Changes in Service Environment

The financial situation remains challenging. The ongoing cuts in state funding, the decrease in foundation support due to the serious drop in equity value, and financial pressures on some of our industry supporters force us to continue to seek and develop every opportunity to operate more efficiently. In many areas we see positive change. The textile industry is showing signs of new strength in several sectors. Our short courses and in-plant courses have grown significantly this year. We continue to attract new members to the Nonwovens Cooperative Research Center (NCRC). With our new alliance with the Institute of Textile Technology (ITT), we have significantly increased our industry support. Our placement of graduates remains exceptionally strong. Consolidations and mergers in the industry are creating larger companies with renewed interests in research and new product development. We are working with more companies in more ways than ever before.

The industry continues to expand into new, nontraditional areas. Our primary challenge is to move quickly enough to be the leader in these areas, thereby attracting the necessary funding, building the facilities, and positioning our faculty for these emerging opportunities. In the past year, we continued to solidify our leadership position in nonwovens research. We developed and launched a concentration in medical textiles, partnering closely with the new Biomedical Engineering Department, and added other lab facilities and faculty to support the “new world of textiles.” We hired four outstanding faculty members to support our work in several of these new areas.

Compact Plan: Major Initiatives from Our Compact

The College of Textiles made significant progress during the year on Compact Plan initiatives. The Nonwovens Partners Lab became operational and continues to attract new members, new funding, and new equipment. We continue to grow our Anni Albers Scholars dual-degree program with the College of Design. The challenge now is to find adequate space for studios and other needed facilities.

We successfully relaunched our High School Teachers Summer Research Workshop for chemistry and physics teachers. In the past three years, it has grown from 17 to 43 to 63 teachers. Our Summer Textiles Exploration Program for rising high school seniors continues to grow in popularity. Many of these students later apply and enroll in the College of Textiles. We had a record number of applications (181) for the program this year (112 were accepted to attend one of the four weekly sessions).

The Centennial Scholars Program is the cornerstone of our scholarship opportunities, with twelve students selected to receive support (two are also Park Scholars). We continue to expand international opportunities for our students with new agreements with Hong Kong Polytechnic and SENAI Cetiq in Brazil, and we are now official members of the European Association of Universities of Textile Engineering (AUTEX). We have made considerable progress on our distance education goals. We have redesigned our academic program, renamed TOP (Textiles Off-campus Programs), with a new look and new offerings, including CD-based instruction. Fifty-three students are enrolled. Two students finished Master of Textiles degrees through TOP; four are currently enrolled in the masters program. Nineteen classes were recorded live and 26 ran using prerecorded tapes.

Our Textile Engineering, Chemistry and Science (TECS) Department has revamped the textile chemistry program with a new focus on polymer and color chemistry. The department added four new faculty members to support its new directions in color science, polymer science, and textile engineering, and added new lab facilities in support of our growing work in medical textiles and nanosciences.

One of our major internal initiatives was to increase visibility of the college through public relations and improved communications. This past year we had 78 articles placed in university, local, state, national, and international publications, including The New York Times, National Geographic, Chicago Sun Times, the Montreal Gazette, Chemical Engineering News, Textile World, Southern Textile News, and the Financial Times of London. We were also featured on six television spots, including CNN. We created a new undergraduate brochure, a new tradeshow booth, and a flash video, and supported the university's public relations efforts with ads in North Carolina Business, NC State alumni magazine, the Achieve website, and NCNN radio. We have improved internal communications through the creation of 10 collaborative initiatives that allow anyone involved in a particular area of textiles to share ideas, research, and technical reports through a Web-based virtual center. We have received initial funding to extend this effort to the eight universities in the National Textile Center (NTC) and will be adding the research interests of our new partner ITT in the next few months.

Diversity: Initiatives and Progress

The College of Textiles continues to be a leader in diversity. This year, we appointed Terry Brasier as the new Coordinator of Diversity for the college. We reestablished the African American Textile Society, with plans to restart the Latin American Textile Society in the fall semester. In the next few months, we shall add an Assistant Coordinator of Diversity, who will focus on the recruitment and retention of minority students. Of our four new-faculty hires, one is female, one is Hispanic, and two are international. Our incoming freshman class of 171 students (our largest since 1998) will have 20 African American students, five Hispanics, and three Native Americans.

Instructional Program Advances

The College Course and Curriculum Committee approved the courses for the new medical textiles concentration, which features three tracks: medical textiles, biomedical textiles, and textiles healthcare management. The concentration is open to majors in textile technology, textile chemistry, textile engineering, and textile and apparel management. Dr. Martin King will teach the first course this fall.

The UAPR for the Textile and Apparel, Technology and Management (TATM) Department was completed, with the revised curricula to be introduced in Fall 2003. The Textile Engineering, Chemistry and Science Department implemented major changes to its textiles chemistry degree program, beginning with changing the program and curriculum and the name to Polymer and Color Chemistry. This new program provides students with opportunities to develop focus areas in polymer chemistry, color chemistry, dyeing and finishing, color science, and medical textiles. The college worked closely with the Institute of Textile Technology to develop a special curriculum for ITT Fellows. This graduate program will be funded by the ITT Foundation and industry-sponsored fellowships and will include a summer research internship at a participating company. New courses are being developed, other courses modified, and special electives added to the program. As a substitute for the discontinued English 112, the college also launched a new, writing-intensive course entitled New Product Evolution that has been extraordinarily successful.

Research

Overall, our research indicators continue to be disappointingly flat. We have had a significant increase (over 30 percent) in proposals, but a decrease in the dollar amount proposed. Contracts and Grants expenditures are down a small amount. On the bright side, we recently received several large gifts from Proctor and Gamble to pursue research in support of major grants of intellectual property. We continue to receive strong research support from our partners in the Nonwovens Cooperative Research Center. The creation over the next several months of the ITT/NCSU Research Consortium will bring significant new research funding to the college.

The National Textile Center continues to be successful, with this past year marking the eleventh year of support from the Department of Commerce. However, NTC funding to the College of Textiles is eroding, thanks to the University of California-Davis and Cornell joining NTC. With the two new universities, we have proposed an increase from $10 million to $13 million in basic research funding for next year.

The Nonwovens Cooperative Research Center (NCRC-TATM) is operating successfully on state and industrial funding, with over 40 associate, affiliate, and full members. NCRC’s $12 million state-of-the-art melt-blown/spun-bonded pilot line in Partners I building became operational this year; major levels of activity are anticipated in the future. The Thermal Protection and Comfort Center (TPACC-TECS) continues to serve industry with the finest facility in the world for assessing protection and comfort issues. TPACC’s new initiative—the Fire and Emergency Response Garment Initiative—just received major support from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. The Center is poised to become a national leader in occupational safety issues as well as related homeland security concerns. Both NCRC and TPACC demonstrate the strength that a well-run, focused center can bring to research activities. Each has established a strong reputation in its field, and sponsors think of them preferentially. They are the premier research organizations in their fields.

Parkdale Mills and Cotton Incorporated currently fund the Consortium for Research in Supercritical Fluid Processes for Textiles. We have achieved considerable success in cotton bleaching in the last year. The challenge now is to bring an equipment manufacturer into the consortium, capable of developing a process machine that will advance that effort beyond what is possible with the current laboratory facility.

Several new consortia/centers are in the developmental stage. A joint research initiative with the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department in Electrotextiles received substantial seed money last year from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency for investigations into use of electrically conductive fabric structures in a variety of applications. An industrial consortium is being developed under the leadership of Drs. Perry Grady, Tushar Ghosh, and Abelfattah Seyam. The research initiative in atmospheric plasma applications to textile structures (TECS, Nuclear Engineering, Materials Engineering) is pursuing an industrial consortium in partnership with Dow Corning Plasma Solutions. Under the leadership of Dr. Gerald Iafrate (ECE), the college played a major role in creating a multicollege program designed to develop an Institute for Nanotechnologies, which would serve as an umbrella organization for several centers in nanotechnology subfields.

Extension

Textile Extension and Applied Research programs had a remarkable turnaround in performance this year. This was an extremely strong year for in-plant, Six Sigma, and Supply Chain Management programs. In-plant programs had an increase from 215 students to 588, the most since 1998. Gross receipts increased by over 300 percent. Traditional short-course participants and receipts declined slightly (from 300 to 249, and from $243,000 to $222,500), but new courses in partnership with other organizations increased dramatically. Our Supply Chain Management offerings (a completed Compact Plan initiative by Dr. Robert Barnhardt in Textiles and Dr. Robert Handfield in Management) jumped from 190 participants in four programs to 722 in 14 programs. Our Six Sigma programs—offered jointly with the College of Engineering Industry Extension Services—also increased, both in participants and receipts.

Relationships with external partners remain strong. We announced formal agreements with INDA (the nonwovens society) to jointly conduct all of their short courses, with the American Yarn Spinners Association to offer a new program for textile managers, and with AATCC for CD-based training in three areas. Milliken and Company has licensed our CD-based Textiles Fundamentals course for company-wide training, and we have created in a joint effort with Industrial Extension Services a new CD-based Six Sigma offering. This spring, we successfully launched our first annual Industry Open House, designed to share our research activities with industry partners. The Textiles Association of Graduate Students organized an outstanding poster session, highlighting over 50 research topics.

Faculty and Staff

Dr. Tim Clapp received the College of Textiles Outstanding Extension Service Award • Dr. Gary Mock was selected as the College of Textiles nominee for the Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching • Dr. Moon Suh was elected Honorary Member of the Fiber Society • Dr. Keith Beck serves on the Publications Committee for the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists • Dr. David Hinks continues as academic editor for the Society of Dyers and Colorists and chairs the Color Measurement Test Method Committee for AATCC • Dr. David Buchanan chairs the Textile Institute Publications Committee • Dr. Subhash Batra chairs The Fiber Society • Dr. A. Blanton Godfrey is editor of the American Society for Quality's Six Sigma Forum Magazine • Cliff Seastrunk was named to the Foundation Board of AATCC.

Faculty members published over 215 papers, made over 200 conference presentations, and published one book chapter, and one book. Faculty submitted 17 patent disclosures to the Office of Technology Transfer.

Students

During the December 2002 and May 2003 graduation ceremonies, we presented 188 degrees: 145 undergraduate and 43 graduate. With new funding from ITT and strong demand from both American and international students for our programs, incoming graduate student enrollment will increase for Fall 2003. Freshman enrollment has also taken a major jump (40%) for Fall 2003. Placement remains surprisingly strong, despite the economy. Our textile engineering graduates were 100 percent placed before graduation, with 78 percent of all students placed by graduation (75 percent in 2002, 68 percent in 2003). Eighteen percent of this year’s graduates are entering graduate schools. Starting salaries have also increased for all four degrees; the overall average increase went from $39,921 to $41,037, with textile chemists and engineers averaging over $48,500. The textiles student body continues to be among the most active on campus. A higher percentage of textile students voted in student government elections than any other college. Textile students served as presidents of the Student Senate and Union Activities Board.

Fund Raising

Over the past year, we continued to make excellent progress in our development campaign, having reached over one-third of our $45-million goal. We have just completed the search for a new Director of Development and have added a full-time administrative assistant.

Administration

We continue to make organizational changes to improve efficiency. Our new consolidated textile computing services organization is performing extremely well, as noted in our continually improving Internet and intranet presence. We have added four new faculty members, two new lab managers, and other specialists to fill critical positions.

Recommendations and Concerns for the Future

Our main concern continues to be the uncertainty in state funding, budget cuts, and reversions. We feel the college is adjusting quickly to changes in the textile industry and building a strong base for the “new world of textiles.” We have to find funding for constructing new laboratory facilities and for attracting leading researchers in key areas. We are the foremost college of our kind in the world, with both depth and breadth in key areas of the industry. Our most important challenges are enrollment, program changes, and expanding critical research funding sources.