It's a classic example of competing interests. Students want access to the latest interactive software applications and plenty of storage space for big data files. Now, thanks to a partnership with Google, both sides are getting exactly what they want - and saving an estimated $60,000 per year.
In 2009, our faculty and staff strove to advance research, education and service in a time of limited resources. But despite the challenges, it was most certainly a productive year on campus, where our community of more than 31,000 students and nearly 8,000 faculty and staff continued to fulfill the promise of this institution through groundbreaking discoveries, lifesaving research and pioneering innovations. As we move forward to 2010, join us in reliving some of NC State’s best ideas and advances from 2009.
Working at Walt Disney Imagineering may rank as one of the planet's most sought-after dream jobs, especially for creative professionals. Four students from North Carolina State University got to sample the magic this summer as finalists in Disney's ImagiNations Design Competition, winning a 10-day trip that took them from the small world of Raleigh to the fantasyland of Imagineering's Southern California studios.
Last fall, as the country skidded into a deep economic recession, Rebecca Swanson read a panicky e-mail from an NC State alumnus. "He was a middle manager and in a heartbeat he had been laid off," Swanson said. "He had no job, no skills that were in demand, and two kids to support. So he turned to his school for help."
NC State professor Art Rice has traveled the world spreading the language of design, and he was only arrested once. Rice - one of the founders of the university's Prague Institute - says the field of landscape architecture will continue to grow and evolve as new challenges arise, and strongly encourages his students to make travel a part of their NC State experience and education.
Can eternal truth exist in a changing universe? It’s one of the bigger questions people have struggled with since naturalist Charles Darwin posited the idea that life is the product of almost numberless changes occurring over a sweeping span of time. For North Carolina State University senior John Coggin – who custom-built his own undergraduate degree program across several university colleges and departments – it’s more than an academic question.