Twenty-five Years of Poole: The Celebration Begins

The NC State Poole College of Management community marked the start of the college’s 25th anniversary celebration with a networking reception hosted by the NC State University Club on September 27, 2017.

More than 100 alumni, faculty, staff and friends of the college – including Mr. Wuf – participated in the early evening event. The celebration will continue through the fall semester, including the annual homecoming porch party during Red and White Week in early November.

Welcoming the college community was Kevin Fagan, a member of the first class of NC State students to graduate from the NC State College of Management, in December 1992. “I had my first three years in the College of Humanities, where business was taught at the time, and finished my last semester in the new College of Management which opened in Nelson Hall on September 1, 1992,” he said.

Annette L. Ranft, the college’s fourth dean and Stephen P. Zelnak Jr. chair, provided a few more details about the college’s beginnings, its achievements since it was established as a college, and its course for the future. She also

A few excerpts from Dean Ranft’s remarks

• As many of you will likely remember, for many years, NC State delivered classes in business, economics and accounting through the Department of Economics and Business within the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.
• By the mid-1980s, that department was graduating more NC State students than any other. So, it was no surprise that in 1990 an assessment committee was formed to study the feasibility of establishing a new college of management.
• It became clear through that assessment that NC State had the opportunity to create a new and different kind of college of management, one rooted in the university’s strengths in STEM and with a focus on technology and innovation. Our college, NC State’s 10th college, was approved by the University of North Carolina General Administration on June 12, 1992.
• This now is an incredibly exciting time for the Poole College of Management. We have come a long way since 1992, and we have much to celebrate.
• Twenty-five years ago, we started with fewer than 50 faculty members and 2,000 students across three academic departments. Today, we have more than 100 faculty members and nearly 4,000 students across five academic departments. And, our alumni now number more than 28,000 across the globe.
• Thanks to the generous support of all of you, including gifts from friends like Ben and Marianne Jenkins, Lonnie and Carol Johnson Poole, Steve and Judy Zelnak, Russ and Cara McLauchlan, Chip and Lyn Andrews, and many more, we’re now recognized as a distinctive, world-class college of management.
• As we celebrate our 25th anniversary as a college and look forward to the future, we continue to build on our foundation within a leading STEM university that excels at analytics and entrepreneurship.
• We can’t do this alone. From the beginning, we’ve teamed up with real-world industry and across academic disciplines to inform our research and engage our students. We have developed many strong partnerships with corporations large and small, across North Carolina as well as with leading institutions locally and globally.
• This truly is a special place and a phenomenal community of people, and I am honored to serve as your dean during this exciting time.

View videos, stories and images in our 25th Anniversary Digital Magazine 

Favorite Poole College Memories | Reception Participants

• “The Shack-a-Thon. I absolutely loved it! It was a way to bring together people from different degree programs in the college – finance, analytics, marketing, supply chain – to work toward a common goal to increase awareness about the impact that Habitat for Humanity has for those who need housing.” – Don Schillaci (B.S., ’12; MAC, ’13), audit manager, Dixon Hughes Goodman. His brother brother Steve received his MBA at Poole College.
• “The collaboration between students and their teachers. I got to know several professors very well, through committees, clubs; they shared a common goal with us.” – Alex Greene (’12), CFP, AAMS, AWMA, financial advisor at Stonegate Financial. Schillaci added: “They were not just teachers; they were like coaches, mentors.” 
• ”Connections I made in college. The more we invest, the better it is. When I graduated, no one knew the college was there (that was just after the college was established in September 1992). Now that it has a name, my resume looks better.” – Kevin Fagan (‘92), global sales executive, IBM Watson Health
• “Hands-on experiences in our practicum classes and encouragement to get internship.” – Valerie Correale (‘14), project manager, part-time HR operations support, Cisco
• “The career fair.” – Nicole Cox (‘14), IT business analyst, Cisco
• “Where really exciting teaching and research is taking place.” – Jon Carr, Jenkins Distinguished Professor of Entrepreneurship

This post was originally published in Poole College of Management News.