Rotarian of the Day and speaker of the day for Winnfield Rotary members on January 31 were one and the same, Jeff Johnson, Dean of the Huey P. Long Campus of the Central Louisiana Technical and Community College (CLTCC). Jeff is a local native and long-time educator whose mission is to help provide quality education for residents of Winn Parish and surrounding communities.
Mr. Johnson brought club members up to date on developments at CLTCC, particularly our local Huey P. Long campus. Our campus offers four programs: business and office administration with a focus on medical coding and billing, welding, nursing, and forestry technology. Student enrollment in these programs is up 10% over last year.
CLTCC has created its own nonprofit foundation called the CenLa Community Foundation through which it can receive donations directly. This avoids the red tape of donations having to be made to the state before available to CLTCC.
New developments in the nursing program include an evening program which started a class in January 2023. This course takes longer to complete than the two day-time nursing courses because of the shorter time available in the evening but allows students to work during the day and take their classes at night.
HPL has begun a pilot program for patient care technicians in which high school students can complete their high school educational requirements and take courses to complete a certificate in Technical Studies. The school also allows students to be enrolled in high school and CLTCC to obtain college credit in the welding, business and forestry programs.
Completion of the Forestry program now results in the award of an associate degree, rather than the certificate previously awarded. The school also has a transfer agreement with Louisiana Tech that allows Forestry students to transfer credit hours in our program to Tech for further study to obtained advanced degrees.
One may take the HISET course at HPL to prepare for testing for a high school equivalency certificate free of charge. Classes meet four days a week and the testing is also free of charge. Other courses on offer include NCCR welding and Emergency Medical Response, forklift operation, OSHA 10—ten hours of training in workplace and industrial safety rules of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
Commercial driving training is also on offer at the school. It is a full-time course lasting six weeks for which the tuition charges are significant. However, financial aid is readily available through Louisiana’s Workforce Development program or scholarships available through the Murphy J. Foster Promise program.
Further information related to CLTCC’s Huey P. Long campus and the resources it can provide to our local citizens is available on the school’s website or one may call the office to make inquiries.