2025 FOCUS
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10,000 Strong: We're on a mission to grow our membership to 10,000 dedicated alumni and supporters.
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Building for the Future: We're strengthening the infrastructure of our organization to ensure long-term sustainability and efficiency.
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Driving Innovation: Through bold innovation, we’re expanding our giving capacity, delivering signature programs—like providing every new student with a computer and mentor—and unlocking new revenue streams to give back even more to our beloved alma mater.
Dr. Tammy Richardson
Class of 1991, College of Business
National President
HOURS
MONDAY - FRIDAY
9:00A - 3:00P
CENTRAL STANDARD TIME
PHYSICAL ADDRESS
386 RWE JONES ST.
GRAMBLING LA 71245
MAILING ADDRESS
P.O. BOX 565
GRAMBLING LA 71245
The National Alumni Association Center was the home of the 2nd President of Grambling State University, President Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones (Prez). IN 1996, The National Association purchased his home and one acre of land and an additional 6.99 acres adjacent to the Alumni Center for future expansion. The Alumni Center is located two blocks southeast of the university campus.
GUNAA continues to upgrade the Alumni Center in attempts to bring the center to world class standards. Alumni, supporters, family and friends remain paramount to accomplish the goal of making the Alumni Center a multi-functioning integrated facility for generations to come.
OUR
PURPOSE
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To facilitate better communication and relationships between the University, Graduates and Friends.
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To cooperate with the University’s Administration, Field Services, and other Alumni organizations in the promotion of worthwhile activities for Grambling State University Faculty, Graduates, Students, Prospective Students, and Friends.
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To encourage the highest type of professional ethics and scholarships among the Alumni and Students.
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To simulate school loyalty, devotion, and responsibility.
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To further encourage professional enthusiasm, initiative, and growth.
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To provide a National Association to channel information to support local, state, regional and national programs.
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To provide suitable headquarters, offices and facilities to direct Alumni Affairs and to channel information to support local, state, regional, and national programs.
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To study any propositions concerning the mutual relationship of the University and the various allied organizations to the end that both will benefit from their close association.
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To legislate through bylaws or by resolution upon any subject of general concern to the members of this organization.
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To promote a “Greater Grambling” through the work of the Alumni Association.
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To secure financial assistance to Grambling State University through the following methods: Cash, Securities, Requests, Life-Income, Real Estate, Insurance, Specified Property, Annual Dues, and by Annual Fund Drives.
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To establish Alumni Chapters throughout the nation to assist Grambling State University in achieving the above goals, as well as, educational excellence, financial security, humanitarian ideas, athletic and social prominence.
GRAMBLING STATE UNIVERSITY'S HISTORY
Grambling State University (GSU) opened on November 1, 1901 as the Colored Industrial and Agricultural School. It was founded by the North Louisiana Colored
Agriculture Relief Association, organized in 1896 by a group of African-American farmers who wanted to organize and operate a school for African Americans in their
region of the state. In response to the Association’s request for assistance, Tuskegee Institute’s Booker T. Washington sent Charles P. Adams to help the group organize an industrial school. Adams became its founding president.
In 1905, the school moved to its present location and was renamed the North Louisiana Agricultural and Industrial School. By 1928, after becoming a state junior
college and being renamed the Louisiana Negro Normal and Industrial Institute, the school began to award two-year professional certificates and diplomas.
In 1936, and the curriculum emphasis shifted to rural teacher education; students were able to receive professional teaching certificates after completing a third academic year. The first baccalaureate degree was awarded in 1944, in elementary education.
In 1946, the school became Grambling College, named after P.G. Grambling, the white sawmill owner who had donated the parcel of land where the school was constructed. In addition to elementary educators, Grambling prepared secondary teachers and added curricula in sciences, liberal arts and business, transforming the college from a single purpose institution of teacher education into a multipurpose college. In 1949, the college earned its first accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).
In 1974, the addition of graduate programs in early childhood and elementary education gave the school a new status and a new name – Grambling State University. The university expanded and prospered between 1977 and 2000. Several new academic programs were incorporated and new facilities were added to the 384-acre campus, including a business and computer science building, school of nursing, student services building, stadium, stadium
support facility and an intramural sports center.
GSU PRESIDENTS
Following Founding President Charles P. Adams, who served for 35 years, Ralph Waldo Emerson Jones became the second president in 1936. Five presidents served from 1977 to 2001: Dr. Joseph Benjamin Johnson, Dr. Harold W. Lundy, Dr. Raymond Hicks, Dr. Leonard Haynes III and
Dr. Steve A. Favors. Grambling State University’s first female president, Dr. Neari Francois Warner, served a three-year interim term until the
selection of Dr. Horace Judson, who became the institution’s seventh president in 2004. After leading an ambitious five-year campaign to rebuild the institution's facilities, Judson resigned in 2009. After Judson's resignation, Frank G. Pogue, Ph.D., a highly respected educator and administrator with a distinguished 47-year career in higher education was named GSU's president. Prior to his selection as president, Dr. Pogue served as the president of Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, interim president at Chicago State University and State University of New York (SUNY)-Cobleskill. Dr. Pogue retired after serving a five-year term as president, and Dr. Cynthia Warrick, Ph.D., RPh. was named as interim president in 2014 during the presidential search. Warrick ventured into higher education 16 years ago serving in multi-faceted leadership roles as an administrator, public servant, healthcare professional, environmental research scientist, faculty member, and accreditation reviewer. Dr. Willie D. Larkin , Ph.D. was named ninth university
president in 2015 (May) and server a one-year term. Dr. Larkin had previously served as Chief of Staff to leaders of Morgan State University
and the University of Wisconsin Colleges, where he worked directly with the chancellor, and the president at Morgan State University, to
provide oversight of nearly 3,000 employees and an operating budget of more than $300 million. At Auburn University, he was the faculty advisor to the university’s Board of Trustees and the first African American to chair the university’s 90-member University Senate. The tenth president was
Richard J. Gallot, Jr. Dr. Gallot was a former Louisiana state senator, and state representative and a 1987 GSU graduate where he received a
bachelor of arts in Arts & History. He earned his Juris Doctorate from Southern University in 1990.
Current President is Dr. Martin Lemelle, Jr. Dr. Lemelle is a 2006 graduate and former student government association president of Grambling.
He has most recently served as executive vice president & chief financial officer at Maryland Institute College of Art. Prior, he served as executive vice president and chief operating officer at GSU from 2016-2021.