Digital skills, tangible opportunities at LSU-Eunice

Louisiana State University Eunice (LSUE) occupies a unique space in higher education: It’s the only two-year institution in the LSU system and has the highest transfer rate in the state. Students who transfer to four-year universities from LSUE have high rates of success, making the college a powerful stepping stone toward upward economic mobility.

LSUE also sits on the border of two parishes that experience some of the highest rates of poverty — and some of the lowest rates of educational attainment — in a state whose residents are among the most economically insecure in the country. LSUE’s chancellor, Dr. Nancee Sorenson, knows the college plays an essential role in meeting some of the region’s challenges and preparing students for new opportunities.

“In the last two years, $77 billion of economic investment has come to Louisiana,” Chancellor Sorenson said. From a new metadata center to steel manufacturing, multiple industries are responding to new incentives from the state legislature to build in Louisiana. LSUE is working to ensure that its students can fill these new workforce demands so that the community it serves can share in the state’s growth.

“The way I see the landscape is that all of the two-year spaces will be contributing to filling this job demand,” said Chancellor Sorenson.

When the college joined Achieving the Dream’s Building Resiliency in Rural Communities for the Future of Work initiative, leaders took the opportunity to focus on programs to improve students’ digital skills — essential tools that can help ensure learners and their communities aren’t left behind amid continual change.

A focus on digital skills

To set students up for success from their first day on campus, LSUE redesigned the orientation process. It is now a hands-on experience, with students practicing one of the essential digital skills they’ll need throughout their college experience: Navigating the institution’s systems. Staff bring out a cart of laptops for new students to borrow, and together they walk through processes like finding the academic calendar or logging into course platforms.

To prepare learners for careers in the digital economy, LSUE also tasked a committee with establishing goals and standards for students’ digital skills development. Committee members quickly realized that a blanket approach — applying the same standards across all areas of study — wasn’t going to work.

“Somebody going into nursing is going to need digital skills that are completely different than somebody with an Associate of General Studies,” explained Dr. Paul Fowler, director of institutional effectiveness and accreditation. Instead, leaders consulted with department heads to define digital skill requirements program by program.

Dr. Fowler first approached the director of the Nursing and Allied Health programs, who articulated digital skills needed for each course and created a method for assessing those skills. Throughout the spring 2024 semester, the Digital Skills Committee followed this process for all other departments, building on what they learned from each program until they were eventually able to establish digital literacy standards for all students, including those pursuing transfer degrees.

“The committee did a fabulous job of establishing digital skills for every single discipline that we have,” said Nancee Sorenson, chancellor of LSUE. “And I think with Dr. Fowler’s guidance, once they understood the approach, it really took off.”

Photo courtesy of Louisiana State University Eunice

Progress and achievement

This program-by-program approach meant there was a built-in system to measure outcomes: If a student performed well in a course, it meant they were mastering the digital skills necessary to succeed in the course. In fall 2025, the Digital Skills Committee completed the first reporting period for this initiative and found high levels of success across all programs.

In areas where goals were only partially met, LSUE leaders are gathering valuable information to improve programming for the future. For example, the college began offering digital badges for certain skills and competencies, but only about half of students (1,128 out of 2,068) who had the opportunity to earn a digital badge in the 2024–25 academic year chose to obtain one. Dr. Fowler attributed this to the discretion of LSUE’s educators: There was variation in how faculty chose to implement badges in their courses (or chose not to). This has provided valuable insight into how digital credentials can be most effectively integrated into coursework for different programs and will inform ongoing refinement of the college’s approach.

In recent years, LSUE has seen equity gaps narrow, particularly for Black students, in graduation rates and in English and math course success. At the same time, overall success rates have increased: In the 2024–25 academic year, LSUE saw a 78.5% success rate among all courses for the whole student population; that number was 71.1% in 2021–22. In the same time span, withdraw rates have decreased from 11.4% to 7.7%

“We have had significant improvements in academic achievement among varying student groups, especially in the number of students that completed zero credit hours,” said Chancellor Sorenson. “I think our work with ATD provided the structure that started the transformation.”

It’s a transformation that spans the whole institution. LSUE has increased its offerings of online courses and certificates, having made significant educational technology improvements since the COVID-19 pandemic. The college will soon break ground on a new STEAM innovation center, and leadership recently redesigned the student success center into an integrated learning center based in the library. Amid all these changes, LSUE experienced record enrollment numbers in fall 2025 and spring 2026.

College as community partner

LSUE has strong connections to — and partnerships with — the community it serves. As one of the largest providers of dual enrollment in the state, the college offers robust K–12 programming that helps launch young learners from high school through higher education and into family-sustaining careers. The LSUE Academy program provides an opportunity for high school students not only to earn college credits but also to complete an associate degree by the time they graduate high school. Of the 900 high school seniors enrolled in fall 2025, LSUE indicated that they expect 99 students to be awarded a credential as they graduate from high school at the end of spring 2026. Fifty-six will earn a 30-hour general studies certificate and an associate degree while 43 will earn the 30-hour certificate. All dual enrollment students at LSUE take courses that can be used for credit toward a certificate or an associate degree.

LSUE’s Allied Health program is also a major “front porch,” as Chancellor Sorenson calls it, to the health care workforce in the region. For the past two summers, LSUE has partnered with Acadiana Workforce Solutions and Ochsner Health to offer the Future Med Pros Boot Camp, a residential camp for 10th- to 12th-grade students. Camp participants meet with professionals from a wide range of medical professions to learn about potential career paths, experience hands-on learning for important skills like CPR basics, and become more familiar with a college environment.

These programs and partnerships further cement LSUE’s role as an essential source of growth and opportunity in the region, creating direct pathways from high school to the workforce. “The earlier we start, the better,” Chancellor Sorenson said of the college’s K–12 programming.

In 2027, LSUE will celebrate its 60th birthday. The college has been a fixture in its community for decades but has seen rapid upward trajectory in the last few years, from enrollment to student success.

“We’re building the future of LSUE,” Chancellor Sorenson said. “It’s a very exciting time in the college’s history right now.”

Photo courtesy of Louisiana State University Eunice