What is Campus Enterprises? People sometimes wonder because it hasn’t been around that long. Well, let me rephrase that: We’ve only been Campus Enterprises for a few years, but many of the organizations that comprise Campus Enterprises have been around for ages, like the NC State Bookstores, NC State Dining, and Trademark Licensing, for example.
It’s the Campus Enterprises part that throws them off.
Campus Enterprises was founded in 2010 to bring the university’s retail and hospitality units under one umbrella to do great things at NC State. Sure, we were all doing great things before, but together, we could do better. Better facilities, better food, better merchandise, better leveraging of the university’s brands, and better ways to deliver critical services to the campus.
Better often means more, too. How about more facilities and more services? Or more money for merit- and need-based scholarships and the administrative needs of the university?
In just three years we have accomplished a lot:
- Set out to build a world-class Talley Student Center
- Moved the bookstore to Harrelson until it can move back to a bigger, better space in Talley
- Renovated the Atrium Food Court
- Instituted a dynamic pricing tool for our textbook program that is saving NC State students’ hard-earned money
- Rebranded our catering program (Rave! Catering) to reflect the quality and innovative food and service it provides
- Added iCafe on Centennial Campus until we can open On the Oval Culinary Creations this summer
- Broken ground on the new Carol Johnson Poole Clubhouse at the Lonnie Poole Golf Course
- Re-tooled the campus print shop into Wolf Xpress Print & Copy, which has the only university-owned Espresso Book Machine in the southeast!
- Won several awards for our facilities and our programming through the National Association of College and University Food Services (NACUFS), Association of College Unions International (ACUI), and the Raleigh Public Relations Society (RPRS)
- Significantly grew our reach through engagement and relationship building, social media, events, email and web.
- Returned more than $3.5 million to the NC State students through merit- and need-based scholarships
We’ve also:
- Centralized our key leadership
- Centralized marketing, human resources and accounting
That’s just off the top of my head. Aristotle said, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” I believe this to be true when it comes to Campus Enterprises. Together, our units are greater than they ever were operating independently. We are making things better at State, and we have more plans in store.
What can Campus Enterprises do for you? Let us know. We’re here to make things better for you.
Jennifer Gilmore
Marketing, Campus Enterprises