GREENSBORO, N.C. — North Carolina A&T says a new major donation will help it push toward becoming a top-tier research university. Marcel francis shows us what that growth looks like on campus and how this money could change the university’s future.
North Carolina A&T leaders announced today that MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Jeff Bezos and a philanthropist, has donated $63 million to the university. University Chancellor James R. Martin II says Scott’s generosity represents a significant step toward the university’s long-term goals.
This is going to accelerate our growth as a university. It is also going to allow us to continue to invest in high-impact growth areas with high return, because our mission is to have a tremendous amount of impact economically in this area,” said James R. Martin II, Chancellor of North Carolina A&T State University.
The donation will help fund A&T’s push toward R1 status, a designation that allows the school to conduct higher-level research. To achieve this, the university plans to hire more specialized research staff, expand its Ph.D. programs, and increase its graduate student population from 15% to nearly 35% , thereby attracting more bright minds to campus.
“Innovation and good ideas are everywhere, right? We just need to tap into it. And the students that came here are amazing innovators, so if you want to be a part of the future, this is where it comes,” said Martin.
The school has already added 15 new research faculty members and doubled its number of Ph.D. students. Next, the Aggies plan to expand their research administration team, growing from 22 staff members to the recommended 35, and raise non-federal research funding from less than one percent to as high as 15 percent. Leaders say moves like that not only build a stronger university but also bring new opportunities to the triad.
“It’s like a stock price, you know, when you have an investment in an entity, you can look at us like investing in a company. The higher the investment, typically, the higher the evaluation by others is also,” said Martin.
The university states that this donation is just one piece of a much larger, long-term strategy, but a critical one. This is Scott’s second donation to the university, totaling $108 million donated to the school.
