Chancellor visits Coreil Campus

Dr. Vincent June, Chancellor of South Louisiana Community College, toured the school’s nine campuses in eight parishes. His final stop was Thursday, April 8, on the Ville Platte campus where he spoke about the school being re-branded and adding new technology.
“We’re at a very interesting crossroads,” said June. SLCC is looking at its programs and inventory to see how to enhance its program offerings and what aligns best with current industry demands. They are also looking at what impact the pandemic has had on the school. After surveying their students, they found the students like the flexibility with instructional delivery. “We want to be able to continuously invest in our faculty and staff as it relates to continuing to be able to offer that flexibility with remote instruction as well.”
As for their re-branding effort, June said, “We have pockets of people who don’t understand who SLCC really is. Some people still refer to us as the ‘vo-tech” or the “trade school.’ We play a major role in adult basic education, but it doesn’t stop there.” He said it is imperative to continue to elevate the school’s infrastructure and strategically plan in a way so that they are meeting real time and real demands and making the necessary adjustments.
“One thing we have uncovered in data analysis is that the parish profiles are all different,” said June. “Sometimes a community college can fall into an unnecessary hole by trying to be everything to everybody with the one-size-fits-all type of model, and there is no one-size-fits all type of model. Looking at Evangeline Parish, what are the challenges? What does the demographic look like? The parish profile in terms of the 25+ age population? How many folks within the parish have a high school diploma? What industries in the area that are different from other parishes? How do we build programs around those needs?”
June was previously the Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs and Enrollment Services. With a strong background in enrollment, he began surveying people who attended open houses. He found people are still reading their local paper, listening to their local radio, and watching their local TV. He asked the marketing director to create special ads to target rural communities that follow local media.
June has had meetings with key stakeholders and business partners about the parish profiles, looking at the poverty rates, median household incomes, how many adults lack bachelor’s degrees and talking about what the projection looks like for some of the industries moving in and what they’re looking for in terms of education requirements. “It’s changing,” he said. “We can crank out programs all day, but if we don’t have students interested in fulfilling that learner track, then we’re still missing the mark. One of the biggest challenges is how do we motivate that population to even have conversations about that learner track?”
June said SLCC has to utilize social media platforms for their marketing and outreach strategy. The school has received funding for a mobile app with access to technology and wifi, lap tops, and simulations to take the college to certain types of environments without having the students physically go to the school. “We’re also able to use some funds to add components to our mobile app which focus on career and technical education as well,” he added. “We’re able to do some simulation types of software and hardware, take it to the community and allow us to expand our outreach in that regard.”
SLCC’s goal is to continue on that technological trajectory so that they are able to make more of an impact. “Hopefully, with our re-branding exercise, people will better understand who we are,” said June. The school is not just a two-year institution which some students have traditionally used as a stepping stone to a four-year university. The school also serves 3,000+ students from the adult basic education population as well; SLCC charts their learning tracks from completing their high school diploma to credit and non credit as well.
June added, “Folks are also able to pursue short-term types of credentials. Some of those programs are embedded in a pathway that, even if they complete a non-credit program like welding or CNA, they can leverage that to the medical assistant tract or the LPN track or what have you.” SLCC is reaching out to high school counselors to ask them to help students who may not be headed to a traditional four-year university. These students could be a better fit for SLCC’s career and technical programs or even to begin their academic life at the school for two years and then transfer to a university.
According to June, SLCC has “done some amazing things over the last couple of years. We have added so much technology with different types of platforms to create efficiency. We’re at that nice crossroad where we should be able to leverage this amazing work we’ve done and focus on some very key strategies and components that will allow us to make even more of an impact.” June added, “We have some amazing things coming down the pipeline that we are looking to expand moving forward.”