Current News

November 29-30, 2007

Tamika Logan will attend the Aslanian Group Marketing to Adult Students Conference in San Francisco, California and Luke Dowden will be a featured speaker at this conference to discuss the results of the CALL program at BPCC.

November 8-10, 2007

Patricia Wyatt and Kathleen Gay presented a poster session on the CALL program and SELECT "Online Student Services Audit" grant at the Western Cooperative for Educational Telecommunications Conference in Atlanta, GA from November 8-10.

November 8, 2007

April Bounds Ayers presented at the Louisiana Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (LACRAO) Conference in Alexandria.

November 6-8, 2007

Luke Dowden presented at and participated in the Conference on Accelerated Programs (CAP) and the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) Conference, both in San Francisco, California.

Dr. Paul Weaver represented BPCC's CALL and portfolio programs at the International Council of Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) Conference in San Francisco, California.

November 5, 2007

Laura Jones was promoted from a tutor to a Program Assistant for Writing Support Services. Ms. Jones, holding a Masters in English, will manage the Board of Regents Enhancement grant to establish a writing support services learning laboratory within The Learning Center.

October 29-31, 2007

April Bounds Ayers participated in the Strategic Enrollment Management Annual Conference hosted by the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO) in New Orleans.

October 24, 2007

Center for Learning Assistance staff submitted three Board of Regents Enhancement Grants seeking funding for The Learning Center, Writing Support Services and the Corporate Recruitment Campaign.

October 22, 2007

Keri Ashley was promoted from a tutor to Tutor II - Academic Coach with funds provided through the Board of Regents grant to implement an Early Warning System for Students enrolled in developmental mathematics. Ms. Ashley works part-time to provide academic coaching as part of a pilot project that is part of the Quality Enhancement Plan.

October, 2007

The Western Commission of Educational Telecommunications featured BPCC in its October e-newsletter that is circulated to 4,000 members for BPCC’s work with the CENTSS online student services audit tool in the spring 2007 semester. BPCC’s audit of online student services was funded by a Board of Regents SELECT grant that was co-authored by Luke Dowden, Kathleen Gay, and Ellen Hinton.

September 24, 2007

Tamika Logan joined the Center for Learning Assistance from across campus and will lead the Center's effort to develop and implement BPCC's working adults support program that targets potential adult learners through strategic corporate partnerships.

Planning for the Corporate Recruiting Campaign for Adult Education began. The focus of this project is to market BPCC’s academic programs to adults at work in area businesses and corporations.

September 2007

Pilot of the Math Early Intervention Program kicked into gear. This project seeks to assist at risk students in BPCC’s three developmental math courses in successfully completing their math course requirements. Funding of this project was made possible by a Board of Regents Enhancement Grant.

BPCC students are now able to submit papers electronically for review through Online Writing Support offered through Writing Support Services. The creation of this service seeks to assist in creating better writers. Papers are reviewed by Peer Writing Assistants from Writing Support Services. This project was funded by a Board of Regents Enhancement Grant.

August 31, 2007

The Learning Center was awarded a 2-year program accreditation from the National Tutoring Association. The National Tutoring Association (NTA) is a nonprofit member serving association. During the 2 year period, TLC staff will complete a self-directed audit using an NTA planning form in preparation for program reaccreditation in fall 2009. As part of the NTA accreditation process, Donna Earley was certified as an Advanced Level Tutor Trainer. April Bounds Ayers, Luke Dowden, Patrick Jolley and Steve Kemp all received certification as Basic Level Tutor Trainers. All current tutors were certified through this process. The training, program accreditation, and certifications for staff were made possible through a Board of Regents Enhancement grant.

August 27, 2007

April Bounds Ayers joined the staff as Assistant Director of the Center for Learning Assistance to support the CALL programs and assist with managing the Center's five grant awards. Ms. Ayers serves as the retention specialist for the CALL program.

July, 2007

The Center received a $70,000 grant award from the Louisiana Board of Regents to expand the CALL initiative on the BPCC campus and at 4 colleges and universities throughout Louisiana.

June 21, 2007

Luke Dowden participated in a Council for Adult & Experiential Learning (CAEL) Academic Advising Workshop at Northwestern State University.

June 14, 2007

The 3-year implementation grant for a student success initiative is submitted to The Lumina Foundation for Education. The grant submission completes a large portion of the planning phase by a core team of BPCC faculty and staff. The following team members spent five months collecting and reviewing institutional data to develop the proposal: Luke Dowden - Core Team Leader, Peggy Fuller, Marjoree Harper, Gail Hendrix, Ellen Hinton, Nathalie Lamarand, Quintina Miles, Staci Phillips, Barbara Poole, Nicole Shelby, Lesa Taylor-Dupre, and Sandra Theus.

May, 2007

Donna Earley receives certification as a basic level tutor trainer form the National Tutoring Association (NTA). April 2007 The Center for Learning Assistance received two Louisiana Board of Regents Enhancement Grants: One grant allocates $51,334 to implement a pilot program for an Early Warning System in Developmental Mathematics during the 2007-2008 academic year. Luke Dowden is the Principal Investigator with CO-PIs Dr. Miles Hitchcock and Dr. Ed Thomas. The 2nd grant provides $46,790 to implement a pilot program for a Writing Support Services Learning Laboratory during the 2007-2008 academic year. Luke Dowden is the Principal Investigator with Holly French serving as CO-PI.

Spring, 2007

During the Spring 2007 semester, the Division of Developmental Services became the Center for Learning Assistance – a name that is more reflective of the departments work on a number of grant projects and cross-departmental/divisional efforts. The Learning Center remains the largest unit with the Center for Learning Assistance, which also includes staff dedicated to work on the Smarthinking, CALL and BPCC 1st initiatives.

January 2007

Louisiana Board of Regents provides the Division with a $147,120 grant award for the creation fast-track, adult-friendly degree programs and student services to launch in Fall 2007.

January 2007

Louisiana Community and Technical College System awarded BPCC an $11,600 to develop a 3-year implementation grant proposal to The Lumina Foundation for Education. Luke Dowden serves as the core team leader for this grant.

January 3, 2007

The Learning Center recorded 11,512 visits for the Fall 2006 semester, an increase of 830 from the 10682 visitors recorded for the Fall 2005 semester.

December 1, 2006

On Friday, December 1, 2006, twelve (12) BPCC faulty and staff members participated in a Division of Developmental Services and Grants Office sponsored training for using the Plato Learning System.  The Learning Center offers Plato for faculty members to assign coursework or supplemental coursework for students.  Participants in the training included: Sonny Bernard, Donna Early, and OJ King from The Learning Center; Karen Allen, Project R.E.A.D.; Brenda Woods, Division of Behavioral & Social Sciences; Stephen Fess, Division of Business & Computer Science; Beverly Wasner, Division of Tele-communications; Bob Boykin, Kerry McNamara and Teri Mundy, Division of Science and Allied Health; Ed Thomas, Division of Mathematics & Technical Education; and Luke Dowden, Division of Developmental Services.  Special thanks to Ellen Hinton for securing funding for this training event!

November 28, 2006

The Division of Developmental Services in partnership with the Division of Liberal Arts received a $5,000 grant from The Charles T. Beaird Foundation to provide the foundation work for starting a writing support services learning laboratory within The Learning Center at BPCC.  Principal Investigators for the grant were Luke Dowden, Donna Earley, Holly French, and Ellen Hinton.

October 30, 2006

The Division of Developmental Services received two competitive grant awards in and submitted two more in October 2006. 

CO-Principal Investigators Luke Dowden, Director for Developmental Services, and Kathleen Gay, Director for Electronic Learning, received a $32,500 dollar award through the Louisiana Board of Regents SELECT Grant program.  These funds will be used to hire professional consultants to audit BPCC’s online student services.  Donna Earley, The Learning Center (TLC) Program Coordinator, submitted and received a $49,880 grant from the BPCC Student Technology Fee committee to replace all 43 TLC computers.  Luke Dowden submitted 2 grants in October to create a Writing Support Services Learning Laboratory within The Learning Center, one grant to the Louisiana Board of Regents Enhancement Fund, and one grant to the Temple-Inland Foundation. 

September 21 2006

Faculty and Staff are invited to visit every 30 minutes beginning at 1:00 p.m. for a guided tour of the Learning Center.

August 10, 2006

Luke Dowden joined the Division of Developmental Services as the new Director.