The Future of NC State
Adam Compton talks about how the university is growing, and what the future holds in store for NC State.
Interview on 2011-11-18 00:00:00 -0500
Transcript
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I think we're just on the cusp of doing so many great things.
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Here at NC State things are changing so much
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that I envy the student that starts as a freshman next year.
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There are just so many incredible opportunities. We're going to open one of the world's greatest libraries on our Centennial Campus.
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There is no doubt in my mind that it will fundamentally change our campus.
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We're about to open a new student center. We're actually going to have the student center.
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When I was a student we didn't really have-. We had Talley but it wasn't a hub for students.
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So those are kind of two things that are going on.
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We've got a new chancellor in place that I think has got a very clear picture of where he wants this university to go.
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He's developed a strategic plan. He's one of the first chancellors that I've sent that really focuses on
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getting that feedback from students
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but also pushing this university forward.
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I think we're going to do a lot of great things. We're no longer going to be looked at as North Carolina's redheaded stepchild.
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I really think in ten years from now people will say-.
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When you go out of state and you say, I graduated from North Carolina State people won't say, oh, you mean UNC.
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No. They'll understand and know what NC State is because it's a leader in this country and in this world.
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We take our land grant mission to heart,
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and I think that's what's going to really push us forward. We've seen the writing on the wall, I think.
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We looked at our textiles program and we saw that textiles was a dying industry in North Carolina.
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How do we develop it and move it forward? Now our textiles program is one of the world's leaders in textiles
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but it's no longer building furniture. It's focusing on developing new fibers that our firefighters can wear
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when they're fighting fires and they're really focused on growing and developing the future of that industry.
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We look at colleges like CHASS that are looking at things in a different way than your normal liberal arts things.
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We are able to work with our scientific sides of things and our CALS and CNR
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and understand that, okay, if healthcare is one of our biggest problems facing the future,
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yeah there are some different nutritional sides of things but there's also a psychological side,
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that if we can change the way people-or not so much change the way people think but help them understand the way they think about food, the way they think about things.
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The CIA is now recruiting people that have strong backgrounds in philosophy and Middle Eastern studies.
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I think our college of humanities really sees that here,
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and I think you can say that about all our colleges. They really see the future, they see how they fit in a land grant mission,
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and I think there's so many great things to come from NC State.
This video is an excerpt from a longer interview. Contact the Special Collections Research Center to request the transcript of the full interview.