NC State Chancellor Randy Woodson to retire in 2025 after 15 years leading the Wolfpack

NC State University Chancellor Randy Woodson will retire next summer, ending a 15-year tenure leading the Wolfpack.

He announced his plans to retire at a meeting of the NC State Board of Trustees in closed session Thursday afternoon.

“As I told the trustees, it’s been my honor, and really the honor of my professional career, to serve as chancellor of this great university now for going on 15 years,” he said in open session afterward.

Woodson became the Raleigh university’s 14th chancellor in 2010. With a research background in molecular plant biology, he joined NC State after more than two decades at Purdue University in Indiana, where he became provost in 2008.

“Under Woodson’s leadership, NC State has become a preeminent research enterprise known for solving real-world challenges — a true Think and Do university,” his biography states, referencing the university’s motto.

“His strategic vision has enabled the university to advance in areas of student success, innovative research and collaborative partnerships. This has resulted in students ready to solve real-world challenges, public-private partnerships that transform ideas into solutions, and a creative, engaging center of learning and exploration for all.”

His retirement will be effective at the end of the fiscal year, June 30, 2025, which also marks the end of his current employment contract. That means he will remain in his role for the upcoming academic year, which begins in mid-August.

“We’ve got almost 39,000 students that will be arriving on our campus in just a few weeks,” Woodson said during Thursday’s meeting, “and so I’m as excited about this fall semester as I was in 2010.”

Woodson deferred sharing any post-retirement plans when he was asked Thursday, saying he would remain focused on finishing out his term as chancellor. But he said he and his wife, Susan, plan to stay in Raleigh, which is their “forever home.”

Accomplishments as chancellor

Woodson is the third-longest-serving chief executive in NC State history, and his tenure has been an era of significant changes to the land-grant university.

Speaking to reporters after Thursday’s meetings, Woodson said “it was made very clear” to him when he arrived at NC State in 2010 that the university community was “really hungry for a period of stable leadership.”

“And you never know if you’re going to be able to provide that, but I think it was made clear to me, and it was a goal of mine, to be able to be successful for an extended period of time, so that you can have a vision, you can share a vision, you can develop a shared vision with the campus, and then you have time to implement it,” Woodson said. “So, length of service is a valuable thing to me.”

Woodson highlighted the university’s increased graduation rate as one of his proudest accomplishments. The university has also seen an increase in retention rates for first-year students, and the number of applications for admissions have also risen. More than 43,000 students sought admission to the university this cycle, a nearly 10% increase from the previous year.

“Our students are more successful,” Woodson said.

Woodson also oversaw the implementation of two 10-year strategic plans for the university and the “Think and Do the Extraordinary” fundraising campaign, which raised $2.1 billion for scholarships, research, programs and facilities at the university. The university campus also changed during his leadership, with the opening of James B. Hunt Jr. Library and the renovation and expansion of Talley Student Union, among other new facilities.

He also prioritized growing the university’s endowment. Totaling $350 million when Woodson arrived in 2010, the endowment now sits at more than $2.2 billion. A news release from NC State Thursday said the funds “help the university plan for the future and help ensure stability.”

The university’s research arm also grew under his leadership, with expenditures exceeding $500 million in 2017 — a milestone the university has met or exceeded in each year since.

Woodson has been in the spotlight more over the past year, both for NC State’s decision to vote in favor of expanding the ACC and for university leaders’ handling of toxic chemicals in Poe Hall, an academic building. But he said Thursday he was retiring because it is “a good time” for him and his wife, not because of any recent issues at the university.

UNC System President Peter Hans, who attended Thursday’s closed and open session meetings and spoke with reporters afterward, attributed the university’s changes, growth and success to Woodson’s leadership.

“When I think about where NC State was 15 years ago and where NC State is now, it is an extraordinary testament to this man’s leadership and the team that he has built around him and the support he’s had from the trustees, from [the UNC System Board of Governors] and so many alumni,” Hans said.

Chancellor turnover in the UNC System

Woodson’s announcement of his upcoming retirement Thursday comes at a time of significant turnover for chancellors across the UNC System. Already this year, new leaders have been named for four universities in the 17-campus system, and three additional searches are underway or soon-to-begin.

Hans addressed the turnover Wednesday after a meeting for the ongoing UNC-Chapel Hill chancellor search, saying he attributed much of the trend to natural cycles, such as chancellors reaching their retirements or choosing to make changes in their career after the COVID-19 pandemic.

But at a time when the average tenure for college presidents and chancellors nationwide is less than six years, Woodson’s nearly 15-year tenure at NC State stands out and makes him one of the longest-serving chancellors currently in the UNC System. (North Carolina A&T State University Chancellor Harold Martin, who officially retires next month, is currently the longest-serving.)

University leaders have made efforts to keep Woodson at the helm of NC State over the past decade: The UNC System Board of Governors and then-system President Tom Ross in 2015 entered into a contract with Woodson, indicating their “desire” for him to remain in the role until at least 2019. The contract, according to documents previously obtained by The News & Observer, has been extended on two occasions, with the most recent version — signed in 2021 — set to expire in June 2025.

Woodson noted he agreed for the most recent extension to be only two years “because I knew that it was getting toward the end of my time as a chancellor of the university.”

The same year his contract was last extended, Woodson was the highest-paid public university chancellor or president in the country, bringing in $2.3 million in 2021. That compensation included a $1.5 million performance bonus as part of a retention package set up by the NC State Board of Trustees in 2015. He and his wife, Susan, donated the bonus back to the university to support student scholarships.

Hans indicated Thursday that Woodson may have been interested in leaving the university two years ago, before his contract ended, but he was “very fortunate” to convince Woodson to serve the remainder of the term.

“I feel so fortunate that we were able to keep him for another two years, because that was up to him and I twisted his arm at the time to stay, and I’m so grateful for that,” Hans said. “We’re very fortunate to have his leadership over that 15 years, but particularly over the past two.”

Plans to search for Woodson’s successor were not announced Thursday. But Hans said Woodson’s work as chancellor will likely attract high-quality candidates for the job to the university.

“I think he has made a search for a worthy successor so much more possible,” Hans said. “The quality of candidates that we will attract is due to the foundation that you have built, chancellor, and we are all extraordinarily grateful to you for that.”

Woodson, reflecting on what he will miss most about the university, was quick to answer: “the students.”

“It’s one of the best jobs in America to be a university leader,” Woodson said. “And the reason it’s one of the best jobs in America is because you get to have a hand in transforming lives.”