Grambling State University is a long-standing institution with a young leader.
When Martin Lemelle took office as Grambling’s 11th president in 2024, he was the second-youngest president in the school’s history and the youngest head of any HBCU at the time.
As Grambling celebrates a milestone in its history, Lemelle, who holds a doctorate in business administration, sat down with Blavity to discuss the university’s academic and economic achievements, the school’s reaction to new technology and opportunities, and the roles that Grambling and other HBCUs play in their communities.
Embracing technology, expanding financial security
“I think ‘inflection point’ needs a broader term now, because there’s so many layers to the inflections that are occurring in the industry,” Lemelle said of the technological, economic and sociopolitical landscape of higher education in 2026.
He discussed Grambling’s approach to reimagining “what pedagogy looks like in a world of artificial intelligence” while also providing a traditional liberal arts education for its students.
“How do you enhance your work through the use of technology?” Lemelle said of Grambling’s approach, giving the example of Voices of Grambling, a project focused on preserving and digitally portraying the stories of student protests in the 1960s by “tapping into those oral history stories from folks through the Civil Rights era but also using virtual reality to embed that content, so that it has a perpetual life.”
In a tough landscape for higher education, Grambling is responding to new opportunities and challenges.
“We are having what I like to call a good problem of growth at HBCUs,” Lemelle stated, adding that “having infrastructure to meet the demand becomes the challenge and the opportunity zone.”
Meeting students’ demands for state-of-the-art living facilities, dining options and more has become a challenge for Grambling. Lemelle described one of his most difficult decisions as president as a move to pivot from major construction of new student housing in favor of acquiring existing properties in the area that could serve the needs of students.
Lemelle believes he’s been able to manage these issues of money and student experience in part because of his youth and his background in finance. He previously worked for companies including PricewaterhouseCoopers, IBM and General Electric. Before becoming president of Grambling, he served as executive vice president and chief financial officer at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore.
Recent Comments