Chamber puts focus on Young Memorial

Lana Fontenot is coming to Morgan City on Thursday to talk about the big changes at Young Memorial.
The St. Mary Chamber of Commerce will host an event at which Fontenot, associate vice chancellor for institutional development for the South Louisiana Community College system, will be one of the attendees.
“It’s us getting to know businesspeople and making sure the people of St. Mary Parish know we’re very excited,” Fontenot said in a phone interview.
The most relevant change coming up will be July 1, when South Louisiana Technical College’s Young Memorial Campus will become South Louisiana Community College’s Young Memorial Campus.
Young Memorial is one of three technical colleges that will become community college campuses under a realignment that happened last year.
It’s about more than names.
Young Memorial is adding academic courses designed to let students get relatively inexpensive and close-to-home college credits that will transfer to four-year institutions if students choose to pursue a bachelor’s degree.
Interest in the new academic offerings “has been growing,” Fontenot said. “It’s starting to spread as students become more aware.”
Online courses in the July-December 2017 period grew by more than 60 percent over the previous year, Fontenot said.
The traditional classroom offerings will be in addition to the vocational training Young Memorial already offered.
One part of that training is showing growth that exceeds the online courses.
In a January press release, SLCC said the H & B Young Marine and Petroleum Safety Training Center had served more than 1,000 students in the previous year. The July-December enrollment was up 95 percent over the 2016 figure.
Also in 2017, the center underwent a transition to become part of SLCC’s Corporate College.
The safety offerings there include rigging, firefighting, personal survival, fall protection and electrical safety.
Marine courses include able-bodied seaman, inland towing, knot-tying, tanker man, vessel security and welding.
The marine center originally moved to Morgan City in 1972.
The connection with a key local industry illustrates one of the traditional values of a community college: the ability to set up training quickly in fields of interest to new and existing business and industry.
Fontenot hopes that business will take that message away from Thursday’s event.
“The community sees that education is a game-changer,” she said.