By Neil Offen
noffen@heraldsun.com; 419-6646
DURHAM -- N.C. Central University Chancellor Charlie Nelms said Friday the current state of his university was like a marine forecast.
"We're coping with high seas, 4- to 5-foot waves, with a chance of storms and thunderstorms," Nelms said during the school's fall convocation. "But there's a high pressure system ahead."
Despite the storms, the university, he added, "is on the right course."
At a McDougald-McLendon Gymnasium filled with faculty, staff and students -- including many members of the incoming freshman class, the largest in NCCU's history -- Nelms acknowledged that the university this year "has been in a constant struggle" because of the economy.
But he emphasized in his State of the University speech that NCCU has much to celebrate in its centennial year.
Over the past 10 decades, NCCU graduates have had significant impacts, Nelms said, on the community, the state, the nation and the world.
Although there were several references to the centennial celebration during the convocation, including the lighting of 10 candles symbolizing each decade of the school's existence, Nelms focused much of his talk on the future of the school.
"We need to plot a new course for the future," he said. "Our role must be to serve the broad spectrum of society -- blacks, whites, rural, urban.
"Mandated segregation [the genesis of the school's origins]," is over," he said. "How will the next 100 years be different, for people of color in general and North Carolina Central in particular? How can we enhance the distinction and the distinct culture of North Carolina Central?"
The chancellor answered his questions simply: "Anything less than excellence is unacceptable," he said.
He called on the NCCU community to refocus and recommit itself to the school's liberal arts core. "We need to think well and write well and become leaders in our community," Nelms said.
To do that, he added, "helping our students learn to communicate properly is a priority," and not simply the sole responsibility of the school's English department. Faculty members, no matter what department they teach in, "must make sure your students communicate well," Nelms insisted. "When you see students using incorrect grammar, you must correct them."
Students, in their turn, must make graduation their destination.
Nelms called for expanding the school's online instruction and increasing both the graduation rate and the retention rate -- keeping students from one year to the next.
To do that, he told the audience, "always assume it's your responsibility."
Earlier in the program, school provost Kwesi Aggrey hit the same note while also referencing the centennial celebration.
"In another 100 years, the seeds that you and I sow today will beast fruit," he told the audience. "The question is, what kind of fruit will it be?"
