After nearly 15 years of service at NC State, Chancellor Randy Woodson will soon be stepping aside upon his retirement in June 2025. 

Woodson has been the longest serving chancellor at NC State since Chancellor John T. Caldwell, who retired in 1975. Following a long tenure in higher education, Woodson said he doesn’t yet have concrete plans following his retirement.

“I think I’ll still be involved in higher education in some way,” Woodson said. “I may teach a few guest lecture classes and things, but as a volunteer, not as an employee. And there’s some things I’d like to do in the nonprofit sector, but I really don’t have any clear ideas, except to finish out my work here. So, I’m going to focus on being your chancellor until I’m not.”

Edwin Stack, chair of NC State Chancellor Search Advisory Committee and a member of the NC State Board of Trustees, said the first step in searching for NC State’s next chancellor — the fifteenth in its history — is hiring a search firm, which has various duties to help the committee.

“They’ve got a number of university sitting presidents and provosts that they deal with all over the country, and they also create trust among the people that we’re going to interview,” Stack said. “They help make sure that the process is run effectively, smoothly.”

Woodson said the search process in 2025 is similar to how it was in 2010 when he was contacted as a candidate.

“I was contacted about the position from the search committee, encouraged to apply,” Woodson said. “In these kinds of jobs, the search process is as much about recruiting people to be candidates as it is to review candidates. So the best people that you would want for the job are people you’ve got to talk into being considered for the job, because they’re probably very busy where they are.”

After hiring the search firm, the committee takes steps to reach out to University staff, faculty and students. On Aug. 13, the NC State Chancellor Search Advisory Committee sent a survey to students, alumni, faculty and staff to give feedback on what they’d like to see in a new chancellor.

Following this, the committee then looks to speak with the different groups surveyed through listening sessions. Stack said while they don’t have solid dates for these as of yet, students will receive information about them sometime around October.

“We’ll have specific dates for each one for students,” Stack said. “I think that we’re looking at doing … an undergrad session, a grad session and then maybe a makeup session that would have both, just in case, to give everybody an opportunity to to make those meetings.”

After gathering all of these opinions, Stack said the committee then creates a leadership profile, which is a list of what NC State wants in a new chancellor.

This leadership profile then helps define the search for a new chancellor, starting with a larger pool and slowly narrowing down to three candidates. Stack said from there, these three potential candidates’ names are first given to the Board of Trustees to look over before they’re sent to the UNC Board of Governors, who will make the final decision on who will be the next chancellor.

Stack said the new chancellor will likely be announced in the spring.

Woodson said the responsibilities of a chancellor mirror a mix of those of a mayor and a CEO, managing a university’s needs while additionally working on funding and producing quality education for students. Woodson said to be a good candidate for chancellor, leadership and communication skills are essential.

“One of the unique things about universities is that the stakeholders, the people that have a stake in the success of the University, are buried,” Woodson said. “You’ve got students, you’ve got faculty and staff, you’ve got alumni, who really want the University’s reputation to be strong, because that’s their reputation. We’re a state university, so we’re funded by the state of North Carolina, so I think any leader of a university like a public university like ours has to be able to interact with and communicate across all of those varied groups. They all love the University, but they all have different ideas about what it is and what it should be.”

Stack said right now, student perspectives are vital for the Search Advisory Committee.

“At a minimum, fill out the survey,” Stack said. “The survey will give you an opportunity to prioritize, rank things you know that you think are important, and then also give some open-ended feedback. … It’s important that the student message is conveyed to our group, so that it gets put into the leadership profile.” 

A change in chancellor is new for students who have only ever experienced NC State under Woodson’s leadership. But Woodson said NC State would still be itself, regardless of who leads it.

“NC State has been here for, what, almost 140 years,” Woodson said. “I’m the 14th chancellor. The 15th will be here. The faculty are here, the advisors are here, the counselors are here. Sure, there will be a different person leading the University, but the culture of this place is ingrained in it, and so it’s been an honor.”