Sunday was move-in day at Johnson C. Smith University. But for President Ronald Carter, the day also marked the start of a “bold initiative” to reshape the historic school.

Enrollment at JCSU is down 20 percent this year, to about 1,200 students, or 300 fewer than normal.

Earlier this year, Carter said, school officials voted to raise admissions standards. And higher standards, he said, meant accepting fewer students, at least initially.

With a graduation rate of about 60 percent, Carter said he wants to attract more students who are “highly talented and highly motivated.”

The average grade point average this year will be 3.4, up a full percentage point, Carter said. SAT and ACT scores will be higher too.

Admissions levels will eventually bounce back, Carter said, but with a graduation rate closer to the 85-90 percent he envisions.

“This is part of the paradigm shift that will transform this school into a premier urban university,” he told Qcitymetro.com. “Whenever you go through a transformation your have to go through some risks to do it.”

Carter said the schools finances are sound and won’t be affected by the admissions dip.

Since arriving at JCSU in July 2008, Carter has made no secret of his plans to reshape the Qcity’s historically black university. In addition to higher academics, he also wants the 142-year-old private school to become more woven into the city’s fabric.

Under Carter’s direction, JCSU last year launched a Center for Applied Leadership and Community Development, which will work with community groups to address social and economic issues. It brought in new administrators in key positions. And later this year it will begin adult education and in 2012 will launch graduate programs.

Outside the school’s gates, Carter is pushing city officials to help revitalize the stretch of Beatties Ford Road that runs from uptown to the JCSU campus. He said he envisions a street lined with shops and a sidewalk café, even a university bookstore and a “teaching facility.”

On Saturday, Carter joined more than 90 JCSU athletes and coaches, male and female, in picking up trash along the Beatties Ford corridor. The entire JCSU football team was there, along with coach Steven Aycock. The night before, Carter and several students had traveled across town to Temple Beth El in southeast Charlotte where he took part in a panel discussion on black/Jewish relations.

“We see this as becoming a mosaic village,” Carter said after the Saturday cleanup. “In other words, Smith is going to become part of the community. We’re not going to just be behind the fence, and this is the start of it.”

Another key change involves academics.

Carter said that in raising JCSU’s admissions standards, the school isn’t looking at raw numbers alone, but also at “non-cognitive variables” that will indicate a student’s motivation and fit in the new environment.

“We know from our experience what it takes to succeed at Smith,” he said.  “That is becoming our model.”

On Sunday, as parents dropped off their students on move-in day, expectations were high. Carter was outside a men’s freshman dorm helping parents unload. Across the street, Sherwood Ellis of Ashburn, Va., was dropping off his daughter, Sierra, an incoming freshman who wants to major in graphic design.

Ellis said he likes the new direction for JCSU. Ellis said his daughter was accepted at North Carolina Central, Clark Atlanta and Virginia Union. She chose JCSU, he said, because of its size and atmosphere.

Ellis said he also was impressed at freshman orientation when Carter laid out his vision for the school.

“If he is what I see, he’s a man who’s going to do great things with this school,” Ellis said. “He’s looking for quality students who are going to go out into the world and do what they need to do.”

Ellis, an assistant manager in the hunting and fising separtment at Dick's Sporting Goods, said he also is impressed with Charlotte – so impressed, in fact, that later this month he and his wife will move here. He said he wants to launch a local program that would teach youths to fish.

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Photo below: Johnson C. Smith University President Ronald Carter helps families unload Sunday on move-in day, Aug. 16, 2009. (Photo: qcitymetro.com)

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