Nine years ago, North Carolina A&T quietly launched an ambitious effort to secure the funds necessary to transform some of our most necessary dreams into more immediate realities.

Looking realistically at our needs, we committed ourselves to raising $85 million for student aid, faculty support, programmatic enhancement and facilities. It seemed a steep hill to climb, but we knew it was a challenge we must accept in the highly competitive realm of public higher education.

Six years later, we entered the public phase of the campaign, having raised $68 million in gifts and pledges. In 2019, we reached the original goal, but decided we could do better. We set our sights on a $100-million target by Dec. 2020.

With the energy of a stretch goal, a significant tailwind of success and North Carolina A&T’s very public ascent as a rising land grant research institution and arguably the nation’s top historically black university, we began last year in dogged pursuit of the nine-figure mark. We found that as we demonstrated our belief in our university, in our students, in our faculty and in our future, that show of confidence was infectious.

Donors whom we had never known before were captivated by our story. Corporations eager to support our STEM programs and make serious commitments to equity stepped forward in astonishing numbers. Alumni pulled out their checkbooks and made commitments that were equal parts touching and inspiring. One donor in particular, philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, invested $45 million in our university with no strings attached, saying that by her observation, A&T knew exactly where the money would be most wisely invested.

We closed the books on the Campaign for North Carolina A&T on Dec. 31, and I’m pleased to say that we raised $181.4 million – nearly $100 million more than our original goal. The generosity of our supporters likewise propelled our total assets under investment to $153 million.

Those funds are already being put to great use, supporting the launch of new centers of excellence in multiple colleges, supporting a new merit-based scholarship program, making possible the recruitment and hiring of outstanding new faculty and more.

Perhaps the best news in all of this is that just because our campaign has formally ended, support continues to manifest for A&T. We are in daily conversation with corporate partners, alumni and foundations interested in donating to A&T or increasing their current level of giving.

To say all of this is energizing and inspirational would be the understatement of the year. We’re grateful for what it says about our university now, and excited about what it means for our future.

- Chancellor Harold L. Martin Sr.

Chancellor Martin speaks to donors at the public launch of the Campaign for North Carolina A&T in 2018.

Apple’s North Carolina campus is expected to generate 3,000 high-tech jobs.

The news from Apple in late April caught the world’s attention: The technology giant will launch a major new campus and engineering hub in North Carolina – its first such undertaking in 20 years – just a one-hour drive from the North Carolina A&T campus.

Already a partner with the international computing industry leader, A&T was invited by Apple prior to the fact to take part in the announcement. Chancellor Harold L. Martin Sr. participated in features on CBS and Fox affiliates and was included in national coverage of the big reveal.

Apple’s plans include the investment of more than $1 billion in North Carolina, including the new campus – an initiative that will create “at least 3,000 new jobs in machine learning, artificial intelligence, software engineering, and other cutting-edge fields,” according to a news release.

But the investment goes well beyond just that campus. Apple will pour $100 million into school and community initiatives across the state and another $110 million in infrastructure spending into 80 of the state’s 100 counties with the greatest needs. Those funds will go toward broadband, roads, bridges and public schools. It is estimated that the statewide, annual economic impact of those investments will be more than $1.5 billion annually.

“Like A&T, Apple intends not only to have an impact on areas and communities that are doing well, but in rural areas, inner cities and places where access to technology and broadband Internet service are sometimes hard to come by,” said Chancellor Martin Sr. “It speaks extraordinarily well of Apple that they are interested in a presence that will benefit all of North Carolina, as well as their own growth needs. 

“I especially appreciate the potential this represents for more opportunities within our state for the well-educated and highly sought after graduates from our institution.”

North Carolina A&T led a successful initiative in April to raise the out-of-state enrollment cap for the state’s public historically black universities from 18 percent to 25 percent, a move that will have significant impact on the growth and financial stability of all five public HBCUs in the years to come.

The new cap was approved by the Board of Governors at its April meeting and takes effect this fall for all of the affected campuses: Elizabeth City State, North Carolina Central, Winston-Salem State, Fayetteville State and North Carolina A&T.

A&T pursued a higher cap for itself in 2014, prompted by mounting interest from out-of-state students in the university’s STEM strengths. That year, A&T emerged as the nation’s largest HBCU, and has continued on a steady growth trend in each successive year, setting institutional enrollment records for the last five years in a row. This year’s enrollment is 12,753.

Over that same period of time, applications to the university have more than doubled, with more than 30,000 applications filed for Fall 2020 admission. Applicants from beyond North Carolina are held to higher admissions standards so that they don’t displace in-state students.

Encouraged by UNC System President Peter Hans, A&T joined forces with the other four public HBCUs to draft a proposal, which cleared review by the Committee on Educational Planning, Policies, and Programs at the BOG meeting in February.

North Carolina already enrolls more HBCU students than any state in the nation. Part of the promise of the heightened enrollment cap is economic in nature: Of the non-residential students who graduated from A&T between 2016 and 2019, one-third were employed in North Carolina four quarters after completion of their degrees. That is above the system average and higher than similar populations at some of the state’s larger universities.

“These students from out of state tend to be very talented. We want them in North Carolina,” said Hans in a Higher Ed Works video.  “This is a win-win-win situation for the institutions, the cities (in which the HBCUs are located) and the state overall.”

In its first full year operating under its new name, the Willie A. Deese College of Business and Economics continues to chart unprecedented success, with multiple new points of progress emerging for the college this spring.

The college was named for one of its most prominent graduates and generous supporters last school year. Deese was the longtime president of global manufacturing for the Merck pharmaceutical company and has continued to be significantly involved in the college’s development in his retirement.

The college has long been recognized as one of fewer than 200 business schools internationally to hold overall AACSB accreditation, as well as separate AACSB accreditation for its accounting program. But among its growing list of accomplishments, these three things particularly stood out this spring:

• The Deese College was named one of the nation’s top 12 business schools for women by the College Consensus organization, the only North Carolina institution represented in an overall ranking of the 50 top schools. Nearly 63 percent of the college’s students are women, and its graduates include such high achievers as Kelly Richmond Pope, Ph.D., who last year was named one of America’s 25 Most Powerful Women in Accounting by The American Institute of CPAs and CPA Practice Advisor.
  
  
• Associate Professor of Economics Alfredo Romero, Ph.D., was named to the Wall Street Journal’s Economic Forecasting Survey Group. As part of the prestigious national panel, Romero completes a monthly survey in which he is asked to comment on such things as likely moves by the Federal Reserve for the same quarter over the next three years, factoring in interest rates, real gross domestic product and inflation. The survey group’s work helps guide the Journal’s reporting as one of the nation’s leading financial news outlets.
  
  
• In U.S. News & World Report’s graduate program rankings for 2022, the Deese College emerged as the nation’s top-ranked public HBCU graduate business school, as well as one of the nation’s top 100 overall. Only 486 schools overall made the magazine’s prestigious rankings, and the Deese College ranked no. 96, joining Howard University as the only HBCUs to crack the top 100.