Although student enrollment figures will not be final until September, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University projects a total of over 13,00 students, pushing it to its eighth consecutive year as America’s largest historically Black campus. The incoming class also promises to have the highest average GPA and SAT scores of any A&T entering class, the university said.

“With the university having just closed the 2021 fiscal year with records in fundraising ($93.8 million) and research contracts and grants ($78.2 million), North Carolina A&T is poised for perhaps the most impactful year in its 130-year history,” Chancellor Harold L. Martin Sr. said at a press conference to launch the fall term.

“As a land-grant university, a doctoral research institution, and a nationally recognized HBCU, A&T is moving into a new space in its three-part identity, one that holds great promise for our students, the communities we serve, and the state of North Carolina,” said Martin. “We are creating a bold new idea of what a 21st-century HBCU can be,” said Martin.

The Harold L. Martin Sr. Engineering Research and Innovation Complex, named for Martin, who is the first alumnus in the history of North Carolina A&T to hold the position of chancellor, is scheduled to open in September.

“The Harold L. Martin, Sr. Engineering Research and Innovation Complex —nicknamed the Martin Engineering Complex — is designed to be a world-class facility that encourages cutting edge research, collaboration, and learning,” Dr. Robin Coger told US Black Engineer magazine earlier this year. Coger is dean and professor in the College of Engineering.

Coger, who chairs the Council of Engineering Deans at Historically Black Colleges and Universities, also said that the Martin Engineering Research and Innovation Complex at North Carolina A&T would enable the university to advance corporate and federal agency partnerships.

“The building has research laboratories, multiple locations for discussions and presentations; and even the hallways and seating areas are structured to encourage the students, faculty, and staff to exchange ideas and innovate,” she said.

The Martin Engineering Complex also contains a new student maker space and areas that have been sponsored by corporate and alumni partners. The complex was also designed to accommodate an enclosed area that is used to process sensitive compartmented information types of classified information.