Rick Brewer, President
1140 College Dr.
Pineville, LA 71360
318.487.7011 – lacollege.edu
Louisiana College is a Christ-centered community committed to Academic Excellence where students are equipped for Lives of Learning, Leading, and Serving. This is the mission of Louisiana College.
During the last five years, my leadership team and I have worked to restructure, reorganize and find ways to improve the efficiency of how Louisiana College functions, to better deliver services to our students and the community, but also to be the best steward. This year was unlike any other, yet God has shown his favor amidst the storm.
COVID-19
Louisiana College, like all colleges and universities, has faced unprecedented challenges this spring due to the COVID-19 pandemic, including making the heart-wrenching decision to cancel our annual commencement exercises, after first postponing them until August. With the revived massive upswing in cases in the state, we believe the best decision for the health and safety of our graduates, their family, and LC personnel was to host a virtual ceremony during the scheduled ceremony time. It was live-streamed so all graduates and their loved ones could attend. Photographs of each graduate were featured as their names were read, and while we would not share the momentous occasion in person, we all celebrated with our graduating Wildcats. All the graduates of December 2019 and May 2020 have also been invited to participate in the May 2021 ceremony.
Although the leadership at LC has worked diligently since March to create the best response possible to the pandemic and be proactive for students to return this fall, much uncertainty remains about the upcoming school year. We promise to continue to seek God’s will and listen intently to governmental and medical experts and do our part in keeping our entire college community as safe as possible.
Still, we have much to be thankful for and have received many blessings throughout the 2019-20 academic year to share with you. Please accept our continued appreciation for your economic and spiritual support.
Faith Integration
This year evangelism seminars designed equip staff and coaches with principles for integrating the Christian faith into college life were led by Vice President for Advancement Dr. Jerry Pipes and Dr. Keith Manuel, evangelism/church growth director for the Louisiana Baptist Convention.
Chapel speakers led our students, faculty and staff through the Book of I Peter, and BCM Director Thomas Worsham organized weekly student-led small groups to study a master/teacher booklet on I Peter written by faculty. BCM mission projects this year included ministry at the Bridge Church in Covington and the CENLA Food Bank in Alexandria. It also provided funds to support the LBC’s E4 Preaching Conference at First Baptist Church in Pineville.
In the fall, our annual Christ, Church, and Culture (C3) Conference “Evangelizing Millennials” discussed the timely issue “What is the Real Issue with Social Justice?”
Fall and spring Campus Awakenings were hosted by the Jenkins Center for Evangelism and Missions. Dr. Don Wilton, pastor of First Baptist Church in Spartanburg, South Carolina led the fall revival, and Dr. John Fream, pastor of Cypress Baptist Church in Louisiana led the spring revival.
Dr. Rick Brewer was keynote speaker at the annual CENLA March for Life. The largest march in the state of Louisiana includes thousands of campus and community members march from LC to downtown Alexandria in support of life.
Grants
College students today face very different technological needs than their parents’ generation. The increased demands on their attention and seismic cultural shifts that have occurred in the last few years call for a university campus that can accommodate today’s needs without sacrificing integrity and rigor.
We can see God’s hand in so many of the grants and opportunities that have come our way this year.
Louisiana College was blessed to be awarded a $2.2 million Title III grant to improve and expand online education from the U.S. Department of Education. This has allowed for the creation of a Faculty Development Center with support personnel, including a director of online education and an instructional designer. It couldn’t have come at a more important time, with all instruction having to abruptly move online in March due to the coronavirus.
The grant, the largest in LC history, allows us to go to the state-of-the-art learning platform, Canvas, to deliver premiere online content. In addition, we are moving to a cloud environment that allows the Enterprise Resource Planning System to conduct routine business.
Perhaps more relevant at the moment, though, is that this grant allowed us to hire Dr. Natalie Maxey as an engineering professor, in a new pre-engineering program. This, in turn, led us to partnering in a 3+2 engineering degree with Louisiana Tech University. This led to a generous donation from Jim and Mary Terrell of $100,000 for the equipment to offer a first-year engineering course at LC. This equipment, specifically a 3-D printer, allowed Dr. Maxey to step in create personal protective equipment (PPE) to protect medical personnel and first responders in the fight against COVID-19. Blue Cross Blue Shield, in turn, gave LC a $5,000 a grant to continue this work, and we have raised more than $20,000 to defray expenses and purchase three additional 3D printers to produce PPE for area medical facilities. LC has produced more than 3,000 items for medical care workers and facilities around the state, and requests continue for equipment. God has allowed LC to use science and technology to minister to our community in a very rewarding way.
We were also blessed to receive several other grants this year:
• Louisiana Board of Regents awarded LC $87,330 department enhancement grant to renovate classrooms in Guinn Auditorium.
• The Rapides Foundation awarded LC an $111,200 Healthy Behaviors Program Grant to increase access to health and fitness opportunities for the greater Pineville area, including rehabilitating the Parrish Fuller Fitness Trail.
• Homeland Security Grant of $100,000 was awarded for additional surveillance cameras and lighting on campus.
Enrollment and Retention
Our retention rate from fall 2019 to spring 2020 was 88 percent. Student enrollment at the college has grown 15 percent since 2015.
We increased the number of CENLA high schools participating in District Rally this year from 21 to 28. LC also hosted the Future Business Leaders of America Leadership Conference and general conference with more than 375 high school students attending.
A three-week recruitment trip to Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Taiwan was held in partnership with Haven of Hope Academy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and schools in Southeast Asia.
The Louisiana Board of Regents approved the college to offer dual enrollment courses, and DE courses were provided for Tioga High School in the fall and spring.
Academic and Athletic Programs
We have partnered with CHRISTUS St. Frances Hospital to establish the Cabrini Scholars program to provide economic support for students in our Accelerated Bachelor of Nursing (ABSN) program. These are adult students returning to college to pursue a second degree in nursing, and these grant of $5,000 or $10,000 come with a promise of full-time employment as a registered nurse upon graduation. This is an innovative track to nursing and Cabrini Scholars is an innovative way to assist these dedicated students in paying for it.
LC produces top-notch nurses, and we are grateful for the support of Cabrini to allow us to produce many more. Our ABSN licensure exam passage rate for recent graduates of the college’s nursing program is 100 percent.
The Louisiana College Athletic Department formally applied for admission to the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) this summer. This decision received the unanimous support from the College’s Board of Trustees. LC was previously part of NAIA in the 1970s-1990s and experienced several conference and regional title play during those years. This will allow us to play against schools in our region. Perhaps the biggest reason that NAIA is a good fit, though, is its Champions of Character initiative and five core values of integrity, respect, responsibility, sportsmanship and servant leadership, which lend itself to LC’s own core mission as well as many other faith-based institutions.
Our student athletes reached a significant milestone this year. The student-athlete 2019-2020 aggregate GPA was 3.004, a goal set in our 2016-2020 Strategic Plan. We believe NAIA membership will only help bolster this with its focus not only on integrity but also on academic success.
Advancement
Total gifts to LC were in excess of $5 million for the fiscal year. These include gifts from 195 Board of Visitors members, whose gifts total $231,000, in addition to several substantial restricted and unrestricted gifts from alumni and other individual donors.
Refurbishment
During the past year, significant renovations have been done in the residence halls. Phase I of the renovations began summer 2019 and included a $3.7 million upgrade to Tudor Hall and $1.9 million to English Village. Summer 2020 upgrades include Cottingham and Church Halls. Eighty percent of residence halls will have been refurbished by August 7, 2020.
Other improvements done this year include the replacement of the air handler in Cavanaugh Hall and replacing the upper roof of H.O. West Gymnasium.
Resource Development
We want to express our gratitude to the churches of the LBC for support through the Cooperative Program. This support allows LC to maintain an affordable and accessible education for students who sincerely desire a Christian education. It would not be possible without your continued support, and we are continuously grateful.
We are preparing to file our self-report for SACSCOC this fall in anticipation of our standard 10-year review, which will be done in the spring of 2021. We are optimistic, as are fifth-year review was excellent. We appreciate the commitment of the LC Board of Trustees to ensure the college’s accreditation is never in doubt.