in COM 309 on the JCCC campus in Overland Park. It is open to the community.
