NC State Engineering
Spring 2010 Online Magazine

Thinking big

A strong relationship with the North Carolina General Assembly has kept the College moving.

Marc Basnight surveyed the landscape. Two gleaming engineering buildings stood behind him, and another, nearly finished, stood to his left. One of the state’s most influential political figures liked what he saw at the College’s new home on Centennial Campus.

“Society is enriched because of what is created here — the opportunity to do something that no one’s ever done for the betterment of mankind,” Basnight said a little later in a conference room overlooking the scene. “If you don’t think big, you’ll get caught up in the mainstream of mediocrity.”

Basnight, the president pro tempore of the state Senate, and other members of the North Carolina General Assembly have been key players in the College’s quest to become the top public engineering school in the country. Over the past decade, state legislators — with help from voters — have authorized funding for three new engineering buildings on NC State’s landmark Centennial Campus. Two are open, and the third will open its doors this summer.

That legislative support has helped propel the College to elite status among the nation’s engineering institutions. The College has the nation’s fourth-largest undergraduate engineering enrollment and produces 63 percent of all engineering degrees awarded by North Carolina colleges and universities. Its graduate program is ranked No. 1 in North Carolina and 18th nationally among public engineering schools, according to US News & World Report.

Now the College has turned its focus to engineering buildings IV and V, which will house industrial and systems engineering; engineering administration; civil, construction, and environmental engineering; and nuclear engineering. Legislators approved funding for designing the buildings, but the money has been held up as the state struggles with the fallout from the recent recession.

The economic troubles notwithstanding, Basnight believes it’s important that the College get the money for the new buildings. He told Dr. Louis Martin-Vega, dean of the College, that the facilities represent an investment in the state’s economic future.

“I don’t believe you back up in the design and the planning and the actual appropriating for IV and V,” Basnight said. “I believe it’s critical that we do it.”

Basnight, who represents constituents in eight counties on the state’s northeastern edge, has a history of political and legislative successes. He joined the Senate in 1984 and became its president pro tem in 1993. He has held that leadership post for a record eight terms, during that time creating the state’s Clean Water Management Trust Fund and helping pass $3.1 billion in bonds for state colleges and universities that provided funds for engineering buildings I and II.

He’s also been a strong supporter of the College and of the engineering profession. For Basnight, building a workforce of trained engineers is critical to the state’s long-term success. He often speaks with industry leaders from around the state who tell him they need more engineers, so he sees the value in a strong engineering college at the state’s largest public university.

“The ultimate goal,” Martin-Vega said, “is the creation of more economic opportunities.”

Basnight lives in Dare County, where Orville and Wilbur Wright made their historic flight in 1903. He wondered aloud what the Wright Brothers could have done with formal training, and what the state’s leaders can offer a child who wants to be the next Orville or Wilbur.

“Why shouldn’t we want to lead the world in the development of the way we live? And how we move people. How we communicate. How we provide food for the world.” Basnight said. “It is in places like this that this will occur.”