THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 23, 1995 TAG: 9509230002
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
Norfolk State University turns 60 on Sunday, and the school looks better than ever.
It began in 1935 as the Norfolk Unit of Virginia Union University. It had 85 students and one three-story building.
Today, 134 acres and 38 buildings later, Norfolk State University ranks among the nation's top-five historically and predominantly black universities, with nearly 9,000 students and a teaching faculty of more than 400.
Over the decades, the school's open-admissions policy for high-school graduates has given thousands of late-blooming students a chance to make something of themselves. NSU students say, ``It's easy to get into Norfolk State and hard to get out,'' meaning admission is easy; graduation is hard.
Graduates include TV and movie actor Timothy Reid; writer Nathan McCall, whose best-selling autobiography Makes Me Wanna Holler is being made into a Columbia Pictures movie. Neither had an exemplary high-school record. Countless graduates have gone on to successful careers as nurses, doctors, educators, journalists, business people, lawyers, judges and professional athletes.
For the past 20 years, Harrison B. Wilson has been the school's president. Director of University Relations Gerald D. Tyler noted these accomplishments in the Wilson era:
Recognition as a national testing center; ranking in the upper quarter among colleges and universities that graduate predominantly black students at the baccalaureate degree level; establishment of the Dozoretz National Institute for Minorities in Applied Sciences; expansion of its degree offerings to the doctorate level; re-direction of the focus from the liberal arts to the sciences, high technology and research; establishment of graduate-center partnerships with Old Dominion University in Hampton Roads cities; and a massive renovation and construction program.
Under construction on the Norfolk campus are an olympic-style track and field/football complex that will hold 30,000 fans and the 1,800-seat L. Douglas Wilder Center for the Performing Arts, slated for completion in mid-1996.
NSU athletic teams have won more than 75 CIAA and NCAA-Division II championships. The school will compete at the NCAA-Division I level beginning next year.
In 1992, the university brains team defeated 63 other college and university teams to win the Honda Campus All-Star Challenge, a national academic title.
NSU's annual fall convocation is Sunday, and one of the former students expected to attend is the Rev. Dr. Frank Paul Epps, the very first NSU student to pay his enrollment fee.
The convocation theme is ``Sixty Year of Progress . . . and Counting.''
May the university serve Hampton Roads another 60 years and more, may more students seize the rare second chance Norfolk State offers, and may area residents support their school.
Education is the future. by CNB