Tag: Nicholls

Nicholls State University Renames Two Buildings after Alumni

Recently, Nicholls State University announced that they will be officially naming two buildings on campus in honor of two alumni of Nicholls who have had a significant impact on the University, according to this news release from Nicholls. Towards the start of the Fall semester, the Board of Supervisors for the University of Louisiana System officially approved the renaming of the two Nicholls buildings, and it was announced that an official ceremony commemorating the change is set to occur later in the Fall 2022 semester.

Nicholls State University will be renaming their College of Education and Behavioral Sciences Building to Dr. O. Cleveland Hill Hall. The building will be named after Dr. O. Cleveland Hill, a Mississippi native who was initially offered a scholarship and recruited to play basketball at Nicholls in 1968. Dr. O. Cleveland Hill became the first black athlete to wear a Colonel uniform, and as a sophomore, his teammates voted him team captain. This made him the first non-senior to serve in that position in school history.

After receiving his Bachelor of Arts in 1973, he joined the army and then returned to Nicholls as a student assistant basketball coach while completing his Master of Education degree. Dr. Hill served as the head basketball coach and assistant football coach at East Thibodaux Junior High School before being hired on as an assistant basketball coach at Nicholls. He stayed at Nicholls State University as an Assistant Professor of Physical Education, and in 1999, he became the Dean of the College of Education.

Dr. Steven H. Kenney, Jr. is the Assistant Vice President for Human Resources, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, and Title IX Coordinator at Nicholls. Dr. Steven H. Kenney, Jr. commented on the appropriateness of naming the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences Building after Dr. Hill by saying, “placing Dr. Hill’s name on the College of Education and Behavioral Sciences building, from what he represents, gives all Nicholls students the audacity to hope that if Dr. Hill can go from a student to the dean of a college, I can do this as well.”

Nicholls will also be renaming the College of Sciences and Technology Building to Dr. Marilyn B. Kilgen Hall. The building will be named after Dr. Marilyn B. Kilgen, who dedicated more than four decades of her life to Nicholls. After she had received her bachelor’s degree from the university in 1966, Kilden earned her doctorate from Auburn University before returning to Nicholls. She went on to teach Biology at Nicholls for 41 years.

Outside of teaching Biology at the university, Dr. Kilgen is also known for being a nationally renowned microbiologist and seafood safety scientist who has received more than $7.5 million in research funding. Her research has been reported in over 80 presentations and over 90 scientific publications; furthermore, she has served on committees for the United States Department of Education. Dr. Kilgen served as the head of the Nicholls Department of Biological Sciences for 12 years where her substantial impact was seen in the Department of Biological Sciences winning one of only 17 Departmental Excellence Through Faculty Enhancement awards, making Dr. Kilgen’s department the only undergraduate program in the state of Louisiana to win the coveted award.

Nicholls Dean of Sciences and Technology, Alcee Fortier Professor, and Distinguished Service Professor Dr. John P. Doucet also spoke about Dr. Kilgen’s impact by saying: “not only was Dr. Kilgen one of the foremost scientists and accomplished faculty members in the 75-year history of Nicholls; she is also the architect of the modern biology department, having renovated the undergraduate curriculum and created the graduate curriculum from scratch, both of which we still use today.

For more education-related information, click here.

Coastal Center at Nicholls Partners with BALANCED Media | Technology

Nicholls State University has made another monumental step towards putting their soon-to-be-constructed Coastal Center on the forefront of technology development, according to this news release from the university. The monumental step being Nicholls State University’s recently signed an agreement with the award-winning technology company, BALANCED Media | Technology. The company, BALANCED, specializes in advanced data infrastructure and using AI technology in order to enable both humans and machines to work together, complementing one another’s strengths and countering their weaknesses. The agreement that was signed between the award-winning technology company and Nicholls was reportedly made possible through the Nicholls Foundation’s support.

Nicholls President Dr. Jay Clune commented on the agreement by saying, “this is a unique opportunity to change the trajectory of our region and Nicholls State University. The partnership of Nicholls State University and the Coastal Center with BALANCED Media | Technology will allow Nicholls State University researchers to use an Advanced Data Infrastructure and the patented HEWMEN technology platform to solve some of our most pressing coastal problems and create a working coast.”

Dr. Clune’s mentioning of the school’s utilization of BALANCED Media | Technology’s HEWMEN® platform, ensures that Nicholls’ state-of-the-art research being conducted at The Coastal Center at Nicholls will be able to create unique opportunities that will be able to benefit the Gulf Coast region both economically and environmentally. The research conducted at the Coastal Center will focus on studies pertaining to the Atchafalaya River and the Terrebonne and Atchafalaya Basins, so now the conducted research will be aided by BALANCED’s HEWMAN® platform and the brevy of innovative technology solutions that come along with it.

This is because the soon-to-be-built Coastal Center at Nicholls is thought to become a leading research facility as it supports a “working coast” in the Coastal Center’s right against coastal land loss. The Coastal Center’s inception was originally established in 2019 thanks to a memorandum between both the State of Louisiana, through the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, and Nicholls State University. Dr. Clune commented on the historic agreement by saying, “this opportunity will allow our researchers to collaborate globally on an unprecedented scale by leveraging the advanced tools in data refinement to access information that has been out of reach until now.”

In speaking on what the agreement signing means for their award-winning technology company, CEO of BALANCED Media | Technology Robert M. Atkins said, “Nicholls has a wealth of data, and BALANCED has the technology to unlock that data. Through our partnership, solutions to the problem of coastal restoration will move from possibility to reality. As commercial partners join us in this effort, we not only protect our coast and the industries that rely on it but also pave the way for new industry and the preservation of our heritage.”

As of now, the Coastal Center at Nicholls State University is projected to be completed and open its doors in early 2024. The Coastal Center will focus its aims and sights on research, education, and solutions to the southeasternLouisiana Gulf Coast’s coastal problems. This will include community resilience and the preservation of community culture and history.

Nicholls Foundation President Christopher Riviere said, “This is an extremely exciting time for Nicholls State University to partner with a technology company like BALANCED. The Nicholls Foundation is committed to supporting endeavors like this one that will not only benefit Nicholls, but also the entire bayou region.”

In establishing this innovative partnership between their new Coastal Center and BALANCED Media | Technology,Nicholls State University is ensuring that their absolute best efforts are being put forward towards solving the detrimental coastal problems in Southeastern Louisiana.

For more education-related information, click here.

Washing Away, Nicholls State University’s Hurricane Ida Documentary is Coming Soon

On the one year after Nicholls State University and the bayou region of Southeast Louisiana saw detrimental damages from Hurricane Ida, the school released a film trailer for their documentary film that will cover the storm, damages, and Nicholls’ response to it, according to this news report.  The documentary is titled Washing Away, and while it’s set to release sometime in Fall 2022, there is a limited amount of information on the project outside of the eye-opening footage and scope on display in the trailer, which can be viewed here. Posted alongside the trailer on Nicholls State University’s social media feeds, the school said, “on the one-year anniversary of this devastating storm, we remember the events and take a look forward at how Nicholls State University is working to mitigate coastal land loss. This trailer gives a glimpse at the full documentary to be released in Fall 2022.”

The two-minute and thirty-second trailer was able to give a glimpse at the soon-to-come documentary that will be released later this year. The documentary was made possible by a grant from the Bayou Community Foundation, the charitable foundation that’s been “solely focused on building and sustaining the communities of Lafourche Parish, Terrebonne Parish, and Grand Isle” for the past ten years.

The documentary trailer, which has generated a lot of comments from Nicholls alumni on the ground-shaking impact of Hurricane Ida, the fifth-largest storm to ever hit the United States, made on the region, called for submissions of footage of all types to be included in the film on the Coastal Center’s documentary web page. The post asked for those who “have extraordinary videos, drone footage or photographs of the damage Hurricane Ida brought, [to] please consider submitting them to be included in the project.”

After Ida, the second-most damaging hurricane to hit Louisiana hit the region hard, approximately two-thirds of the Nicholls State University community had reported that their homes were damaged, and one-fifth reported that their homes were destroyed or made to be uninhabitable. Furthermore, according to Nicholls, “more than half of our students reported their families lost access to reliable income.”

Nicholls, which has a student body that’s 90% consisting of Louisiana students, has over half of its total student body residing in Terrebonne and Lafourche Parishes, making most of the University’s students’ family homes affected by the storm in one way or another. With an over-arching impact of such magnitude, Nicholls and the surrounding community saw it upon themselves to take action to assist those who were heavily impacted.

One of the major avenues to recovery was the assistance from the Nicholls Campus Emergency and Hurricane Relief Fund, which was able to “invite students who lost their homes to the storm to move into campus residence halls and access meal plans at no cost. About 180 moved on campus.” This was of vital importance because it was learned through several surveys sent out by the university that over 1,400 students reported that their major struggles during the aftermath of Hurricane Ida were food insecurity, seeking shelter, gasoline, and money. Many students were even forced to drop out of school in order to rebuild their homes and care for family members.

Outside of showcasing the conditions of Hurricane Ida’s impact and recovery efforts, the Wasting Away documentarywill aim to show what’s in store for just how Nicholls will be working through their Coastal Center to mitigate land loss. This will be especially important as the Terrebonne Basin currently has the highest rate of coastal land loss in the state of Louisiana with a total of over 30,000 acres of wetlands being lost since 1932.

Nicholls’ Coastal Center’s groundbreaking is currently slated for early 2023, and the $21 million project will be used as a collaborative space for “scientists from all over the state and beyond, including those from CPRA, the Water Institute of the Gulf, and Nicholls Biological Sciences and Geomatics departments, to collaborate and advance research to repair and rebuild the state’s receding coastline” as well as preserve and protect the Louisiana coast from future storms.

For more education-related information, click here.

Board of Certified Safety Professionals Recognizes Safety Management Program at Nicholls

It was recently announced via this news release from Nicholls State University that their Bachelor of Science in Safety Management has been recognized by the Board of Certified Safety Professionals (BCSP) as a Qualified Academic Program (QAP).

Because the Bachelor of Science in Safety Management has met the qualified credential requirement for the Certified Safety Professional (CSP) certification, Nicholls students who successfully complete the University’s Safety Management program will now be eligible to apply for the Graduate Safety Practitioner (GSP) designation with BCSP, thus engaging in an academic pathway that could lead to their becoming a Certified Safety Professional (CSP).

Nicholls’s Bachelor of Science in Safety Management is a program that is specifically designed to teach its students to be able to facilitate the delivery of effective safety education and training using analytical methods to determine and manage risk and also to evaluate and control hazards that exist in the workplace. The program prides itself on developing, evaluating, and implementing safety and health programs to all of its students; it accomplishes this by focusing on a curriculum that is centered around technical, people-oriented, and industrial application courses that will prepare students for middle-to-upper level management positions in safety.

Any student holding a Certified Safety Professional licensure that is accredited by the American National Standards Institute is considered to be in possession of the “gold standard” of safety certification. This is due to the fact that students who apply for the Graduate Safety Practitioner demonstrate a graduates’ level of commitment and preparation to the safety profession to any observing potential employers or established practitioners. The GSP distinguishes programs by satisfying a certain requirement for the CSP exam, with that requirement being that one must hold a BCSP-qualified credential to even sit for the exam.

Michael Gautreaux, the Nicholls Executive Director of Petroleum Engineering Technology & Safety Management, commented on the University’s Safety Management Program being recognized as a Qualified Academic Program by saying, “we are excited to offer the Graduate Safety Professional designation to Safety Management Bachelor of Science graduates. The GSP is an entry-level credential for educated graduates to move closer to the Certified Safety Professional (CSP) professional licensure.  The GSP designation will accelerate a career and open the door to many job opportunities.”

The BCSP’s website lists a variety of benefits to becoming a GSP, including but not limited to: by becoming a Graduate Safety Practitioner you’re automatically meeting the CSP eligibility requirement for holding a BSCP-qualified credential and waiving the need to sit for and pass the Associate Safety Professional (ASP) examination, which is the pre-requisite exam to CSP. Being a GSP is also in and of itself a recognition of your sheer level of preparedness for professional safety practice that allows you the opportunity to use the BCSP Career Center to post your resume and view potential career opportunities and gives you an advantage when being compared against another graduate in Safety from a non-QAP program. Overall, becoming a GSP does much more than give graduates a GSP digital certificate, it sets them up for success in their future field.

Dr. John P. Doucet, the Nicholls College of Sciences and Technology Dean, spoke highly of his Nicholls colleagues by saying, “due to the hard work of Nicholls faculty in designing and teaching the safety curriculum, our graduates are now designated Graduate Safety Professionals, and they earn automatic opportunities to test for higher industry certifications.”

The news is of course beneficial for students currently working toward earning their Bachelor of Science in Safety Management at Nicholls, but those graduates who have graduated within the program’s applicable dates will be able to apply for the GSP for one year, just as all other graduates will have to apply for the GSP within a year of graduating going forward. The start date for the program’s QAP will begin once the program is officially published on the BCSP’s website, and as of the writing of this post, the next website post is scheduled to be published in October 2022.

For more education-related information, click here.

Nicholls is Preparing Teachers for Hybrid and Digital Learning

It was recently announced via this news release from the school, that Nicholls State University has signed a pledge that commits the University to prepare its educators with skills to successfully utilize digital learning technology for face-to-face, hybrid, and online classrooms.

This pledge, which is a commitment to the skillful use of technology in order to continue higher learning no matter if the class is taught in person, virtually, or a combination of both is called the EPPs for Digital Equity and Transformation Pledge. This pledge was created that resulted from a partnership between the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and the U.S. Department of Education.

The International Society for Technology in Education is a nonprofit organization that strives to work alongside the global education community in order “to accelerate the use of technology to solve tough problems and inspire innovation.” The ISTE’s worldwide network “believes in the potential technology holds to transform teaching and learning.”

In the statement released by Nicholls State University, the school reported that they were “proud to be a leader in the field of educational technology.” This pride is not simply due to the University’s signing of the ISTE pledge for digital equity and transformation, but it’s also due to the fact that Nicholls’ Master of Educational Technology Leadership degree is currently only one of 3 Universities to also provide an ISTE Certification for Educators.

In 2021, Nicholls began this provision of the ISTE Certification for Educators with the help and support of two members of Nicholls faculty: Dr. Cynthia Vavasseur, professor of education, and Dr. Sara Dempster, assistant professor of education. Both Dr. Vavasseur and Dr. Dempster are two of only 1000 ISTE-certified educatorsworldwide.

Dr. Vavasseur, who is the program chair and lead professor in the program, spoke about Nicholls providing the ISTE Certified Educator Status by saying, “this will provide teachers in the Bayou Region the opportunity to gain this prestigious, internationally recognized certification. Moreover, it will provide the area with teachers who are highly qualified to implement technology into K-12 learning. Graduates will be experts at utilizing innovative technology for teaching and learning. Especially during a pandemic, graduates become key resources for their peers in best practices using technology for teaching and learning.”

Since Nicholls is an ISTE Recognize Program and now also an integral part of this innovative pledge that ensures future Nicholls teachers will be well-versed in the digital skills and tools that can potentially transform learning with the use of technology, Nicholls State University is a leader in the field of preparing innovative educators for K-12 students and beyond.

The CEO of the International Society for Technology in Education Richard Culatta spoke of Nicholls’s signing of the EPPs for Digital Equity and Transformation Pledge by saying, “knowing how to use technology to support student learning is an essential skill for any teacher to thrive in a post-COVID world. I’m thrilled that Nicholls State University is committed to embedding tech skills into their program so all Nicholls State University teacher candidates will be prepared to hit the ground running!”

After signing the pledge, Nicholls State University joined 33 other institutions that are committed to supplying and preparing teachers to successfully thrive in various types of digital learning environments. Additionally, this pledge aims to equip faculty members to continuously improve expertise in technology for learning, prepare teachers to use technology to pursue ongoing professional learning opportunities, apply various frameworks in order to accelerate transformative digital learning, and collaborate with school leaders to identify shared digital teaching competencies.

For more education-related information, click here.

Nicholls Student Remembered with New Scholarship

To honor the memory of Kennedi Foret, a former Nicholls State University student who was the victim of a fatal car crash in December 2021, the Nicholls State University Foundation is establishing a new endowed scholarship, according to a press release issued by the university.

The Kennedi Foret Marine Biology Undergraduate Memorial Scholarship will be awarded to female graduates of Lafourche Parish high schools majoring in Biology with a concentration in Marine Biology. Recipients can be sophomores, juniors or seniors with a 3.0 GPA and will receive a $500 scholarship broken down into two $250 per semester awards.

Foret’s mother Amber Pitre said, “This scholarship is just one way that we can let Kennedi’s light continue to shine and her love for Nicholls continue to show. To give young ladies a similar opportunity to learn about marine biology like Kennedi had at Nicholls means the world to us.”

Foret passed away on in December of 2021 following a fatal car accident. Foret’s accident followed shortly after three Nicholls State University students were killed on the way to a birthday dinner in late November of 2021. Police reported that a driver hit a car with three Nicholls State students inside, all of whom had graduated from the same high school in the spring of 2021.

Louisiana set a new record in 2021 with 914 highway crashes and 997 deaths. According to the Louisiana Highway Safety Commission’s recent Louisiana Highway Safety Plan there was a 10% increase in car crashes within the last five years and 40.6% of all fatal car crashes that occurred in 2019 were related to alcohol impairment. Governor John Bel Edwards said that these statistics were “alarming” and lamented, “The fact that there are an average of three deaths per day on Louisiana highways is unacceptable.” Impaired and distracted driving are other notable causes of highway deaths.

Across the United States, car accidents are the number one leading cause of death among 13- to 19-year-old females, and one of the leading causes of deaths for both male and female college students. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration cites several reasons for these startling statistics including distracted driving, speeding, drunk driving, driving with peers, and general inexperience. No matter the reason, when a teen is involved in a serious automobile accident, the outcome can be devastating for the families of everyone involved, particularly if injuries in teen car accidents are fatal.

Foret’s family and friends wish to make a difference for others, raise awareness and preserve Kennedi’s memory by starting the endowed scholarship. Nicholls State University also honored Kennedi’s legacy by inscribing her name into a brick near the eternal flame in the quadrangle of campus.

Nicholls Foundation Executive Director Jeremy Becker said the university has started strong in raising money for the endowment scholarship in honor of the Nicholls student, however, they have not yet met their goal. Becker hopes that the scholarship will encourage women in Louisiana to pursue a career in marine biology to help with preservation and restoration efforts along the state’s coast line.

“To have Kennedi’s name associated with recruiting future students to come to Nicholls and possibly do marine biology research in the Coastal Center that will live on our campus is something special,” Becker said. “I’d love to see solutions to some of our coastal restoration problems come from a recipient of this scholarship in her name.”

Contributions are welcome and encouraged to help meet and surpass the scholarship’s goals, to enrich the lives of women in Louisiana, and to honor the legacy of Nicholls student, Kennedi Foret. To support this scholarship, visit nichollsfoundation.org/memorial-scholarships/ or contact Jeremy Becker at 985-448-4006.

For more education-related information, click here.