EDUCATION INTERVIEW
Partner support Strong corporate relationships have been ‘invaluable throughout the pandemic’ for the education space
Randy Woodson Chancellor – NC State University What support are corporate partners seeking during this turbulent time? Their priority, like the rest of us, is to remain connected. One of the great opportunities in the education space right now is continued education for the corporate workforce looking to upskill their talent. We work with both regional and national companies in this area. We’re fortunate to have strong corporate relationships that have proved invaluable throughout the pandemic. What is your view of virtual and hybrid learning? NC State already had a large online presence prior to the COVID crisis. We are ranked sixth in the country for online engineering education, for example, and we are in the Top 25 for online MBA programs. That said, it was a huge challenge converting practically all of our student roster into online programs overnight. We’ve learned a lot about the most-effective ways to work remotely, in particular in areas such as accounting and procurement. What critical components are needed to maintain the growth of the university’s research department? NC State is a top research university renowned for partnering with industry and government to address real-world challenges. Cutting-edge research is vital to all NC State’s colleges and we’re a leader in big data, biomedical engineering, materials science, agriculture and food safety, translational medicine and more. Much of our strength is in the applied disciplines of engineering, textiles and computer science. Our research is more closely aligned with commercialization than a lot of other school programs, and that is why so many company startups come from NC State. How do you see your strategic planning evolving? Aside from continuing our traditional focus on public-
private partnerships, we’re looking at the digital divide and making sure that we’re doing everything we can to strengthen our online learning platforms. Inclusion and diversity is an increasing focus to ensure that the university moves forward in an equitable way. Finally, we want to become known as a pipeline for talent in the technology sector. What are your main near-term goals and priorities? We want to give our students more flexibility and more opportunities to gather in person. We will continue striving to enhance our strengths and impacts in research and we are continually striving to improve the ease and effectiveness in which our industry and government partners can effectively work with our university to achieve goals. www.capitalanalyticsassociates.com
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