Time Well Spent

When Randy Woodson arrived at NC State in April 2010 to take over as chancellor, the university’s endowment was just a little over $500 million. A plan to move the College of Engineering to Centennial Campus had stalled. The student center in the middle of campus was shopworn and dreary. And the iconic symbol of the university, the Memorial Belltower, was badly in need of a facelift as it chimed out the hours from a set of speakers in the belfry.

Today, the endowment — a fund of investments whose returns are used for operating money — is over $2 billion, a sign of a healthy future. Instead of solely relying on state money for facilities, the university now raises money from donors to help pay for new buildings. Engineering has moved into its new home in Fitts-Woolard Hall next to the new Hunt Library. The faces of Centennial Campus and Main Campus have changed, and the Talley Student Center is now a bustling hub of activity. By nearly every metric, NC State’s profile has ascended. Rankings have improved. Enrollment has grown. The university is more selective. And students are succeeding more than ever before.

And the Belltower? A 2021 renovation included the tower’s first-ever set of bronze bells to keep time.

Woodson came to NC State after a 25-year stint at Purdue where he had worked his way up from professor to dean to provost. NC State was his first chancellor’s job, and it was to be his last. Woodson’s tenure of nearly 15 years is highly unusual among public university leaders at a time when shifting political forces can end careers and well-regarded leaders are wooed to other jobs. Among all colleges and universities in the nation, the average tenure is less than six years.

Woodson announced this summer that he would be retiring when his contract expires in June 2025. The search for the next chancellor is underway.

“Tonight, we will officially launch the public phase of the largest fundraising campaign in NC State history, one that will shape our university for generations to come. This campaign will offer our 34,000-plus students more high-impact educational opportunities. …It will help ensure that NC State remains accessible and affordable so we can enroll the brightest students — regardless of their economic status. And the campaign
will provide us a much more robust endowment to better support NC State for generations.”
—Randy Woodson, Fall Address
Oct. 28, 2016

Looking Back

In a wide-ranging interview, Woodson and his wife, Susan, sat down with NC State magazine at the Gregg Museum of Art & Design, the site of their first home in Raleigh. The cover of the spring 2010 issue of NC State depicts the couple just after he accepted the job. What would he tell the slightly more fresh-faced Randy Woodson, who was just beginning this journey?

Woodson pauses. And then, “Enjoy the ride,” he says. It’s important, he says, to not have all the answers in the beginning. “But there’s one thing a new chancellor has to know,” he says. “You’ve got to learn the history, the culture of the place very quickly. Everybody will expect you to know it — and to embody it.”

The past 15 years have been full of successes but also challenges, chief among them keeping the university safe and running during the COVID pandemic. “I didn’t have a playbook for that,” he says. Another challenge has been operating in an environment where state money is not always available. “While we’ve been very well supported by the legislature — particularly with recent investments in facilities — we haven’t had consistent funding for salaries to be able to give to our employees,” Woodson says. “There’s been a push for affordability and efficiency . . . and we’ve been focusing on that. We’re managing growth, budgets, efficiency and expectations when there’s not a big safe in the chancellor’s office. That’s why fundraising is so important.”

To that end, Woodson counts celebrating the end of the successful Think and Do the Extraordinary Campaign, which raised more than $2 billion for the university, among the top moments in his tenure. “I believe we have more of a culture of philanthropy now,” he says. “People understand the difference they make through their donations to the university. A lot of people get credit for that.”

Woodson listed three other accomplishments that he rates among his top pride points:

>> The NC State Employees Dependent Tuition Scholarship. The Woodsons established the fund in 2015 with a gift of $1.5 million. “We had been at other schools that had something like that, and we couldn’t believe it didn’t exist here,” Susan Woodson says. Dependents of faculty and staff members can receive $2,000 per year in tuition aid.

>> Increasing interdisciplinary work. “That’s embodied best by the work of our faculty clusters,’’ Woodson says. The Chancellor’s Faculty Excellence Program creates interdisciplinary clusters of faculty across colleges to address the world’s pressing challenges.

>> The physical transformation of campus. Woodson says he didn’t come in planning to build so many new buildings — a total of five, including the new Integrative Sciences Building under construction. “I just knew infrastructure was critical,” he says. Susan Woodson remembers an early drive through campus. “I said, ‘What’s that ugly building?’ It was Talley,” she says.

Of course, a top moment in the chancellor’s tenure came very recently. “Two Final Fours in one year!” he says. “That was something that brought alumni together, brought us a lot of attention from all over the country. It was a whole lot of fun.”

But consistently, year after year, the day that Woodson says he most looks forward to is the day that celebrates the reason the university exists — the education of students. “Commencement is always a great moment for me,” he says. “You look out over this sea of red. PNC will be absolutely full. And everybody is happy.”

“On December 31 of last year, we concluded our Think and Do the Extraordinary Campaign. By now, you must have heard the big number: $2.1 billion raised. Today, I want to give some more context for that number. First, only 12 other public universities in the United States have ever raised more than $2 billion. Second, of the 128,000 alumni and donors who gave to NC State from all around the globe, one quarter of them did so for the very first time. And third, we are now able to financially support 5,000 more students than we could before.”
—Randy Woodson, Fall Address, Oct. 21, 2022

Building a Future

NC State’s campus changed dramatically during Randy Woodson’s tenure. Some projects were brand-new buildings, like the Hunt Library, and others were much-needed renovations of iconic campus spaces.

Here’s a look at the new and the renewed.

Home Sweet Home

The Woodsons settled into life in Raleigh quickly, moving into the chancellor’s residence on Hillsborough Street. “I really felt at home when I first got here,” Susan Woodson says. “These are our people.”  A former graphic designer and an accomplished artist, she got involved in the art scene in Raleigh and helped found the Roundabout Art Collective. “It allowed me to find my own place,” she says. “I met so many people who weren’t connected to NC State. It’s given me a life.”

For his part, Randy Woodson immersed himself in his love of music when he wasn’t busy running the university and joined a bluegrass group. That skill was later put to use in an official setting when he and his guitar joined Scotty McCreery and later B.J. Barham (with the band American Aquarium) on stage at Packapalooza. Music and cooking helped him keep stress levels at bay. Woodson was often seen at Fresh Market in the Village District as he stopped by to get ingredients for the evening menu.

When the Woodsons moved in, planning was already underway for a new, larger chancellor’s residence on Centennial Campus. One of the first decisions the new chancellor had to make was how best to use the stately 1928 home on Hillsborough Street once the new residence was complete. He was shown a set of proposals that included an admissions office and an art museum. It was a no-brainer, Woodson says. “I learned that the Gregg Museum, which was housed in Talley and not very visible, had very little space. . . . And I had just met Phil Freelon, who was this amazing NC State architect.”

Susan Woodson spearheaded the campaign to raise money for the venture, and the Gregg Museum of Art & Design opened in 2017 with a new modern wing designed by Freelon, a 1975 graduate.

As the Woodsons walk through the building that was once their home, admiring the art and exhibits of the Gregg, they are quick to recount fond memories of their time there. Many involve their dogs. Their labradoodle, Mr. Beasley, would often escape and end up at the Players Retreat. “He would go over to the PR and beg French fries,” Randy Woodson says, “and Gus [Gusler] would call me and say, ‘Chancellor, your dog’s over here.’”

Susan Woodson recalls hosting an event shortly after they moved in when she was preparing to greet former Gov. Jim Hunt ’58 and his wife, Carolyn, at the door. Just then, their dog Georgia brought in a baby possum.

“I said, ‘Oh my God, it’s dead,’ ” she says. “I went to get a shovel to get it out of the doorway to get it out of the house. It wasn’t dead, and by the time I got there it had scooted out.” As the Hunts walked up the steps to the door, she saw the possum making its way across the yard behind them, dragging one leg.

After a big athletic win, students who gathered at the Belltower would sometimes walk next door and stand in front of the chancellor’s house. “Once our kids were visiting and we beat Duke in basketball,” Randy Woodson says. “Patrick came up to me and said, ‘Dad, there’s a student riot outside.’ I said, no they’re just excited that we beat Duke. I went up to a window and opened it up and gave them a little wave and they all left.”

“We have experienced so much together in my time as your Chancellor. From extraordinary growth in enrollment, growing demand for admission, dramatic improvements in retention and graduation rates to incredible discoveries and innovation in research to new facilities and a changing campus landscape and so much more. …We’ve grown the university’s endowment and we took on — and surpassed — the most ambitious fundraising campaign in our history. All of this helps to ensure our university will be in a strong position to continue our extraordinary service to the people of North Carolina.”
—Randy Woodson, Campus Address, July 18, 2024

What’s next? 

The Woodsons moved to The Point on Centennial Campus in 2011. The larger home made entertaining and holding events to welcome alumni much easier, Susan Woodson says. Occasionally alumni and visitors would mistake the house for the Park Alumni Center just down the road, and families sometimes showed up for a Christmas photo in front of the house. “Once there was a group out there, and I came out in my chef’s apron,” the chancellor says, “and got in the picture.”

As they prepare to leave NC State, the Woodsons are looking forward to spending time in their retirement home not far from campus, where Randy Woodson has already established a garden. “This is our home,” Randy Woodson says. “Our kids live here, and we have established a life here.” But he added, “I promise you this — I am not going to get in the way of the next chancellor.” As for other pursuits, he demurred. “I’ve got my guitars,” he says.

Susan Woodson will continue creating art, which can be found at the Five Points Gallery in Durham. And just as her husband left a physical legacy on campus, Susan Woodson’s presence is felt as well. She pushed for a public art project on Centennial Campus that could be a destination and a gathering place. That project, “Reds and Whites,” by renowned sculptor Larry Bell, was dedicated in May and the plaza named in honor of Susan Woodson.

Randy Woodson was asked in the spring 2010 issue of NC State magazine what attracted him to NC State. He answered that the university had a clear understanding of its mission and a passion for connecting that mission to the people of North Carolina and the nation. “When I thought about moving,” Woodson said, “I wanted to have enough time in a job, if I’m successful, to have an impact.”

We say goodbye, Chancellor, and in our estimation, time well spent.

On the Web: transformation.ncsu.edu