2023 Chancellor’s Report

When we talk to people about the past year at NC State, we hear the same word again and again: transformational. There’s no better way to describe just how far we’ve come.

• We achieved our highest-ever ranking from U.S. News & World Report. What’s more, we climbed an astonishing 32 spots in a six-year period — from No. 92 in 2017 to No. 60 today.
• Our built environment is keeping pace with the future, from the new Fitts-Woolard Hall that anchors our engineering programs to the Integrative Sciences Building that will foster interdisciplinary innovation upon completion.
• Our Economic Development Partnership helped to secure $9.8 billion in investments for our state, resulting in almost 5,000 new jobs.
• Our alumni have made their own mark on the world, with Michael Brennan being named the director of the National Hurricane Center and Christina Koch being selected to go to the moon with NASA’s upcoming Artemis II mission.

Only our Wolfpack could have transformed this university, and the world around it, so profoundly. Below, you’ll learn about some of our remarkable transformations over the past year — and our plans to achieve even more.

If you want to know how we accomplished all this and much more, the answer is simple: It’s our people.

Randy Woodson

Chancellor

Successful Students, Unprecedented Demand

NC State’s transformation begins at our front door, with the new students who choose to call this place home.

• In August 2023, we welcomed our largest incoming class for the fourth consecutive year. Our new students hail from 96 North Carolina counties, 39 states and 30 countries. The Wolfpack is becoming more diverse as well, with students of color making up over 30% of our population.
• Once they get here, our students excel academically. In the past year, 20 graduate students received National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships, 11 graduate students received Fulbright Scholarships and two undergraduates earned Goldwater Scholarships.
• We continue to educate more North Carolina residents than any other university. We set a record for applications this year and are producing more graduates than ever before.

Achievements like these demonstrate why NC State is increasingly the university of choice for high-performing students from throughout the state, across the nation and around the world.

Research Leadership Through Innovation

As a leading public research university, NC State believes in the power of creative thinking and meticulous experimentation. Now we’re better positioned than ever to turn ideas into solutions: In fiscal year 2023, NC State was awarded $476 million in sponsored research awards — the highest amount in university history.

• This year, Rodolphe Barrangou, the Todd R. Klaenhammer Distinguished Professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, was the latest NC State faculty member inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
• Three professors from the colleges of Sciences, Engineering, and Agriculture and Life Sciences were elected as Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
• Three faculty members from the colleges of Sciences, Natural Resources, and Agriculture and Life Sciences received Faculty Early Career Development Program Awards from the National Science Foundation.
• Our faculty are earning accolades as educators, too. Jason Bocarro, a professor in the College of Natural Resources and the Owens-Shelton Distinguished Professor for Leadership with a Global Perspective, received the UNC System’s most prestigious teaching award: the UNC Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching. 

The Interdisciplinary Campus of the Future

As NC State continues to expand our community, strengthen our research enterprise and multiply our partnerships, we’re preparing our campus to meet the need for state-of-the-art spaces and collaborative places.

Our Physical Master Plan, “Framing the Future,” envisions a built environment founded upon interdisciplinarity, with welcoming open spaces and flexible multipurpose facilities.

• Renovations and new developments on North and Central campuses will foster cooperation across departments and colleges — enabling students and researchers to work closely together on finding solutions to global challenges.
• In September, we broke ground on the 153,000-square-foot Integrative Sciences Building (ISB). Once construction is complete in 2026, the $180 million ISB will provide vital space for STEM research, teaching and exploration.
• In anticipation of this growth, NC State is updating our electric distribution system. The Power Forward project will ensure the system is safe, reliable, self-healing and futureproof. This multiyear, multiphase project is expected to be complete in 2025.

The Integrative Sciences Initiative will transform teaching, research and discovery in chemistry and other STEM fields at NC State.

Warwick Arden

Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost

Investing in a Vision of the Extraordinary

NC State’s culture of philanthropy keeps getting stronger, as donors increasingly seek opportunities to enrich the student experience, expand educational access and ensure the university attracts top talent. This past year, our efforts benefited from significant commitments, including:

• The creation of the Goodnight Doctoral Fellowship, through the partnership of Dr. Jim and Mrs. Ann Goodnight and the Goodnight Educational Foundation. The inaugural cohort included 30 Ph.D. students from seven colleges who are focusing on STEM and education.
• Football coach Dave Doeren and his wife Sara’s gift to establish the OnePack Empowered program, which will support students with executive functioning challenges and those who are neurodivergent.
• The John M. Belk Endowment’s $25 million commitment to support the Belk Center for Community College Leadership and Research, housed at the College of Education. Investing in the leaders of North Carolina’s 58 community colleges will, in turn, improve student success.
• A planned gift from Jerry ’67 and Pat Collier that represents the largest investment in military-connected students in university history. When fully realized, the gift will support up to 100 undergraduate and graduate scholarships each year.

A Reputation on the Rise

At NC State, we prepare learners for lifelong success and put knowledge to work for the betterment of all — and the results are reflected in the rise of our reputation and rankings. 

Since 2017, our university has soared more than 30 spots up the Best Colleges list from U.S. News & World Report, and we made more big moves this year. NC State leapt 12 places on the list in 2023 to finish 60th out of more than 1,500 institutions nationwide, while we climbed one notch among public universities to land at 28th.

Our growing acclaim was also evident in U.S. News’ rankings of individual colleges and programs.

• As NC State’s College of Engineering rose to 25th in the nation, two of the college’s graduate programs — nuclear engineering and biological and agricultural engineering — achieved top-five status among their peers.
• The Poole College of Management’s graduate business analytics program jumped seven spots to 20th nationwide.
• The College of Sciences’ graduate statistics and applied math programs ranked 11th and 18th respectively among comparable programs.
• Our College of Veterinary Medicine upheld its long-term status as one of the nation’s top five veterinary schools.

Our contributions to our state and national economies were also recognized in 2023. 

• The Heartland Forward think tank ranked our university No. 7 nationally for technology transfer and commercialization, and No. 2 among public universities — including those with medical schools.
• Princeton Review rated the university No. 2 for graduate entrepreneurship and No. 4 for undergraduate entrepreneurship in the South.
• We have earned a top Military Friendly School designation among tier 1 research institutions for supporting military and veteran students.

Partnerships That Make an Impact

NC State has long served as a statewide hub for economic development, helping to create knowledge, technology, companies and jobs — and attracting investment from an array of corporate, government and nonprofit partners.

This year alone, our Economic Development Partnership worked with statewide partners to help secure capital investments totaling $9.8 billion and leading to 4,835 new jobs.

Those capital investment projects include:

• Project Hibernian: In September 2022, Wolfspeed announced plans to build the world’s largest silicon carbide materials manufacturing facility in Chatham County — a $5 billion investment that will establish 1,800 high-paying jobs.
• Project Fast: Kempower, a Finnish company that makes charging stations for electric vehicles, chose Durham County as the site of a new manufacturing facility that will generate $41 million in investment and 600 new positions.
• Project Darwin: Toyota expanded their prior commitment to a new facility in Randolph County with an additional $2.1 billion investment, bringing the number of associated new jobs to 2,100.

We’ve also deepened partnerships with industry leaders such as Under Armour, FUJIFILM Diosynth and the Novo Nordisk Foundation, and remained the first choice for many government agencies and federal initiatives, including the U.S. Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation.

Our Alumni Go Above and Beyond

Whether their dream is to start their own business, track hurricanes or take off into space, our alumni make it a reality. 

My time at NC State was one of constant discovery.

Christina Koch ’01, M.S. ’02

At NC State, they gain the tools, resources and support they need to put their big ideas into action. Then they use what they’ve learned to strengthen communities across the state and the nation. And people are taking note of their excellence: More than 30 NC State alumni — including entrepreneurs, tech leaders and award-winning chefs — appeared on Business North Carolina’s “Power 100” list.

Meet a Few Alumni

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Alumni Michael Evans and Lindsay Wrege started their business, 321 Coffee, by selling coffee off of folding tables on NC State’s campus in 2017. With support from NC State’s Andrews Launch Accelerator program and Miller Fellowship, they now have four brick-and-mortar locations, with another set to open on campus in early 2024. In April, 321 Coffee and NC State launched a co-branded coffee, Greater Good, which supports NC State scholarships and expands the company’s mission to provide meaningful employment for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

At the Top of Our Game

If winning takes talent and repetition takes character, as legendary basketball coach John Wooden said, then NC State athletics had one of the finest overall years in school history, both in competition and in the classroom.

• The women’s cross-country team, led by three-time National Coach of the Year Laurie Henes and two-time individual champion Katelyn Tuohy, did something no other team in NC State history has ever done: won three NCAA team championships in a row.
• Seven other teams finished in the Top 25 of their respective sport’s final rankings: wrestling (3), women’s and men’s swimming and diving (4), women’s indoor track and field (6), men’s cross-country (11), co-ed rifle (13) and football (23).
• Women’s cross-country won its eighth Atlantic Coast Conference title.
• The women’s tennis team won its first-ever ACC title, advancing to the NCAA Championship.
• Wrestling continued its sustained success with its fifth consecutive title.
• Men’s swimming and diving won for the eighth time in the last nine years.
• Sixty Wolfpack athletes won 110 All-America honors.
• For the second year in a row, NC State won six NCAA individual titles.
• The Wolfpack also performed at an accelerated rate in the classroom, with a program-high graduation success rate of 92%.

This is a work-ethic, hands-in-the-dirt school. It was founded by tough people, and that’s what this football team will be.

Dave Doeren, head coach, football

Explore the Full Report

Above, you’ve seen just part of what we’ve achieved at NC State this year. Read the complete Chancellor’s Annual Report for the rest of the story.

Download the PDF