Three years into the Strategic Plan

To NC State Faculty, Staff and Students:

In what seems like the blink of an eye, four exciting years have passed since I arrived at NC State. Very early on after that, we began putting our strategic priorities in order. The path to even greater success for NC State is through intelligent planning, making the best decisions and making smart investments. As we embark on the next three years of our strategic plan, I thought I’d pause to reflect on some of our progress thus far.

You have heard me talk about our ten year plan before and its focus on five key areas: Student success, faculty and infrastructure investment, research solutions, organizational improvements and partnerships and outreach. We’ve made some great strides towards our goals.

A new Enrollment Wizard and Advising Dashboard have made the registration and advising process more effective and efficient. We created a new Distance Education tuition model to make the costs of online courses equitable with standard classes. And the new Division of Academic and Student Affairs streamlined two existing divisions for greater efficiency and student success.

Through the Chancellor’s Faculty Excellence and the University Faculty Scholars Program we are recruiting and retaining outstanding faculty who are working to solving the world’s problems while they also prepare the next generation of scholars and researchers.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that we opened the James B. Hunt Jr. Library – the most advanced library in the world; created the College of Sciences and reorganized the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences to be stronger and more focused. We also reimagined the university-industry partnership model with the opening of the Eastman Innovation Center which sets a new standard for interdisciplinary research and collaboration.

Putting together a long-term plan isn’t simply creating a list of goals and mapping them to a timeline. Setting goals is relatively easy. Making them happen takes relentless focus and unwavering commitment from the entire organization.

The last three years have been incredibly successful for NC State and the next three years of our strategic plan will bring us even greater success.

In the coming weeks I will have more information about our strategic direction for the next three years and the next group of goals we are setting our sights on. Stay tuned.

Sincerely,

Randy Woodson
Chancellor
NC State