GREENVILLE – It’s no secret that rural North Carolina lags the state’s urban areas in education, health and economic development. But East Carolina University Chancellor Cecil Staton aims to do something about it. In what he calls the signature initiative of his chancellorship so far, Staton has created an interdisciplinary Rural Prosperity Initiative to combine… READ MORE
Rural broadband can help close the “homework gap”
RALEIGH (May 29, 2018) – The NC Rural Center hears regularly from rural parents who park outside a local library or fast-food joint until 9 or 10 p.m. on weeknights – just so their children can get a WiFi signal and do their homework. “They’ve got a laptop…. They just don’t have that Internet,” declared… READ MORE
Hans: Community colleges ‘critical, essential’ to NC’s future
RALEIGH – The NC Community College System’s new president likes to use two words to describe community colleges’ role in North Carolina’s future: critical and essential. “When I think about North Carolina’s future, we know we’ve got to expand the number of North Carolinians with education beyond high school. Community colleges are critical to achieving… READ MORE
ECU Dentistry: Keeping your smile
GREENVILLE – In serving rural patients, Dr. Greg Chadwick sees the painful choices people without access to good dental care sometimes must make. East Carolina University’s School of Dental Medicine aims to supply more dentists to rural and underserved parts of the state. In the accompanying video, Dean Chadwick shares the case of a teenage… READ MORE
ECU: More dentists for rural NC
GREENVILLE – East Carolina University’s School of Dental Medicine is hailed as a national model for supplying much-needed dentists to rural communities, Chancellor Cecil Staton says. Open only since 2011,1 the dental school has opened eight regional centers in rural communities across the state – extending even as far as Sylva in far western North Carolina…. READ MORE
Farm Boy’s Journey: “I am the result of education”
PEMBROKE – “I am the result of education,” UNC Pembroke Chancellor Robin Gary Cummings says in the accompanying video. “And that’s why I’m so committed to the power and the potential and the promise of education.” Cummings, a member of the Lumbee Indian tribe, grew up on a small farm 3 miles from UNCP’s campus. … READ MORE
UNC Pembroke: An economic driver for Southeast NC
PEMBROKE – What makes the University of North Carolina at Pembroke a great university? Chancellor Robin Gary Cummings points to both its past and its future. In the accompanying video, Cummings notes how the school was first established in 1887 by seven Native American men who saw the promise of educating their children. “This was… READ MORE
UNC Pembroke and NC Promise: $500 a semester tuition
PEMBROKE – By reducing tuition to $500 a semester for in-state students at UNC Pembroke, Chancellor Robin Gary Cummings thinks state legislators are trying to abide by a promise in the state constitution. “NC Promise is a piece of legislation that I think represents the commitment of our legislators to make an education as free… READ MORE
ECU: Putting doctors into rural NC
GREENVILLE – ECU Chancellor Cecil Staton is proud that ECU’s Brody School of Medicine puts more primary-care doctors into rural and underserved areas than any other medical school in the state – and more than all but one other school in the nation. “If North Carolina didn’t have ECU, it’d be in a world of… READ MORE
ECU: ‘America’s next great national university’
GREENVILLE – In part because of the region East Carolina University serves, Chancellor Cecil Staton makes a bold claim. “We have been bold at ECU to say that we are America’s next great national university,” Staton says in the accompanying video. “We really want to become a national model in all the ways that we… READ MORE