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ACADEMICALLY DEFINING THE FUTURE AND ADVANCING RESEARCH
Academically Defining the Future and Researching Healthcare Solutions
Expand NCCU’s portfolio of academic offerings and research initiatives and provide new opportunities for global immersion.
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Innovation has driven NCCU since its founding in 1910 and remains the basis for establishing new academic and research initiatives that increase the intellectual climate of the university. NCCU is committed to extending opportunities to undergraduate and graduate scholars for engagement in robust teaching, research and learning exchanges inside and outside the classroom, as well as in NCCU’s state-of-the-art laboratories and research institutes. A steady increase in research and sponsored grant funding and the expansion of partnerships with companies and organizations in the Research Triangle Park and beyond have effectively positioned and primed NCCU’s research enterprise for continued growth. The university continues to be a leader in the study of health disparities that impact communities of color.
Strategically Positioning Excellence
In 2019, NCCU introduced a five-year strategic plan titled, “Charting a New Landscape for Student Centered Success.” This innovative and transformational plan includes four central goals and corresponding objectives that successfully strengthen the university and define how students are prepared for the global marketplace. Several objectives and deliverables have already been completed for each goal.
5 Bachelor’s Degrees 2 Master’s Degrees
Number of New Academic Degree Programs Fall 2017-Spring 2022
Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Sciences Bachelor of Science in Clinical Research Bachelor of Science in Sports Medicine Bachelor of Science in Nutrition and Dietetics Bachelor of Science in Information Technology Master of Science in Higher Education Administration Master of Education in Assistive Technology in Visual Impairment New Degree Programs Presented to UNC System Summer 2022 Doctorate of Psychology Bachelor of Fashion and Apparel Design Ed.D. in Counseling, Counselor Education and Supervision* Ed.D. in Educational Leadership*
* In Planning
Academic Realignment & New Programs Respond to Everchanging Market Needs
NCCU’s rapid growth facilitated the need for the university to increase its investments in vital infrastructure including contemporary living and learning facilities, an enriched academic experience and high-touch learning environments.
Implementation of an academic affairs realignment began on July 1, 2020, transforming the university’s largest colleges into two new colleges: the College of Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CASH) and the College of Health and Sciences (CHAS). Two new academic degree departments—the Department of Communication Disorders and the Department of Nutrition Science—were created and one department was renamed to be the Department of Art and Design. The realignment results support the university’s strategic plan.
Additionally, NCCU began offering eight new degree programs between fall 2018 and spring 2022; four additional programs will be presented to the UNC System in summer 2022. Each program fills a critical, emerging or future workforce need, especially in areas such as science, technology, engineering and math (STEM)—all with a goal of preparing a diverse group of talent with the potential to lead organizations and companies in Durham, the Research Triangle, throughout North Carolina, around the nation and worldwide.
Members of the NCCU and Duke CTSI teams following “Write Now We Will Heal,” an ethnodrama on cervical cancer produced by social scientists at both institutions.
NCCU and Duke University Partner to Impact Community Health Outcomes
NCCU and Duke University established a formal partnership, valued at $1.9 million, in late 2017 to advance translational science and improve health outcomes in underrepresented communities. This was the same year that began the third renewal of Duke Clinical Translational Sciences Institute’s (CTSI) award from the National Institutes of Health. The infrastructure and experienced staff and scientists supported by the Duke grant served as the foundation for the partnership, with teams from both universities developing plans for three core areas: workforce development, pilot projects and community engagement.
In 2019, collaborative efforts between the two institutions increased significantly and expanded to multiple programs and departments, leading to the establishment of the DukeNCCU Bridge Office in 2021. The office has supported the development and funding of a Duke-NCCU partnership grant funded by the U.S. Health Resource and Services Administration to address Stress First Aid for faculty and students in demanding professions. A joint multidisciplinary summer internship program supports workforce development for clinical and translational sciences, with NCCU students training at Duke with CTSI faculty and staff. Notably, multiple faculty from NCCU’s two research institutes—BBRI and the Biomanufacturing Research Institute and Technology Enterprise, or BRITE—along with departments including social work, nursing, public health education, mass communications and psychology are actively engaged in interdisciplinary research and student training programs.
The workforce development team launched a certificate program in clinical sciences research and clinical trials management.
Six pilot research studies have been funded, each coled by an NCCU and Duke investigator. The community engagement team has produced and presented four ethnodramas to encourage awareness and screening for diseases and viruses, such as COVID-19 and cervical cancer. NCCU partnered with faithbased and African-American community organizations to collect information regarding the use of mindbody-spirit/soul practices for the purpose of relieving and managing stress and maintaining overall health and well-being. Data collected will be used to develop multiple interventions for the effective management of stress.
Dr. Andy Li, chair of NCCU’s Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, prepares students for careers in clinical research.
PING-AN (ANDY) LI, M.D., PH.D.
THE EAGLE PROMISE IN ACTION
NCCU Trains Triangle Region’s Diverse Clinical Research Talent
Clinical research, a branch of health science that studies the safety and effectiveness of medicines, medical devices and medical treatments, is massive in the Research Triangle region of North Carolina, where more than 120 companies and nonprofit organizations employ tens of thousands of people.
The industry is constantly hungry for employees and for human subjects to take part in the many phases of testing, but there is widespread recognition of a need for greater diversity. Participation by people of color, especially African-Americans, is low.
NCCU’s new Clinical Research Sciences program is uniquely positioned to address both the region’s need for clinical research workers and the industry’s need to diversify – and to provide students with a clear path to a career in a growing, high-paying field.
“The job market is really hot,” says Ping-An (Andy) Li, M.D., Ph.D., professor and chair of pharmaceutical sciences at NCCU’s BRITE. He notes that one of the largest clinical research organizations in the world, a company called IQVIA, is based in Durham. It employs more than 80,000 people around the globe. Syneos Health, headquartered in Morrisville, has more than 25,000 workers. Extensive clinical research is also conducted at Duke, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and at the region’s numerous pharmaceutical companies.
Recognizing the opportunity for NCCU, Chancellor Johnson O. Akinleye called in 2017 for the establishment of a clinical research program. Li was assigned to
develop the curriculum, which was approved by the University of North Carolina System in 2019.
The curriculum is a four-year course of study leading to a Bachelor of Science degree in Clinical Research. A second track consists of 12 credit hours of study leading to a graduate certificate in Clinical Research. It is open to students who already hold a B.S. in a STEM discipline, such as biology or chemistry, and to upperlevel undergraduates who are working toward such degrees.
The first students in the fouryear program are still a year or more away from receiving degrees, but the certificate program has already produced 20 graduates, including nine who received their certificate in spring of 2022.
Job training in how to conduct and manage clinical trials of new drugs is the focus. “The curriculum was designed based on the industry’s input,” Li says. “The job market is such that employers are hiring students untrained in Clinical Research – mostly biology and chemistry majors – so those with actual CR training have a big edge.”
The program is led by Tracie Locklear, Ph.D., research assistant professor at BRITE. In addition to rigorous instruction in clinical trial management and practices, Locklear says, students are continually reminded of the underlying purpose of the NCCU program. The clinical research industry, she says, needs more diversity not just in its workforce, but also among participants in the testing process.
TRACIE LOCKLEAR, PH.D
Feedback from students is very positive. “It’s an awesome program,” says Paris Rutherford, who graduated in 2020 with a degree in Public Health Education and returned to NCCU to earn her CR certificate in spring 2022. A Raleigh resident, Rutherford has been working as a nursing assistant at WakeMed Hospital, and says her certificate will provide “a way to utilize my clinical and education experience.” Her next step is a paid internship at Duke CTSI.
Likewise headed for a Duke internship is Kshitij Kumar, who received his CR certificate in spring 2022 after previously earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees in environmental science at NCCU. A Durham resident, Kumar particularly praises Locklear as a “great professor” and says he expects the Duke experience will provide “a foot in the door” toward a clinical research career in private industry or at a university.
Dr. Tracie Locklear, director of NCCU’s Clinical Research Program, (left) with recent certificate earner Paris Rutherford (right).
Dr. Keith Levine, senior director of analytical sciences at RTI, Ms. Tamara Terry, research survey scientist and RTI-NCCU relationship manager in the University Collaborations Office at RTI, join Dr. Deepak Kumar, director of BBRI, in the new CARES lab.
Dr. Suresh Niture, research scientist at NCCU’s BBRI, and Dr. Wanda Bodnar, research scientist in the Discovery Sciences Division at RTI, collaborate in the CARES lab.
THE EAGLE PROMISE IN ACTION
RTI International and NCCU Join Forces to Open Lab
Aresearch partnership between North Carolina Central University and RTI International marked a milestone in May 2022 with the formal opening of the NCCU-RTI Center for Applied Research in Environmental Sciences (CARES) and an accompanying shared laboratory on RTI’s campus in Research Triangle Park.
Together, researchers from both institutions will study environmental health disparities — the role the environment plays in the disproportionate adverse health impacts on underserved populations.
CARES will draw on NCCU’s strengths as a regional leader in health equity research, and on RTI’s outstanding scientists and stateof-theindustry laboratories. The partnership began in 2019 with an agreement between the university and RTI that set forth a mission to engage in health disparities research in ways that would inform and shape public policy.
Beyond the scientific importance of the research, the partnership has symbolic significance, because RTI occupies a prominent place in the history of the region. It has grown into a renowned global nonprofit research
Leaders from NCCU, RTI International, the University of North Carolina System, Environmental Protection Agency and community partners celebrate the opening of the new CARES lab.
organization with 6,000 employees and offices on four continents.
Keith Levine, Ph.D., senior director of analytical sciences at RTI, said NCCU and RTI jointly have invested several hundred thousand dollars for this initial phase of the CARES laboratory. The lab occupies about 1,700 square feet and contains “advanced instrumentation, including multiple mass spectrometers and instruments to visualize live cells, to improve our understanding of the presence of chemicals in the environment and the impact that these chemicals have on biological systems,” Levine said.
In the CARES lab, RTI scientists and staff will work with NCCU students and faculty to study aspects of environmental exposure, toxicology and epidemiology.
De’ Jana Parker, a fourth-year Ph.D. student at NCCU, described one project already well underway. “There are air quality sensors all around Durham measuring the amount of particulate matter,” she said. “We know that health disparities result from air quality differences in different locations. We want to isolate the particulate matter that we collect and determine how it affects our laboratory mice. Poor air quality has been clearly linked to pulmonary diseases, and this will help us understand how and why.”
DE’ JANA PARKER
The benefits of the partnership flow in both directions. Levine said the CARES facility enhances RTI’s laboratory capabilities, particularly with “additional cellular and animal models.” And the collaboration with NCCU faculty and students, he said, provides “an expanded and diversified STEM talent pool.”
Parker agrees. “I think the RTI team enjoys mentoring the next generation of scientists. They can help train and encourage the students at NCCU – people who are interested in working in the industry. It’s a good recruiting tool.”
Additional Highlights
Innovation Fund Fuels Faculty’s Creative Research
Founded in 2017 by Chancellor Akinleye, the Eagle Academic Affairs Innovation Initiative was a university-wide funding program founded to spark innovations in academic programs, foster growth in enrollment, enhance the distinction of NCCU and improve student development. The grants, totaling more than $280,000 in Year 1 alone, supported projects that addressed challenges in the communities that NCCU serves through initiatives that foster innovation to solve key problems and best advance new directions to enhance the university’s distinction in research, teaching and engagement.
TOPICS FOR FUNDED FACULTY GRANTS INCLUDED:
+ “Enhancement of Comprehension of Informed Consent, Employing an Audio-
Enhanced Approach,” by Barry Shuster, J.D., MBA, MS, Bioethics, Adjunct
Assistant Professor, Business Law and Ethics, (NCCU) and Brenda Jamerson,
Pharm. D., Adjunct Assistant Professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral and
Sciences, Duke University School of Medicine; and + “Diversity in Cybersecurity: Increasing Career Opportunities for
Underrepresented Minority Groups,” by Erastus Karanja, Ph.D., assistant professor in the Department of Computer Information Systems.
$16.3 Million Award from NIEHS Establishes Health Disparities Center
NCCU was awarded a five-year, $16.3 million grant by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in late 2017. It is the largest annual grant amount received for a nonTitle III grant by NCCU and the largest funding for a single principal investigator on the campus, Deepak Kumar, Ph.D., director of BBRI. The grant established a Research Center in Minority Institutions Center (RCMI) Center for Health Disparities Research (RCHDR) that conducted three innovative basic biomedical and behavioral research projects, along with health disparities research pilot projects involving robust mentoring, development of core facilities and leveraging of resources and partnerships with community-based organizations and neighboring institutions in the Research Triangle area.
$462,714
Total Awarded for 24 Faculty Innovation Grants
2017-2020
$149,530,210
Total Sponsored Research Funding
2017-2022
Research and Sponsored Programs
DOLLARS GENERATED & AWARDS
RECEIVED TO DATE:
$25,713,618 and 73 Awards
as of June 17, 2022
As Compared to
$24,877,039 and 80 Awards
as of June 17, 2021
$1.4 Million Awarded to
NCCU for TRIO Upward Bound Program Grant
A $1.4 million, five-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education will help first-generation low-income, rural and underrepresented students access higher education.
NCCU and Cape Fear Community College launch new Dual Admissions Partnership. Pictured: Mr. Jim Morton, President of Cape Fear Community College and NCCU Chancellor Johnson O. Akinleye.
