While driving through Greensboro, North Carolina, there is something quietly amazing about seeing a 600-acre college campus that most people outside of the South have never heard of. While North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University doesn’t make a lot of noise or try to get people’s attention, it turns out engineers, scientists, and agricultural leaders at a rate that, well, should make a lot more people stop and take notice.
North Carolina A&T began in 1891 as the Agricultural and Mechanical College for the Colored Race. It had four teachers and 37 students. It started because of the Second Morrill Act of 1890, which told states they had to either let Black students into their existing land-grant colleges or make new schools just for them. As expected, North Carolina chose to split up. The state didn’t see that separate institution turning into what it did in the end.
As of today, North Carolina A&T is the largest historically black college or university in the United States. This is a title it has held since 2014. The university is not a small regional footnote; it has more than 15,000 students and is a serious academic institution. It is a doctoral university with a lot of research activity and ranks third in the University of North Carolina System for sponsored funding. Researchers at A&T had made $350 million over three years across 21 research centers as of the end of the last fiscal year. You should read that number again.
The story about the engineer might be the most interesting. The college of engineering at this university turns out more Black engineers than any other in the country. Every year. It’s not a new trend or a made-up headline for a press release; data from the U.S. Department of Education has shown it over and over again. What that number really means is very important, especially since engineering is still one of the most racially homogeneous jobs in the U.S. It doesn’t feel much like a mission statement to A&T as it does like a result of what they’ve done.
But the campus has a history that goes far beyond its academic standing. This happened on February 1, 1960, at an all-white lunch counter in downtown Greensboro. The four men were freshmen at A&T: Ezell Blair, Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, and David Richmond. They asked for help. They were turned down. They stayed. The next step was the Greensboro sit-ins, which were one of the most important events in the history of the American civil rights movement. It’s hard to be on that campus without being affected by what those four young men did.
That spirit has become part of the university’s academic identity. More African American agriculture graduates come from its College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences than from any other school in the country. A&T is one of the top ten schools in the country for graduating Black students in 24 different fields, including bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees. These are not goals to strive for. These are the current results.
The campus has a working farm on 582-acres and two research parks that cover a total of 150 acres. There is also a network of about 75,000 Aggie alumni in places like congressional offices in California and farms in North Carolina. Students at the university take part in national hackathons, design self-driving cars, and write business cases that are as strong as those of programs with a lot more money and time.
Still up in the air is whether or not North Carolina A&T will eventually get the national attention it seems to deserve. It’s hard not to think that Greensboro has been quietly ahead of the rest of us for a long time when you see how this university has grown from 37 students in 1891 to a $350 million research enterprise today.
