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Forging a New Identity for NC State

An Open Letter to the University from the CHASS Dean

"Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."

— A. Einstein

Chancellor Woodson has called for us to engage in strategic planning, giving us the opportunity to redefine and transform ourselves, to decide what we want to be – and become – as we move forward. We must decide whether to define ourselves with respect to the past, or forge a new identity for the future. I believe we must seize the opportunity – carpe diem! – to redefine what it means to be NC State University.

We can build our future out of our very rich past. The North Carolina College of Agricultural and Mechanical Arts was founded to improve the lives of North Carolinians. At that time, we needed to bring relevant disciplines to bear on developing and expanding our agricultural and industrial economy. As we grew and became NC State University, we expanded our mission to include science and technology, natural resources, design, education, veterinary medicine, and management, adding to our "brand" as a campus strong in engineering, agriculture, and technical innovation. We gain recognition and distinctiveness when we stick with our traditional identity – but we also lose the ability to become something more.

Instead of defining NC State by its traditional disciplines, I propose that we define our university by an ethic, an ethos that permeates our very core: That NC State tackles problems that lie outside the academy. Whereas most major universities attract faculties who are primarily interested in tackling problems important to their disciplines (what's often called "basic" or "pure" research), NC State faculty bring the knowledge and methods of their disciplines to bear on problems that are important to people outside the university – problems that are inherently messy, require collaborations among disciplines, and whose results are not always neatly packaged into discipline-specific outlets. In other words, we can distinguish ourselves from other top-tier universities not by having different disciplines – but by doing our disciplines differently. That difference is what I would call "situated inquiry," in which the problems we tackle, and the solutions we provide, are situated outside our disciplines in the world at large.

Let me provide two examples. The first is from my own discipline – psychology. Contemporary research in most major psychology departments focuses on experimental methods and cognitive neuroscience, which demand controlled conditions available only in labs. At NC State, however, psychology research focuses on schools, industry, design of equipment, adult development in everyday living, and the public interest – in short, our faculty do their research off campus, using labs (if at all) to develop prototypes for real-world research.

My second example is from the humanities, and in particular, history. We have a master's degree (and are seeking a doctoral degree) in public history, which builds the capacity for organizations and industry to create, curate, and communicate their history with stakeholders, tourists, and others. We are not preparing traditional, discipline-driven historians in fields like US or French history; rather, our faculty are doing research and preparing historians who will have as their primary mission history for the world outside the academy.

An emphasis on tackling the people's problems gives us the opportunity to embrace our traditional strengths and our land-grant heritage. Agriculture and engineering have always focused on practical problems; we can, and should, expand that focus to other disciplines for which NC State has not been known, such as the humanities, arts, and social sciences.

If we continue to define ourselves within a narrow range of disciplinary excellence, we not only miss an opportunity to redefine ourselves – we also run the risk of missing the boat. As the pace of change in our world and its economy increases, investment in specific disciplines seems unwise. For example, more than 80% of the intellectual property produced in the US is creative (e.g., movies, music) rather than technical (e.g., software, patents). Investing exclusively (or even primarily) in engineering, agriculture, or technology puts us and our graduates at risk of obsolescence as the world changes from an agricultural and industrial economy to a creative economy.

Changing our identity will make us less comfortable; a new identity requires new investments and new behaviors. It requires us to stop doing some of the things we've always done. Staying with what's worked in the past may feel more comfortable to us and our stakeholders – but if we want things to change, we must change things. We have a unique opportunity to set the agenda for ourselves, our state, and the world beyond the academy. Let's not be insane by doing the same things we've always done and expecting different results; let's embrace the opportunity at hand and define ourselves as the people's university, one that addresses the people's problems by developing excellence in disciplines beyond our traditional strengths in agriculture and technology.

Jeff Braden

Jeffery P. Braden, Dean
College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Post a Comment
Submitted by Anonymous on May 7, 2010 11:02 AM Reply | Report
Good food for thought.
Submitted by Jessica Jameson on May 7, 2010 3:45 PM Reply | Report
Thanks for this reminder of the relevance of community engagement to much, if not all, of the work at NC State.
Submitted by Keith Emrick on May 7, 2010 4:04 PM Reply | Report
Well said. This is an exciting vision for NC State and all North Carolinians.
Submitted by Anonymous on May 10, 2010 11:42 AM Reply | Report
This letter makes it appear that the dean of a college in a major state university is suggesting that that college re-target its mission and goals to become what appears to be primarily some kind of research and consulting organization in order to address "the people's problems". Oddly, nowhere in this vision is the idea expressed that the primary role of the university (and of the college) should be the education of students, and that it should strive for excellence in delivering a superior educational product through teaching. It seems to be consistent with a suggestion that the college move in the direction of becoming a kind of high-end vocational school -- though, again, absolutely nothing appears to be mentioned about a teaching mission. While there may be some justification for such an approach in engineering and the sciences, I would urge that even there -- within the context of a UNIVERSITY -- such a direction is not obviously appropriate. It is difficult to see precisely how a thorough and careful reading of, say, the works of Shakespeare, Plato, or Dillon Thomas would in any clear way address "the people's problems", but I must suggest that such pursuits have a central place in the universitu and its humanities departments ... and in the education of our children and citizens more broadly. For this letter to come from the dean of a college that encompasses the humanities appears to suggest a kind of insanity -- and certainly lack of understanding of the college's role -- itself. As the parent of an NC State graduate, I find this letter disturbing. And the fact that it is wholly visbile in the public domain, while contributing to "transparency", may not provide the best impression to a public that views NC State as a source of educational excellence rather than problem solving. Perhaps Einstein's characterization is too narrow.
Submitted by Anonymous2 on May 19, 2010 10:38 AM Reply | Report
The dean is right that NC State should aim to be strong across the board and not just in the areas that have been traditional strengths for us. But if he wants to convince people that the best way to achieve this is to change the fundamental identity of NC State from a university that tackles both internal and external problems to a university that focuses exclusively on the latter (this being the "ethos that permeates our very core"), he's going to need stronger arguments than what he presents here. The goal of becoming stronger across the board isn't a good reason for adopting the situated inquiry approach, because we can just as easily do this while continuing to focus on both internal and external problems (as we have throughout our existence). Nor is the danger that we run the risk of being left behind as the economy changes to a "creative" one. For even if it were necessary to shift our focus from the technical to the "creative" disciplines, this could be done without having to give up tackling problems internal to the academy. In short, the idea that the university should focus exclusively (or even primarily) on problems outside the academy--an idea which strikes me as preposterous--seems to be entirely orthogonal to the excellent idea that we should invest more heavily in areas outside our traditional strengths. And though the dean has given good reasons for promoting the latter idea, he hasn't given any good reasons for promoting the former. If he really wants to push the idea of situated inquiry, then, I would challenge him to make a stronger case for it.