Twelve (12) area southeast Kansas colleges are scheduled to convene on the Neosho County Community College campus in Chanute for the 2nd Annual Veteran Student Services Providers Symposium on Thursday, October 19, 2023. The inaugural Symposium of this type was held last year on the Independence Community College campus and was so designed to convene on a different campus each year.
This all-day event will bring together various college staff whose work directly or indirectly affects their veteran students and other military-affiliated students as they pursue their educational goals on the various campuses. Speakers from the Veterans Administration and the U. S. Department of Education will join presenters from five other area service providers to ensure that all Symposium attendees are provided a wealth of critical and useful information that can benefit their schools’ veteran student populations.
A critical and beneficial side-effect of this gathering is the collaboration that occurs, and the contacts made between the various college representatives who may be directors of financial aid, registrars, school certifying officials or any number of professional staff who work in veteran services at the various schools. All attendees become valuable resources for each other providing a wide-range of expertise that is shared throughout the coming year and far into the future.
The Symposium and the on-going collaborations between schools and their personnel were developed and made possible by funding made to the Independence Community College (ICC) through a U. S. Department of Education Center of Excellence for Veteran Student Success (CEVSS) grant and the Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education (FIPSE). ICC was the first and only college in Kansas to receive this funding in over a decade of financing over seventy projects all across the United States.
Southeast Kansas colleges expected to attend and participate in this valuable collaboration are: Allen Community College/Iola, Butler Community College/El Dorado, Coffeyville Community College/Coffeyville, Cowley College/Arkansas City, Emporia State University/Emporia, Flint Hills Technical College/Emporia, Fort Scott Community College/Fort Scott, Independence Community College/Independence, Labette Community College/Parsons, Neosho County Community College/Chanute, Pittsburg State University/Pittsburg and Southwestern College/Winfield.