AGGIE ACCELERATION: N.C. A&T State University is poised to become a top-level research university under Harold Martin Sr., who became chancellor at the Greensboro campus in 2006.

• Author: Martin, Edward

He rubs shoulders with Gov. Roy Cooper, snipping a wide gold ribbon while faculty members, Greensboro townspeople and industry executives cheer. Some chant, "Aggie Pride!"

This, says the lanky, one-time standout on the basketball court in a ribbon-matching yellow tie, symbolizes "possibilities for the future."

The new, $90 million, glass-walled building behind him bears his name. It's the Harold L. Martin Sr. Engineering Research & Innovation Complex.

When the longtime chancellor of North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University finishes speaking, guests at the February grand opening wander through a lab where a robot hoists 40-pound loads with remarkably human-like movements, accompanied by Spot, a mechanical dog.

In another lab filled with virtual-reality mechanisms, holographies and other technology, the guests hobnob with scientists developing safety technology required if autonomous vehicles take over the nation's highways.

On a quieter day in a more modest lab, an A&T researcher surrounded by petri dishes and microscopes works with far less fanfare.

Over the years, Jianmei Yu has developed hypoallergenic peanuts, strains that permit millions with potentially deadly allergic reactions to eat them. The research creates potential use of peanut derivatives in hundreds of products.

The Chinese-born scientist with a Ph.D from Louisiana State University also has developed varieties that don't become rancid after roasting, enabling more use of peanut flour to help fight world hunger. She's also experimenting with new strains of corn that resist potentially poisonous mold. Her efforts could expand markets for Tar Heel farmers, who produce $900 million a year in corn and peanuts.

Yu smiles at parallels among herself, A&T and George Washington Carver, who, in the late 1800s, developed scores of uses for peanuts, urging cotton-poor Southern farmers to switch crops. Carver was based at another historically Black college, Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.

"Our lab is small, and we don't always have the best equipment," she shrugs. "But we do the very best we can."

Today, 131 years after the university's founding, the Martin complex underscores A&T's rising-star status as an increasingly influential center for engineering education in North Carolina and nationally. It's not a coincidence that President Joe Biden gave a major economic talk at the site in April.

The new building follows a $6 million agricultural research pavilion that opened at A&T's 492-acre research farm last year and a $90 million student union that debuted two years earlier.

Enrollment swelled 26.3% in the past decade to more than 13,300 students, making it the nation's largest historically Black university and the third-fastest growing of the state's public universities. The system overall grew 10% during the same time.

Fundraising also tells the tale; A&T raised nearly $94 million in the 2021 fiscal year, compared with $18 million a year earlier. That included $45 million from philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, whose ex-husband is Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. The balance comes from individuals and institutions, including $5 million from Walmart and $5.5 million from Corning, both targeting science and technology programs.

It was a record annual haul for an HBCU, officials say, and put the university's endowment at $157.5 million. That compares with $28 million a decade ago.

The momentum has A&T on the verge of being classified as a Research One Doctoral University under the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education framework, joining Duke University, UNC Chapel Hill and N.C. State University, says UNC System President Peter Hans.

"That's important in higher education not only because it indicates the level of degrees--doctorates, master's, bachelor's --but the level of research at an institution," he says. Research One institutions typically attract highly regarded professors...