Grambling State University opened on November 1, 1901 as the Colored Industrial and Agricultural School. It was founded by the North Louisiana Colored Agriculture Relief Association, organized in 1896 by a group of African-American farmers who wanted to organize and operate a school for African Americans in their region of the state.
In response to the Association’s request for assistance, Tuskegee Institute’s Booker T. Washington sent Charles P. Adams to help the group organize an industrial school. Adams became its founding president.
In 1905, the school moved to its present location and was renamed the North Louisiana Agricultural and Industrial School. By 1928, after becoming a state junior college and being renamed the Louisiana Negro Normal and Industrial Institute, the school began to award two-year professional certificates and diplomas. In 1936, the curriculum emphasis shifted to rural teacher education; students were able to receive professional teaching certificates after completing a third academic year. The first baccalaureate degree was awarded in 1944, in elementary education.
In 1946, the school became Grambling College, named after P.G. Grambling, the white sawmill owner who had donated the parcel of land where the school was constructed. In addition to elementary educators, Grambling prepared secondary teachers and added curricula in sciences, liberal arts and business, transforming the college from a single purpose institution of teacher education into a multipurpose college. In 1949, the college earned its first accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).
In 1974, the addition of graduate programs in early childhood and elementary education gave the school a new status and a new name – Grambling State University. The university expanded and prospered between 1977 and 2000. Several new academic programs were incorporated and new facilities were added to the 384-acre campus, including a business and computer science building, school of nursing, student services building, stadium, stadium support facility and an intramural sports center.
Following Founding President Charles P. Adams, who served for 35 years, Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones became the second president in 1936. Five presidents served from 1977 to 2001: Dr. Joseph Benjamin Johnson, Dr. Harold W. Lundy, Dr. Raymond Hicks, Dr. Leonard Haynes III and Dr. Steve A. Favors. Grambling State University’s first female president, Dr. Neari Francois Warner, served a three-year interim term until the selection of Dr. Horace Judson, who became the institution’s seventh president in 2004. After leading an ambitious five-year campaign to rebuild the institution's facilities, Judson resigned in 2009. After Judson's resignation, Frank G. Pogue, Ph.D., a highly respected educator and administrator with a distinguished 47-year career in higher education was named GSU's president. Prior to his selection as president, Dr. Pogue served as the president of Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, interim president at Chicago State University and State University of New York (SUNY)-Cobleskill. Dr. Pogue retired after serving a five-year term as president, and Dr. Cynthia Warrick, Ph.D., RPh. was named as interim president in 2014 during the presidential search. Warrick ventured into higher education 16 years ago serving in multi-faceted leadership roles as an administrator, public servant, healthcare professional, environmental research scientist, faculty member, and accreditation reviewer. Dr. Willie D. Larkin , Ph.D. was named ninth university president in 2015 (May) and server a one-year term. Dr. Larkin had previously served as Chief of Staff to leaders of Morgan State University and the University of Wisconsin Colleges, where he worked directly with the chancellor, and the president at Morgan State University, to provide oversight of nearly 3,000 employees and an operating budget of more than $300 million. At Auburn University, he was the faculty advisor to the university’s Board of Trustees and the first African American to chair the university’s 90-member University Senate.
Our current president is Dr. Martin Lemelle, Jr. He was unanimously selected by the University of Louisiana System Board of Supervisors on April 1, 2024. A third-generation alumnus, he previously served as Executive Vice-President and CFO at the Maryland Institute College of Art. With extensive experience managing finances for major organizations, including IBM and General Electric, Dr. Lemelle has overseen budgets of over $6.5 billion. He holds a B.S. in Accounting from Grambling State, an MBA from The George Washington University, and a DBA from SKEMA Business School in Paris. His leadership emphasizes innovation, academic excellence, and community engagement. To learn more, visit gram.edu/president.