The Veteran Student Support Services unit hosted the grand opening of the Student Veteran Lounge on Tuesday. The lounge, located on the food court level of the Illini Union, 1401 W. Green St., will be dedicated to military veterans, but is open to all students. 

The grand opening featured speeches by Dr. Nick Osborne, director of the Veteran Student Support Services, and Renée Romano, vice chancellor of student affairs. After a ribbon cutting ceremony, members of the public, including students in the registered student organization Illini Veterans, were able to receive tours of the lounge.

“The lounge is what’s considered to be a best practice in the higher education literature for serving student veterans,” Osborne said. “It provides a combination of social collaborations, relationships and other veteran-specific information.”

Osborne said the Veteran Student Support Services unit had been working on the project since 2009. He said the most important factor to the Illini Veterans for the lounge was location, which he said was achieved in securing the Union.

“The Union is one of the best places to be on campus, so we were fortunate to get a good place like that,” he said.

In addition to pamphlets and brochures containing information relevant to veterans, the lounge also provides a space for students to socialize and study.

Student veteran Elizabeth Ambros, secretary of Illini Veterans and senior in AHS, said she thinks the lounge will be helpful for veterans easing into university life. 

“It gives new student veterans a spot to go to,” she said. “It’s like a homing beacon.”

After serving in the military for eight years, Ambros joined the Illini Veterans in hopes of making friends she could relate to.

“The social aspect is really nice because I was able to integrate myself with students that were my age and that had similar experiences, which was super important,” she said. “It’s really hard to relate to younger students having the experience I have.”

She said she hopes the lounge will inspire this companionship among other veterans at the University.

Osborne said he agreed that this transition can be difficult, and the Veteran Student Support Services unit aims to make it easier.

“(The job of the Veteran Student Support Services unit) is to assist student veterans with their transition from leaving the military and coming here to become students,” Osborne said. “We do have some students who are still affiliated with the National Guard or Army Reserve, so from time to time, they may get called up halfway through a semester to go deploy somewhere.”

Because of this affiliation, many veterans are older and do not live in University housing; often times these students must commute to class.

Osborne said the lounge will offer a place for those students to relax on campus in between classes.

“It gives them a space that’s always there for them to study (or) to meet and interact with other veterans,” he said.

The creation of the lounge was a step in the right direction, Romano said, but it is only the beginning.

“I really cannot wait to see where we’re going next,” Romano said. “And I know, this being the University of Illinois, that we’ll be going to great lengths to serve our veteran students. It’s the right thing to do.”

Chrissy can be reached at [email protected].