RALEIGH (Sept. 30, 2021) – They’ve personally helped nearly 1,000 students – about 200 a year – attend NC State University.

NC State Chancellor Randy Woodson and his wife, Susan, started that ball rolling six years ago when they donated $1.15 million to launch a scholarship for the children of NC State employees – from professors to cafeteria workers – to attend State.

Woodson won acclaim for his leadership this week with news that he’s already donated a $1.5 million performance bonus he received from the UNC Board of Governors for meeting a variety of metrics.

NC State’s Board of Trustees designed the arrangement as part of a package to keep Woodson at NC State in 2015. The Board of Governors recently agreed to award the bonus and extend Woodson’s contract to 2025.

“I recognized that a lot of my success was driven by the people who are working so hard here every day,” Woodson said in an interview with Higher Ed Works. “I was going to make certain that I gave back to the university.

“I wanted the employees of the university to benefit as I did from our success. Many universities provide tuition discounts to the children of employees.”

Two of the Woodsons’ three children, in fact, benefited from employee tuition discounts when Woodson was an administrator at Purdue University. 

And UNC System officials have said for years that when they recruit faculty, it’s difficult to compete with generous tuition grants that Duke University, for example, provides for children of its employees.

So these days NC State touts the Employee Dependent’s Tuition Scholarship when it recruits faculty and staff. 

With help from other donors as well, the fund offers children of NC State employees $2,000 a year for a maximum of four years if they meet certain requirements and attend NC State.

That $2,000 amounts to more than 20% of roughly $9,000 a year in tuition and fees at State – a significant reduction for that cafeteria worker’s child.

Woodson stresses that the work isn’t done, though, if NC State wants to help employees’ children in perpetuity. Assuming a conservative 4% annual return, a $1 million fund would yield $40,000 – enough to support 20 students at $2,000 a year.

“I don’t want people to think we’re done…. We’re still raising money for this,” he said. “Susan and I did our part to get it started, and we’re happy to have people join us.”

And in case anyone doubts whether Woodson earned his bonus, the university says that since he arrived at NC State in 2010:

• Freshman applications have increased more than 65%.
• The university’s first-year retention rate has increased from 89.5% to 94.4%.
• The five-year graduation rate has increased from 67% to 82%.
• Research expenditures have increased 45%, and the most recent yearly research expenditures — $549 million — are the most in university history.
• NC State’s federal research expenditures saw a 65% increase in the past decade. 
• Donors and market gains have tripled the size of NC State’s endowment, generating funds for scholarships, fellowships, professorships and research.¹

And when it comes to philanthropy, the university’s leader has shown he walks the walk himself.

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¹ https://news.ncsu.edu/2021/09/board-of-governors-extends-woodsons-term-as-chancellor/.