Service is a key tenet of WSSU

WINSTON-SALEM — The motto that Winston-Salem State University proudly banners throughout its campus and publications is simple: “Enter to learn … depart to serve.”

And as the fastest-growing school in the UNC system, WSSU is providing more and more students each year with the opportunity to do just that.

Since Chancellor Harold Martin took office in 2000, the university’s enrollment has jumped more than 72 percent.

Martin said WSSU is constantly providing its 4,805 students with new challenges, both intellectual and extracurricular, that will promulgate their development as learners, and later, as stewards.

Humble beginnings

Learning and serving have been at the heart of WSSU’s mission since it was founded in 1892 as the one-room Slater Industrial Academy.

Focusing on training black teachers, the Academy grew and in 1925 became Winston-Salem Teachers College — the first historically black institution in the nation to award elementary education degrees. The school achieved university status in 1969 and joined the UNC system in 1972.

Although the campus now spans 94 acres and is located just off of Winston-Salem’s Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, students and faculty say WSSU still feels like a closely knit web of people.

“This is a strong, supportive community,” said Martin, who frequently walks through campus and eats in the student dining hall.

“We listen well and allow our students regular influence in decisions we make on campus.”

To strive, to seek, to teach

An emphasis on quality teaching has been a driving force behind the university from the beginning.

“We are really pleased with the way the school is poised for preparing students for the future,” said Donna Benson, dean of the school of education.

A recent triumph has been the establishment of the Winston-Salem Preparatory Academy, a high school operating under the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School System that opened in August to 102 students.

Funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund, the academy eventually will give 400 students in grades 9 to 12 the opportunity for a technology-based education. It also will serve as a learning laboratory for education students at WSSU, who will have the chance to get more hands-on observation and teaching experience.

Major development

Other disciplines also are well-represented at WSSU, which offers 40 undergraduate and seven graduate programs and is developing several more.

“We need graduate programs in core areas,” said Martin, who has stressed programs in health care.

Programs of special interest are the nursing school, the fourth-largest producer of nurses in the state; the School of Business and Economics; and programs in sports and music management, which train students for careers in fields such as coaching and producing.

Students say they are drawn to WSSU for the academics, particularly in pre-professional fields.

Bionca Shealey, a junior from Charlotte, said she came to WSSU for the business school. She said she has had good classroom experiences and quality professors. “There’s a lot of talent here.”

Christina Gajewski, a junior nursing major from Advance, said she transferred to WSSU from UNC-Charlotte because of the nursing program and the record of success among its graduates in passing their board examinations.

And the progress of the university has not been overlooked by outsiders — WSSU has been ranked No. 1 among top public comprehensive colleges in the South by U.S. News & World Report for the last three years.

Ram life

Both Shealey and Gajewski said that although academic life on campus is stimulating, most students do not venture into Winston-Salem. They said students tend to leave town on weekends, either to go home or to seek entertainment in Greensboro or Charlotte.

Martin said he was drawn to WSSU because it is a growing institution in an urban environment and offered “tremendous opportunities for linking the institution to economic development.”

He said he has worked to engage local industry leaders in the school’s development. Many of WSSU students find internships and employment in the area.

A close community

But there is something beyond academics and the stellar career preparation that has caused WSSU to remain a vibrant educational force for the last 113 years.

Gajewski said the environment pervading the school is an incredibly open one.

As a non-minority student at a historically black university, she said the best part of her experience at WSSU has been the diversity she has encountered.

Benson cited the relatively small campus as the cause for such a comfortable atmosphere.

“The atmosphere of the campus and the size of the campus contribute to an engagement between the faculty and the students,” she said. “It’s a very nurturing and caring environment.”

Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.