Looking Back on Your 2025 at NC State
Another year with our Wolfpack has flown by. Relive all the memorable student experiences, guaranteed admissions announcements, championship runs, research breakthroughs, new dinosaurs and first days with our 15th chancellor.
A new year often brings new beginnings and that was true for NC State in 2025.
A new chancellor is leading the Wolfpack. A new guaranteed admissions program with North Carolina’s community colleges will make an NC State education more accessible than ever before. A new men’s basketball coach will (hopefully! no pressure!) guide us back to the Final Four. A new dinosaur discovery rocked the field of paleontology.
Before 2026 arrives, we wanted to pause and reflect on these momentous new beginnings — and all the other memories we made with our Pack in 2025.
Your Year in Photos
We love to start with our camera roll when we look back on a great year at NC State. Our staff photographers (hi, Marc and Becky!) shared their favorite photos month-by-month to give you a quick glimpse of 2025 on our campus — and beyond.
January: Students study and make their way around Fitts-Woolard Hall on Centennial Campus. 
February: A textile engineering, chemistry and science researcher works in a lab in the Wilson College of Textiles. 
March: Newly announced men’s basketball coach Will Wade talks with women’s basketball coach Wes Moore. 
April: A researcher works in the FREEDM center, which is working to modernize the electric grid. 
May: Spring graduates celebrate together during commencement at Carter-Finley Stadium. 
June: Weilong He (right), a graduate student in agricultural engineering and a Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research Fellow, and Zhenghua Zhang (left), a second year Ph.D. student, work with robots to help automate the assessment of healthy plant leaves in the field. 
July: College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Dean Garey Fox visits with extension staff in Western North Carolina. Throughout 2025, Dean Fox visited many extension sites around the state. 
August: The football team runs onto the field at Carter-Finley Stadium during a home game against East Carolina University. 
September: Students study at DH Hill Jr Library on central campus. 
October: Chancellor Kevin Howell is formally installed as NC State’s 15th chancellor. 
November: A student reads in Wolf Plaza on a warm fall day.. 
December: A graduate cheers walking into the fall commencement ceremony.
Your Most-Notable Athletic Feats
It’s been a great year for Pack Athletics, and the last few months in particular have seen our student-athletes shine.
In the same November weekend, the women’s cross country team won its fourth NCAA championship in five years, and the women’s tennis doubles team of Gabriella Broadfoot and Victoria Osuigwe won the program’s second national title.
The men’s soccer team’s meteoric rise, all the way to the NCAA College Cup national championship game for the first time in program history, inspired a fierce fandom among students — dubbed the Red Terrors Soccer Support Club, for good reason.
The women’s basketball team and wrestling team both won their respective ACC championships, and the Pack won 12 individual conference championships — plus one national championship win for wrestler Vince Robinson, in his freshman season.
Women’s basketball alumnae Saniya Rivers and Aziaha James were both selected in the first round of the 2025 WNBA Draft. It’s the first time in program history that the Pack has had multiple first round draft picks and NC State is just the 13th school to have two or more WNBA first round picks in the same draft.
Your Most-Read Stories on NC State News
Over 800,000 of you stopped by our news site to find out what’s been going on at NC State lately. Many of you stumbled here from your search results (here’s hoping your collective bug trauma resolves in 2026), while others came to celebrate good news with us.
If you haven’t already read these, we think you should definitely give them a look.
- Kevin Howell Named NC State’s 15th Chancellor
- Why You May Get Future Vaccines Via Dental Floss
- How Can I Protect My Home From Carpenter Bees?
- NC State Launches Guaranteed Admissions Program for All North Carolina Community Colleges
- Are Black Widows Dangerous? Facts and Myths About Black Widow Spiders
Your Year on Our Beautiful Campus
We heard a rumor that people might not know our campus is stunning. Why not spend a metaphorical year exploring its charms, by reading these place-based stories?
Spring
- All Signs Point to Lake Raleigh Woods: Consider this your official invitation to explore Lake Raleigh, on Centennial Campus.
- Finding Your Wolfpack: Music and Dance: Our music and dance programs are accessible and high-caliber — and they come with friends.
- Participants Reflect on Service Experience in Western N.C.: In their own words, hear how spending spring break giving back impacted our students (as a land-grant institution, the state is our campus).
Summer
- Discover Our Colorful Campus: Take a student-led tour around our Raleigh home.
- Turn Pages With the Pack: Stellar reading recommendations, paired with favorite reading spots on campus.
- NC State Ranks as a Top Ten Best Value: We think it’s because our campus is so pretty, wink. (It’s really because we equip you to Think and Do.)
Fall
- Sustainable Spaces by NC State Students: Some of the most charming spots on campus were built with sustainability in mind — by NC State students, for NC State students.
- Global Courtyard Earns Sir Walter Raleigh Award for Community Appearance: NC State was recognized for redesigning an underused space and preserving a well-known piece of local art.
- Chalk it Up to Undergraduate Research: Experience the Sidewalk Symposium, a colorful and accessible showcase of student research.
Your Groundbreaking Research
We’re proud to be one of the nation’s leading Research 1 universities, with demonstrated leadership in AI, quantum, materials science, biomanufacturing, plant sciences, microelectronics, energy, advanced manufacturing, cybersecurity and more. Much of this research is put to work right away to benefit North Carolina communities.
#1
in sponsored research funding from every federal agency except the NIH, among UNC System schools
#6
in research spending nationally among public universities without medical schools
70+
industry, business and nonprofit partners located right here, on Centennial Campus
This year, we celebrated a decade of Envisioning Research. The annual imagery competition, for both students and employees, recognizes the beauty and wonder of research happening on our campus, at extension offices across the state and in fieldwork spanning the globe.
A few more highlights from 2025:
- Krista Walton was named NC State’s newest vice chancellor for research and innovation.
- Our AI-powered self-driving labs are dramatically speeding up material discovery research while slashing costs and environmental impact.
- NC State researchers worked with UNC Chapel Hill and UNC Wilmington to develop a new way to track ‘sunny day’ flooding events. Better sensors placed in storm drains will help our state’s coastal communities respond to sudden storms, while contributing to improved flooding data worldwide.
- The new N.C. Ag Analytics Platform helps soybean farmers determine optimal planting and harvesting dates, improve tracking of corn earworm moths and identify nematode pests that plague every grower.
Your Most-Loved Posts on Social Media
If you want to know what student life is like on our campus, the quickest and best way to experience it from afar is by tuning in to our social media channels.
Here are your favorite posts from 2025:
TikTok
Legend has it that the tour guides are still counting bricks to this day.
We’re the red and white from State and we know we are the BEST.
Is leftover rice safe to eat? NC State food science professor Gabriel Keith Harris explains why quick refrigeration is critical. (This is peak healthy-debates-in-the-comments-section content.)
YouTube
And if You Don’t Already, Follow Us on Social Media
Your Year in Dinosaurs
You read that right. This was a huge — dare we say, groundbreaking — year for dinosaur research at NC State.
The pièce de résistance, if you will, was a study co-authored by associate research professor Lindsay Zanno that upended everything we thought we knew about Tyrannosaurus rex growth by confirming the existence of Nanotyrannus as a distinct species of tyrannosaur.
If you need a minute to pick up your jaw off the floor, by all means. But get ready to do it several more times when you read about these other dino finds.
- Nanotyrannus Confirmed: Dueling Dinosaurs Fossil Rewrites the Story of T. rex
- ‘Teen’ Pachycephalosaur Butts Into Fossil Record
- Soft-Tissue Samples Can Survive in Several Different Dinosaur Fossils
- Eggshells Point to Diverse Dino Ecosystem in North America
- Age, Burial Environment Don’t Hinder Soft Tissue Preservation in Dinosaurs
Your Year as an NC State Employee
There are lots of ways to be part of the Wolfpack, and working here is one of our favorites (we acknowledge our bias).
But being an NC State employee has benefits that go beyond our strong community and our contributions to the greater good. In 2025, we added to that list by launching a new KinderCare subsidy and a discount program with Chesterbrook Schools to help make childcare more affordable for employees. (Also, did you know there’s a middle school on campus?)
Here are a few stories you may have missed, celebrating our Pack at work:
- 2 NC State Employees Win 2025 Governor’s Award for Excellence
- Socializing on the Go: Employees Start a Campus Running Club
- Porch, McKenzie To Lead UNC System Staff Assembly
- A Fairy Tale End to the Semester: Winged Staff Members Deliver Snacks to Students
- Building Language, Boosting Safety: New English Program Empowers Employees
Your Generosity Strengthened the Pack
At a time when higher education institutions face decreases in federal funding, NC State’s alumni and friends stepped forward to invest in this institution, its students and the important work we do for North Carolinians.
$366,767,487
raised in fiscal year 2025 in new gifts and commitments — the highest in NC State history.
Celebrate our record-breaking year
$20M
gift from the Ross W. Lampe Jr. names the Lampe Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering at NC State and UNC-Chapel Hill.
Learn about their family legacy
$2.4M+
allocated to scholarships from trademark licensing royalties in 2025, thanks to our Pack buying official NC State gear.
Shop to support students
This year, our Pack made sure we shattered our previous annual fundraising record — and it took gifts of all sizes to do it. In fact, gifts under $1,000 totaled more than $4.3 million for students, research and programs across the university.
See some of the ways our community is investing in the future by investing in NC State:
- Giving Back for the Pack: NC State football player Brandon Cleveland took a lead role in supporting the Pantry Bowl.
- Wolfpack Women in Philanthropy Impact Fund Awards First Grants
- Gifts to Park Scholarships to be Matched in Partnership with Stamps Scholars Program
- Loyal Like Lloyd: Lloyd Bostian ’54 reflects upon his 70 years of giving to support NC State.
Your First Year With Our New Chancellor
Our 15th chancellor, Kevin Howell, was formally installed during a ceremony in October. But he’s been treading the bricks since May, and was well-acquainted with campus from his years as both a student and employee.
Get to know the new leader of the Pack:
- Chancellor Howell’s Why: Howell has enrolled or onboarded at NC State four times. Find out why he keeps coming back.
- From Student Body Presidents to University Leaders: Howell and Ed Stack, Chair of NC State’s Board of Trustees, both served as student body president during their time as students here.
- Passing the Baton to a New Chancellor: Look back on past leaders of NC State and their legacies.
- Howell Takes the Helm: Our new chancellor officially stepped into the role in May.
Your Year in Just Plain Good News
They didn’t fit neatly into a category, but these are some more of our favorite things that happened at NC State this year.
- Weaving Art Into NC State’s Identity: Public Art Around Campus
- Grateful for the Pack: Read stories of gratitude for our supportive community from students, alumni and employees.
- Food and the Future: Alton Brown Headlines New CHASS Speaker Series
- National Thanksgiving Turkeys Come Home to Roost at NC State
- The Minutes Matter to North Carolina’s Weather Authority: Get to know Ethan Clark, the student whose daily weather forecasts keep 800,000+ people informed.
- Check out spotlights on our red wolf conservation efforts and our newest wolf pups.
- Our campus got some great new dining options that you definitely want to check out.
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