NCSU's Mission Statement holds out as a standard for instructional activity the experience of "distinctive opportunities for [students] to benefit from the experience of research in the classroom, laboratory, and informal settings." The work of faculty and students must be supported by access to resources that enhance rather than inhibit the achievement of students' fullest potential for learning, discovery, and growth.
Basic to all NCSU's instructional activities is the main campus in Raleigh, consisting of 154 major buildings on 623 acres. Nearby is the new 940-acre Centennial Campus, which now houses the buildings of the College of Textiles, as well as a number of buildings devoted to research. Also nearby are the campus of the College of Veterinary Medicine and a host of research facilities, including research farms, biology and ecology sites, genetics, horticulture, and floriculture nurseries, research forests, and the site of Carter-Finley Stadium in west Raleigh, giving NCSU landholdings in Wake County in excess of 2,700 acres. Elsewhere in the state, there are research farms and facilities, including an equine research facility in Southern Pines and a research forest of over 82,000 acres.
Central to the teaching and research missions of the University is the library, the repository of knowledge and gateway to information in all fields, and thus the cornerstone of educational activities. NCSU's library system is ranked among the top 100 research libraries in the United States. Its holdings, housed in the main D.H. Hill Library and four branch libraries, include over 2.3 million monographs and documents. The library system is administered by a staff that reports to the director of libraries.
Responsibility for classroom, laboratory, and other research facilities is shared between the central administration and the individual schools and colleges. For the University as a whole, responsibility for facilities falls under the vice-chancellor for finance and business, through the work of the associate vice-chancellor for facilities. Long-term construction planning is the responsibility of the University architect and the director of the Office of Campus Planning.
Classrooms used for a range of instructional purposes are centrally maintained, administered, and assigned, but seminar facilities and teaching labs are maintained, administered, and assigned directly by the departments or colleges in which they are housed. Enhancement of classrooms has been overseen since 1985 by the Classroom Improvement Committee. Audiovisual and other instructional facilities are maintained by individual departments.
University computing facilities are also maintained centrally through the work of the associate provost for academic computing and the director of Administrative Computing Services, and the facilities and staff of the University Computing Center. Faculty and student facilities, including student computer labs, are the responsibility of the school or college in which they are housed.
