Colleges Chasing Potential Students

Students began wandering in and sitting down, talking and laughing.

A sophomore looked at the Trinity sign. "I never heard of it," she told Walls. Williams hugged her and told Walls, "This is my sweetheart. She's going to Spelman."

"We'll see about that!" Walls said.

One girl told Walls, "My GPA isn't the best." He encouraged her to visit campus.

When another said she had heard about Trinity from a friend enrolled there, he told her to visit and bring the friend to his office, too, for a chat. "I'm not that busy!" he said, smiling.

He handed out another application with the $40 fee waived and teased, "What do I have to do to get you to fill out an application?"

Again and again, Walls ran through his patter.

"You interested in business?" he asked. "You know, you can't trip and fall without hitting your head on a Fortune 500 company in D.C.!"'

When Ialisha Morrison and her friends asked about nursing, he told them about the new nursing program at Trinity and the internship opportunities at the hospital nearby.

"On top of all that, our class size is 15, all professor-taught! You play sports?" They shook their heads no; he showed them photos of the new athletic center anyway.

"None of you have applied yet?" he asked again, incredulous.

Morrison, who said her grade-point average is about a 2.5, listened carefully. She wants to be a pediatric nurse, she said later as she held her 6-month-old son, and she thought the small class sizes would help her learn.

"I liked it," she said, "what he was saying and the stuff he was showing me."

She sent her application in last week.