The two Veterans Resource Centers that El Paso Community College opened last week at its Valle Verde and Transmountain campuses are “one-stop shops” for military-affiliated students who need information about programs or just a place to relax with fellow veterans.
While the centers’ employees can answer questions about the college’s various services to include assistance with the G.I. Bill and the Hazelwood Act benefits, they also can speak to student veterans as comrades who have shared similar paths.
“There is a trust, a camaraderie established as soon as they walk through the door,” said Carl B. Dwyer, EPCC’s director of Veterans Resources. “No one can help a veteran like a veteran.”
He recently talked about the centers and his plans to create veterans centers of excellence from his corner office on the second floor of the Alfredo G. de los Santos Jr. Student Services Center on the Valle Verde Campus.
The centers, which the college officially opened Jan. 30, were created for active duty military, retirees, reservist or National Guard veterans, spouses of veterans and dependent children of service-disabled veterans. According to the city of El Paso, there are almost 170,000 residents in this region that fit that description. The college reported that up to 10%, or 2,500, of its students are military affiliated.
Each center has computers with internet access and printers and a lounge/study area. They also offer snacks and access to a microwave and refrigerator. Student veterans also can use the book and laptop computer lending program, or take advantage of the “quiet room” to collect themselves.
While the resources are important, Dwyer said it is just as vital to staff the centers with veterans and people familiar with military culture to help student veterans transition to higher education and, eventually, the workforce.
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Among his staff at the Valle Verde center is Chrystal Martinez, a Navy veteran who is president of the EPCC chapter of the Student Veterans Association. The goal of the group, which has 17 members and celebrates its sixth anniversary this month (Feb), is to provide a voice for the college’s student veterans.
Martinez, 25, grew up in the Lower Valley and graduated from Del Valle High School in 2017. She joined the Navy after graduation and spent five years in the service as a logistics specialist. She returned to El Paso as a single mother and looked for work, but service-related back problems made it difficult.
She enrolled at EPCC for a summer minimester in 2023. A counselor advised her to visit the veterans center, which she said welcomed her and hired her as a work-study employee. She credited the center and her military background for making her a better student. Martinez, a philosophy and multidisciplinary studies major, has a 3.8 GPA.
Martinez said the center addressed her need to be social. She admitted to missing her Navy friends and her military life that took her to different places with diverse cultures and influences. She found people she could relate to at the center.
“There is a need for this place,” she said recently during a quick center tour. “I get that they’re here for me. This is an essential stop (for veterans). Come here first.”
Another veteran who has benefited from the center, which had a soft opening last year, was Dallas Holton. He recently separated from the Army after four years at Fort Bliss where he operated unmanned aerial vehicles.
Holton, who grew up in Sarasota, Florida, talked about the center during a break from his school work in the lounge area next to a west-facing picture window. He said the transition to EPCC frustrated him so a counselor suggested he visit the veterans center. He said he appreciated the center’s resources and camaraderie, and hoped the college continues to support the centers.
“Whatever you do, don’t get rid of this center,” Holton said.
Dwyer, the centers’ director, said that about 20 to 30 military-affiliated students visited the center daily at the beginning of the semester, but the numbers have decreased since then. Some of those who drop in have questions about benefits, but most want to use the center’s resources, or just want to relax and socialize between classes. Dwyer welcomes the popularity, but laments that his center already feels a bit cramped. Part of the Valle Verde center’s “quiet room” has become storage space.
Regardless of the square footage, Dwyer said student veterans should come and expect to be served. While the goal is to open similar centers at the college’s other campuses, the immediate plan is to serve those student veterans through tabled events, phone calls and Zoom meetings. He plans to apply for grants to raise funds to open additional centers.
“We want a long-term presence at each campus,” said Dwyer, a native of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, who retired in 2019 as a command sergeant major after 31 years in the Army. A command sergeant major is the unit’s senior enlisted soldier and its primary adviser on soldier issues. His last duty station was at William Beaumont Army Medical Center.
He served as an instructor at the U.S. Army Sergeants Major Academy and worked as a veterans service officer with the County of El Paso before he took the EPCC job last April.
Dwyer earned an MBA from Webster University in 2009 and a master’s degree in adult education from Penn State University five years later.
When the student veterans have questions or concerns that cannot be fielded at the center, staff will direct them to the proper office for advising, counseling or financial aid in the building or on campus.
Longtime veteran advocate Carlos M. Rivera, chair of the LULAC Veterans Education/Outreach Special Committee, said the decisions to reopen the veterans centers and staff them with military-affiliated students will benefit the student veterans.
“Veterans open up more easily when speaking to a veteran,” said Rivera, a Vietnam-era veteran who earned a bachelor’s degrees in sociology and social work from the University of Texas at El Paso and a master’s degree in social work administration from the University of Texas at Austin. “Vets make friends with vets. They can identify with each other.”
Rivera, an El Paso native who served four years in the U.S. Air Force, said EPCC is a good starting point for veterans who want to advance their education, learn a trade or start their own businesses.
EPCC opened its first veterans centers at the Valle Verde and Transmountain campuses in 2016 and 2018, respectively, and closed both because of the pandemic. College officials decided to reopen the centers to provide veterans with the necessary resources to thrive.
While the Transmountain center is unnamed, the Valle Verde center is named after Kharisma James, an eight-year Army veteran and EPCC graduate who died Aug. 13, 2018, while trying to protect children from an out-of-control car in the Tippin Elementary School parking lot.
After her military service, which included a tour in Iraq, and EPCC, James earned her bachelor’s degree in nursing from Texas Tech Health El Paso’s Gayle Greve Hunt School of Nursing and became an operating room/surgery nurse with the Hospitals of Providence.
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