Kevin Baxter (far right) in Morganton with the superintendents of NC region 7 after a presentation on the Morganton Campus project.
The planning process for the Morganton Campus of the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics (NCSSM) continues to generate activity throughout the region. In the last month, Chancellor Roberts joined other members of the planning team to deliver presentations in Durham, Hickory, and Morganton. The NCSSM Board of Trustees also received an update on the project at their March 17 meeting in Durham. Presentations related to the educational program vision and site selection planning process were delivered by Kevin Baxter, Director of Western Campus Planning at NCSSM; Darren Lathan, Senior Associate at Duda|Paine Architects; and Trip Stallings, Director of Policy Research at the Friday Institute.
“There is growing excitement on the Core Planning Team, the Board of Trustees, and in the western North Carolina region as the vision for the new campus and curriculum comes into sharper focus,” says Ellen Collett, member of the NCSSM Board of Trustees and the Western Campus Core Planning Team. “The recent meeting in Morganton reinforced our enthusiasm about what this expansion of the outstanding NCSSM program can mean, both to the school and to our state.”
The next stage of the information-gathering phase will include surveys that are being administered by the Friday Institute at NC State University. The surveys have been distributed to local K-12 educators, higher education representatives, governmental representatives, and regional interests in business, industry, and economic development. Members of the NCSSM community are invited to complete one of the following surveys:
Those with questions about the surveys or their purpose are asked to email Kevin Baxter at kevin.baxter@ncssm.edu.
In addition to the surveys being administered throughout the region, NCSSM has already solicited feedback from hundreds of interested stakeholders who have engaged in focus groups in Morganton, Hickory, and Durham. Feedback from the focus groups and surveys, together with research and site visits of other innovative STEM programs, will directly impact the Core Planning Team’s recommendations. The ultimate goal of this stage of the planning process is to inform the educational program vision and site selection that will be presented to the NCSSM Board of Trustees in September 2017.