(Benny Benton / staff)

University leaders break ground Friday on Engineering Building II. Pictured l-r are: Thomas McPherson, former president and CEO of Hatteras Networks and NC State alumnus; Dr. Nino A. Masnari, dean of the College of Engineering; Dr. Marye Anne Fox, chancellor; Dr. Alan Tharp, department head of computer science; and Dr. Robert Trew, department head of electrical and computer engineering.

Construction on a new academic home for more than 2,800 NC State students began on Friday with a groundbreaking ceremony for Engineering Building II.

The $35 million facility - which will be funded by the University of North Carolina Higher Education Bond Referendum - is the second phase in relocating the College of Engineering to Centennial Campus. Construction of the facilty is scheduled for completion in 2005.

"To all of you, special thanks for the support that you gave us as we came forward with this bond referendum," Chancellor Marye Anne Fox told the crowd. "It is the opportunity that provides facilities that will change the lives of our students, will change the lives of our faculty, and therefore the lives of all North Carolinians."

The new building will reunite the Department of Computer Science and the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Currently, those departments are housed in at least nine different areas of the NC State campus.

"What we are doing here today is a slap in the face of ambivilance," said keynote speaker Thomas McPherson, former president and CEO of Hatteras Networks and a recipient of bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from NC State. "Our leadership is saying that the computer science and ECE students have a bright and expansive future. We are investing our precious resources and creating a home for achievers and a home that will produce achievers.

"This new building will be more than a new home. It will be a symbol of our collective commitments to the continued excellence in computer science and electrical and computer engineering. It will be a symbol that will be noticed by top faculty and students alike. The return on this investment will grow beyond measure."

Above is an artist's rendering of the new Engineering Building II.

The new building will have about 210,000 gross square feet of space, providing modern classrooms, state-of-the-art laboratories and offices. An oval green space will front the building.

"This Centennial Campus is an absolute jewel, the crown jewel of NC State for our activities here in the future for the College of Engineering," said Nino A. Masnari, dean of the College of Engineering. "I can go all over the country and I can promise you'll never find anything that can be equal to what we have here on Centennial Campus."

The Department of Computer Science is one of the nation’s largest and fastest-growing computer science departments, with about 1,300 students. Its faculty includes 11 current National Science Foundation (NSF) Career Award winners. The department focuses on emerging technologies such as optical networking, agent technology, e-commerce and information assurance.

The Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) has about 1,500 students and has seven current NSF Career Award winners on its faculty. The department focuses on communications and signal processing, computer architecture and systems, intelligent systems and bioengineering, and nanoelectronics.

"You all know how strong our students are," Fox said. "The average grade point average in our freshman class is well over 4.0 and the SAT is well over 1,200. These are incredibly bright people who could go to virtually anywhere they wanted. The reality is they've come to North Carolina State because this is a university for the future. This is a place where public-private partnerships have blossomed ... ones that provide internships and coops for our students, ones that in collaboration with our faculty, are designing our future, providing new means by which we can have the quality of live in North Carolina that we all need and deserve."

Posted October 27, 2003

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