Lauren Siegel’s difficulty seeing affects her everyday life in some ways, but most jarring are the social implications. When’s the last time you were at a restaurant and the waiter asked your parents, “What does she want?” That still happens to Lauren, and she’s in her second year in college. Lauren shares stories of people stopping traffic to help…

The Whittenburg name carries weight, especially at NC State. Basketball legend Dereck Whittenburg led NC State to its second men’s basketball championship win, and as of recently, Nashia Whittenburg is director of NC State’s Multicultural Student Affairs. Just a few miles south, in Greenville, South Carolina, A.J. Whittenberg has an elementary scho…

Lisa LaBarbera-Mascote is a practitioner of feminist theory. She leads a community center at NC State that she says is a bit of a misnomer: the Women’s Center. What does the Center actually do? And why is it necessary in the first place? Lisa spoke with me about Roy Moore, Title IX, class privilege, and how conversations about interpersonal violenc…

Moses T. Alexander Greene has a proud history, background, and upbringing. He also has a lot to teach anybody who will listen—but particularly white people like me—just how directly the history of race impacts the history of all the things we hold dear, especially our university. Learn how NC State went from being exclusively for straight, white me…

In the final part of the three-part Chancellor Series, I spoke with Thomas Conway, the chancellor of Elizabeth City State University, an Historically Black University. Conway is retiring after over 40 years in the UNC System, 32 of which he spent at NC State. We discussed how Dr. Conway is feeling about retiring, how NC State launched him into a su…

Carolina came to NC State to learn English, and stayed to study forest biomaterials. She was lucky to surround herself with people who are understanding of when she sometimes experiences syncope (i.e. fainting), but not everybody she’s met in Colombia or the United States takes her condition seriously. She says it’s not uncommon for her to be laugh…

Sinthia Shabnam speaks in different venues around campus with messages of unity, and acts as a humanizing face of Islam. But, she wants you to know: she is not a representative for all of Islam, and she doesn’t fit the stereotypes put onto her. Hear what she has to say about anti-Islam sentiments, her one-year experience living in a community where…

Jeff Del Pinal is the program manager for NC State Ground Services, a part of the Facilities Division. He is responsible for keeping the grounds of NC State safe for students who are walking, biking, or lounging around campus. He does his job with safety and sustainability as top priorities. Jeff also has very early mornings, and that’s especially …

How do you explain to your dad that you’re gay when you’re afraid he might not accept it? When and where is it safe to discuss sexuality? What are the effects of five percent of Americans being invisible to the people around them? One of NC State’s most visible and active students discusses these questions, his own sexuality, and what it was like t…

What do vulnerability and emotional honesty have to do with dialogues about race? What cognitive effects take place that make those conversations difficult? A premier NC State psychologist answers these questions, along with some about her personal experience as a black woman pursuing a career in higher education.…

Identity pervades political discourse, but societal rifts make conversations about identity nearly impossible, which then deepens political divides. How do we move forward in such a deeply divided society?By Carter Pape

In this second part of the three-part Chancellor Series, I spoke with James Anderson, the president of Fayetteville State University, the second-oldest public institution in North Carolina. Anderson spent 11 years at NC State, and has also worked at Texas A&M and the University of Albany. We discussed legislative influence on higher education in No…

The Chancellor Series is a series of interviews with leaders in education from around North Carolina who started or built their career at NC State. Each of these individuals have now moved on to become chancellors or presidents of North Carolina colleges and universities, and are making big impacts at those institutions. In the first part of this t…

Monica Osburn is the Director of the NC State Counseling Center, which has struggled to grow its operations as the demand from students seeking help grows. Osburn talks about the growth challenges the center has faced, how it’s helping students who have survived sexual violence, and how it’s addressing the stigma of mental health on campus.…

Reggie Barnes oversees the Bias Incident Response Team (BIRT), which was launched earlier this year as a means of recording and responding to incidents of bias at NC State. Responding to incidents of bias introduces a central tension for NC State administrators who value the constitutional tenant of protecting free speech, as this speech may someti…

Tom Stafford didn’t know it at the time, but when he arrived on campus in the autumn of 1964, he was on track to become the head of the most underestimated division at NC State. This is the story of how DSA became DASA, transformed from an obscure piece of NC State’s bureaucracy to the epicenter for maximizing student success nearly 50 years later.…

Journalism Professor at New York University Jay Rosen came to Dabney Hall on Wednesday night to give a lecture on the campaign to discredit the mainstream press. He spoke about how this campaign is being carried out, its implications, and how journalists have responded and can continue to respond.By Carter Pape

In the first episode of The Praeci Podcast, we spoke with Robin Kelley, NC State’s deputy Title IX coordinator, about what Title IX is and how it came to protect survivors of sexual assault at American colleges and universities. Before the Obama administration, Title IX was a much different law, but Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education for President…