Delaware State began as a school bent on service - teaching education, social services and nursing.

Delaware State is no longer a college for African Americans without other choices, it is a university of choice.

This is a value-added college education if I have heard one described. And what is the most remarkable about Delaware State University graduates - is they just keeping giving back.

But all of this success came at the end of a long climb.

Just the example Delaware State University graduates set by the way they live their lives, should be an inspiration to other high school students to go to Delaware State.

They were often the first students in their family to go to college and the very idea of higher education was still foreign to them. They had to make a conscious and often difficult decision to come to college.

I remember coming to this college in the 1960s as a new legislator when a road divided the campus - and it was not fully paved at that - and no wall defined the campus from the highway.