Fellow Gramblinites:For the past year, it has been my honor to serve as your SGA president. For me this has been a period of progress but yet a time set apart. Today, in my final message to you, I would like to deliver a very simple and heartfelt message: Thank you.
Before I depart, I wanted to share some thoughts, some of which I’ve been saving for a long time. You should know it has been an honor to work on behalf of the students as SGA president. So many have written and called the past few weeks with warm words and to say thanks, but I could say as much to you. At the time of constructing this letter, my mind goes back to a sermon known as “the drum major instinct,” a sermon that implies we all have the desire to be first, we all want to be at the front of the line. The great test of our life, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, is to redirect this instinct toward advancing the greater good; toward changing a community and a country for the better; toward doing the work of a servant. This has been my mission since taking office last April.
Like every individual who has held this position before me, I have experienced setbacks. There are things I would do differently if given the chance. Yet I’ve always acted with the best interests of the university and, most importantly, the students in mind. I have followed my conscience and done what I thought was right. You may not agree with some tough decisions I have made or positions I have taken. But I hope you can agree that I was willing to make the tough decisions and stand for something.
The years ahead will bring more hard choices for our student leaders and the university in general, and there are some guiding principles that should shape our course. While our university is better positioned with sound leadership than it was a year ago, the gravest threat to our university’s stability rests in our hands. We must continue to engage ourselves with a clear purpose as one university, uplifting and supporting each other. As we address the immediate challenges ahead and others we cannot foresee today, it is our duty and legacy to persevere, not letting the challenges impede our progress. We have been given a solemn responsibly by our predecessors and must rise up to meet them.
Our university’s grand story of excellence and its simple dream of success are often spoken of. Now my term of service has come to an end, but that story and that dream shall continue. Which is to simply imply it not about me it’s about Grambling State University.