Chancellor’s Back-to-School Message

The fall transformation of our campus begins again: the Brickyard, the Atrium, D.H. Hill, Dan Allen, Hillsborough Street all come to life as 34,000 students and more than 8,000 faculty and staff embrace the arrival of a new academic year.  Welcome back.

Students will find that the Brickyard Bubble is history and we have seating in the renovated Atrium. Talley renovations are under way and the bookstore is in Harrelson. There’s more parking on the west side of campus.

Implementation teams worked over the summer to prepare plans for enacting our new strategic plan, covering broad goals that range from student success to campus climate. Hosni Hassan, Jesse Jur, Matt Koci, Elizabeth Loboa, Christopher Oldham, Gregory Parsons, Benham Pourdeyhimi and Coby Schal were named the first recipients of the Chancellor’s Innovation Fund. Jack Moorman, a veteran of five years on the campus beat and 26 years as a police officer, was named our new police chief, replacing Tom Younce, who retired.

I have continued traveling the state and nation. It is evident that NC State has a meaningful presence and important role. It was not surprising when President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness decided to hold a listening session on campus in June to expand a federal skills program linking companies with educational entities.

In case you did not follow the legislative debates over the budget, North Carolina’s universities took significant cuts. But with careful planning, NC State will be able to limit the reductions impacting our academic core. Without the hard work of our staff and faculty, operating in a resource-constrained environment would be exponentially harder. The future of NC State continues to look bright.

NC State student-athletes set a university record for number of ACC Honor Roll members—213, to be exact. Our faculty, like our students, continue to impress. Dr. Fred Gould was recently elected into the National Academy of Sciences, one of the world’s most prominent scientific societies.

Monday night, we held the Convocation Festival, featuring keynote speaker Rebecca Skloot—award-winning author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, NC State’s common reading selection.

And lots of activities are planned to get the year off to an energetic start, including Service NC State projects like a blood drive and the Million Meals effort. We’ll have our first chancellor forum on Sept. 28. In the near future, you will start to hear more about the celebration of NC State’s 125th anniversary, including opportunities to submit your ideas.

As you make your way back to campus, remember that you are part of something special here and a new academic year brings many new opportunities.