It is important that people recognize NC State as the economic driver and leading research institution that it is. We need to let people know about all the great work going on at NC State – and an active NC State community is the key to spreading that good news.
The idea is simple: when you see some great news about the university, share it with someone. Tell your family about it over dinner, talk to your co-workers about it at the water-cooler, email your best friend from college. If you’re a student, tell your parents about it – it will give them something to brag about.
The N&O has a fascinating story today about the N.C. Program for Forensic Sciences, which is run out of NC State and is featured in the above video. The bodies of six women have been found in rural Edgecombe County since 2005. Investigators, who suspect that the women might have been victims of a serial killer, hadn’t been able to identify one set of remains. They turned to the forensic sciences program for help. Here’s what happened:
It was a copy of a 2002 CAT scan that finally put a name, a face to the bones and mummified remains found eight months ago among the decaying leaves in a thicket of woods north of Rocky Mount, where six women have been murdered.
Elizabeth Jane Smallwood, 33, of Rocky Mount was no longer a lost person, thanks to a world renowned expert and a program at N.C. State University that is pioneering the use of forensic science in crime scene investigations. Using specialized computer software, forensic anthropologist Ann Ross was able to match the unique features of the weathered skull to Smallwood’s old CAT scan - a three-dimensional X-ray.
The program, writes The N&O, “has been called upon by the United States military to develop new technology that would find underground graves in Iraq. Back home, it has been called upon to assist in 60 homicide cases across the state.”
“I can’t tell you everything that we do,” said veteran archaeologist Billy Oliver, who co-directs the program with Ross. “But I can tell you that we are on the leading edge of the new technology.”
If he had it to do over, former N.C. State Chancellor James Oblinger would have taken a closer look at university policy before giving his provost, who was on the brink of resigning, a sizable severance deal this year.
And he would have been more forthcoming with the media, he said in an interview Wednesday, the same day he was identified as a finalist for the presidency at New Mexico State University, a land-grant public institution that, like NCSU, emphasizes research.
And this:
[Oblinger] stepped down June 9 and has been on a six-month leave before returning to the faculty. In that time, Oblinger said, he realized he still wants to be a university leader. Many of the issues he tackled at NCSU - campus construction, private fundraising, economic development and student aid - are also important in New Mexico, he said.
“I think I have something to offer still in the administrative role,” he said. “I could be very contributory as a faculty member, but I think my current strength is still in these large, big-picture areas.”
The panelists who participated in NC State magazine’s roundtable discussion about NC State’s culture, which appeared in the autumn issue and has been the focus of media reports, have issued this letter:
To Our Fellow Alumni:
We wish to thank the many of you who responded affirmatively to the published remarks of those of us invited to gather to discuss the future of our alma mater.
We gathered freely and as devoted alumni. As you read, the discussion was totally free of rancor; it was constructive, positive commentary aimed at placing our full support behind future plans for the University. The publication of this discussion was necessary to ensure your knowledge of all that was said.
To gather freely, to speak our minds responsibly, and to publish freely what was said are the hallmarks of a great university. We thank you for your calls and your messages that affirm these fundamental duties and responsibilities and most of all, your affirmation of the freedom to be as the Constitution demands that we be.
Signed,
William Friday ’41
Suzanne Gordon ’75
Dwuan June ’90
Billy Maddalon ’90
Jim Martin
Art Padilla ’69, ’71 MS
Below is the roundtable discussion and Q&A with Chancellor Jim Woodward from the Autumn 2009 issue of NC State magazine. A pdf version is also available.
Taking a Hard Look A conversation about NC State’s culture
Three top university officials step down in May and June, after an investigation of a former governor raises questions about a job created for his wife. The chancellor in the interim pledges to create a culture of openness and transparency. The chair of the Board of Trustees appoints a committee to review what happened. Alumni send in letters from all over the world, expressing disappointment and support and asking questions.
Time for some soul-searching.
We asked Chancellor Jim Woodward about his perceptions of the university and plans for moving forward. (See end.) We also asked a group of six people—each with a unique perspective on the events of this summer—to come together in the Park Alumni Center for a freewheeling discussion about the university’s culture, media relations, governance and more.
The participants were: William C. Friday ’41, president emeritus of the UNC System; Suzanne Gordon ’75, chief information officer of SAS and former second vice chair of the NC State Board of Trustees; Dwuan June ’90, assistant news editor at The Washington Post and former editor of Technician; Billy Maddalon ’90, co-owner of Unique Southern Properties and former chair of the Alumni Association Board of Directors; Jim Martin, a chemistry professor and former chair of the NC State Faculty Senate;and Art Padilla ’69, ’71 MS, an expert on leadership in higher education and head of NC State’s Department of Management, Innovation and Entrepreneurship. An edited transcript of their Aug. 4 conversation follows.
—Rebecca Morphis
NC State: Does what happened here recently indicate something about our culture at NC State?
Friday: [I] think what we’ve been going through is a phenomenon that has happened across the country. I mean by that, the intrusion of politics into the life of an academic enterprise. For example, in the state of Illinois this very week, the Board of Trustees there is being asked to resign. Some of them [were appointed] by a previous governor who is now in prison, and [his successor], who is going to go to prison, apparently. The whole thing shows you what politics can do when you get to tampering with the administrative structure of an institution.
I’m not alleging anything here in North Carolina. I don’t know what the true facts will turn out to be. But we do know that rigidity on this point is very critical to the life of a university. A public institution is of the public process, to be sure. We are a creature of the state. We are financed by the state. We serve the state. But that is far and away a role quite different from being in the political life of the state. [Y]ou step across the line once in any substantive way and you’re in trouble, because there’s always the second time, and a third time, and a fourth time, as Illinois is showing you right now. [There are all kinds of questions that remain to be resolved.] So that’s the role of the trustees. Their job is to maintain that posture of open, free inquiry and involvement. (more…)
N.C. State University’s interim chancellor has fired the head of the alumni association, saying the group was struggling financially and its membership had been stagnant for years.
Interim Chancellor James Woodward told the association’s board of directors Friday afternoon about his decision to fire Dr. Lennie Barton, an associate vice chancellor.
Students who have never flown on an airliner find themselves in places such as post-Katrina New Orleans, Ecuador, Ghana, Nicaragua and Sri Lanka, building houses, improving water systems or working in a free clinic, while navigating a new culture.
Whatever help the students lend to their host country isn’t the main point. It’s to engage their minds and hearts with the broader world, says Giancola, 37.
“I tell students my job is to infect them and make them sick,” he says. “They say ‘What does that mean?’ and I reply ‘I’m going to make you sick with some realities of the world. It’s not for me to tell you what to do about them, but you’ll be called based on whatever force that drives you to do something about it.’”
The Autumn 2009 issue of NC State magazine will be mailed next week, and we’ll be posting to redandwhiteforlife.com some of the content as well as blog-exclusive items. Look for:
A roundtable discussion about NC State’s culture with former UNC System president Bill Friday ’41, former Board of Trustees member Suzanne Gordon ’75, organizational leadership expert and management professor Art Padilla ’69, ’71 MS, former Alumni Association president Billy Maddalon ’90, former Faculty Senate chair Jim Martin and assistant news editor for The Washington Post Dwuan June ’90.
Photographs from freelance photographer David Evans ’84, whose work has appeared in National Geographic and who helped start the National Geographic Channel.
Q&As with an alumnus who helped design the Lonnie Poole Golf Course and another who spent a year in Afghanistan helping soldiers get a college education.
There will be much more, so make sure you check in throughout the week.
College of Veterinary Medicine dean Dr. Warwick Arden, who’s also serving as provost, was on WUNC’s The State of Things today for a wide-ranging interview that touched on everything from the Easley scandal to NC State research to the proposed research lab in Butner to his childhood in Australia.
NC State students and faculty have made the news recently with their work. First, a Discovery Channel clip on a lunar rover developed by NC State engineering students, who modeled their design after a tumbleweed (unfortunately there’s no embed code for the clip). It’s a neat segment, and you get to see their prototype in action.
Next, a Salon.com story on a recent study by political science professor Steve Greene that found that “parenthood makes moms more liberal and dads more conservative.” men become more conservative when they become fathers but women become more liberal when they become mothers.
“Basically, women with children in the home were more liberal on social welfare attitudes, and attitudes about the Iraq War, than women without children at home,” Greene says, “which is a very different understanding of the politics of mothers than captured by the ‘Security Mom’ label popular in much media coverage. But men with kids are more conservative on social welfare issues than men without kids.” Men with kids did not differ from men without kids in their attitudes towards Iraq.
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