SHREVEPORT, La. -- For students in Shreveport or Bossier City who dream of working at Shell, Benteler or Dow -- Southern University is launching a new chemical-engineering program that makes it possible.

The degree -- backed by $1.7 million from Shell and global partners like Exxon, Bayer, and Nexus Louisiana -- is designed to prepare Louisiana students, including those from the ArkLaTex -- for high-demand, high-paying jobs in the state’s rapidly changing energy and manufacturing sectors.

Program manager Melissa Dotson told the Board of Supervisors the initiative grew from her own journey as a first-generation engineer.

“I’m the third of eight kids,” Dotson said. “I can speak to the generational change that my chemical-engineering degree brought my family and I want that sam

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