The school's mascot is the Flying Tigers, named for World War II General Clair Chennault's 1st American Volunteer Group and their P-40 aircraft adorned with a shark-faced motif.
SOWELA's Lake Charles campus was developed on property formerly used as Chennault Air Force Base.
Its service area includes Allen, Beauregard, Calcasieu, Cameron, and Jefferson Davis parishes.
An $8 million Student Services building is to be completed on the Lake Charles campus by mid-2017.
In the summer of 2014, SOWELA introduced the 16-week Fast Track Process Technology (PTEC) program, which provides a compressed pathway to an Associate of Applied Science in Process Technology to qualified students who already hold an Associate or higher-level degree.