LANSING, Mich. — Lansing Community College plans to add a new Veterans Resource Center as part of an upcoming downtown campus renovation project.
The project would turn a building LCC already owns into a new space to accommodate the college’s students who are military veterans. Officials are aiming for a fiscal 2017 start date and the project is estimated to cost approximately $6 million, according to the proposal distributed at Monday night’s Board of Trustees meeting
LCC President Brent Knight said the proposal will expand the college’s already robust offerings for veterans transiting into an educational environment.
“Veterans have served our nation and we think we need to do all we might helping them prosper in civilian life,” he said.
LCC is already among 28 Michigan colleges with a gold-level acknowledgment from the Michigan Veterans Affairs Agency as a veteran-friendly school. The college is also an institutional partner in the Michigan Veterans Education Initiative, which aims to serve between 30,000 and 50,000 veterans returning to the state in the next five years.
Knight said LCC has the most student veterans among community colleges in Michigan. More than 500 veterans attend the college, which contributes to the need for more space, he said. The college also boasts programs offering transfers of service experience into degrees in fields ranging from nursing to information technology.
LCC’s projected fall enrollment this year is 16,245, according to the college’s five-year Capital Outlay Plan.
LCC plans to seek $3 million in matching state funds to complete the project by a tentative June 30, 2019, deadline.
