A&T to Install Chancellor James R. Martin II on 135th Founders Day

EAST GREENSBORO, N.C. (Jan. 28, 2026) – North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University will celebrate the 135^th anniversary of its founding and hold the installation ceremony of Chancellor James R. Martin II in a joint ceremony Monday, March 9, 2026, in Harrison Auditorium on campus.

Martin was selected in 2024 as the 13^th chancellor of North Carolina A&T, and since taking office that fall, he has led an aggressive agenda of building external partnerships with agencies and corporations, enhancement of university operations, hiring a long list of vice chancellors and deans and speeding the university’s path toward attaining the nation’s top designation for research universities.

His installation will celebrate those accomplishments and shine a bright light on his vision for the university as A&T celebrates its long-venerated Founders Day, making the date in 1891 when the university was established by the N.C. General Assembly as the Agricultural and Mechanical College for the Colored Race. The university’s establishment and ongoing success are celebrated each year at Founders Day Convocation.

A&T was the first public institution of higher learning for African Americans in North Carolina as well as the second campus created nationally under the Morrill Act of 1890, which provided for land-grant institutions for Black students in states that would not admit those students to its other public colleges.

A group of Greensboro leaders offered $11,000 and 14 acres to relocate the institution from its original site as a Shaw University annex, and the college’s Board of Trustees accepted the offer in 1982. John Oliver Crosby, the college’s first president, was elected May 25, 1892, and the new Greensboro campus was established the following year.

The March 9 ceremony will begin at 10 a.m. in the auditorium at 1009 Bluford St., Greensboro.

General parking will be available in Lot 43 – Obermeyer Parking Deck and Lot 65 – War Memorial Stadium. Complimentary shuttle service will run from both lots to the auditorium beginning at 9 a.m., and will return guests to their vehicles following the ceremony. A limited number of accessible parking spaces (parking for people with disabilities) will be available at the auditorium on a first-come, first served basis.

All attendees must abide by auditorium’s clear bag policy and are subject to bag size and type limits. The university reserves the right to impose the regulation at its discretion.