SGA state of the campus address

Our Chancellor has been talking a lot since his chancellorship started about how he will make a concerted effort to raise not only the intellectual climate on campus, but also the academic merit of NCCU.

I thought, I've never heard a student speak passionately about academics.

I've heard them talk about their own individual academic efforts, but never for everyone, or even address a large number of students about it.

This bothered me, and made me think, if students heard it from a student, then maybe they can relate better, rather than an administrator.

I'm not here to slap your hands, but I am here to inform you and bring awareness to what the chancellor calls the "New Normal."

This year, as SGA, we have taken a different approach to student governance. We have made a concerted effort to redefine the term "student leadership" and what it means to be an advocate for the diverse population of students like what we have here at our beloved sloping hills and verdant greens.

We have striven to be more transparent and help provide great customer service, which in turn would enhance to overall college experience of our fellow Eagles.

Advocating for our constituency is our number one priority. Our main tools for this have been the use of great questions and meaningful programming.

As SGA, it is our responsibility to make sure that our fellow students understand the importance behind getting their education.

With that being said, it is also our responsibility make sure that our fellow students understand the importance behind getting their education.

With that being said, it is also our responsibility to hold each other accountable, from student to student, when concerning our academic merit as a undergraduate constituency.

It is my strong belief that we as students have failed to do that thus far. This is demonstrated by some of the staggering statistics that have plagued NCCU over the last decade.

With a retention rate of 71 percent and a graduation rate of 51 percent, it is obvious that we need to do some things differently, especially when our neighboring institutions, Duke, Chapel Hill and NC State, all boast a 90 percentile in both those areas.

I mentioned earlier the Chancellor and his administration have taken steps to improve the intellectual climate of this University.

They have done so partly because as an institution of higher learning, we are no longer funded based on the terms of our enrollment, but on the terms of our performance.

This means we are no longer given our funding because of the amount of students we allow in, but by the caliber of students we send out. This basically translates into three things: retention, graduation, and our students' market value in the workforce.

From an administrative standpoint, these changes have been occurring through the establishment of the University College, the Quality Enrichment Program, more scholar programs centered around academic achievement, and the inception of the 2.0 minimum GPA policy, which states that a student must have at least a 2.0 GPA to stay enrolled at NCCU.

Also in conjunction with these changes, NCCU has upgraded the overall profile of the students we are accepting into our doors.

In 2007, our average incoming freshman GPA was a 2.74 with an SAT score of 1060. Over the past five years, it has been the stance of our HBCU to improve these things to better promote the intellectual climate on our campus.

This year, the  average GPA of an incoming freshman is a 3.02 with an average SAT score of 1350 [3 part].

These changes have greatly affected the value and quality of the education that we the students are paying for.

It is our right, better yet our responsibility to ensure that our fellow classmates completely understand that their education is the engine for their and our success.

Even with all of these institutional advancements, we have come to a point where we are now confronted with the constraints of a generational attitude barrier that was not present in the minority community until our, the Millennial generations, influence became infused with society at large, thus changing the outlook on institutions such as education.

It is this fact that continues to hinder us today.

What I am saying, NCCU, is that it is the attitudes we foster and allow ourselves to be surrounded by that are holding us back from achieving the absolute best in everything, not just education.

Consider this: Even after all that the administrational leadership of NCCU has done to change the intellectual climate, we are still faced with huge obstacles to overcome.

Last year NCCU reported some very startling statistics related to the academic performance of its undergraduate population. Last year we lost a total of 703 students, predominately from the classes of 2014 and 2013, due to less than poor academic performance.

We currently have 519 students who are on the brink of removal from the university on the same grounds. This is just unacceptable. Not addressing this issue on a peer-to-peer basis is no longer an option.

You see, Eagle family, I want us all to understand that we are moving into a new age in the collegiate arena.

With seemingly repetitive institutional budget cuts, while on the eve of potentially catastrophic Title III cuts, an increasingly competitive workforce due to scarce resources and with an economy that shows no promise of returning to its once abundant worth anytime soon, we must question our mindsets as college students.