FAYETTEVILLE – Fayetteville State University is stepping it up.
“We’ve been able to wed our great historical legacy and our tradition and our founding values with what we know we need to do for the 21st century to be competitive, to have high-quality programs,” Chancellor James A. Anderson says in the accompanying video.
Five years ago, Anderson asked the entire campus to read The Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary. Then he challenged groups on campus to do just that.
“We are a great university because we set a standard of excellence and really move towards that standard,” Anderson says.
That includes introducing greater rigor for both students and faculty and learning from the university’s competitors. Like other institutions in the UNC System, FSU has increased its emphasis on research – and for the first time, its researchers are obtaining patents.
Anderson points with pride to a thermoelectric patch that uses body heat to charge mobile phones and tablets that was developed by FSU researcher Daryush Ila.
“The heat from your hand will charge the phone –you’ll never need a cord again. Harvard doesn’t have that. Stanford doesn’t have that. Chapel Hill doesn’t have that. We have that patent.
“So (we’re) really getting us to think way beyond what our traditional mission and vision were to one that’s more challenging in the 21st century. All of that has made us great,” Anderson says. “Of course, at the end of the day, it’s your students who are really the best test case of how well you’ve done.”
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