By Erin Ferrare and Patrick Smith

Ever since its doors opened in 2005, the William & Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation has worked hard to strengthen education through innovation, just as its namesakes did. 

William “Bill” Friday, an NC State graduate and former president of the University of North Carolina System, and his wife, Ida, were passionate advocates and leaders in education for over 50 years. Bill served as an education advisor to Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Jimmy Carter, while Ida promoted the arts through her work with a number of state organizations. In 2004 the state of North Carolina honored both of them with the prestigious Order of the Long Leaf Pine award for their extraordinary service.

That same year, construction crews broke ground on what would become the Friday Institute building. “This is going to be a place of excitement and high energy,” said Bill Friday during the groundbreaking ceremony. 

The building also carried forward the vision of North Carolina Gov. James B. Hunt Jr., who envisioned a research institution attached to a middle school (now Centennial Campus Magnet Middle School) that would connect middle school students to college students and professors while delivering innovative education for the Wake County Public School System.

“It is going to be a place where we aren’t afraid to try — and even to fail — because the commitment is here to keep at it until we make the process better,” Friday continued. “If you have a spirit of creativeness and adventure, the institute will be the place to be.”

For the last 20 years, the Friday Institute has been everything its founders envisioned — and more.

Research-Based Innovation, From the Beginning

The Friday Institute’s vision is to unite faculty, K-12 educators, policymakers, students, education leaders and researchers in transforming education through research-based innovation. One of the institute’s primary goals is to provide access to education, ensuring that students of all backgrounds will be prepared for a digital world.

“From the beginning, the Friday Institute has convened and connected stakeholders to catalyze change and innovation in education,” said Hiller Spires, executive director and professor emerita of the Friday Institute and the College of Education. “The approach continues to be ‘lead the way.’ No task is too big or too small for the staff. They jump in, bring innovation and excellence to their work and get the job done. This energy and passion has set the Friday Institute apart from the beginning.”

The scope of the Friday Institute’s work is remarkable. Over the last five years, it has reached more than 422,000 educators, 3,700 students, 239 school districts and 124 schools, spanning all 100 North Carolina counties, all 50 U.S. states and more than 160 countries. During this time it has also partnered with 81 organizations, such as Code.org, a nonprofit organization dedicated to expanding access to computer science in schools. To support the implementation and facilitation of Code.org courses, the Friday Institute partners with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (NCDPI) to plan and organize a yearlong professional development program in computer science. 

“In North Carolina alone, the Friday Institute has trained 10% of all Code.org teachers,” said Sam Morris, regional partner network manager at Code.org. “It has also instructed 200,000 educators and school staff to help them fully leverage the NCDPI K-12 Cybersecurity Program Services and resources. The Friday Institute has been instrumental in leading the movement to integrate computer science into every school across the state. Their unwavering commitment to North Carolina, its educators and students is not just commendable, it’s transformative.”

The Friday Institute’s influence reaches into infrastructure and connectivity — the guts of how digital learning happens. In May 2018, the institute and the NCDPI celebrated an important milestone: Every student and teacher in all 115 of North Carolina’s public-school districts had access to unlimited broadband in their classrooms, making the state the first in the nation to claim that level of connectivity.

More than 1.5 million public school students in over 2,500 schools were officially connected, a level of infrastructure achievement that is much more common in policy briefs than in practice. This use of emerging wireless broadband technologies to reduce the homework gap reflects the strategic use of policy-linked research, linking the classroom to state and national broadband access agendas.

“We wanted to ensure every school across the state had the same level of internet access, regardless of their location and funding,” said Ray Zeisz, director of the Friday Institute’s Technology Infrastructure Lab. “What we were able to do is maximize the efficiency for claiming federal funds and resources. If you leave it up to the school districts themselves, smaller districts would struggle simply due to economies of scale. Instead, we worked hard to pool resources and ensure the money was spent as efficiently and as effectively as possible so that the program was as fair and equitable as possible for all schools across the state.”

Beyond infrastructure and policy frameworks, the Friday Institute invests in human capacity: professional development, research-based learning for educators and system leaders, and supporting blended learning models. For example, the North Carolina Digital Opportunity and Learning Initiative Plan aims to expand digital access, build digital skills and strengthen opportunities for residents to thrive in a connected society. The project involves updating the state’s first Tech Resource Finder and overseeing user testing of this tool at NC Central University; coordinating with a device ecosystem partner to support the state’s device needs; working with partners at the Institute for Emerging Issues at NC State to host a statewide convening; and preparing to launch a second statewide Digital Opportunity Survey. 

The institute’s online professional learning arm offers free, flexible, evidence-based courses to educators and school systems. Through its work to train educators over the last 20 years, the institute has increased workforce capacity to operate within modern educational technology ecosystems.

In policy terms, this demonstrates that the move to digital learning involves professional learning systems as much as devices or connectivity. The institute’s reach thus influences not just what policies say but who is prepared to enact them in classrooms across North Carolina and beyond.

“From establishing digital skills standards and digital navigation best practices to creating a tech resource finder for our state’s residents, we provide a service to our state that fulfills NC State’s land-grant mission to solve our state’s most pressing challenges and provide grand solutions,” said Krista Glazewski, executive director of the Friday Institute. “Our priority is to serve North Carolinians and equip them with the tools they need to thrive in an evolving educational landscape, and that commitment guides all of our work at the Friday Institute.”

A Proud Part of the University

The Friday Institute has also made its mark on NC State’s learning community, both within the College of Education and beyond. In March the institute teamed up with the College of Education, the Office of Instructional Programs and the NC State Data Science and AI Academy to host a campuswide event that focused on how new and emerging technologies can be integrated into higher education. The full-day experience was designed to ignite visionary thinking, foster strategic collaborations and propel the university to the forefront of AI integration in higher education.

Additionally, the institute regularly partners with faculty and faculty fellows to conduct research on educational innovations. For example, James Lester, Goodnight Distinguished University Professor in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning and director of the Center for Educational Informatics, recently worked with the Friday Institute to explore how teachers can effectively use AI in the classroom. 

Rachel Levy, executive director of NC State’s Data Science and AI Academy and professor of mathematics, has frequently partnered with the institute for campus programming as well. 

“The College of Education and the Friday Institute are really leaders on our campus for helping us think about the interdisciplinary ways our students engage in education and the ongoing technological developments that push us to think about how we could teach and learn in new ways,” Levy said.

The Friday Institute ranks among NC State’s top 10 centers and institutes in annual research expenditures, signaling both the depth of its current impact and the growing demand for research that can help K-12 education systems navigate rapid shifts in technology, pedagogy and innovation. NC State Chancellor Kevin Howell previously served on the institute’s advisory board and continues to champion its mission to help schools across North Carolina. 

Always Looking to the Future

“[William] Friday was a guiding force for public education, and his vision and approach to education lives on at the Friday Institute,” Howell said. “The Friday Institute has helped North Carolina’s schools meet the challenge to prepare students for the future. They’ve empowered educators and students to be forward-thinking learners and leaders in creating a better world for those who came before and those who will follow. The Friday Institute represents the hope and potential I see for the future.” 

As the Friday Institute steps into its next decade, it faces enduring challenges: ensuring equitable home access for learners, maintaining infrastructure, evolving teacher capacity, safeguarding student data, and integrating emerging technologies such as AI, virtual reality and augmented reality into pedagogy. At the same time, its policy influence must change with the times; as technology changes, so too must the policy frameworks that guide the use of it. 

“We are at the forefront of AI in education across North Carolina,” Glazewski said. “Whether it’s crafting frameworks about safety and privacy, understanding through a research lens what the best practices are and can be or supporting uses so that every learner can benefit from the possibilities of AI, we are an organization who understands the landscape and pays attention to the signals on the horizon.”

By design, the story of the Friday Institute is one of sustained iteration, from the bridging of classroom innovation with state policy to the scaling of professional learning, building infrastructure, and embedding equitable access into the fabric of K-12 education. This is how the institute has shaped education in North Carolina — and how it will approach the next 20 years of educational innovation.