Grambling President Frank Pogue Addresses UL System Board; Announces Institutional Review

BATON ROUGE, La. – Grambling State University President Frank G. Pogue today thanked the Board of Supervisors for the University of Louisiana System and System President Sandra Woodley for their support and announced a comprehensive review of the university.  Pogue’s comments were made at today’s regular business meeting of the Board.

“I think all of you know over the past several days, Grambling State University has received quite a bit of national and international attention.  I want to thank UL System President Sandra Woodley for her support and express profound appreciation to members of the Board for your support, as well.  Thank you for supporting Grambling State University,” said Pogue.

UL System Board Chair Wayne Parker expressed appreciation for President Pogue on behalf of the Board.

“I have had the great fortune to live in North Louisiana about three miles from Grambling.  While I do not believe it is my job to get inside a university and influence what is going on, I will promise you things have been a lot better at Grambling since Dr. Pogue was hired.  He is an extremely dedicated, hardworking president,” said Parker.

Grambling football players ended a boycott yesterday that brought national attention to facility and resource issues at the historically black university.

“I believe good things can come from creative tension.  You can use creative tension to bring attention to the needs of society.  In this case we are using it to bring attention to something larger than athletics – larger than football.  What we are addressing today is symptomatic of something larger that exists on our campus, our financial plight.  We have serious needs across the university community.  I intend to work closely with Dr. Woodley to develop and conduct a comprehensive review of Grambling’s academics, facilities, student services, athletics, and financial needs to make our university stronger,” said Pogue.

The purpose of an institutional review is to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the institution and make recommendations for improvement.  Several institutional reviews have been conducted at UL System universities over the past twelve years, the most recent one at the University of New Orleans in 2011.

“Dr. Pogue and I agree.  No matter how hard you try, you can always do better.  We want Grambling to be the best it can be, so we will be taking a critical look at every aspect of the university.  The exact format of this review is yet to be determined, but it will be a combination of an internal and external review.  Dr. Pogue and I will sit down and identify appropriate experts that can help us determine how to improve the university,” said UL System President Sandra K. Woodley.

This will be Grambling’s second institutional review.  The first was conducted in 2002 by a team of six consultants that yielded 76 recommendations.

-ULS-

ABOUT THE UL SYSTEM: The University of Louisiana System is the largest higher education system in Louisiana with 90,000 students at nine universities: Grambling State University, Louisiana Tech University, McNeese State University, Nicholls State University, Northwestern State University, Southeastern Louisiana University, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, the University of Louisiana at Monroe, and the University of New Orleans.