BATON ROUGE — Southern University will compete for a share of Baton Rouge's community college market this fall as part of a strategy to boost sagging enrollment.
The student numbers have dipped during the past several years with the introduction of tougher state admissions standards.
BATON ROUGE — Southern University administrators tell The Advocate the university is now in better shape to concentrate resources on successful programs such as engineering and nursing, and better equipped to guide students toward graduation. The university is emerging from an eight-month financial emergency period with fewer students, degree choices and faculty.
BATON ROUGE — The top national organization of university professors has censured Louisiana State University for alleged mistreatment of faculty. The group also censured Southeastern Louisiana and Northwestern State universities for allegedly using state budget cuts as excuses to fire some tenured faculty.
Nearly seven years after Hurricane Katrina's wind and water wrecked the library at Southern University at New Orleans, restoration of the three-story structure is to begin.
The library has been operating out of temporary quarters in the Multipurpose Building.
The Times-Picayune reports that a ceremony in front of the library building will launch the $4.3 million project.
SUNO spokesman David Grubb said the architecture firm for the restoration is Jerry Campbell & Associates of Baton Rouge. Work is expected to be complete by next summer.
Jay Blake (left), who served in the Marines, rides the elevator with his fellow students at Sierra Community College in Rocklin, Calif.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Jake Chavez, who served with the Marines in Iraq, mans the help desk at the Veterans Resource Center in Sierra College's library.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
The resource program at Sierra provides help not only in how to navigate college classes on campus but how to apply for VA benefits and get the proper support from the GI Bill, as well.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Catherine Morris, who runs the program, talks with one of her veteran students. Morris, who served as a Marine, created the program after seeing little support for vets on Sierra's campus.
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Blake (right) recites the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of a meeting of the Marine Corps Veterans Association in Sacramento, Calif. Blake joined the group to keep in touch with both old and young Marine veterans in the area who support one another.
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Michelle Johnson, an English professor at Sierra College, has been an avid supporter of the campus veterans programs. She started a "Boot to Books" class to give former members of the military the extra push they need as they transition to civilian life.
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Blake (center) and Morris (right) talk with members of the Marine Corps Veterans Association in Sacramento.
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Morris walks across the Sierra College campus on her way to a meeting.
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Crystal Turner, a Marine veteran now attending classes at Sierra College, helps her 1 1/2-year-old daughter, Marley Rose, out of a car. Turner is balancing classes and working at the vets center on campus with being a full-time mother.
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Marley Rose looks up at her mother while playing in the kitchen of their family home near Sacramento. Crystal Turner is mostly raising her two children on her own because her husband, who is also a Marine, lives two hours away near his base.
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Turner holds Marley Rose while she comforts her 3-year-old son, Michael.
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Marley Rose looks outside to the backyard for her mother.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Jay Blake (left), who served multiple tours in Iraq as a Marine, rides the elevator with his fellow students in the library at Sierra College in Rocklin, Calif. Blake, who has struggled since returning home, says he finally settled into his studies with the help of Catherine Morris, an academic adviser who works with the vets on campus.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Eric Theeler goes over some of his class assignments with veterans and student-athletes, who share a workspace in Sierra College's library.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Marine veteran Crystal Turner, a student at Sierra College, holds her daughter, Marley Rose, while she tries to coax her son, Michael, into finishing a walk in the park near their home in Sacramento.
Most American troops have left Iraq, and many have left Afghanistan. Now more than half a million of them have left the service — and they're going to college. Some vets say the transition is like landing on another planet, but they aren't the only ones struggling: The college staffs are, too.