A new Delgado Community College campus opened today in New Orleans’s Desire neighborhood. The Sidney Collier campus will initially focus on courses in cosmetology, barbering, H-VAC, electrical work and nursing.
The new building is on the former site of a popular technical college that was destroyed in Hurricane Katrina. It gives access to courses geared towards industries that are thriving locally to people living in the Eastern part of the city.
Thomas Lovince is the executive dean of the new Delgado campus.
"It’s huge for everybody, it’s huge as a way for people to improve their quality of life, and it’s huge in the community to say that we’re back, and we’re coming back, and we’ll be bigger and better than ever," he says.
Lovince says another piece of the campus will open in 2015, and offer coursework in construction and architecture.
Johneika Lewis was on campus to register this morning. The 26-year-old New Orleans East resident is a bartender in the French Quarter. She’s hoping to start a Cosmetology degree when classes begin in mid-August.
"I mean, it beats being at home," she says. "My kids are going to school, so I don’t have a choice but to do something. I don’t want to sit at home all day."
Delgado officials expect up to 500 students to register for classes at the Sidney Collier campus this fall. The cost for tuition is around $3,000 a year.
