LSUE update

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Chancellor cites several areas of progress
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A student makes her way Friday toward the Acadian Center on the Louisiana State University Eunice campus. The Acadian Center is undergoing a $250,000 renovation project as part of a plan to improve student recruitment. (Photos by Harlan Kirgan)
Enrollment at LSUE is up and there are several areas where the two-year university is making progress, according to Kimberly Russell, chancellor.
Russell, who is in her second year at Louisiana State University, said she started with a series of focus groups that helped identify the school’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
Russell was selected in June 2015 to become the first female chancellor in the school’s history.
Fall 2016 enrollment rose by about 16 percent to 2,906 students and the freshman class was up 20 percent compared to the previous fall.
During the initial assessment:
— Strengths were identified as quality, affordability, transfer of credits and credentials.
— Weaknesses were marketing, recruiting, enrollment services, awareness and collaboration with local schools.
— Opportunities were internships for students, expanded scholarships, expanding programs in health sciences and nursing.
— Threats were state budget problems, student retention, lack of student involvement on campus, and greater competition.
“This whole planning process that occurred during the fall semester really helped me identify our strengths and weaknesses and how we are going ot move the institution forward,” he said a Eunice Rotary Club meeting Wednesday.
“We are really good and always historically been good at nursing and health sciences and all those programs. So, that is the place we chose to focus our attention as far as expansion,” she said.
There other area areas Russell pointed to such as the LSUE softball team winning its fourth national championship.
And, Bengal Village, the school’s residential complex with 219 beds, has been renovated for the first time since it was constructed about 15 years ago, she said.
The LSUE Academy was launched in the fall of 2016. The Academy is an experimental project of the U.S. Department of Education in which qualifying high school students are given access to Pell Grants to pay for dual credit classes at LSUE.
LSUE is the only institution that offers the program in the state, she said.
“Our goal is at the end of two years in May of their senior year they receive an associate degree from us,” he said.
New programs either started on planned for the 2017 school year include:
— Diagnostic medical sonography.
— Surgical technician.
— Pharmacy technician.
— Athletic training.
— Expanded nursing classes in partnership with Lafayette General Hospital.
— Information technology.
The school’s physical side is also being addressed, she said.
Projects have included parking lot repairs, baseball field drainage, a new weight room, security cameras, dining facility renovations, a $500,000 roofing project for the Science Building and $2.2 million upgrade for the chemistry laboratory.
Another project, $250,000 for the Acadian Center, will unify the school’s offices that involved student services such as enrollment and recruitment.