NCRC to host 'New South' lecture series

By Emily Ford

eford@salisburypost.com

KANNAPOLIS — The N.C. Research Campus will host two nights of a prominent lecture series called "The New New South," scheduled by the D.H. Hill Library at N.C. State University.

Other lectures will take place at N.C. State, one of eight universities studying health and agriculture at the $1.5 billion life sciences complex in downtown Kannapolis.

The lectures will explore "forces shaping the new new South" and examine economic, social and cultural forces in the South.

The series will address the region's ongoing transformation to an information economy within the context of the earlier shift from agriculture to manufacturing.

Dr. Steven Leath will kick off the series at 6 p.m. Feb. 23 by presenting "Partnering Transformation: Challenges of a Public/Private Partnership." The lecture will be held in the Core Laboratory Building and is open to the public.

Leath, vice president for research for the University of North Carolina system, also serves as president of the David H. Murdock Research Institute in Kannapolis. The institute owns and operates the campus centerpiece Core Lab.

Leath worked in Kannapolis for N.C. State before taking the job with UNC administration.

In 2005, the UNC system and David Murdock, owner of Castle & Cooke and Dole Food Co., announced a partnership to build the 350-acre mixed-use Research Campus in Kannapolis, a former mill town ravaged by the offshoring of the textile industry.

Often called the epitome of a public-private partnership, the Research Campus encourages collaboration between industry and academia to find the next great discoveries in nutrition, health and agriculture.

The campus has transformed the former site of the Cannon Mills textile plant and downtown of Kannapolis into what leaders hope will become an engine of economic growth for the region.

The New New South lecture series will give participants an opportunity to hear from leading scholars in North Carolina on both the move into the information economy and the previous economic shifts that have shaped the area.

Speakers will provide a nuanced understanding of social, demographic, labor, industrial and public/private collaborative history of the region.

In addition to Leath's lecture on Feb. 23 in Kannapolis, other presentations will include:

- "North Carolina Workers and the Industrial South" by Dr. David Zonderman, professor of labor history at N.C. State.

4 p.m. March 4, D.H. Hill Library, N.C. State.

- "Rising to the Research Challenge of the Twenty-first Century: The New Workforce" by a panel consisting of Dr.Tom Miller, vice provost for distance education and learning technology at N.C. State; Donnie Goins, president of Tavve Software Company; and Dr. Larry Monteith, former chancellor at N.C. State.

Two presentations, one at 4 p.m. March 25 at D.H. Hill Library at N.C. State and another at 6 p.m. April 8 at the Research Campus in Kannapolis.

- "Communities in Transition" by Dr. Michael Walden, a William Neal Reynolds Distinguished Professor and extension economist in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at N.C. State.

4 p.m. April 15, D.H. Hill Library, N.C. State.

In 2009, the NCSU Libraries launched the NCRC Archives to capture the metamorphosis in Kannapolis by making available a wide range of primary sources on the development, construction and operation of the Research Campus.

To view the archives, go to www.lib.ncsu.edu/specialcollections/ncrca/index.php.