SLCC chancellor speaks at Rotary

South Louisiana Community College Chancellor Natalie Harder was the guest speaker at the December 22 Ville Platte Rotary Club meeting.
Nader said, “One of the things I value about the college is our ability to be in rural parishes, having worked in other states. What happens here in rural parishes is very similar to other parishes. As you need to increase educational attainment, you have to have boots on the ground for people to access that education.”
The South Louisiana Community College has campuses in eight parishes including Evangeline Parish, and last year, the system served 13,000.
Nader said that either a lack of transportation or apprehension of driving a distance to get to a campus and see if college is a good fit for an individual does not encourage people in rural parishes to get an education.
“That is extremely important for Evangeline Parish,” Nader said.
Nader gave a brief history of the C. B. Coreil Campus and how the school was a technical college before becoming part of SLCC in a 2012 merger.
“The merger allowed us to bring general education to Evangeline Parish in a way it had not done before. So if you are a student interested in a four-year degree, you can get your basics here in Evangeline Parish. You no longer have to get in your car and drive 20 or 25 minutes.
“We thought that was very important in terms of raising educational attainment.”
Nader said the merger also allowed the technical campus to survive through budget cuts to higher education. Nader said the school’s welding nursing, medical assisting and business, and that there are about 100 students enrolled at the campus.
“In a parish where you have a lot of people who are no longer working in oil and gas, the financial constraints of going to college versus trying to find a job really means that they tend to lend themselves to trying to find a job,” Nader said. “You know, generally, for a lot of folks, a job without an education tends to be minimum wage, not a self-sustaining, family-sustaining, life-sustaining employment.”
Nader encouraged the club’s members to endow a scholarship with the C.B. Coreil Campus.
Rotary member and guest speaker host Anita Fontenot said, “She (Nader) has been a very strong advocate for our parish as it relates to the Coreil campus and many of the opportunities that have come our way.”