North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University has become the 36th and only North Carolina member of The Leadership Alliance, the premiere coalition of the nation’s top research and teaching institutions committed to diversifying the higher education pipeline into positions in academia, the public and private sectors.

“North Carolina A&T has a legacy of accessibility and a commitment to diversity,” said Dr. Barry Burks, vice chancellor for research and economic development. “Our faculty members hail from many countries, representing nearly every continent, and our student body is also a rich tapestry of diversity even though our enrollment is more than 80 percent African American. A&T is proud to join with other members of The Leadership Alliance to address the continuing shortage of graduate students, Ph.D. candidates and tenure-track faculty of under-represented groups in academia.”

For more than 20 years the Alliance institutions have worked collaboratively to train, mentor and support underrepresented minority students from undergraduate through advanced graduate training programs. The primary purpose of the Alliance is to provide quality one-on-one mentoring for students, which has proven to be a critical component of academic and professional success.

“The distinctive feature of the Leadership Alliance is a time-tested partnership among leading minority-serving institutions that are top producers of STEM graduates, Tier 1 research universities and private industry. North Carolina A&T strengthens our alliance with a rich legacy of research and cultivating the next generation of scholars and researchers,” said Dr. Medeva Ghee, executive director of The Leadership Alliance.

A&T was elected to the board at the spring business meeting in March, becoming the only university in North Carolina to be an Alliance member. The consortium includes Ivy League schools and major-research and minority-serving institutions, including 10 historically black colleges and universities. Other member institutions include Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, Howard and the University of Maryland.

A&T’s admittance into this elite group of the country’s leading research and liberal arts colleges will afford Aggie students the opportunity to study under professors at Research 1 universities across the country.

The Alliance provides undergraduates from underrepresented groups a suite of programs offering mentoring, training, networking and funding for research opportunities. Additional opportunities exist for faculty members, including a program that promotes faculty exchanges with other Alliance faculty.

“It is a great honor and privilege to be a member of the Leadership Alliance. Our students will have the chance to work alongside world-renowned faculty members from the country’s top Research 1 institutions on a wide array of cutting-edge projects. By being invited to join the Leadership Alliance, A&T will be able to expand the scope of opportunities available to students,” said Dr. Tonya Hargett, director of undergraduate research and institutional coordinator of The Leadership Alliance program at A&T.  

As part of the Summer Research Early Identification Program, undergraduates interested in pursuing a Ph.D. will spend eight weeks under the guidance of a faculty or research mentor at a larger Alliance membership university. Through this program, students work with a faculty or research adviser to develop and conduct an independent research project while learning about preparing for an advanced academic career. Students have the opportunity to present their results at The Leadership Alliance National Symposium.

A&T has an impressive track record for producing graduates from underrepresented populations. The university is a leading national producer of African American engineers at the undergraduate, master’s and doctoral levels.

Currently, African American students account for 82 percent of A&T’s enrollment. Together, all underrepresented groups make up 93 percent of the total enrollment.

A&T leads the nation in the number of undergraduate degrees in engineering awarded to African Americans, according to an annual ranking of colleges and universities published in “Diverse Issues in Higher Education Magazine.”The school ranks second in the country in the number of African American students graduating with degrees in agriculture, and holds the number three spot for the number of doctoral degrees awarded to African Americans in Engineering and in master’s degrees awarded to African Americans in physical sciences, mathematics and statistics. The number of females constitutes 54.6 percent of the undergraduate enrollment total.

Students interested in pursuing research opportunities with The Leadership Alliance should contact Hargett at 336-285-3184.

Beginning this summer, Adobe Systems Inc. is partnering with North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University to provide technical writing concentration majors with access to the Adobe Technical Communication Suite.

Students majoring in English with a concentration in technical writing will be able to integrate the software directly into their courses and learn through an extensive hands-on approach, while gaining valuable experience that will directly impact their professional careers.

“As we continue to develop our technical writing concentration into one that provides students with a culturally situated approach to technical communication, access to software that professionals use daily will give our students an advantage over their peers,” said Dr. Kimberly Harper, assistant professor and director of technical communication.

“Our goal is to graduate well-rounded students who have competencies grounded in practical application and real-world writing situations. This software will assist us in achieving that goal,” said Harper.

Adobe’s donation of 35 licenses of Adobe Technical Communication Suite (2015 release) will allow students to combine the practical hands-on experience that many employers desire with their understanding of traditional technical communication concepts. Students will be able to apply their knowledge of genres, audience analysis, project planning, content management, and production and delivery to projects that they create using the five best in class tools produced by Adobe.

“We are ecstatic that our technical writing lab will now have Robohelp, Framemaker, Captivate, Acrobat Pro and Presenter. This partnership will transform the way our current courses are taught,” said professor Veloisa Marsh. 

North Carolina A&T State University hosted the Minority Men’s Health Initiative (MMHI) Spring Research Retreat at the Joint School of Nanoscience and Nanoengineering, May 15–18.

The MMHI, a consortium of historically black colleges and universities funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Instititute for Minority Health Disparities (NIMHD) as part of the Transdisciplinary Collaborative Center (TCC) mechanism, conducts research focused on health issues that disproportionately affect men from minority ethnic groups.

MMHI’s four primary research areas are violence prevention (Howard University/Hampton University), cardiovascular disease (Hampton University), prostate cancer (Clark-Atlanta University) and obesity/diabetes (N.C. A&T).

Since its inception in 2012, the MMHI consortium has grown to include several two-year pilot projects and one-year seed projects for faculty from several HBCUs and community partners. The A&T project is led by Drs. Goldie Byrd (dean of the College of Arts and Sciences), Elimelda Ongeri and Scott Harrison from the Department of Biology and Sharon Cook from the Department of Sociology and Social Work. Drs. Robert Newman (biology) and Anna Lee (psychology) are MMHI pilot and seed project awardees, respectively.

“N.C. A&T is well known as an engineering and agricultural research institution but in fact research in biomedical science, bioengineering, health and wellness is growing faster at A&T than the more established disciplines,” said Barry Burks, vice chancellor, Division of Research and Economic Development (DORED). “Participation in the MMHI consortium provides both funding opportunities for our faculty and also a forum for sharing research outcomes.”

Planning and coordination of the event was achieved by Dr. Raymond Samuel (MMHI TCC PI), Cheryl Evans (MMHI project manager), DORED-Life Science Research Development, the COAACH Center, and A&T MMHI principal investigators. In addition to exciting research seminars by MMHI investigators, several keynote speakers—including A&T alumni Dr. Cleopatra Caldwell of the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor School of Public Health and Golden Bethune Hill, executive director of Community Free Clinic of Newport News—delivered talks focused on the implementation and impact of transdisciplinary, community-based research on the elimination of minority health disparities.