“Can I get an attitude check?”
Fayetteville State University Chancellor Darrell Allison called out to a crowd gathered outside the university’s new College of Education building, where students and cheerleaders dressed in Bronco blue stood among faculty, alumni, and university supporters.
“BRONCO PRIDE!” students shouted back.
The familiar Fayetteville State University cheer rang out Thursday morning, setting an energetic tone as university leaders, elected officials, and community members joined students and alumni to celebrate a new building rooted in one of FSU’s oldest traditions: preparing educators.
With a ceremonial snip of a blue ribbon, FSU officially opened its new $69.3 million College of Education building on Thursday, nearly 160 years after teacher preparation became central to the university’s founding mission.
The opening also marks another milestone in a broader transformation of FSU’s campus. Earlier this year, Allison told CityView the university secured more than $200 million in capital investment after going more than two decades without the kind of large-scale construction now visible across campus.
The College of Education was among several major projects he pointed to at the time, alongside a new residence hall, health and wellness center, and parking deck.
The four-story, 72,000-square-foot College of Education facility was funded through capital appropriations from the N.C. General Assembly and brings students, faculty, staff, and programs previously spread across campus under one roof.
It includes classrooms, laboratories, faculty offices, conference rooms, a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) lab, outdoor learning areas, and collaborative spaces, along with technology designed for in-person and hybrid instruction.
For Allison, the significance of the building extends beyond its nearly $70 million price tag.
“Teacher education is not simply one of FSU’s academic programs. Teacher education was our founding purpose,” Allison said during Thursday’s celebration. “Our state and nation are facing major crises and the need to produce more future teachers and educators. Fayetteville State University answered the call of yesteryear, and this state investment of nearly $70 million at Fayetteville State University will answer the call once again.”
A New Home Tied to FSU’s Beginnings
Founded in 1867, Fayetteville State traces its origins to seven Black men who pooled $136 to purchase property for the education of Black children. A decade later, the institution became the State Colored Normal School, the first state-supported institution in North Carolina established for the education of Black teachers.
That history is woven into the architecture of the new building.
FSU’s seven founders are remembered in details throughout the building. Their number is echoed in the brick and glass, woodwork, stairways, and lighting—touches meant to carry the university’s beginnings into its newest academic space. The building was also among the final projects designed by Curt Moody, the late Black architect and founder of Moody Nolan.
Inside the building, a newly commissioned painting by artist Jerry Lynn offers another connection between the university’s past and the students who will study there. The artwork, which will have a permanent home in the building’s lobby, was created to reflect FSU’s culture, history, and mission.
Scott Krawczyk, FSU’s provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, said the new facility gives students and faculty more than additional classroom space.
“This facility gives our faculty new opportunities to innovate in teaching, scholarship, and educator preparation,” Krawczyk said. “It gives our students a modern environment in which to learn their profession. It strengthens our partnerships with schools and communities throughout the region and reaffirms Fayetteville State’s enduring commitment to the future of education in North Carolina.”
The College of Education includes space for reading clinics, special education, and the state-funded North Carolina Teaching Fellows Program, which provides forgivable loans to help recruit students into the teaching profession.
FSU student Brooke Guglielmello offered a glimpse of what that work can look like beyond FSU’s campus.
An elementary education major and Army veteran, Guglielmello has worked with young readers at Jefferson Street Elementary through the College of Education’s reading clinic. She recalled seeing students build skills that once challenged them and, with them, confidence.
“Watching a child go from struggling with sounds to reading with pure confidence and joy showed me that teaching is so much more than a profession,” Guglielmello said. “It’s a calling.”
Building Classrooms—and a Teacher Pipeline
While Thursday’s ribbon cutting celebrated a new building, speakers repeatedly returned to what will happen inside it: preparing educators who could eventually enter classrooms across the region and state.
UNC Board of Governors Chair Kellie Blue pointed to the investment as an example of the role universities such as Fayetteville State can play in responding to the needs of the communities around them.
“There is no public investment more transformative than education, especially for those who call this region home,” Blue said. “FSU shines as that example of how a state’s regional institutions are best positioned to meet the needs of the communities that surround them.”
The College of Education building is also part of a larger reshaping of FSU’s campus under its 2023-33 Campus Master Plan. Moving programs that had been scattered across campus into the new facility frees up space elsewhere as the university considers how older buildings can be renovated or used differently.
And before the ceremony ended, another investment was added to the day.
Metcon Construction, the Pembroke-based company that built the new facility, is contributing $250,000 to FSU’s construction management program, Allison announced Thursday.
Metcon CEO Aaron Thomas said the company’s relationship with FSU will continue now that construction on the College of Education is complete, with plans to connect students in the construction management program with professionals working in the industry.
“We don’t want to just build buildings at Fayetteville State,” Thomas said. “We want to help Fayetteville State build futures.”
For FSU, the opening brings the university back to where its story began. An institution founded nearly 160 years ago around the education of Black students and, later, the preparation of Black teachers now has a $69.3 million home dedicated to training those who could lead classrooms for another generation.
Allison said the building’s purpose will ultimately be measured by the educators who leave it.
“This new College of Education is the vision of the future of education,” Allison said, “and it intends to prepare the next generation of educators to meet the challenges of today who will then produce solutions for our tomorrow.”
