August 2009 Podcast from UNCTV North Carolina Now
http://flash.unctv.org/ncpeople/ncp080809_H_Martin.html

Last June, Harold Martin returned to the campus of A&T State University in Greensboro as the 12th Chancellor. He was coming back home because he graduated there as an undergraduate, but in that interval of time he has served us as Chancellor of Winston Salem State and chief academic senior vice president to President Bowles.

William Friday: Harold, it is a real delight to see you again back here as a guest on our program. Thanks so much for joining us on North Carolina Now.

1. How did it feel walking back on campus as chancellor when not too many years ago you were a first year student?

It has been exciting. I have been well received. The energy that I have received from the students, faculty, and staff, alumni and community leaders has been overwhelming.

2. You had an interesting experience with President Bowles and gave your perception of NC. What do you see? What is happening here? The relationships with all of these institutions?

During that period of 3 years, it was quite interesting working with the Board of Governers. As we toured North Carolina, as part of the discussions related to the University of North Carolina Tomorrow Review, you heard from citizens who talked so significantly about importance of the University of North Carolina. You heard from citizens and business leaders who indicated that it is important to do more, to step beyond the Ivory Tower to meet the needs of the citizens of North Carolina in a more aggressive way. I took from those discussions and saw the need to shape an agenda that demonstates that we heard the citizens of North carolina. In particular in the piedmont triad where we are located.

3. Quantify the campus, how many students? What are the demographics?

We have approximately 10,400 students as of last year and we expect to be about 10,500-600 this coming year. The demographics of our students are 78% African American, 8% white, International 4% Native American 1%, Hispanic-Latino also about 1%. We need to continue to focus on increasing the diversity of our campus and build stronger relationships with our local school districts and our local community colleges. As we have spoken to our enrollment staff to begin reshaping our recruitment efforts and continue to do a better job of increasing diversity.

4. As a high school student, do I have the range of choice as I would have at any other campus?

We have a broad range of choices. We are a land grant institution with the sciences, business school, education programs, social sciences programs. We have an allied health program, nursing program. We have ag sciences, culturally related programs that meets the needs of students. In today's climate we have ag sciences, ag economics, environmental sciences that excites students today.

We have a great history of reaching into our population with our ag extension and research programs in working with small farmers throughout North Carolina. We have had great partnerships with the ag school at N.C. State. Our provost and Dean of Agriculture are interested in traveling throughout North Carolina and meeting with some of these farmers and landowners having a better understanding of what their needs are - so that we are doing a better job of responding. I think it is important to demonstrate that we are doing a better job of listening - so that we are doing a better job of targeting the resources of our faculty and staff.

5. A student might be asking - how am I going to finance this?

We have sought to control costs and not raise tuition and fees significantly over the years. We maintain tuition as low as practicable. There is a great policy as Erskine as president of the university and the board of governors has maintained that commitment to maintain a low tuition, low fees as reasonable and certainly we have been consistent with that on our campus

In addition, we provide a broad range of financial options for students ranging from scholarship support to federal loan programs, federal grants, state grant programs, work/study programs on our campus. We tailor those financial options to meet the needs of our students. A large percentage of our students are on financial aid and we try to direct those financial aid programs in a timely fashion to meet the needs of our students.

6. I have heard that a student can have an average debt of over $12,000. What is happening with you? Do your students have to carry a debt away from school?

Students do carry some debt. The average debt of our students is about $14,000.
What we are trying to do is a better job of advising our students --- when there is no need to secure additional loan funds. Students come to us today with a very different mindset than they did 10 to 20 years ago. In addition to tuition and fees, they want some additional qualities of life - things they have grown accustomed to in life on our campus. So we have to do a better job of advising and counseling our students. We have spoken recently about this as they come as new students, as freshmen, to the campus. Let's orient them, but also, let's educate their parents as well to the challenges of borrowing unnecessary funds that are not critical to meeting the students actual costs of attending the institution.

7. You are well know as an administrator who goes out and gets to know your students.

I am impressed with our young people today - our students - and our young people in the community in general. I have not lost confidence in our young people at all. I think they need our help today. Our guidance, counseling, and mentoring. As chancellor, I think it is important for me to set the example. For best ways to engage our students and meeting them on their terms. I try to regularly eat with them in the residence hall so that I can listen to them one on one. They have to talk about how bad the food is and I get a chance to taste that food and I don't find it by any means as they find it. Spending time visiting with them in the residence halls. Walking across our campus. From meeting to meeting as opposed to driving so that I get a chance to be out amongst our students talking with them and engaging them.

More importantly, adding a bit of tough love in my conversations with them. Challenging them to do well. To have high aspirations. To remained focused on their educational priorities. But, I also want to encourage senior administrators to do similarly as well. That is why we are on our campus. We also want to continue to reach beyond the boundaries of our campus as part of our engagement with the community.

8. How difficult is it for you to maintain a competitive faculty and staff?

We have an exceptional faculty. I have had quite a number of conversations with them and I think that our faculty and staff are among the greatest assets for the instituiton. We need to do more to ensure that we are maintaining competitive compensation - that we are providing the resources, the technology, the library resources, the space, the research opportunities to support their continued development so that they are able to continue to do their job and do their best work as well. I want to make sure that we are understanding what these needs are. If we are going to be the competitive institution that I think we can be and will be, we must be continuing to make the investments in our faculty and in our staff. I am excited about what I have found since my arrival on June 8th and I think the early conversations have been very good ones. The expectations that I am hearing from our faculty - where they would love to see the institution - the kinds of discussions that they want to continue to have are very exciting and stimulating.

9. Being a land grant institution, you are part of a community nation-wide that has to put research into this equation somewhere somehow and to a very substantial degree. Still Strong?

We continue to do very well in securing federal and state funding for our institution. We are the third among the 16 campuses with research funding. Now, clearly we need to understand how we contiunue to plan strategically and deploy our resourses and strategically assess our progress toward being even more competitive so that we are not only being good stewards of this investment, but also be in a better position to meet the needs or our students today and for the future - and that we are doing a better job of understanding the needs of businesses in our region and that we are doing a better job of reaching out and helping those businesses do even a better job of expanding their resources and being more competive in the markets they are competing in as well. We have some work to do in that regard. We are great partners with UNCG and in our early discussions with Chancellor Brady at UNCG we have reaffirmed our commitment to build on the collaborations we have in place and explore even more opportunities.

10. You sit in one of the more concentrated areas in N.C. when it comes to higher education. How often do you sit down together?

We have a structured meeting that includes business leaders, chancellors, presidents of each of the institutions in our city that meets on a monthly basis which gives us an opportunity to regularly engage.

11. How closely do you engage secondary education institutions?

We have a number of initiatives in place that enhances our relationship with the Guilford County School system. Our School of Education coordinates a great relationship with the school system so that we understand and are producing more teachers that are a critical need to the Guilford County School system where the greatest number of our graduates assume employment opportunities. We also coordinate opportunities for our faculty and staff to build opportunities with partnership schools. We engage leadership with those middle schools and high schools with students who go out and mentor and tutor students who need assistance. We have extensive summer programs where we bring elementary and middle school kids onto our campus every summer. This includes thousands of young people who live in our residence halls or some of the day camps that host these young people. It gives them exposure to a college campus and students. They get highly motivated to think about the possibilities that are going on in the college themselves.