From advancing the frontiers of science to fueling economic development, universities across the country contribute in endless ways to their communities, the nation and the world. Our campuses’ most important contributions, however, continue to be our graduates and the education and career preparation they take with them from our classrooms and laboratories into the dynamic, global workplace.

At North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, we never lose sight of this abiding truth and how it corresponds to our land-grant mission. That’s why we continue to grow and develop our institution, along with our national profile as a university making significant contributions in a range of disciplines and career paths, particularly in STEM. 

Of the approximately 2,300 undergraduate and graduate students who completed their studies at N.C. A&T last year, nearly 700 of them graduated in science, technology, engineering and mathematics disciplines, representing the most STEM diplomas A&T has awarded in a single year.

Those grads were welcomed into companies from Silicon Valley to North Carolina’s Research Triangle, as well as top-tier graduate programs across the country. They also added to A&T’s record of success as the nation’s top producer of African American engineering graduates and the university's top-five status in graduate and undergraduate disciplines ranging from agricultural science to physical sciences to mathematics.

Our growing volume of STEM graduates represents a substantial boost for a nation facing a shortfall of science and technology professionals. It makes an even more significant contribution to diversity in STEM careers, where minorities and women are underrepresented, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

Later this year, we are poised to break ground on a $90 million Engineering Research Innovation Complex that will help grow our capacity in the College of Engineering and support interdisciplinary research across our campus. And in the College of Science and Technology, our Applied Science and Technology doctoral program will launch five new concentrations—Applied Chemistry, Applied Physics, Biosciences, Data Science and Technology—engaging more advanced students for high-demand STEM professions.

Through these and other enhancements, we are creating a future of greater impact for the economic and scientific health and vitality of the state of North Carolina and beyond.

Humanitarian food efforts around the world struggle daily with the challenges of getting scarce resources into the hands of hungry individuals, juggling always changing information on sources and numbers in need. For relief organizations, making efficient decisions can make the difference between whether a child goes to bed hungry.

Lauren Davis, an N.C. A&T professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering, is leading a five-year project aimed at preparing experts in big data analytics to tackle those challenges. Funded by the National Science Foundation, the $3 million effort will focus on creation of an intensive, cross-disciplinary training program and 50 doctoral and masters’ student trainees.

“Until now, no formal training existed to help students acquire the interdisciplinary knowledge needed to derive insight from big data generated by the food aid supply chain,” explains Davis. “This research will use data from the domestic humanitarian hunger relief supply chain as the basis for an innovative, evidence-based, scalable approach to training the future workforce.”

A widely published researcher with degrees from North Carolina State (Ph.D.) and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (M.S.), Davis has been part of the N.C. A&T College of Engineering faculty since 2005.

Her focus on for-profit and not-for-profit humanitarian supply chain optimization is of particular importance at a time when some 815 million people around the world lack sufficient food to lead a healthy, active life, according to the United Nations World Food Programme.

North Carolina A&T’s service to its surrounding community takes many forms, from supporting economic development to lending academic expertise to non-profit organizations. But the recent holiday season saw the university come together dramatically in support of Guilford County's 550 foster children.

Faculty, staff and students were challenged to contribute clothing, gift cards and toys to brighten the season for those kids. The response from the university community was so strong, gifts were donated for nearly half the foster children in Guilford, the third-most populous county in North Carolina.

The gifts and donations were packed into Aggie Shuttle campus buses and transported en masse to delighted staff and foster parents at the Guilford County Foster Care Program offices.

Over the past 40 years, the number of male college students has steadily declined relative to their female counterparts on campuses across the country. Perhaps even more troubling, once they get to college, men drop out in greater rates and graduate in smaller numbers than females.

North Carolina A&T is not alone in concerns over what’s behind those numbers. But A&T is committed to addressing these challenges for its male students through multiple efforts that are mobilizing offices, colleges, administrators and faculty across the university in a full-court press for change. These three efforts are among the newest and most prominent.

• Male Student Success Initiative. This effort is developing comprehensive university-wide collaborative programming and an implementation plan. Since the beginning of the school year, it has been creating a comprehensive inventory of university programs for men and conducting research what best supports male student success.
  
  

• Aggie Prep. Launched in fall 2017 through the chancellor’s office, this program pairs male faculty, administrators and staff across the university with male undergrads who may face challenges to academic progress. About 150 mentors and mentees are taking part this academic year, and plans are in development to expand substantially in 2018-19. That expansion will be fueled in part by a competitive grant of $86,500 from the University of North Carolina System combined with matching funds from A&T.
  
  

• Project MARCH Living Learning Community. Serving about 130 first-year minority male and first-generation students, Project MARCH is an immersive, residence hall experience that helps students overcome obstacles to academic progress to their sophomore year and chart a path to graduation. It was the focus of an academic advising initiative in 2016-17 that reduced the number of students placed on academic warning or probation.

“We are committed not only to reversing trends regarding retention and graduation, but to sharing our work with our peers toward making a difference in higher education more broadly,” said Regina Williams Davis, Ph.D., assistant provost for Student Success and Academic Progress and director of the A&T Center for Academic Excellence. “We are eager to meet these challenges.”