After a prolonged building period, the Student Success and Veterans Resource Center opened its doors to guests new and old for its ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Described as “refreshed, restored, renovated and renewed,” by UCA President Houston Davis, plans for the Student Success and Veterans Resource Center began in February 2022 when Davis met with Rep. French Hill about the idea.

“After a brief visit about the Welcome Center Operations and some pleasantries, we strolled across the street for a quick tour of the soon-to-be renovated space and walked about looking at drawings and schematics that would become what you see today,” Davis said.

What originally housed Communication Sciences and Disorders, the renovated building will offer a multitude of resources for students and veterans at UCA.

“We have students access services that are dedicated to academic achievement, and encouragement and empowerment of students to reach their full potential,” Davis said. “Tutoring success coaching, supplemental instruction and other services are joined with innovative programs such as First Gen at UCA and Bear Life to ensure community support and engagement.

“As a perfect complement to all that, the UCA Veterans and Military Resource Center will be host to an encouragement for hundreds of student veterans, military members and their dependents, helping all of those with transitioning into civilian college life,” Davis said.

Davis said he hopes to see the building serve another generation of UCA students.

Senior Student Success worker Griffin Deitrick said, “It showcases the emphasis that UCA has on student support, to the point that they’re willing to renovate what was a very rundown building into basically one of the nicest buildings on campus.”

Although Student Success has yet to offer any new services beyond what was already available, the new building provides students with a much easier way to access resources.

“There’s just more concentration of resources now,” Deitrick said. “It used to be that Student Success and Bear Life and veteran resources were kind of scattered all over, where you had to get kind of referred down the hall or to another building. This is like putting it all in one physical location. And also because there’s just more space now we can bring in more people.”

UCA currently has 440 military benefit recipients who can use the Veterans Resource Center to their advantage, a number that UCA expects to grow.

“In conjunction with the new center we’ve initiated a lot of new various outreach programs and events that are designed to assist the veteran in making the transition from military to civilian world,” Davis said. “Some of those initiatives include bringing in visiting professionals to assist our military-connected community with anything from accessing VA [Veterans Affairs] health care, initiating VA disability claims, applying for loans, fellowship in the form of cookouts and camping, crisis and suicide prevention efforts and other areas in the interest of those we support.”

The next planned event for the newly opened center will be the Heroes of History presentation from 4:30-6:30 p.m. on March 7.