Provost’s Corner: July 2017

Dear faculty and staff,

We’re just one month away from the beginning of the 2017-2018 academic year. While summer activities draw to a close, the campus prepares for an influx of more than 4,600 new freshman, and 1,300 transfer, 2,600 master’s, 600 doctoral and 130 Agricultural Institute students.

Many of these students (and our faculty and staff) will enjoy increased study and research abroad opportunities at the NC State European Center in Prague (NC State Prague), formerly the Prague Institute. At the beginning of this month, the College of Design transitioned management of NC State Prague to the former Office of International Affairs, now the Office for Global Engagement.

In other news around campus, Institute for Emerging Issues Director Leslie Boney added the role of vice provost for outreach and engagement. Vice Provost for Continuing Education Alice Warren will return to her previous role after serving in the interim position.

Those comprise just a few of the happenings around campus — we’d like to know what else you’ve been up to this summer. If you have exciting information and stories to share about your teaching, research, learning and service, please send a paragraph description, along with a high-resolution photo and your name/position/department to provost-communications@ncsu.edu by July 31.

If you’re looking to add to your summer reading, I’d recommend Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nahesi Coates. The National Book Award-winning novel touches on themes of race and identity — and the dearth of introspection and action on related issues in our society — and is NC State’s Common Reading Selection for 2017. Reading this book is a great way to start important discussions with your colleagues and students heading into the fall.

I hope that each one of you has found intellectually and socially enriching ways to spend your summer, and I look forward to seeing everyone back on campus in a few weeks. We’ll get the new semester started with Wolfpack Welcome Week, which includes Convocation on August 14 and Packapalooza on August 19. I can’t wait to see what the fall has in store for the NC State community.

To keep up with all academic and faculty- or staff-related developments, follow @NCStateProvost on Twitter.

Until next time,

Warwick Arden
Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost