2007 Innovations Conference - LCTCS serves as Host

The Louisiana Community and Technical College System (LCTCS) has been designated as the host of the League for Innovation in the Community College's "2007 Innovations" Conference in March. As a part of the host conference responsibilities, the LCTCS is required to staff the conference by providing volunteers. The volunteer areas are: registration, speaker support, hospitality, and technical support.

There are some benefits to participating as volunteers at this event.

• Conference registration rates are reduced and the college saves the cost of travel and expenses.
  
• You can received one full conference registration per eight hours of volunteer time.
  
• LCTCS Presentation submissions will receive first priority on proposals that a submitted to showcase the colleges' exemplary programs in forums, roundtables, poster session presentations, and/or learning center courses. Note: The deadline to submit proposals to the League for consideration is September 7, 2006.

If you are interested in volunteering, please go to http://www.lctcs.edu/lfit.html and complete the form. The registration period will be open for a month. Once registration is closed, the LCTCS will compile the list of interested volunteers, and send a list to each chancellor/regional director and request his/her signature of approval for those individuals to participate. The LCTCS will then contact those individuals to let them know where they have been assigned to work and when they should report.

Atmos Energy Contributes to River Parishes Community College

Atmos Energy, Louisiana Division Vice-President of Marketing Frank Marino, right, presents a scholarship donation check to RPCC Chancellor Joe Ben Welch. Atmos Energy donated $3,000 to the RPCC Foundation to fund student tuition scholarships.

Atmos Energy, the nation's largest pure natural gas distributor, has donated $3,000 to the River Parishes Community College Foundation to fund scholarships for students at the college. Atmos Energy, Louisiana Division Vice-President of Marketing Frank Marino was on hand to present the check to Chancellor Joe Ben Welch.

"Atmos Energy and Frank have been friends of RPCC for many years," said Welch. "We are extremely grateful to Atmos for this generous donation to the school and we are honored to have Frank on our Foundation Board. This money will be put to good use, in the form of tuition scholarships for deserving students."

Atmos Energy, which is headquartered in Dallas, Tex., is the country's largest natural gas distributor. Atmos serves more than 1,500 communities in 12 states, including Louisiana, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.

Call for Proposals - Conference Day 2007

The LCTCS is now accepting proposal submissions for next year's conference event. The theme for 2007 is "Renewing and Refining our Focus: Embracing Transition in Community and Technical College Education." With the many transitions that the organization is currently going through, we believe it is important to focus on transition and change in leadership, teaching and learning, the delivery of workforce development, and overall how we do our business. The 2007 Call for Proposals addresses those conference strands, and will give favorable consideration to proposal submission that focus on innovation in those areas.

The deadline for completing the form and submitting it to the LCTCS is November 1, 2006 by the close of business. The LCTCS will not accept any submissions after this date, and will only accept submissions forwarded to us electronically. You may visit the LCTCS website and download the form at http://www.lctcs.edu/conferences.2007.html. Once you have completed the form, please email it to conferenceday@lctcs.edu