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.

“What if everyone understood the money?” he said, referencing author Allison M. Vaillancourt, when discussing his ability to navigate the financial aspect of running a university.

Due to his and others’ work, Grambling awarded more than $1 million in scholarships funded by the university’s endowment, a new record for the school.

Expanded academic offerings and community impact

Grambling remains a standout institution for nursing, with its bachelor’s program in nursing boasting a 100% pass rate for the National Council Licensure Examination and “partnerships with every hospital in a 60-mile radius” that provide opportunities for the nursing students the school produces.

The nursing program has recently led to the creation of an undergraduate public health program for students interested in health care from other angles.

Grambling also launched a Ph.D. program in criminology and justice administration, the first such program in Louisiana and the university’s first doctoral program. The program is meant to be a “pathway to expand our research portfolio,” with Grambling drawing from a National Science Foundation grant to create a “dual track for research and teaching faculty.”

These academic programs aren’t only important to Grambling’s students but also add important value to the larger community, focusing on issues such as health care and criminal justice, where Black people face stark disparities.

More generally, Lemelle noted, “HBCUs deliver billions of dollars in economic impact,” with Grambling responsible for $212 million in annual impact to the local and statewide economy.

This community impact is part of the 125-year legacy of Grambling, which has survived to reach this milestone by “mastering the art of the pivot through pandemics, Jim Crow, segregation funding, underfunding, defunding.”

Lemelle noted, “When there was an ongoing conversation around DEI and dismantling DEI in so many institutions and spaces,” Grambling and other HBCUs had their status and federal funding secured by the 1965 reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.

As the United States marks its 250th anniversary, Lemelle mentioned, “Grambling celebrates 125, and so we are deeply a part of the American story.”

With its efforts to integrate technology into its socially relevant curriculum and its moves to shore up the university’s finances and student facilities, Grambling appears ready to continue its long legacy while expanding its academic offerings in socially relevant ways.