Bossier Parish College Bolsters Region’s Workforce
Published May 18, 2009
It’s hard to find something at Bossier Parish Community College that Tom Carleton hasn’t done.
Coach of the college’s first athletic team and producer of its first stage play, Carleton also served as a teacher, public relations director and finance officer. He even used his own pet alligator to film a commercial for the school.
And, of course, Carleton was chancellor for 15 years.
Carleton’s 2009 retirement marks an end to a career that encompasses the college’s entire history. When BPCC first opened in the mid-1960s, it was housed at Airline High School, where Carleton was a fledgling teacher.
“I have watched BPCC from its inception,” he says. “I have basically seen everything that ever happened here.”
Carleton certainly has no shortage of accomplishments to look back on in his 15-year run as chancellor – most obviously, the school’s 71-acre campus, which was completed in 2004.
The $55 million facility, the first Louisiana college built in its entirety at one time, put memories of its old, cramped home to bed, Carleton says.
But the campus would just be an ornament if it weren’t matched by the quality of the work that goes on there. Each semester, the school educates around 10,000 students, some looking to go to universities, others to find a job or upgrade their skills, Carleton says.
“We are the largest institution of higher learning in the Shreveport-Bossier area,” he says.
In Carleton’s time as chancellor, the number of associate degrees more than doubled to 24, including the addition of such rarities as a degree in music, one of only two such programs in the state’s community colleges.
“We have gotten students that come to us from as far as Fort Worth, Texas,” says Michael Hart, the head of the music program, which educates future teachers, band directors and orchestral musicians.
The college also offers a range of programs focused on workforce development, including more than 30 Technical Competency Areas – short courses providing the basics for jobs like bookkeeping or Web design. The college offers a range of courses centered on film and television production, a growing part of the regional economy.
BPCC has also partnered with the companies to help train their employees.
In the past decade, BPCC has completed 53 grants totaling more than $17 million through Louisiana’s Incumbent Worker Training Program, providing skills for more than 14,500 people in the process.
The key is to be as flexible as industry needs them to be when companies need help, says Lisa Wargo, dean of workforce development.
“If we don’t personally have someone who can do it, we don’t usually tell them ‘no,’” she says. “We go out and find the person who will do it.”
Carleton says it will be up to the next chancellor to take BPCC to even greater heights. He’s looking forward to some more time with his grandkids, although as befits a man who spent his career focused on workforce development, he’s not planning to be idle.
A justice of the peace for Bossier Parish, Carleton says he plans to increase his hours in that job.
Story by Sam Scott
Current Weather Conditions In Shreveport, LA (71101)
Clear, and 58 ° F. For more details?
Click here...
