BY BEN KARKELA HERALD-REVIEW | August 15, 2021

Itasca Community College (ICC) cel­ebrated the grand opening of its new Mc­Mahon Student Center with a social hour and ribbon cutting on Thursday.

The $5 million facility was privately-funded and gives students a new, modern space to connect in meaningful ways – with each other, their community, and their future.The student center is named after Dr. Jack and Mary Margaret McMahon, who donated $500,000 to jump-start the endeavor.

The McMahon family has deep ties to Grand Rapids and the surrounding com­munities. Jack grew up in Grand Rapids while Mary Margaret is from Nashwauk.

Jack attended Itasca Community Col­lege in 1953 when it was known as Itasca Junior College and located on the third floor of Greenway High School. He said it was a transformative year and helped set him on the right track for medical school. About five years ago, he was eating lunch with ICC Provost Dr. Bart Johnson and then-ICC Foundatio

n Executive Director Susan Lynch. He was discussing ways to give back to ICC when they mentioned the need for a student center. After some discussion, Jack and Mary Margaret agreed to help make the student center possible.

“We have been very blessed in our lives with family and career, and when we decided it was time to try and ‘give back,’ we chose ICC because of the great im­pact it has had on our lives and the lives of people in the community as a whole,” McMahon said in a statement to the ICC Foundation.

Lynch spearheaded the project and the student cen­ter went through several dif­ferent designs and planned locations from its inception. The completed facility is the result of more than five years of work and collabo­ration between students, the college, and community donors and volunteers.

“This is something both the community and our students made happen,” Johnson said. “The students had the vision and idea and the McMahon family came along at just the right time to add the opportunity for us to start the project.”

During the grand opening, Minnesota State Chancel­lor Devinder Malhotra, Northeast Higher Educa­tion District President Dr. Michael Raich, Johnson, and Lynch addressed attendees and thanked everyone who worked on the project for their vision and hard work. Current student Marie Ngo-Poua and ICC alumni Brianna Sutherlund spoke about the impact the student center will have on students.

Ngo-Poua is an interna­tional student and cur­rent resident assistant on campus. Sutherland is a native of Grand Rapids and was named ICC’s 2020 Outstanding Student of the Year. She is currently study­ing business administra­tion at North Dakota State University. Before the facility was completed, students did not have a central space to congregate, socialize, and connect. Students typically congregated at the school’s library, but thanks to the McMahon family and many other donors, they now have a dedicated space to connect.

“There’s a lot of great projects that happen in our community, but this one feels special,” Johnson said. “This didn’t happen without hundreds of people taking a role in it.”