Dr. Kalil Ieyoub, vice president of administration and student affairs at McNeese State University, talks to Student Government Association President Morgan Verrette about his days as student body president 50 years ago. Ieyoub and other alumni will be honored as Golden Scholars during this year’s commencement services.

When Kalil Ieyoub was student body president at McNeese State University in 1958, Ryan Street forked off into dirt roads. There were just four buildings on campus and married housing went for $50 a month.
 
Today, Morgan Verrette, a junior engineering major from Lake Charles, represents the student body. She tackles some of the same issues that Ieyoub faced, like how to motivate students or how to get organizations active on campus, but Ieyoub admits that Verrette’s responsibilities are a bit more sophisticated than his were 50 years ago.
 
In the years after Ieyoub graduated with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, McNeese’s four buildings blossomed into a 121-acre main campus, 503-acre farm, a 65-acre athletic complex, student apartment complexes, Louisiana Environmental Research Center and Burton Coliseum. Enrollment is nearly four times larger than it was during Ieyoub’s student tenure, and the dirt roads of Ryan Street have long been paved and surrounded with hundreds of Lake Charles businesses.
 
“Our student union was a military-issued Quonset hut, with ping-pong, a card table and a concession,” said Ieyoub, who will be recognized as a Golden Scholar during commencement services on Saturday.

When Holbrook Student Union was built in the mid-1950s, it was the talk of campus, according to Ieyoub.

“It was a big deal – a student union with air conditioning,” he said. “We held all our socials there. I can still picture all those girls in their big gowns and the guys in their suits.”
 
Ieyoub said the student representative body of 1958 – then called the Student Council – had grandiose plans for McNeese, such as a campus radio station and a university-wide Round-up Day. Unfortunately, the student government had little access to funds.
 
Verrette’s SGA, however, receives a portion of student assessment fees every semester. One of the student government’s most important responsibilities is deciding how to efficiently delegate the funds.
 
 “The student government has obviously grown a lot over the years. The Council of Student Body Presidents in Louisiana represents 200,000 students. Student government has evolved greatly,” Verrette said.
 
Some things have stayed the same, though.
 
Ieyoub said McNeese was a close-knit community when he was a student in the 50s, with faculty who were ready and willing to help – an attribute that still holds true today, according to Verrette.
 
Ieyoub had such a fondness for McNeese that he stayed behind after graduation to teach chemistry lab courses. In 1962, when he asked if he could stay full-time, he was told he had to get his master’s degree. He eventually went on to earn a doctorate from Louisiana State University.
 
“When I found out I had to get a master’s degree to teach full-time, I called every university in Louisiana and asked them if I had to take organic chemistry to get a master’s. Every one of them said yes, so I buckled down. The funny thing is, I wound up getting a doctorate in it,” Ieyoub said. “At the time, though, I dreaded organic. It was the nightmare class.”
 
According to Verrette, who has a concentration in chemistry, that’s another thing that hasn’t changed.