Looking Down the Road

To NC State Faculty, Staff and Students:

In my last Chancellor’s letter to the campus community, I looked back on all the progress we have made on our Strategic Plan over the last three years. Never one to stand still, NC State is moving forward on the next three years as we push our success to new heights.

We recently released the implementation plan for the next three years of our strategic plan, and I hope you will go online and review it.

http://info.ncsu.edu/strategic-planning/overview/implementation-planning/plan-and-metrics/

While there are many action steps we use to reach our goals as we move forward, we will continue to focus on increasing student success and investing in faculty while also improving institutional effectiveness as we grow and realign our resources.

For example, we will always search out new opportunities to provide high impact interdisciplinary academic experiences to our undergraduates and I firmly believe we have found another one in the new First Year Life Sciences program. It’s an excellent opportunity for students to explore the seemingly limitless career avenues in the life sciences. It’s been so successful, that College of Natural Resources Dean Mary Watzin and Vice Chancellor Mike Mullen are leading an effort to create a similar program for first year students in Environmental Sciences.

We will build on the success of the 12 interdisciplinary clusters we’ve been growing over the last three years through the Chancellor’s Faculty Excellence Program, with 35 outstanding faculty hired to date. I’ve initiated a new call for proposals to identify four to six additional clusters and funding for approximately 15-20 faculty lines with successful clusters to be announced by the end of the Spring 2015 semester.

We will also be focusing on and preparing for the launch of our public campaign. The university’s endowment has grown 76 percent in four years and annual giving is on the rise, which is, of course, great news. I’m also happy to report that our number of annual donors is up to about 24,050 from our baseline of just under 21,000 in 2011.

It will be important in the campaign to grow our base of donors and continue to bring in big gifts and partnerships that allow us to invest in our students and our faculty. The funds raised during the campaign will help us provide impactful experiences for our students enabling them to reach their highest potential. Generous gifts will also allow us to further invest in our faculty and the advancement of their cutting-edge scholarship.

Finally, we will continue to make the best use of our resources through the ongoing Strategic Resource Management process.

I know we will have many great accomplishments during the next three years and I look forward to sharing them with you in my future letters to the campus community.

In closing, Susan and I hope that you and your friends and family have a wonderful holiday season that is filled with joy, peace and prosperity.

Sincerely,

Randy Woodson
Chancellor
NC State