Cara Guilbeau knew she wanted to attend college despite being a first-generation college student. She initially wanted to attend college on a track scholarship at a four-year institution. However, when her plans didn’t materialize as expected, she had to consider looking at other options.

“A friend of my aunt worked at BRCC,” said Guilbeau. “So that’s how I became familiar with BRCC and the courses it had to offer. At the time, I had an interest in studying exercise science, but I wasn’t quite sure.”

Guilbeau enrolled at BRCC during the fall of 2005 and decided to take classes in Business Management. Initially, she planned on staying for only one year before transferring, but she enjoyed being part of several student organizations and had an encouraging professor who gave her the motivation to stay and graduate.

“I was super involved in SGA, various boards, as a student representative,” said Guilbeau. “I remember being a student rep on the board when there was talk about bringing athletics to BRCC. Also, I had a great professor who was the pinnacle for me and just made me realize the importance of just staying at BRCC.”

Cara Guilbeau

Guilbeau got off to a rough start with the challenge of balancing work and school as a first-generation college student. At one point, she had two jobs and worked every day of the week causing her to fall behind in her classwork. After a concerned professor reached out for a meaningful discussion, she shifted her priorities to work just as hard to earn a college degree. That conversation motivated Guilbeau to take her education more seriously and propelled her to graduate with an Associate of Science in Business Management in the fall of 2008.

“After graduating from BRCC, I applied only to one school which was the University of Louisiana Lafayette (ULL) and I was accepted and started in the summer of 2009,” said Guilbeau. “I graduated from ULL in the spring of 2012 in Kinesiology with a focus on sports management.”

After spending several years working in the retail industry, a former colleague contacted her about an opportunity to work in higher education at Southern University. Shortly after taking on a new career, she enrolled in a master’s degree program after the urging of her cousin. Guilbeau continued her education at Northwestern State University earning her Master of Arts in Higher Education and Student Affairs in 2017. After leaving a coordinator’s position in the Dean’s Office at Southern University, Guilbeau accepted a position at Kentucky State University as the Assistant Dean of Students. While there she also served as the Assistant Athletics Director and the Dean of Students. After a few years, she moved to Alabama to begin work at Talladega College as the Dean of Students and Director of Residential Housing.

However, due to an illness in her family, Guilbeau moved home to provide care and support for a loved one. It was during this time that she realized her passion for serving in higher education and started working at Tulane University as the Director of Multicultural Affairs.

“The work that I do is working with a lot of marginalized and diverse groups at Tulane,” said Guilbeau. “We do a lot of things to create a sense of belonging for our students. My office puts on a lot of programming that tries to speak to creating safe spaces and a sense of belonging for our students of color. We have 30-plus student organizations that fall under our belt.”

Although Guilbeau finds her work challenging at times, she said it’s rewarding because she gets to assist a diverse student population in helping them feel welcome. In addition to working full-time at Tulane, Guilbeau is a doctoral student in the Executive Program in Urban Higher Education at Jackson State University and plans to graduate in the fall. She credits BRCC with setting the foundation for her path to success. She emphasized that BRCC cultivated her and gave her the necessary tools that prepared her to achieve in college.

“I had a great opportunity to have teachers that challenged me at BRCC,” said Guilbeau. “When I transferred to ULL, I wasn’t distracted because I was able to learn how to balance it all (work, classes, and student life) and I wouldn’t have learned that if it wasn’t for BRCC.”

Guilbeau said she met some amazing people at BRCC who contributed significantly to her life, many of whom she keeps in touch with regularly. She expressed her gratitude to the BRCC community and attributes her success as a student and person to the foundation she received at BRCC.