The Louisiana Community and Technical College System announced Bossier Parish Community College (BPCC) ranks in the nation’s top 20 for community and technical colleges in graduates.

“We just created an occupational therapy assistant program that is one of a kind in this area. Our nursing program is extremely innovative. Our Cyber-Information technology programs are on the cutting edge,” said Jim Henderson, chancellor of BPCC. 

“I was watching This Week on television and they were talking to the director of the Central Intelligence Agency [Leon Panetta] and they asked ‘what is the biggest threat out there?’ He said, ‘cyber-terrorism, and we have to have people protecting our country from cyber-terrorists.’ Well we are on the cutting edge right here in Bossier City, Louisiana. We have created programs to provide technicians to protect this nation.”

According to the United States Department of Education, BPCC ranks 14th in the nation surpassing colleges in densely populated cities such as Milwaukee, Wis., Minneapolis, Minn., and Columbus, Ohio.

“If we are 14 now, we are trying to find a way to get to number one. We are already working on ideas for that.”Larry Powell, dean of the telecommunications department at BPCC. “Last year, I think we were 19th. This year, we are 14th. We are the only college in Louisiana that made the top 100 list.”

Although the college has instituted a litany of new programs such as cyber-information as well as nursing and building construction programs, telecommunications continues to serve as the college’s flagship program. Despite state budget concerns and cutbacks BPCC continues to rank in the nations top ten schools for communications.

“In community colleges we are we are sixth in the U.S. in offering communication degrees. We are 14th in the nation in community college and four -year institutions and that is based on the number of graduates we have in a year’s time,” said Powell.

Powell attributes the college’s rise to notoriety to changing ideas of the value of associate’s degrees.

“People are beginning to realize you can get an actual college degree — an associate degree — and go right into the job market, get a job and go to work,” said Powell. “Our graduates in the communication department, I would put up against anyone with a bachelor’s or a maybe a master’s program.”

Powell believes BPCC students enter easily into the job market because professors at the college tap into what employers want in their employees.

“When a student graduates with a college degree, we need them to be able to do the following things. We take what the people that are hiring in the community tell us, we take it back to the classroom and we tell the teachers we are going to teach this and this is the learning outcome and if they do not achieve this learning outcome then they are not achieving success in the business world,” said Powell. “We focus on things that need to be done. That addresses not textbook education, but real life honest-to-goodness, face-to-face, hands-on, education. That is our focus, that is what we want to do.”

However, Powell said due to budget cutbacks the college would need to focus on maintaining the degree programs it has, as opposed to creating new programs.

“For us to maintain our own and not drop a program, we feel like we are stepping forward. There are few colleges in the state that has not had to lay people off or fire them because of the budget cuts,” said Powell.

Powell attributes BPCC continuing normal operations, despite cuts, to professors in some cases working for free. Last fall, BPCC professors learned they had to teach an additional course on top of the five courses they already taught. The professors would not receive additional pay for the additional course.

“When we were faced with a $1.7 million budget cut — that eventually became an almost $3 million budget cut when you factor in the rest of the year — we made a decision that we were not going to deny access to students.

When I first approached the acedemic deans, they did not hesitate a moment in asking the faculty to take on an additional course,” said Henderson. “That is unheard of, I do not know another faculty in the country that would do what our faculty did.”

Powell said he did not hear on professors object to the extra course.

“I did not have a complaint from my faculty. They all said ‘If this is what it takes to keep our jobs, if this is what it takes to graduate students, then I will do it,’” said Powell. “It is that kind of dedication that says to the students they are not here just for the money. They are here for us and our education. That speaks volumes for our faculty.

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