Grambling’s president reaches for brass research ring to elevate North La. HBCU

GRAMBLING — Grambling State’s Martin Lemelle is Louisiana’s youngest university president — and one of the most ambitious. 

Lemelle, 41, was hired to lead North Louisiana’s only historically Black university two years ago. Since then, he’s set big goals for the university. 

His plan is to transform Grambling into just the 16th HBCU, out of 107 total, to be designated as a research university. It would join five other universities in Louisiana with the designation. 

“That comes with the commitment to continually focusing on research and development, providing spaces for faculty to still do what we do really well, teaching and learning,” Lemelle said in a recent interview on Grambling’s campus. “But also give them space to to dream, to have creative expression, to have opportunities to be connected to industry.”

“It also means a commitment to graduate education, and so you’ll see our academic portfolio grow with that journey,” Lemelle added. 

Check out our in-depth interview with Martin Lemelle on our podcast, “The Light Switch.” 

Lemelle’s vision for Grambling involves recognition for its research through the Carnegie Classification of Institutes of Higher Education. It recognizes three levels of research institutions: R1, R2 and Research Colleges and Universities. R1 doctoral degree-granting institutions have “very high” levels of research activity, while R2 schools have “high” levels. The Research University label goes to a school that spends at least $2.5 million annually on research, regardless of whether it confers doctoral degrees. 

LSU, the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and Tulane are R1 institutions, while Louisiana Tech and Southern are R2 universities. 

To obtain R2 status, Grambling will need to spend $5 million annually on research and confer at least 20 doctoral degrees annually. Last year the school secured more than $12 million in research funding, according to a university press release, including $7 million from the National Science Foundation. 

Overall, there has been a dip in Grambling’s research spending over the past decade. In 2024, the most recent year in which data is available, Grambling put less than $500,000 into research.

As with its modest beginnings, Grambling’s first step to becoming a research university will also be small. 

Lemelle said he is in the process of identifying an initial cohort of eight professors whose teaching load can be made lighter so they have time to spend on research. Their initial research will be funded with the National Science Foundation grant. 

The selected faculty members will need to bring in additional grants to help boost the university’s research expenditures — a difficult task at a time when the federal government is spending less money on university research, especially in the areas of race, gender and class. 

That hurdle has Lemelle looking toward private funding, including its ongoing relationship with the Thurgood Marshall College Fund, which is supported with donations from major corporations and civic organizations. 

“We’re also heavily recruiting, and so when we look at our research and development expenditures, we’re thinking about where do we see the hockey puck going, not just where it is today,” Lemelle said. 

“Every private foundation is looking for ways to engage educational institutions about the art of the future, and so we’re doing that work,” he added. 

Grambling will also join other schools to advocate for legislation in Congress to expand the research capacity of HBCUs. 

“We do not see us retreating from that goal just because the environment has additional variables to manage,” Lemelle said. 

In addition to boosting research spending, Grambling has a lot of work to do to increase its number of doctoral graduates. The school’s only Ph.D. programs are in education and criminal justice, which was just added in 2023 and hasn’t produced its first graduates. Neither are tied to research doctorates and don’t count toward gaining a Carnegie designation.

Lemelle’s boss said he has complete confidence in him. University of Louisiana System President Rick Gallot was Lemelle’s immediate predecessor as Grambling president, and the pair worked closely together during Gallot’s tenure when Lemelle held top administrative roles at the school. 

“Any measure of success that I may have had at Grambling, it was because Martin Lemelle was my chief operating officer and subsequently my chief financial officer,” Gallot said. “His ability to see opportunities and his ability to incorporate innovation into the enterprise is not something that he just started.” 

“A lot of what he’s able to do now, quite frankly, he planted seeds several years ago that are now beginning to come to fruition,” Gallot added. 

Gallot’s analogy is apt, as Grambling’s history dates back 125 years to its founding by Black farmers as the only school in North Louisiana where Black students could get a postsecondary education. 

Throughout its history, Grambling’s focus has largely been on educating students from low-income backgrounds. More than 70% of its current students are eligible for Pell Grants, a federal program to provide tuition to poor students. Also, 40% of Grambling’s enrollment consists of first-generation college students.

Lemelle’s goals are also welcomed by Louisiana Tech, its neighboring research university that is so close, you can see the Grambling campus from a tower on Tech’s campus. 

“Looking at their roots as formed at the express wishes of Black farmers in North Louisiana, I think that there is a lot of relevance to their roots today for a research agenda,” Louisiana Tech President Jim Henderson said. 

In addition to growing its research footprint, Lemelle is also working on Grambling’s long-term goal of offering economic mobility in the region. Earlier this year, the UL System Board approved several agreements that would allow community college students to transfer to Grambling to earn a bachelor’s degree. They would also create an easier route for Grambling graduates to attend law school at Southern.