THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, July 18, 1996 TAG: 9607170007
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 46 lines
Norfolk State University President Harrison B. Wilson, who this week announced his intention to retire next July, took command of the historically black institution 21 years ago with a clear vision of its mission. NSU, as Wilson saw it, existed primarily to provide many low-income blacks with poor high-school records a chance at acquiring knowledge and skills needed to thrive in mainstream America.
Pursuing that mission inevitably meant accepting much disappointment. NSU's dismal graduation rate - but 22 percent of the university's freshmen graduate within seven years - is distressing testimony that getting happy results from unpromising material involves much heavy lifting by both faculty and students.
Dr. Wilson makes no apologies for enrolling young adults whom other schools would summarily spurn. Even though they tend to be poor and underachieving when they arrive on campus, NSU works with them. Wilson applauds the successes while deploring the failures.
But NSU's welcoming of disadvantaged young people is not, in Dr. Wilson's expansive vision, the institution's sole mission. Wilson presided over the proliferation of bachelor's programs, from 33 to 44, and master's-degree programs from two to 15. The Dezoretz Scholars program recruits bright, highly motivated science students. ODU's graduate-level materials-research program is affiliated with NASA.
A former basketball coach with a doctorate in health sciences and administration, Wilson was just what NSU needed: an aggressive champion carrying the college's - it was Norfolk State College until 1979 - and then university's cause within Hampton Roads, across the state and in the Virginia's governor's office and General Assembly.
When federal mandates threatened in the 1970s to destroy NSU's identity as an all-black institution by compelling it to merge with predominantly white Old Dominion University or requiring both schools to swap substantial numbers of academic programs to further racial desegregation at each, Wilson stood fast for preserving his school as a center of black culture and community. Both ODU and NSU continue as separate institutions, but 18 percent of NSU students are nonblack.
Wilson will be yielding leadership of a stronger school and a busier and far-more-handsome campus than that which greeted him 21 years ago. His has been a 4.0 performance. by CNB