NEWS

Stacy Gilbert, director of co-curricular programs and disability services at Louisiana Tech University, has been recognized as an Outstanding First-Year Student Advocate by the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition at the University of South Carolina.

Gilbert was selected from a distinguished pool of candidates as one of ten educators nationally that have demonstrated exceptional work on behalf of first-year students and for the impact their efforts have on the students and culture of their institutions.

“The culture of caring at Louisiana Tech is unique and was the catalyst for what we’ve been able to accomplish in these first three years,” Gilbert said. “This award is for Louisiana Tech and it’s commitment to students.”

Gilbert credits Dr. Linda Griffin, Tech’s dean of student development, Dr. Norman Pumphrey, director of Tech’s Bulldog Achievement Resource Center, as well as Louisiana Tech’s rich history of programs aimed at helping the first-year student for creating a solid foundation for the First-year Experience program.

“Stacy is invaluable to the BARC and to all first-year students,” Pumphrey said. “When she began, first-year students took university seminar in their first quarter. Now students attend first-year convocation the night before classes begin, participate in a common read program, and learn about the meaning and intent of the Tenets of Tech.”

“In the three years that Stacy has been in the BARC, the first-year experience for Tech students has grown tremendously.”

Louisiana Tech’s First-Year Experience program was created to support and advance efforts to improve academic and co-curricular resources into and through the first-year student’s higher education experience. It focuses primarily on giving the first-year student the resources and support needed to successfully transition to college.

“Stacy established herself as a student advocate during the years she worked in Tech’s athletics department,” Griffin said. “She has brought that spirit with her to the Division of Student Affairs as the Director of Co-Curricular programs and Disability Services.”

Griffin said that Louisiana Tech first-year students in particular have benefitted from Gilbert’s vision, creativity, and energy as they participate in the many programs she has initiated and/or worked in collaboration.

“Students are not just a group of people to her; Stacy will remember the name of each student with whom she has contact.”

Gilbert and the other award recipients will be formally recognized at the National Resource Center’s Annual Conference on The First-Year Experience in February.

Written by Dave Guerin