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What Is CINC?

Connecting in North Carolina (CINC) is a five day program in which new NCSU faculty and administrators are introduced to North Carolina and its people, witnessing the impact of our land-grant initiatives throughout the state.

Getting to Know North Carolina in the Land-Grant Tradition

North Carolina State University is a diligent recruiter. We attract the state's brightest and best to study on our campus. We mount extensive searches for outstanding faculty to teach, conduct research and engage with our constituents. We count these students and teachers among our greatest institutional resources. Yet, how well do they know one another? What opportunities do incoming faculty have to know the state and the people for whom they work, or to understand the background and culture of their students?

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
-- Robert Frost

Our Mission as a Land-Grant University

Our mission as a land-grant University is to know and serve the people of North Carolina. We must have our finger on the pulse of the state to know how we might help our citizens and better educate their children. And they must know us. Not just as the State University in Raleigh, but as the thousands who serve them statewide through university extension, engagement, economic development and applied research. A proactive University that is responsive to challenges and opportunities to serve must have first-hand knowledge of primary needs.

In the Path of Robert Frost

This program takes new faculty and EPA professionals on a tour to the hometowns of our students and introduces them to our land-grant mission at work across North Carolina. Taking our cue from Robert Frost, the tour is a better, if less traveled, route to a mutual understanding of who we are, what we do, and what better-informed faculty, staff and students can do together.

How Many Attend?

While we cannot give every member of the faculty and staff an in-depth understanding of the state, we can offer a program that takes thirty-five faculty and staff members who have been employed for at least one year but less than seven years at North Carolina State University on a five day personalized bus tour of North Carolina.

Benefits

Many new faculty and key administrators come to North Carolina State University from out-of-state. They may be unfamiliar with the land-grant tradition. Their previous experiences may have been limited to a single-campus college, unlike the vast university system in our state. Through their work here, they meet the sons and daughters of North Carolina but may have little context to help them understand the cultural influences that have produced these students.

Tour participants witness firsthand and appreciate the land-grant ethic at work as they visit selected sites statewide. Further, they have opportunities to forge interdisciplinary networks with university colleagues outside their disciplines and areas of responsibility. Finally, it helps develop a strong and lasting commitment to North Carolina State University.

University relations should be improved with the local organizations, business and industry, and communities across the state. Citizens' and business leaders' suggestions advise the university in ways it might better serve relevant needs. The people of North Carolina deserve to meet our faculty and administrators and, thereby, understand what a rich resource they are to our state.