Company Profile
NC State University
Company Overview
At NC State University, we create prosperity for North Carolina and the nation. We began as a land-grant institution grounded in agriculture and engineering. Today, we’re a pre-eminent research enterprise that excels across disciplines.
NC State is a powerhouse in science, technology, engineering and math. We lead in agriculture, education, textiles, business and natural resources management. We’re at the forefront of teaching and research in design, the humanities and the social sciences. And we’re home to one of the world’s best colleges of veterinary medicine.
Our more than 34,000 undergraduate and graduate students learn by doing. They pursue original research and start new companies. They forge connections with top employers and serve communities local and global. Through it all, they enjoy an outstanding return on investment.
Company History
When NC State University was founded in 1887, the school embodied ideals that were rapidly transforming the field of higher education. Chief among them was the belief that colleges should not be reserved for a select few and that the children of farmers, mechanics and other workers should have access to the opportunities and benefits of higher education. A new generation of progressive thinkers founded the college, known then as the North Carolina College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. No organization did more to advance the cause of this new institution than the Watauga Club, a reform-minded group of lawyers, teachers, doctors and businessmen in Raleigh — all of them younger than 30. Watauga Club member Charles W. Dabney, who wrote the legislation creating the new institution, exemplified the changes sweeping the South in the 1880s. The son of a Calvinist theologian who professed skepticism of modern science, Dabney earned a Ph.D. in chemistry and built a reputation as one of the foremost agricultural scientists in the nation. Today we honor NC State’s founders — men like Dabney, William J. Peele and Walter Hines Page — not just for their vision, but also because they lived at a time when considerable foresight, skill and courage were required to rally public support for higher education.