GREENSBORO – To Chancellor Harold L. Martin Sr., North Carolina A&T State University helps prepare an increasingly skilled workforce – in Greensboro, in the Piedmont Triad, in North Carolina and beyond.

“Business leaders, our legislators … are looking for institutions of higher education to come out of what’s called ‘the ivory tower,’” Martin says in the accompanying video, “and engage much more significantly with business leaders in solving community challenges and problems, helping to grow and create jobs, and enhance quality and competitiveness of jobs.

“It’s all around us,” Martin says. “We have great partnerships with the school districts in our region to produce more and better teachers, to provide opportunities for enhancing successes of the students in the various school districts to better prepare them for the world of work, as well as their readiness for college.”

N.C. A&T also partners with employers in the health sciences to train nurses and physical therapists, for example.

And as North Carolina competes to attract new economy employers like Apple and Amazon, Martin says, there is increased demand for computer scientists and other technologists.

“We play a critical role in that space,” he says.

“We produce lots of graduates, particularly in engineering – we are the largest producer of African-American engineers at the undergraduate level of any university in the nation. That makes our graduates, who are very well-prepared, in high demand.

“There are significantly larger numbers of demands for engineering graduates – we are underproducing in that space.  And as a consequence, it makes the demand for our graduates even more significant.”