Keynote speaker Vartan Gregorian, president of the Carnegie Corporation of New York, called the library “a Laboratory of human endeavor, a window to the future.” He said the library embodies the spirit of the Morrill Act, the legislation signed 150 years ago that created land-grant universities such as NC State. Gregorian, the former president of Brown University, praised the vision of Gov. Hunt and his support of education. “I salute you. Today is your day,” he said to Hunt, who sat on the front row with his family.

Chancellor Randy Woodson said the library on Centennial Campus is nothing like the libraries of the past. To those who haven’t been through its spaces, he said, “you’re in for a surprise.’’ Woodson added, “Today’s students need to interact across disciplines in creative ways….We created space for that to happen.’’

The library uses an automated bookBot retrieval system that allows storage of over a million volumes while freeing up more space for study areas. The group study rooms are each equipped with large-screen display monitors, and walls made of whiteboard are ready for students to write down equations and notes. A Teaching and Visualization Lab and Creativity Studio offers opportunities for simulation that can enhance teaching. And patrons can use technology such as 3-D printing. At the conclusion of the dedication, Woodson presented Gregorian with a 3-D printed version of the Hunt Library.

Andy Walsh addresses the audience at the dedication of the James B. Hunt Jr. Library.

Andy Walsh, student body president, spoke of the buzz among students about the building— saying it was a constant presence on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. He noted that more than 1,700 images of the library are online through the #myhuntlibrary campaign to collect photos of the library.

You can read more about the library in the upcoming issue of NC State magazine, a benefit of membership in the Alumni Association.

How does a childhood musician from Huntersville, N.C., end up a promising young graphic designer in Portland, Ore.? Support, curiosity and “the right tools,” says NC State alum Kirsten Southwell of her recent accolades.

Since graduating in 2012 with a degree in graphic design, Southwell has won the esteemed Adobe Design Achievement Award and a 2013 Interaction Award – both for Rehearsal, an app for practicing musicians she developed as her senior capstone project at NC State.

“The thing that’s really interesting about this project for me is that I didn’t start with the intent of creating an app; I started with the intent of discovering something,” Southwell says. A pianist since sixth grade, Southwell began to notice specific problems she encountered while practicing – problems that left her wondering, “How can design enhance the musician’s experience?”

Upon completing her research, Southwell shot an informational video to highlight the Rehearsal app’s unique features. The clip demonstrates Rehearsal’s heightened user interactivity, such as a “mimic mode” – which plays measures of a song and asks the musician to play it back – and a scoring system that compares to sheet music what the user last played. With two separate portals for visual and audial learners, Rehearsal allows musicians to record live sessions on the app, compare and mix tracks and complete practice exercises in musical theory.

Southwell laughs as she remembers the process of filming her video for Rehearsal. “It’s kind of a funny story, because I’m not an experienced filmmaker or photographer,” she says. “One of my former bosses put me through studio video and photography boot camp. Finally came in handy!”

NC State professor Amber Howard was a constant source of encouragement and inspiration for Southwell. “Amber has been a mentor for me since my junior year. She’s a professor who doesn’t restrict herself to the confines of the classroom,” says Southwell. “She really pushed me to apply for the Adobe awards.”

Southwell says she’s still in shock from her success. “The caliber of work submitted for the Adobe awards was really great,” she says. “I was competing against professional projects, so I didn’t expect to win at all.”

A perk of Southwell’s Interaction Award was traveling at the end of January to Toronto, Canada, for the organization’s annual awards ceremony. Sponsored by GE, the ceremony brings together award winners from around the world. “Being there was awesome,” she says. “Every person I met, I’d either learned or read about. There was so much influence in one room.”

Southwell was hired in August, 2012, by Second Story Interactive Studios – a company specializing in interactive digital storytelling for a variety of brands and industries. With a versatile team of artists, designers, engineers, systems developers and producers, Second Story researches and implements new ways for audiences to interact with their digital environments.

Interning with Second Story less than two years ago, Southwell now works as a junior user experience designer on projects such as mobile and tablet apps similar to her Rehearsal application. “Being in Portland at a studio where I’ve already built relationships,” she says, “has brought a lot of stability to the tough transition from student to college graduate.”

Southwell says her internship with Second Story “changed everything.” It’s exciting, she says, to be back with the same company that taught her the skills she’d later need for the award-winning Rehearsal app.

“It’s all been so surreal,” she says.

– Lindsay Williams

We recently talked with Wolfpack track and cross country legend Julie Shea Sutton, who’s also a member of the NC State Athletic Hall of Fame’s inaugural class, for a story in the special winter issue of NC State magazine, which should be arriving in mailboxes later this week. But there wasn’t room in the magazine for our complete interview, so here are more of Shea Sutton’s answers to our questions about running and her time at NC State:

Life as a student in the College of Design: I enjoyed the design school, but I had absolutely no personal or social time. My life was totally studies.

A shocking class at NC State: I remember taking a life drawing class in summer school, not realizing that life drawing was nude drawing. I came in with all my supplies and stuff, and I had missed the whole first week of summer school because I had to run in Japan. I came back, and there was this male model, nude male, up on this platform. I thought it was going to be still life, you know, drawing plants and stuff, maybe a cow or two, and there’s this guy—this kind of Atlas, really well-muscled guy—and I drop my sketch pad and pencils. I’m hyperventilating. I’m drawing everything but, you know, the private parts. The teacher is like, ‘This is life drawing. Get over it. Grow up.’

Meals in the cafeteria: I used to actually eat with the football players, because I could match them bite for bite. I would burn calories. I’d get plate after plate and several glasses of milk in a sitting. They were like, ‘Damn, girl.’

Her weekly running regimen while at NC State: I would run hundred-mile weeks for multiple weeks.

Overcoming adversity: My junior year I had arthroscopic surgery on both knees after I barely got through the cross country season. I was really hurting. Somebody gave me this key to the Coliseum (after the surgery). I could use the Cybex machine, which is for resistance training. And I worked and worked and worked on that. I saw the football players come and go, and I was in my little corner on the Cybex, doing intervals with that machine, and it built my quads up. So I was getting really fit.

Winning the 3,000, 5,000 and 10,000-meter races within 24 hours at the NCAA nationals after the surgery: I was pretty happy, and no one has ever done that since, so that probably was my best running feat ever. Now the races are spread out, but they still haven’t done it. I mean, it was insane.

Being recognized for her accomplishments: The ACC Award (as athlete of the year, in 1980 and 1981) was huge. Probably bigger was the Broderick Cup for being the outstanding woman athlete in all the United States, and going to New York City and going on The Today Show and meeting Bryant Gumbel.

Her favorite running spot when she was a student: Lake Raleigh. It was a wonderful loop. That was one of my favorite tromping grounds. It’s all gone and developed now.

Her running hero: My childhood running hero was Wilma Rudolph. I met her and she was lovely and just very nice and composed. She overcame a lot of adversity to win her gold meals. I thought she was a strong, beautiful woman.

On the use of performance enhancing drugs by runners: That is just plain cheating. I think that’s like a capital crime. It really is, and I think they ought to be prosecuted like criminals.

The honorees at the 9th Annual NC State Evening of Stars are:

COLLEGE DISTINGUISHED AWARD RECIPIENTS

Tommy Bunn ‘66, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences: Bunn, president of the U.S. Tobacco Cooperative, has spent more than 45 years in the tobacco industry. He got his start growing tobacco on his family farm, then went on to work for 21 years as executive vice president of the Leaf Tobacco Exporters Association and the Tobacco Association of the United States. He also worked in the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the N.C. Department of Agriculture, and was a charter member and chairman of the Golden Leaf Foundation Board of Directors.

Charlie Stuber ‘65 PhD, College of Agriculture and Life Sciences: For more than 35 years, Stuber held a joint appointment as a genetics professor at NC State and a research geneticist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service. Stuber then came out of retirement to return to NC State in 2006 to develop and direct the Center for Plant Breeding and Applied Plant Genomics. The USDA Agricultural Research Service named him the Outstanding Scientist of the Year in 1989 and inducted Stuber into their Science Hall of Fame in 1989.

Steven Schuster ‘73, College of Design: Schuster is the founding principal of Clearscapes, a full-service architectural design firm in Raleigh. Under Schuster’s leadership, Clearscapes has been recognized with more than 75 design awards and worked on such notable projects as the Marbles Kids Museum in Raleigh, the Haw River Ball Room, the Raleigh Convention Center and the Contemporary Art Museum. Schuster is also a national leader in the historic preservation community. He serves on the Board of Visitors at NC State.

Robert Bridges ‘70 MED, College of Education: Bridges taught sixth grade and then high school in Wake County before becoming principal at Crosby-Garfield Elementary School. He then went on to work in Wake County’s central office as a director, assistant superintendent and deputy superintendent before becoming the superintendent in 1984. After five years leading the state’s second largest public school system, Bridges went on to become provost at St. Augustine College in Raleigh, and then worked as an education and management consultant and chaired the N.C. Advisory Commission on Raising Achievement and Closing Gaps.

Stephen Angel, ‘77, College of Engineering: Angel is chair, president and CEO of Praxair, Inc., a Fortune 300 company that ranks as the largest industrial gases producer and distributor in North and South America, with sales of $11 billion in 2011. Before joining Praxair, Angel spent more than two decades at GE, most recently as general manager of the company’s $2 billion power equipment business. He serves on the board of directors of the U.S.-China Business Council and PPG Industries, and is a member of the Business Roundtable, the Business Council and the U.S.-Brazil Forum.

Jimmy Clark ‘74, College of Engineering: Clark is the owner and president of Guy M. Turner, Inc., a diversified company that is a leader in the handling and moving of the heaviest equipment in the fields of rigging, machine tool installation, crane services and specialized transportation. The company has 12 offices in the United States and Canada. Clark serves on the NC State Board of Trustees, as well as on the board of directors for the NC State Alumni Association and the Engineering Foundation. He previously chaired the NC State Board of Visitors.

John Edmond ‘87, College of Engineering: While earning his PhD in material sciences and engineering, Edmond teamed with other graduate students and young faculty on some promising silicon carbide research. Upon graduation, the group co-founded what became CREE Inc., one of the world’s top LED manufacturers. Today, Edmond is director of advanced optoelectronics for the Durham-based company, which makes energy-efficient LED lights, lighting components and semiconductor products.

Susan Warren Rabon ‘82, College of Humanities and Social Sciences: Rabon is a member of the N.C. Utilities Commission, which regulates the rates and services of all of the state’s public utilities. Rabon, who received her law degree from the University of Virginia, has also worked as a clerk in the N.C. Court of Appeals, as special counsel and then chief of staff for the N.C. Department of Justice, and senior assistant for administration in the office of the governor. She has previously served on the NC State Board of Visitors.

Kevin Beasley ‘79, Poole College of Management: Beasley, a CPA, is a partner-in-charge of tax practice at the Raleigh office of Grant Thornton, one of the Big Six international accounting firms. He previously worked at Arthur Anderson, where he rose to the position of partner and earned a spot in the inaugural class of the NC State Accounting Hall of Fame.

Ray Tanner ‘80, College of Natural Resources: Tanner, a former All-ACC baseball player at NC State, was named athletics director for the University of South Carolina last year after spending 25 years as a collegiate head baseball coach, including nine years as the head coach at NC State. Under Tanner’s direction, the baseball team at South Carolina won two NCAA Division I Baseball Championships and made six appearances in the College World Series. Tanner has been named National Coach of the Year three times.

Sung Won Lee, ‘60 MS, ‘67 PhD, College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences: After earning his graduate degrees at NC State, Lee returned to his native South Korea to lead the S-Oil Corporation to success as the third largest oil refinery in Korea. He also served as chairman of two South Korean chemical companies. But his passion is downhill skiing, and his family built Korea’s oldest and largest ski and snowboard resort, which will host alpine skiing events for the 2018 Winter Olympics and 2018 Winter Paralympics. Lee is founder and president of the Asian Ski Federation, former vice president of the Olympic Council of Asia and honorary president of the Korean Ski Association.

Michael Fralix ‘00 PhD, College of Textiles: Fralix is the president and CEO of [TC]², a company that develops next generation supply chain technologies such as 3-D body scanners used in product development for apparel and equipment, made-to-measure clothing, clothing size and style recommendations and body shape analysis.

Dr. Laura Rush ‘97 DVM, College of Veterinary Medicine: Rush began her career as a registered nurse, specializing in the care of cancer patients, before going to vet school. Following graduation, she joined the faculty at The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine and headed a laboratory funded by the National Institute of Health that focused on cancer research in dogs and humans. Rush now works as vice president and associate medical director for GSW Worldwide, a healthcare marketing firm where she helps develop marketing strategies for healthcare companies.

WOLFPACK CLUB AWARD

Nora Lynn Finch, Ronnie Shavlik Award: Finch was a pioneer for collegiate women’s athletics, serving as the ACC’s first female assistant athletics director and negotiated the first women’s basketball tournament television contract with CBS. At NC State, Finch served as head volleyball and softball coach, associate head coach for women’s basketball, and assistant, associate and senior associate athletics director. She is currently the ACC’s associate commissioner for women’s basketball operations and senior women’s administrator. She has been inducted into the National Women’s Sports Hall of Fame.

ALUMNI ASSOCIATION AWARDS

Ryan DeJong ‘05, Outstanding Young Alumnus: DeJong, chief operating officer of FIRM Consulting Group, has led the Tampa NC State Alumni Network since 2007. As network leader, DeJong has aggressively promoted his alma mater and the Alumni Association. He recruits and manages volunteers to staff local college fairs and plans many types of group activities for his fellow Tampa Wolfpackers.

Sherice Nivens ‘98, Outstanding Young Alumnus: Nivens, cardiac sales manager for Intuitive Surgical, is a member of the PAMS Alumni and Friends Advisory Board and a founding member of the Dean’s Circle. She served as the keynote speaker for the 2009 Department of Chemistry graduation ceremony and the 2010 Society of African American Physical and Mathematical Scientists annual banquet.

Bill Collins ‘54, ‘61 MS, Meritorious Service Award: Collins, a world renowned expert in tobacco field production, was a Philip Morris Professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences for 28 years. Since retiring in 2005, Collins joined the CALS Office of College Advancement as senior director of development. He is a former member of the board of directors of the Alumni Association.

Judi Grainger ‘72 MS, Meritorious Service Award: Grainger served as president of the Alumni Association board of directors in 2011 and served for a total of 14 years on the board. She also serves on the NC State Board of Visitors, the College of Education Advisory Board and the board of directors of The State Club.

But as the library’s collection grew — to 10,000 books by the 1920s — college officials and the Alumni Association told state lawmakers that the college needed its own library building. They argued that the existing facilities were “literally a disgrace to an institution of our proportions,” according to North Carolina State University: A Narrative History, by Alice Elizabeth Reagan.

The appeal was successful, with the General Assembly appropriating funds for a new library building. And, on this day in 1923, a contract for the construction of that building was awarded to Joe W. Stout & Company, according to an account in Historical State, an online archive maintained by NCSU Libraries. The cost of the building was to be $227,500.

The new library building, finished in 1926, was later named Brooks Hall in honor of former NC State president Eugene Clyde Brooks. Brooks Hall now houses the College of Design.

Brooks Hall in 1936 photo (Courtesy of Historical State)

David Evans with two women from Sandrandahy. Photo courtesy of David Evans.

Photographer and documentarian David Evans says it’s often tough to make a subject feel natural and communicate effectively in an interview. Those subjects aren’t used to seeing a camera follow them around in their everyday lives. So he had a rather ingenious idea for his latest project.

Evans, who graduated from NC State in 1984 with a design degree, was back in the United States two years ago preparing for a trip to Sandrandahy, a village in the central highlands  of Madagascar, where he would spend a month shooting The Silkies of Madagascar. He was still a month away from touching down and filming, but he had a contact there in Natalie Mundy, a Peace Corps volunteer who was helping the village’s women understand and reach a sustainable global market with their silk weavings.

Mundy had warned Evans that the women were shy and could take a while to open up to him when he got there. So Evans had Mundy and her husband build a fake oversize camera out of a box and attach a broom to it, resembling a boom mic.  She spent the month asking them questions and getting the village’s women to reveal their emotions. “When I got there,” Evans says, “these women were like they were professionally media-trained.”

Natalie Mundy with Evans' makeshift "camera." Photo courtesy of David Evans.

That solution just came to Evans, whose experience working  for National Geographic, the Discovery Channel and the United Nations Foundation helped him think outside of — and with, in this case — the box. And the results not only paid off in creating effective relationships with the women of Sandrandahy, but it helped Evans produce a documentary that traces the changing economic and political landscape of the village.

The film’s trailer just won a prestigious CINE Golden Eagle award, which recognizes excellence in the film and television industry.

Sandrandahy is a village steeped in the tradition of silk weaving, Evans says. But there’s no market for silk in Madagascar because it’s so expensive. So Mundy showed the women that their woven scarves and hats had value outside of the country. She helped the women and their products reach the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market, a nonprofit in New Mexico. And the money that followed the women back to their village altered the course of the community for years to come.

“Men were responsible for bringing in the income,” Evans says of the village before Mundy’s arrival. “Women helped bring in rice from the field. The certainly weren’t involved in commerce and in community decision-making. But they are now.”

Photo courtesy of David Evans.

Now, the women provide the money to build houses and pay school fees for their children. They learned that they held the power to pave their own path.

That’s what Evans most likes about the stories he sees unfold in his work. “I get in the field and I hear the first story,” he says. “Or I see some exotic piece of art I want to buy. And someone sees that there’s some opportunity for them in the world. There’s a lot of emotional fulfillment.”

Evans is editing the longer movie, which he says will probably be finished by April and could premiere some time in the summer of 2013.

Come March 2013, the world of premium denim clothing will grow by one more brand. MeFiver – launched by alumni Carly Giammona ’04 and Veronica Tibbitts ’12 – will have all the qualities high-end shoppers look for when selecting premium denim, but with one important difference. It will be sustainably made.

“The standard process for making denim is one of the dirtiest processes in the textile industry. Indigo dyes – which color the material – naturally do not bond well to cotton fibers, so the process requires lots of water, chemicals and energy,” says Giammona. “We’ve created a proprietary process that uses reactive dyes instead of indigo.

“Beyond coloring, the process for distressing denim to give it character is extremely labor intensive and requires a series of washes, which causes considerable water waste and pollution,” she says. “We found a way to create those same vintage, distressed looks digitally using a fraction of the waste.”

Vaughn, Giammona, Tibbetts of MeFiver

MeFiver, says Tibbitts, has the ability to rejuvenate the American textile industry. The company has gained national attention by being recently named one of the top five most innovative start-ups in the world by Startup Open – a competition held as part of Global Entrepreneurship Week – and featured on CNBC.

“Sustainability is absolutely the future of the fashion industry. This is where we should be heading,” Tibbitts says. “It’s been hard for other longstanding companies to make the leap. They are deeply rooted in the processes they’ve used for so long. Going sustainable seems like too big of a change for them to make even though it needs to happen.”

Giammona began developing the process in 2009, while working for textile giant Cotton, Inc. With their blessing, she left to develop MeFiver, bringing on Tibbitts and University of South Carolina MBA graduate Alana Vaughn. The company officially launched in August, and the team has been hard at work developing five distinct collections to be available in stores come March.

The Archives collection will be for the traditionalist, while Anaglyphics – which will include 3D images on the denim – will be geared toward the more fashion-forward. The company will also offer an Executive collection that will include designs such as pinstripes and herringbone, ROYGBIV which highlights bold, beautiful colors, and a very unique Visual collection.

“The Visual line will truly highlight the digital technology we’re using. We’ll be able to inlay photorealistic prints on top of the jeans,” Giammona says. “This stuff has never been done before. Even our colored denim, a trend that is extremely popular right now, will be different from any other brand. Our dyes will allow us to develop colors that other companies can only dream of.”

The jeans, which will retail between $250-$350 per pair, will be sold at high-end clothing boutiques and eventually spread to other luxury retailers. MeFiver is setting up their office in downtown Durham, N.C., and the entire production process will take place within North Carolina. This commitment to local production recently earned them a $50,000 grant though NC IDEA, an organization dedicated to supporting business innovation and economic advancement in North Carolina.

“Working in the textile industry, I was very aware of how dirty clothing manufacturing processes can be, and that needs to change,” Giammona says. “I want shoppers to consider their choices ecologically and change the way they purchase their denim. I hope MeFiver can ignite a paradigm shift across the fashion industry. That’s my dream.”

— Caroline Barnhill ‘05

One boat, however, stood out: Nancy Childs ’87 and her family trimmed their sailboat with hundreds of LED lights to create a striking image of NC State’s mascot.

Photo courtesy Zach Frailey and The Uprooted Photographer

Childs, who graduated from the College of Design and is a graphic artist at Craven County Community College, says she and her family have participated in the flotilla before. But they never received as much reaction as they did at this year’s event on Dec. 1.

“It was great,” she says. “The kids were yelling ‘wolf’ and people on the shore would yell ‘pack.’” (Childs did allow, however, that the names of a couple of rival schools were shouted out as well.)

Childs says the Wolfpack-themed boat done was in part to honor her father, Robert James Miller ’56 of Raleigh.

Miller gave the sailboat, a 23-footer named “Sprite,” to his daughter after he could no longer use it, but the family is planning to sell it. Childs said her dad was pleased that the boat had placed first in its class, calling it “delightful.”

Miller received his undergraduate degree from the College of Natural Resources, later received master’s and doctorate degrees from Yale University, and became vice president of Radford College (now university) in Radford, Va.

Childs and her husband, Edward, joined by children Sarah Kate, John and Emily, spent about 28 hours mapping out the wolf’s head — complete with a red nose and “NCSU” spelled out on its sailor cap — using more than 2,000 LED lights meticulously attached to plastic mesh that was then hoisted onto the mast.

To see a gallery of other boats in the flotilla, go to: www.uprootedphotographer.com/

– Sylvia Adcock ‘81

Photo courtesy of the Cincinnati Bengals.

Last week against the Oakland Raiders, Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Manny Lawson made two big plays, one a sack and one a forced fumble. Given Lawson’s professional career, which stretches back to 2006, those types of plays have become routine for the veteran playmaker.

But the one thing that hasn’t changed is his enthusiasm for such plays.

“I enjoy them more so now that I’m invested in the league,” Lawson says when asked if  his big plays evoke the same joy as they did when he was in high school in Goldsboro, N.C., or when he made a name for himself at NC State from 2002-2005. “It shows me I still can do it, that I’ve still got it. Veterans know it’s not going to last forever.”

Now in his seventh year in the NFL, Lawson is one of the more seasoned former Wolfpackers in the league. He was a first-round draft choice by the San Francisco 49ers in 2006 and left the Bay area as a free agent in 2011 to play in Cincinnati. He says that a key to a player like himself carving out a long NFL career is adaptability. And Lawson has had to adapt his entire career, playing defensive end for the Wolfpack but being drafted to play a linebacker in a 3-4 scheme. And with the Bengals, he’s had to adapt again, moving into a 4-3 scheme that he says is more cerebral.

“You have to read,” Lawson says. “You have to look for your keys. You have to read the fullback. Playing this type of linebacker  is done more mentally and with more studying.”

Photo courtesy of NC State Athletics.

Talk to Lawson for any given amount of time and his emphasis on studying becomes apparent. He talks of how education was stressed to him early on in his family. He came to NC State to be an architect but instead studied industrial engineering. And he discusses how his future pursuits after pro football will take him back to studying.

“I actually plan on coming back to school and see if I have the passion for architecture,” Lawson says. “I like that I could create something, put something on paper. And that someone may like it.”

Photo courtesy of NCSU Creative Services.

Many students spend their college years counting down the days until their last exam, the final lecture they have to sit through and the last time they have to see their professors.

But during this year’s homecoming, which is more robust to celebrate NC State’s 125th anniversary, different colleges at NC State will offer alumni a chance to come back and experience the classroom one more time. But this time there will be no homework.

Classes without Quizzes, an event taking place Friday, Nov. 2, will allow alumni to return to their respective colleges and attend lectures highlighting current research by faculty. Alumni will also get to catch up with friends and enjoy refreshments as they hear about the work that illustrates NC State’s role as a leader in innovation and education .

“The Classes Without Quizzes concept provides a wonderful opportunity for families and alumni to reconnect with NC State by exploring the outstanding work of our students and faculty within the broader context of our 125th anniversary homecoming celebrations,” says Chancellor Randy Woodson. “These activities showcase NC State’s academic excellence and innovative research while developing the strong alumni relationships critical for broadening the audience of the NC State story.”

Some colleges, like the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, will offer a general lecture about a discipline. The college’s program, “Albert & Isaac’s Excellent Adventure,” promises to make physics applicable to anybody.

“Things will explode,” says Marla Gregg, PAMS director of alumni and donor relations. “It’s really geared for people of all ages. It makes physics and science experiments fun.”

Gregg hopes the classroom setting will allow alumni to remember their time at NC State.

“I think any excuse to get alumni to campus is awesome because it can be difficult for people to get back ,” she says. “When people come back, they get nostalgic and they get those memories. They remember just how important it is to remain close to the university.”

The College of Engineering will offer more a specialized approach. Brian Campbell, executive director of development and college relations at the NC State Engineering Foundation, says it was hard to choose one topic to encompass the college’s research. So the college zeroed in on the “great challenges” of our time: energy, security and health. Alumni can choose to attend any of those three simultaneous sessions.

In addition to generating feelings of nostalgia, Classes without Quizzes also gives NC State a chance to advertise the work happening on campus in 2012. “I feel that you have to say that ‘This is pretty cool,’ and that ‘My institution has evolved into this,’” Campbell says.

The College of Natural Resources will also hold an event where its ambassadors will discuss what it’s like to be a student in that college today. And the College of Design will host an event at the Contemporary Art Museum Raleigh where families will be asked to design a solution to a design problem. Contact the college for registration information.

And don’t worry. You won’t be tested on this material later.