TECHNICIAN
tuesday november
12 2013
Raleigh, North Carolina
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NCSU announces first privately funded village Chris Hart-Williams Staff Writer
Centennial Campus’s first Living Learning Village will open in the fall of 2014, the University announced Monday. The Andy and Jane Albright Entrepreneurs Living Learning Village will be home to the Entrepreneurship Initiative, Entrepreneur Living Village and residents of Centennial’s Wolf Ridge Apartments. Kevin Howell, interim vice chancellor for University Advancement, made the announcement to attendees of the Entrepreneurs Initiative’s semi-an-
nual Entrepreneurs Lecture Series. The News & Observer reported a $500,000 grant from the Albrights allowed the EI to build the village. Andy and Jane Albright also sponsored the lecture series, which featured Aly Khalifa as its speaker. The new village is not only the first to originate on Centennial Campus, but also the first named village to be privately funded. Andy Albright is an N.C. State alumnus who has made a career as an entrepreneur. Albright is currently president and CEO of National Agents Alliance, an insurance marketing firm with agencies
located across the United States, offering a variety of financial services products. National Agents Alliance started in 2002 when Albright cofounded the company with Philip Hudgins and Barry Clarkson. Albright was appointed NAA’s CEO in 2006. Albright continues to be active at the University, and he currently serves on the Entrepreneurs Initiative advisory board. Albright was also keynote speaker of the lecture series in 2011. Khalifa, also an N.C. State alumnus and entrepreneur, was the keynote speaker Monday. Khalifia is a
co-founder and owner of Design Box LLC in Raleigh, which is home to seven consulting design firms including his own Gamil Design. “N.C. State paved the way for my career of innovation,” Khalifia said. Khalifa spoke about his time as an undergraduate at the University and about how his experiences inf luenced his career as an entrepreneur and designer. He said that one of the highlights of his time as student was designing the logo for N.C. State’s Wolfline his sophomore year. Khalifa’s said much of his career has been dedicated to social entrepreneurship.
“It’s a mystery to many of us,” Khalifa said. “Social entrepreneurship is transformation … we can’t just keep counting beans and say we are making progress. We need to make change.” Among Khalifa’s numerous projects that have earned him more than 16 patents and a Grammy nomination is a new kind of shoe. With the growing number of women abroad delivering children with birth defects do to the chemicals of glue used to make our shoes, Khalifia saw a solution: completely sewn
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History faculty joins fight to save programs at ECSU Staff Report
Members of university history departments from across North Carolina are responding through letter campaigns to the recent announcement that Elizabeth City State University administrators are considering ending seven major programs. Some N.C. State faculty members are joining this response. ECSU is considering removing history, physics, political science, and other majors from its curriculum. Members of the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and Duke University have already mailed letters of opposition. Jonathan Ocko, head of the History Department at N.C. State, said he is planning to send a letter from the department of history at N.C. State. ECSU, a historically black university located in northeastern North Carolina, announced this month it will begin preliminary meetings to discuss several programs that the University of North Carolina System determined are “low productive.” ECSU Provost and Vice Chancellor Ali Khan recently said the cut is “still very much in the discussion stage.” ECSU has experienced lower enrollment, a $5 million budget cut and dozens of layoffs in recent years, according to The News & Observer. Ocko said the news was disappointing to hear.
“When you start eliminating the opportunity to focus on history, it can have a devastating effect,” Ocko said. “The humanities teach a broad array of analytical and critical skills.” Ocko said these skills are just as necessary as technical skills taught in other disciplines. “Humanities are about the human condition,” Ocko said. “Who we are, where we come from, how we think about things. Without these, students can be left with a very narrow, technical education with no awareness of how their actions affect groups of people.” Ocko said he acknowledges ECSU had previously struggled to meet enrollment numbers, due to stricter admissions standards. “However, cutting a core liberal art isn’t the answer,” Ocko said. “Offering a major teaches a disciplined way of thinking. Offering courses are only the introduction to that discipline.” Ocko said ECSU’s history department currently prepares many of the K-12 social studies teachers for the 21-county region of northeastern North Carolina. If ECSU drops its area of study, Ocko said history department members are unsure of who will fill the void. Ocko also said history majors at N.C. State have little need to worry. There are no plans to eliminate the history department at N.C. State, according to Ocko.
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Bob Patterson, a professor of crop science, describes the Jatropha, a tropical oil-seed plant that is a potential new biofuel at the Competing Global Resources Seminar: Food versus Fuel, Monday in Withers Hall. The seminar was the last of three that featured N.C. State experts discussing global issues that are relevant to North Carolina.
Seminar participants discuss battle between food, fuel in world economy Madeline Safrit Correspondent
Several N.C. State faculty members gathered on Monday to discuss the battle between food and fuel across the world, as populations continue to increase. The Global Issues Seminar, Food versus Fuel, hosted three panelists who presented their perspectives about the growth of the world’s population in correlation to food and fuel consumption. The Office
Char-Grill: Agenerationspanning burger joint
Jess Thomas Correspondent
See page 5.
FEAUTRES Q&A with Kevin Devine See page 6.
SPORTS Pack defeats Tigers for second straight win See page 8.
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wehr said. Each semester, the Office of International Affairs partners with different organizations to cover a wide range of topics, according to Landwehr. “We try to make the topics as general as possible to try and get different faculty members to talk about different topics from different angles,” Landwehr said. Landwehr said that final seminar, covering food and fuel resources,
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University continues review process for future dean of Graduate School
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of International Affairs and the School of Public and International Affairs co-sponsored the final seminar, ending a semester-long series that covered a wide range of global issues. Megan Landwehr, communications and media specialist from the Office of International Affairs, said she worked diligently to organize this event in support of the Global Health Initiative. “It’s really to showcase N.C. State’s faculty who are solving really big world challenges,” Land-
N.C. State is in the process of finding a new dean for its Graduate School. Currently, the University is considering four candidates and is hosting public hearings for each candidate this month. The second of these candidates spoke on Monday at the Erdahl-Cloyd Auditorium. Professor Henning Schroeder, the current vice provost and dean of graduate education at the University of Minnesota, addressed issues about graduate degree programs in the United States and methods to improve current programs. Schroeder is the second of four candidates
to speak to University audiences about the position. According to Matthew Melillo, president of the N.C. State University Graduate Student Association, the candidates for the position had to go through airport interviews where they were questioned by the search committee for the new position. “We select four finalist candidates from the airport interviews to come to N.C. State, and now they’re doing multi-day interview processes at N.C. State,” Melillo said. Schroeder said there are two main problems with graduate programs in the United States. “We are expensive, and the question is how we can ad-
dress that, and two it takes a very long time to go through a graduate program,” Schroeder said. According to Schroeder, one of the main things that companies look for when hiring graduate students is autonomy and whether or not the students are able to work independently. Additionally, Schroeder said current Ph.D. programs are comprised of two main elements: coursework followed by independent research, which is done by students. “Thirty to 40 percent of graduate students in the U.S. — based on a study that was done in 2006 — said that the courses do not really prepare them for the research they
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have to do,” Schroeder said. Schroeder said he believes that a research aspect of the program should be implemented early on in order to help students transition into working independently. “I think the research experience in a program is something that can’t be diminished for a number of reasons,” Schroeder said. “For the development of students to foster autonomy and so faculty members can not only mentor, but also have someone join in their research.” According to Schroeder, all the graduate programs at N.C. State have specific, explicit outlines that help
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Cameron Village
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