Echo:First off, what is your reaction to Wednesday’s announcement that charges in the Duke lacrosse case were dismissed?

JA:We said all along we should be patient and respectful of the legal system. Let it work itself through this case.

It took 13 months, but the system worked and now we have to continue to grow and learn from this situation.

I think there is a lot we can learn from this, and I am just really proud of the NCCU family and the larger community.

We remained calm even though there was a temptation to do otherwise. And we built a relationship with Duke University — especially with the student body — that had not been there before.

So in spite of it all I think the relationship between the two institutions is now stronger.

I do have to say this though —I have empathy for anyone who was involved in the case: the young lady, the three young men, the families, everybody’s family having to go through this — really everybody that was involved in this.

I hope that they too will learn from this and will be better people as a result of it.

Echo: Will NCCU allow the woman to return to the University?

JA: Well I don’t want to speculate. She has not been charged with a crime and there may be some explainable reasons why this happened that may be out of her control.

I think if she were to decide to come back to the institution we would have to evaluate her application at that time.

Well, I’ll start from the beginning.

When I came and even before I took office, I had meetings with at-that-time [UNC System] President Broad, her staff and members of the UNC Board of Governors, members of the Board of Trustees and the faculty, staff and students of NCCU.

I would come back and forth and I would listen to the issues that these various groups had with the University. I sort of built my transition plan around those issues.

When I came in, NCCU ‘s enrollment was in decline. We had audits that really weren’t good.

Echo: Can you talk about some of the challenges you’ve had since you’ve been here?

JA:I will start by saying that for both of us, God is definitely a first. Then it comes to family, friends, and our surrounding community.

I know the things I see everyday when I go back to Washington, DC is motivation for me to come and do better so I can go back and help my community and my family. So that’s the main thing.

Echo: What accomplishments are you especially proud of?

JA: BRITE. When I was coming I noticed that other institutions in the Triangle, Duke, Chapel Hill and State had special relationships with companies in the research Triangle, but NCCU didn’t. Although there were some relationships with Glaxo and IBM, but I wanted NCCU to be the go-to place for talent for these companies.

BRITE does that for us.

Right now students in BRITE have already been offered internships and jobs in the Merck plant. And it hasn’t even opened yet.

BRITE gives NCCU that direct link to the biotechnology, biopharmaceutical industry in North Carolina and across the nation.

Echo: What advice would you give the incoming chancellor?

JA: Take care of the faculty and students. Take care of them because in the end the reputation of the University depends upon the productivity of the faculty and students.

Make certain the faculty members have opportunities to fully develop their careers so they have what they need to carry out their responsibilities, that they have opportunities for professional growth and development. And do the same for the students. That would be my advice.

Echo: Do you know when a new chancellor will be named? Or will there be an interim chancellor?

JA: I don’t, Rony. I am staying as far away from the search as I can.

I think that it would not be appropriate for me to be involved in the search in any way. ... That should be the job of the Board of Trustees, the president of the University [system] and the Board of Governors.

It’s not my call.

Echo: So are you starting the process of moving things?

JA: I haven’t packed one thing. I report on July 2 and I’m going to be here probably through mid-June, and then I am going to take a couple weeks off.

My wife and I are going to have a couple of weeks and get all moved in down in Tallahassee. On July 2 I’ll hit the ground running.

Echo: What things are you looking forward to that you have missed while here?

JA: Family. My wife was born in Tallahassee. When she was a baby she and her family moved to Winterhaven.

We grew up together in Winterhaven, but she has family in the Tallahassee area and both of our immediate families are down in central Florida.

Now we can just get in the car and drive and see them within four hours.

Echo: What are you going to say to the graduating class this year?

JA: You didn’t get here on your own.

Nobody’s an island and there are a lot of people that have helped you along the way — your family, administration, staff, your classmates and your colleagues all helped to get you where you are and encouraged you to know that you have to get a quality education.

Remember your alma mater, remember your family.

When you start making money, send some money to your parents because they had to put up with you for four years and there was a lot they couldn’t do because you were here.

It’s not that they want you to pay them back ... just show appreciation.

Echo: What are your thoughts on the future of the Department of English and Mass Communication?

JA: What I see is for is journalism and mass communication coming out probably as a department initially and then probably as a school.

I think that there are so many opportunities for faculty and students in journalism and mass communication. I see that for the future.

I also see that the English department — probably before journalism — offering a Ph.D. because they have been very strong producers of students and students with skills, especially in writing.

Echo: As we’ve been walking out here, people are waving to you. Do you have a chance to walk outside and talk to students and just see how they are doing?

JA: I go to the cafeteria and I walk across the campus and sometimes I show up in places where they don’t expect me to show up, walking down the halls of Farrison-Newton or Edmonds Classroom Building. I was just over in the Walker Complex this morning. You know it’s good to interact with the people who you are working for.

I mean I really work for y’all. That’s my job.

I work for the students and the faculty and the staff and I enjoy it.

I enjoy people, conversing with them, finding out where they are from, how their families are doing, how their classes are going.

You know, it’s all important to me. Echo: Do you believe the students here respect you as a chancellor and a leader of this school?

JA: I do. And not only do they respect me, but I’m hoping that what I am doing and what I’ve done with my life will be an inspiration for young people.

You know one of the things that I always talk about to you all is to keep yourself in a position where you have options and always think about your alma mater.

The only way our institutions are going to continue as unique missions with unique roles in this society is if we have people who really understand the value of these institutions.

Going out, getting degrees, getting experience and then coming back and giving back to the historically black colleges and universities.

And as I talk with people, while some of them have lamented the fact that I am leaving, they understand that Florida A&M is my alma mater.

It’s a place that has done so much for me. It prepared me to go out in the larger world and become who I am, so people understand that.

Echo: What are you going to miss most about NCCU?

JA:The people, the students, the relationship that I have with them. The faculty, staff and administration.

The people have just really been an inspiration for me to do the things that I have done.

Knowing that [what I’ve done] is going to positively impact the lives of people who are associated with this University. And as I get a chance to talk to them, especially now that everybody knows that I am leaving, they really appreciate the direction that NCCU is taking.

Echo:While you’ve been here, enrollment has increased 58 percent But now we’ve got a retention plan. What is the University’s mission in retaining students who are doing poorly in school?

JA:That’s the challenge, but I want you to look at a stat that is very, very impressive right now.

Our retention rate is somewhere around 72 percent and I wanted us to get up around 90 percent and we didn’t do that. So now what we have done is to put together a graduation and retention plan for every academic program in the University and what we’ll do going forward is to be more direct in our efforts to improve retention.

When I say that I mean that it won’t just be the academic unit but the entire University: the way we keep the dorms, the way we clean the bathrooms, the way we serve and prepare food in the cafeteria, the way we serve students in various support areas -- financial aid and student accounts and the registrar’s office, admissions -- all of the units on campus have a role to play in graduation and retention.

The Chronicle of Higher Education did a piece where they took a look at graduation rate among HBCUs. There are only five HBCUs -- maybe six -- that have 6-year graduation rates over 50 percent. NCCU is one of them, which is a significant accomplishment. That says a lot.

Echo:What challenges have you had since you’ve been chancellor? Last week in the St. Petersburg Times they talked about the 2001 audit at NCCU.

JA:The thing that was probably the most hurtful to me, Rony, was this expectation that when the auditors came to NCCU they knew they were going to find something that was not right because there had been that pattern for 20 years.

It played toward this stigma on black-run institutions that we can’t handle our business. I was determined to show people that a historically black university can manage the resources that have been entrusted to it.

So we went out and made some changes in personnel. We added staff, we invested in technology.

We invested in people while providing professional development opportunities, sending them off to workshops and conferences, and we got it done.

The second thing was the enrollment: You’ve got in an institution that’s as historic as North Carolina Central in one of the best locations you can be in and the enrollment is in a decline.

We worked to turn that around, but we didn’t work so much to just turn it around. What we did first was to focus on our marketing strategies, our recruitment strategies and to look within the University at ways we could make NCCU more popular with high school students and with community college transfers.