North Carolina State University
EN-13: Community Stakeholder Engagement

Community stakeholder engagement happens throughout NC State. Below are three examples of this engagement: the university’s strategic plan which guides the university’s vision and decision-making, NC Cooperative Extension which provides all citizens with access to the wealth of knowledge generated by public universities and the University of North Carolina (UNC) System’s strategic plan. University Strategic Plan: Chancellor Randy Woodson initiated the formation of a new strategic plan for the university in 2010 by charging the provost and chair of the faculty with directing the process with advice from an 11-member steering committee. Nine task forces comprised of faculty, staff and students produced white papers with recommendations for university strategies, specific initiatives and metrics. The resulting document, “The Pathway to the Future: NC State’s 2011-2020 Strategic Plan,” was endorsed by the Board of Trustees in April 2011 and guides the university’s vision and decision-making through the end of the decade. New information will be added to this site as work progresses on achieving the strategic plan goals. All members of the campus community were invited and encouraged to provide input and feedback during the strategic planning process. The Chancellor’s Installation Town Hall Forum provided an opportunity for the Chancellor and others leading the strategic planning efforts to hear from members of the campus at large. Individual task forces solicited input on specific topics. The community could provide feedback to the Strategic Planning Committee at any time via a feedback form. There were additionally mechanisms to receive planning updates. NC Cooperative Extension: The NC Cooperative Extension Service partners with communities to deliver education and technology that enrich the lives, land and economy of North Carolinians. Cooperative Extension provides educational programming in five key areas: sustaining agriculture and forestry, protecting the environment, maintaining viable communities, developing responsible youth and developing strong, healthy and safe families. The partnerships includes county governments working to solve local problems, a national network of land-grant universities including NC State and NC A&T State University, and the US Department of Agriculture working together, in recognition that we achieve much more together than we can alone. The partnerships with agriculture, business, education, government and industry create a unique culture of collaboration that increases productivity and fuels economic development. As an example, more than 22,500 citizen advisers help coordinate programming to address local needs. UNC System Level: In response to the UNC strategic plan, “Our Time, Our Future,” which calls for an annual engagement report, UNC’s Office of International, Community and Economic Engagement worked with the UNC Economic Transformation Council and the UNC Engagement Council to produce a first-time analysis of how UNC campuses, students and faculty are connected to and engaged with local/regional community partners via experiential courses and initiatives, research, and public service. This-high level summary provides an overview of our local, regional and state-wide impacts on communities and the economy, and challenges the system to bring together partners across the state to increase such “communiversity”-building activity.

NC State unveiled a new outreach and engagement plan for 2015-2020 that includes a targeted approach to outreach and engagement that: focuses on resources, eliminates duplication, harnesses valuable expertise, analyzes gaps and facilitates opportunities for stronger partnerships. The plan, titled “The New Engagement: A Bold Statement of Colliding Concepts Transcending Traditional Solutions,” was presented at a Launch Summit and crafted from the hard work and efforts of the Engagement Partnership Council. The plan is structured around three main goals. The first goal, promote a culture of engagement, supports our commitment to rewarding new and innovative ideas. Resources will be expended to catalog our programs and activities and clearly articulate a set of institutional metrics for regularly measuring and assessing the impact of our engagement work from multiple stakeholder perspectives. Therefore, the second goal, community collaboration and partnerships, is rooted in our commitment to enhancing collaboration across our campus so that we might, in turn, deepen and improve partnerships, practices and relationships that encourage collaboration and reciprocity. And finally, we will utilize best practices to build NC State’s capacity to make a difference by extending resources, sharing expertise, applying research outcomes and seeking new opportunities to listen and learn. To this end, we will align our efforts to with NC State’s commitment to diversify funding sources. Taken together, these goals will both support the university’s strategic planning efforts and proudly fulfill the promise of our institution’s powerful brand. In this way, we will contribute to a climate in which the university can powerfully “Think and Do” well beyond our own borders.

Though it is not possible to list all of NC State University's community stakeholders, the Office of Outreach and Engagement houses a website dedicated to engagement and partnerships. The site is searchable by audience, topic, location or keyword and is an excellent resource for forwarding community engagement with NC State.

Example 1: Seeds, Sweet Potatoes and Sprouting Knowledge: Teaching About Healthy Food Systems with Place-Based Education in Classrooms, Cafeterias, School Gardens and Local Communities FoodCorps North Carolina: Growing Healthy Children, Future Leaders FoodCorps is a national non-profit that “strives to give all children an enduring relationship with healthy food through the hands and minds of emerging leaders.” Working in partnership with local communities and organizations, FoodCorps service members aim to change children’s attitudes and behaviors towards food through nutrition education, school garden engagement, and accessibility of healthy produce through local farm-to-cafeteria pathways. FoodCorps NC envisions a North Carolina where children know what healthy food looks and tastes like, how it grows, and where it comes from. More importantly, the organization wants every child in the state to have access to healthy food every day. Such children would also be knowledgeable about the agricultural roots of the state, and - immersed in a healthy food environment at a young age - will learn better, live longer, and liberate their generation from diet-related diseases. At the same time, FoodCorps service members will become emerging leaders who will become farmers, chefs, educators and public health professionals. Armed with the skills to improve school food, these leaders will go on to improve entire food and health systems across the state. Sharing expertise and passion - in other words, serving - beyond the borders of the halls of higher learning is a core part of NC State’s mission. It is commitment to that humble, but powerful mission that fuels the CEFS’ partnership of programs like FoodCorps NC. Example 2: Connecting Chowan County High School Students to Bennett’s Millpond Through STEM It’s serious science - not recreation - that each year brings Chowan County high school students to Bennett’s Millpond, which is one of North Carolina’s exquisite coastal swamp ecosystems. For the past seven years, students have been working with the Science House at North Carolina University to conduct experiments at the millpond - monitoring the health of the ecosystem, identifying the microorganisms that thrive there and learning about the delicate balance of chemicals and nutrients that sustain life. The Bennett’s Millpond Project is a collaborative program for aquatic environmental learning in a highly unique and historic space - the colonial-era millpond near Edenton, North Carolina. The program aims to facilitate research and data collection on water quality, hydrology of the area, meteorology and aquatic and terrestrial flora and fauna. Bringing together four partners - The Science House, the Albermarle Learning Center, Chowan County and NC State University, the project initially took place through the Northeast Office of The Science House and later evolved into a collaborative partnership with the Northeast STEM Consortium. Example 3: Catching Business for Coastal North Carolina For nearly a decade, North Carolina Sea Grant has worked with coastal North Carolina communities to develop “local catch” programs focusing on business development and education to connect consumers to fishermen and local seafood. Today, Brunswick Cath, Cateret Catch, Ocracoke Fresh and Outer Banks Catch are thriving with members that include fishing families, processors, wholesale and retail sales managers; restaurant owners, chefs and staff; and a range of community partners. A statewide program called ‘North Carolina Catch’ helps the local groups collaborate and also serves other coastal counties. The varied partners use market research tools to help breathe new life into a struggling industry and the projects stresses innovative techniques, use of interdisciplinary research and resources, risk taking, teamwork, inclusive thinking and sensitivity and attention to diverse audiences. NC State is the home for many partners in these efforts, including Cooperative Extension, Seafood Laboratory, Center for Marine Sciences and Technology, Center for Environmental Farming Systems, Department of Food Bioprocessing and Nutrition Sciences, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Department of Horticultural Science. The project also involves several other university partners - University of North Carolina Wilmington, East Carolina University, Coastal Studies Institute, UNC-TV and Duke University - from across the state. But the list of partners does not stop there. North Carolina Cath also works with the U.S Department of Agriculture, the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services and the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ Division of Marine Fisheries. Additional state and local partners include the NC Fisheries Association, the Outer Banks Seafood Festival, the North Carolina Seafood Festival, Saltwater Connections and the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center.

https://oe.ncsu.edu/ https://info.ncsu.edu/strategic-planning/ http://www.northcarolina.edu/?q=engagement-report-2015