Texan Mosaic

Benjamin Alexander says his vision for South Plains College is to see students become successful and to share his love for education with others.

At the beginning of the 2018 fall semester, he was appointed as the new Executive Director at the Lubbock Center. By offering new opportunities, Alexander helps students have a positive outlook towards education.  

Alexander, a Lubbock native, graduated from Estacado High School in 1983. After graduating, he went on to attend a community college, Western Texas College, located in Snyder, Texas.

“I attended college as an afterthought when my art teacher encouraged me to apply for a scholarship and capitalize my artistic talent,” Alexander recalls. “She deposited into me and got me vested in higher education.”

After completing two semesters at Western Texas College, he transferred to Texas Tech University in 1984, majoring in Design Communication. Later on, he decided to change his major to general studies and centered his focus on Art, Humanities, and Communication.

After graduating from Texas Tech, Alexander began working in merchandising at a distribution center, US Foodservice. He worked for that company for 17 years before deciding that it was time to venture back to TTU, where he later earned a bachelor’s degree in Educational Counseling and business. From there, Alexander decided to switch his profession from business to education. “I switched to the ED position because it was a natural fit for me,” Alexander said.

He recalls that he also took the skills he developed while working for US Foodservice and applied them to his own business, which happens to be education.

For 12 years, Alexander served as an academic and career advisor at the SPC Reese Center campus prior to accepting the new position.

In 2006, Alexander used his counseling education and business background to become a career counselor at SPC. He also taught career development and human development classes as an adjunct instructor.

Alexander says that he had “worked with various SPC program departments and offered career development workshops.” He helped many students with resume writing, interviewing, and job readiness.

Alexander worked with the Levelland Economic Development Association to bring in industry leaders that looked to hire SPC students.  He coordinated hiring workshops for specific industries, from Law Enforcement to Industrial Manufacturing to Allied Health, that was all used to help expose students and to offer more job opportunities for them.

“The South Plains College Lubbock Center is strategically located in central Lubbock to provide work-ready skills for businesses through hands-on Workforce Development classes and skills specific to industry,” he said. “The center prepares students with job-ready certificates and or/associate’s degrees from Technical Education programs in Automotive, Welding, Machinist Trades, and now the new Culinary Arts program.”

Alexander also operated Mad Science from 2006 to 2010. He employed college students who majored in education to facilitate the programs they offered. He also worked as a Youth Services Coordinator for three years. 

After accepting the promotion to the executive director, Alexander shares that his vision for the Lubbock Center is to exist and operate as one unit of SPC where “we serve students and help to make dreams proceed to reality.”

By providing science enrichment programs to schools and accepting the position as Executive director, Alexander hopes to continue to follow the vision of the college, “helping dreams become a reality” for individuals. He hopes to seek out the needs of the Workforce community and to continue to help expand the workforce component of SPC.