North Carolina State University has a clear commitment to research, outreach, and extension programs and activities. The finding of this self-study is that NCSU's activities in this area are essentially and substantially in compliance with the criteria for accreditation of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and with the highest standards of institutional policies and practices.
Research, outreach, and extension activities have always been central to the mission and purpose of North Carolina State University [4.3.1]. Historically, through the research activities of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the statewide offices, staff, and research facilities of the Cooperative Extension Program, NCSU has promoted the enhancement of agricultural productivity and enriched the lives of rural North Carolinians. The College of Engineering has supported the industrial community in North Carolina through the Industrial Extension Service and through individual efforts of faculty in the college. Through such efforts, NCSU has become a center of both basic and applied research.
At the same time, an expanded understanding of the role of the University in meeting human needs has supported expansion of extension activities beyond traditional models. Extension or service activities are now affirmed as central to the mission of all NCSU's colleges and schools, attending to what the Mission Statement calls "extension, technical assistance, professional development, lifelong education, and technology transfer programs," seeking "to improve the quality of life for North Carolinians into the twenty-first century."
As a research-intensive university, NCSU participates in a national commitment to the production and expansion of human knowledge and understanding. At this time, every permanent faculty member is expected to contribute to the research and extension mission as well as to the teaching mission of the University. NCSU's faculties in all fields are recognized for their excellence and their productivity. Its facilities for research are substantial.
As NCSU aspires to preeminence as a research-intensive university, however, it must ensure that its research activities are supported and funded at a level appropriate to its aspirations. Study leaves necessary to maintain high research productivity should be expanded. Support for the research mission of all schools and colleges should be encouraged. Support facilities such as laboratories, libraries, and other research facilities should be brought to a level appropriate to the institution's aspirations. Enabling innovation should be made a priority, with special concern for supporting and encouraging multidisciplinary research activities.
As a result of innovative development of its extension and service activities, NCSU currently has programs in place that address such societal issues, concerns, and problems as economic development (jobs, quality of workforce, retirement security, etc.), global competitiveness, education (at all levels, targeting concern for education of the homeless, welfare recipients, youth at risk, etc.), health care ( high costs, drug use, AIDS, etc.), the environment (conservation, air and water quality, waste management, food safety, etc.), social, cultural, and political issues (small town and rural life, constitutional crises, literary culture, etc.), and crime.
The range of these issues and concerns reflects expansion of understanding for the land-grant mission as North Carolina changes from a rural to a more urban state but human need for knowledge and understanding continue. Despite the substantial contributions of NCSU's extension activities to the achievement of its institutional mission, however, many faculty perceive the University as not valuing sufficiently the wide range of extension activities, thus creating disincentives to extension work. Over 40 percent of the faculty surveyed for their understanding of the University's commitment to extension activities cited high cost in time and effort, reduced prospects for promotion, low salary adjustments, lack of available funding, low administrative support, and low monetary recognition as significant disincentives to extension activities at NCSU.
Clearly, if NCSU's extension and outreach programs are to achieve preeminence in delivering the results of research in the form of new knowledge and understanding, the University administrative leadership must be supportive and visionary, and initiate changes, not simply respond to them.
The incentive and reward system for extension and outreach activities must be reevaluated. Improvements are needed in salary, promotion, and professional security. The responsibility of all faculty members in supporting the extension and outreach missions must be communicated. The appropriate division of obligation among teaching, research, and extension and outreach must be clarified and articulated both in regard to the institution and in regard to the career of each faculty member. Extension and outreach activities must become part of the University's regular process of planning and evaluation.
Stronger partnership ties and relationships with other educational institutions, industry, government, and communities must be established. The University must improve public perception and better market its total extension and outreach programs. Innovation in delivery of knowledge should be pursued, incorporating emerging techniques of electronic communication. New sources of funding must be pursued. Basic facilities for outreach activities must be enhanced.
This new direction will require commitment from administrative leadership, faculty, and participants in the communities being served. The conclusion of this report is that North Carolina State University has the potential to emerge as a national model for a research university that effectively balances the demands of basic and applied research and finds its highest aspirations fulfilled in an ethic of service through the discovery and communication of knowledge and understanding. Such a model must recognize that extensive research activities, supported internally and externally, are at the heart of the mission of a research-intensive university. But the land-grant heritage and mission always call us to public service, and to justify research activities in terms of their providing a foundation for and making a contribution to what the NCSU Mission Statement refers to as "active stewardship of the human and natural resources of the State" of North Carolina.
NCSU's aspirations to preeminence as a comprehensive, research-intensive, land-grant university therefore depend on achieving a balanced model of research and extension activities, in which all faculty see their professional aspirations and research responsibilities as connected to the University's mission of service, and in which the understanding of human need and social aspirations is broad enough and inclusive enough to support a comprehensive and innovative institutional program of research and scholarly inquiry. In such a climate, those who learn from us, whether in residence as undergraduate or graduate students or far afield as recipients of extension services, will become parts of a community of learning, of a university in the finest and highest sense.
