[dramatic upbeat piano music plays] [upbeat hip hop music plays] - [Arietta] Black females are rare in aviation, rare in STEM, just a rarity.

So if you actually see a black female pilot, you saw a unicorn.

- [Phil] The future of NASCAR lies in your hands and individuals like you, a diverse culture with diverse individuals all trying to reach the same goal of winning.

- [Ali] We are on the right direction to make the world more smart and autonomy is gonna be playing an important role in that sense.

- And I believe that we do a very good job at creating tomorrow's leaders by the amount of cohesion that we have and the amount of competitiveness that is in the program and the atmosphere around here.

- [Jared] I sit down at his desk and then he comes in and he's like, hi, I'm Dr. Bahr, nice to meet you.

I was like, nice to meet you.

Here's a brain tissue.

And I was just like, yes, you know, instantly.

It was like, I was hooked.

- [Kinesha] That passion, that motivation is knowing that if I complete my end game, that what I'm doing could possibly save someone's life.

[upbeat hip hop music plays] - Our story of innovation begins on the campuses of UNC's six, historically black and American Indian universities.

Where students are mission-driven, service minded, grounded in their unique heritage, and ready to meet the challenges of tomorrow with the passion of today.

These determined students are forging ahead to manifest their dreams into reality.

Their dedication to their education and preparation will meld the innovation of the past with the inspiration of the future.

- [NASCAR announcer] It's on the top five, Rajah, making the transition from virtual racing to real stock car racing.

He is one of the top young talents in this sport.

We got a lot of people on his side.

Part of a NASCAR driver diversity program.

- You can't just do it by yourself in the race car.

Your setups gotta be good.

Your race car's gotta be good.

Your team, as a whole, has gotta be good.

So you're there to work.

So everything has been built up to that point till that time you're in the race car and all the knowledge, all the time, and blood, sweat, and tears from your guys at the race shop is now in your hands in the race car.

You've gotta be focused to take advantage of it, because everything has built up to that point.

- [NASCAR announcer] More contact down into turns three and four.

Caruth trying to shove his way up into the second position.

- [Phil] I never thought about the future of NASCAR.

I just loved NASCAR.

But it's changed.

The more minorities get into it, the more women arrive on the scene, it's caused some ripples with the whole guard, and it's a situation where it's all inclusive now.

It's diverse.

That's the future, but you have to be good.

Nobody's gonna hand it to you.

- Exactly.

- It's not gonna be a situation where you're gonna get a ride that you don't deserve.

You're definitely not gonna win unless you're one of the best.

So the future of NASCAR lies in your hands and individuals like you, Isabella, Nick, all of them.

That's the future, a diverse culture with diverse individuals, all trying to reach the same goal of winning.

- [Rajah] Winning is great.

Representing your team, all your partners, all the money and time that goes into it.

- [Phil] You know the responsibility of which you carry now that Bubba's doing his thing, Bubba's made it to cup.

You're next in line.

How do you feel about that?

- [Rajah] I just see it as like I've been passionate and obsessed with this for as long as I can remember, and I'm just working towards my goals.

That's all I really see it as.

I would say diversity is important in, not only NASCAR, but really, motor sports as a whole, because representation is a big deal.

That's how the longevity of a sport really continues is having kids look on TV and see someone that looks like them.

That gives kids confidence to say, hey, I want to do this one day.

- [NASCAR announcer] Rajah having a great night here tonight, sitting in that second position in Rev Racing Chevrolet NASCAR Technical Institute on the hood of that automobile.

[elegant piano music plays] - The program is focused on preparing students for careers in aviation.

That could include being professional pilot.

That could be air traffic controller, aviation managers, and even avionics technician.

- There's so many different like opportunities in aviation.

That's one thing I love.

You could do cargo.

You could do corporate.

You could do commercial.

You could be a bush pilot.

Like, how cool is that?

You could go anywhere.

- [Kuldeep] Our professional pilot program has grown considerably in the last few years because the demand for pilot has increased as a lot of pilots are coming up with age and they will be retiring very soon.

So what we are trying to do is we are partnering with industry, aviation industry to make sure that we can supply a diverse aviation workforce.

We are focusing on the minorities and women to get into aviation workforce.

- Black females are rare in aviation, rare in STEM, just a rarity.

So if you actually see a black female pilot, you saw a unicorn.

It's the coolest thing ever.

- [Orestes] We call it the, what is it?

The forever smile.

Once you get into the airplane and you're flying the aircraft, there's a permanent grin that's plastered on your face.

It's just an exhilarating, happy feeling.

- Flying, you see a sparkle in my eye when I talk about it.

Flying is just limitless.

It's boundless.

It's a new liberty that you can't get here on the ground.

Everyone asks me if I'm scared when I go up, and it's just a sense of calmingness just looking down at the ground.

I just can't explain it.

[laughs] - [Air Traffic Controller] Two, zero, six, five short runway one, six, clear for takeoff.

Six, one, five, Delta, you can turn right base, runway two, eight, right.

Remember two, zero, whiskey Kilo, roger.

Cross runway two, eight, right.

Taxis to main ramp via Delta and Indian.

- [Reginald] Let's slowly reduce the throttle back to about 1500 RPM's, and we're gonna maintain a 90 knot descent.

We're gonna enter the landing pattern here and enter on the downwind for this airport.

So we're just basically doing a slight descent here down to a thousand feet.

I chose to come back here because I graduated here.

It's just a way to give back to, not just the students here, but to my community as well.

- [Arietta] Oh my gosh, When I graduate, [laughs] I just can't wait.

My mom's my biggest supporter through all of it.

If I need any inspiration, I call her.

So I just can't wait to see the look on her face when I can just take us all up, get my job, get my career set up.

I just can't wait, just pure bliss.

[relaxing guitar music] - [Kuldeep] We started a new program in 2019, which is unmanned aircraft systems.

Again, only program of its kind in the state of North Carolina that gives a four-year degree in drones.

- Flying a drone, it's on a different level.

Just knowing you can fight about 15 to 20 mile winds and have your drone stay steady with a camera, stay at a steady shot, it's honestly an amazing feeling just to know that you can see your drone that you're moving, moving the way that you want it to go.

It's unreal.

- As you know, North Carolina has large infrastructure projects like solar farms, wind turbines we have miles and miles of coastlines.

And then we have large farm land in North Carolina.

Drones have application in all these regions.

So we are now preparing students to learn more, not only about flying the drones, but also how to gather data from these inspections or precision agriculture or monitoring shorelines, but also take this data and then process the data that could make sense to a general public.

- Cool thing about North Carolina, it's leading the way in drone technology, but drones have just opened up new doors.

I mean, you could see DOT out there working with drones now.

You can actually see the police force, criminal justice.

If you want to see graphics of doing a wedding, or if you just want to go out and have fun, there's so many applications that drones bring and these kids know that.

[upbeat hip hop beat plays] - [Instructor] this is the LIDAR system.

It actually says out a 10,000- - [Student] 100,000.

- [Instructor] 10-100,000 pulses per second down to the surface of the earth.

And when these reflecting signals comes up it's tracked to the, in the scan card.

And when we download it in 3d mapping, it actually gives a very precise picture of how that topographical surface terrain looks.

- As your dreams mature.

You know, you really hone in on what you really want.

And my dream's that I want to be a drone pilot, you know, from my experiences from high school up to the college level.

And it really worked out.

I'm here at Elizabeth City State University, and I couldn't be happier.

[upbeat southern rock song plays] [elegant hip hop piano music plays] - [Ali] It seems that we are directing toward having everything smart, right?

Smart transportation, smart agriculture, smart energy, right?

So autonomy is at the heart of every smart thing.

And I think autonomy is gonna be playing an important role in that sense.

- My mother is actually a farmer, you know, so it's one thing to actually, you know, be involved with agriculture, but to see my area that I initially didn't think had any interaction with agriculture at all, to kind of merge those two worlds and to, you know, combine them and be actually to provide something beneficial.

And it really opened me to a whole new experience.

When we're doing this project, I actually think about, you know, how can I actually help?

And how can, you know, I can make this process easy on her because that's what our goal is.

Our goal is to actually make the process easier on the farmers and actually have a system that in place that can be reused over and over again.

- [Ali] Our job as professors is to show them, hey, here are the applications that you can position yourself to be prepared for, right?

So the theory and the knowledge that you are learning at the earliest stage of engineering career is good.

It's necessary.

But also you need to look at the applications that you are, that you are gonna be prepared for, and you're gonna be addressing at some point.

So that is a challenging problem.

And I think with so many integrated research and education activities that we do have at North Carolina, A&T State University, we are successfully handling that problem.

And the students have the opportunity to join the research labs, gain the skills that they are needing and be prepared for the future market and future career.

- My research was to make sure the control system we built for the vehicle is stable.

The car will be driving itself.

We do have a system integration box.

There, you can set the car into different modes.

Manual mode, autonomous mode.

There are a few modes, so if we feel something goes wrong, we can lightly pull back the vehicle in autonomous mode and stop the entire operation.

We are feeding a lot of information.

It's like you're teaching quantum physics to a sixth class student, right?

So at the same time, you need to make sure we feed them in a particular way, understand everything in detail.

The same thing.

- [Ali] A&T is having a very nice pool of talents.

The students that we are having are the drive for the university for teachers, professors, everywhere around.

- Caring for the community is a major tenet of all six institutions, especially when it comes to the health and wellbeing of their neighbors.

These students make their communities healthier, safer, and more prepared.

[driving hip hop instrumental beat plays] [slow dramatic guitar music plays] - [Suzanne] The VACOM program is nursing students at FSU who have been in the military and they work with different community resources in order to get that outside community type experience.

- As a veteran, that's one thing that we are always taught.

You got to interact and you have to make sure that your people are first.

And that's the thing that this program does for us.

It puts its people first.

The community is gonna back you regardless.

They're gonna back you, long as you're standing steadfast and know what you want in life, they're gonna back you.

And that's why I'm here.

- Soon as they begin their nursing journey, they're out here with the paramedics on their first semester, going into patient's homes, meeting those patients, seeing them face to face.

They really get a chance to understand the pathology right away.

The paramedics do a great job of mentoring the students and the students also get the opportunity to see the patient in their home.

They are experiencing where the patient is, like meeting them where they are, instead of just in the hospital setting.

And this gives them the opportunity to experience home health, which is something that we don't really do a lot of in their curriculum.

Plus our community is veteran rich.

So this gives the students who are veterans themselves, an opportunity to care for veteran patients.

So what brought you to Fayetteville state?

Because we're a long way from Albany, Georgia.

[both laugh] - It's something that I always wanted to do.

And nursing, you always are able to look after your patient, help someone and make sure that no person is left behind.

- [Kimberly] Yeah, that's great.

- Yes.

- Do you have anybody in your family that was a nurse?

- No one in my family.

I would be the first.

- You will be the first nurse?

- Yes Ma'am.

- You'll be a great nurse.

- Thank you!

- Who inspired you to become a nurse?

- Actually, my grandmother inspired me.

She passed away in 2013.

- So sorry.

- It was so many questions that she had that no one was able to answer.

And I said to myself, you know, if I was able to answer, maybe I could have helped her.

So basically every time I take on this next role in my next chapters, as I go along in my semesters, I think of her.

Because I knew that if she had the answers, maybe she still would be here.

- You know what, you already sound like a nurse.

You were her advocate then, and it sounds like you're ready to be somebody's advocate now.

- Aw, thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

- [Suzanne] Fayetteville is right next door to Fort Bragg, and a lot of our soldiers, military population retire here.

So we have a very large population of veterans.

And they really need that like-minded care.

Being able to provide that with our community paramedics, and then especially with our VACOM nurses, we are able to learn more about them, build that deeper connection, establish rapport, and then really find out what's causing their problems to help correct them and to keep them healthy in their home environment.

[fire extinguisher sprays] - [Kevin] What we're preparing them for is the general concepts of disaster resiliency.

How does my organization, how does my community prepare?

How do they mitigate?

How do we respond and recover from a disaster?

And that's what we're all about.

Walk up on it, walk up on it.

Sweep, sweep, sweep.

That's good.

[extinguisher sprays] When you look at emergency management, it is made up of all the different disciplines.

And so what I tell my students is, tell me what your passion is, tell me what you enjoy in life, and we can find a job for you.

- [Moniah] You don't see a lot of women wanting to be a firefighter, you know, especially of color.

You don't see a lot of women wanting to do this type of work.

But I feel like I can do anything.

If I pick up and I want to be law enforcement tomorrow, I can.

If I want to go be an orthodontist or dentist tomorrow, I can, and if I want to be a firefighter tomorrow, I can.

You know, being a black woman, being a woman in general, we don't, we're not looked at as if we can do these types of things, but we can, you know.

- [David] You can pretty much be what you want to be.

You can do what you want to do.

You can have somebody who's a minority and say, hey, you know what?

I want to be a fireman because of what I learned in this emergency management class.

Or you can have somebody say, you know what, maybe I'll be the first minority cop in my family and I'll make a change.

Or, you know, a lot of people think they can make a change, and you can, once you try to make a change.

[dramatic orchestral music plays] - [Cherry] One of the things we have to think about with healthcare, is healthcare is very culturally determined.

The mobile unit actually expands and increases our commitment to healthy populace, an educated populace, as well as culturally competent healthcare.

And to me, that is the quintessential things being here at UNC Pembroke.

I have never seen the quality of education, the commitment to the community, and the commitment to future and innovations that I have seen at this university.

- [Katelynn] It's important that we have something like this that can go out into community and offer services that aren't provided, or aren't available to those in the rural areas, With the skills bus, we're able to come out and do skills that we wouldn't be able to do in the hospital.

So we're getting more experience.

We're also able to educate, diabetes education, hypertension.

We're able to do primary prevention rather than treating the cause.

- Primary prevention is key.

You know, you want to prevent the disease before it gets further.

So using this mobile clinic is a, is a great way of preventing it.

You know, we're able to do teaching, we're able to do screenings.

We're able to give vaccines, which is needed here in Robeson County.

- [Katelynn] It's nice to see someone that you might know or someone that looks like you and to come up and see that, they feel more comfortable and trust you more to understand who you are and what you come from and your healthcare needs.

- When community members are able to serve each other, from a public health standpoint, it enables patients to see their providers as a person.

They're hearing the accent, and they're asking like, where are you from?

And it really helps with that public health piece, because now the patients feel more comfortable with opening up to their providers.

They see someone who will actually listen to what their concerns are and can answer those questions.

And I feel like the ability to ask the questions, it's a little easier.

And if you're gonna be successful, you need someone in your corner, kind of cheering you on kind of saying, hey, go that way.

You know?

- [Cherry] Aristotle said that in order to have a healthy democracy, you needed a healthy populace.

And so that is what I'm striving for is, how do I, not one person at a time, but by every everyone I teach, how do I help them serve a whole group of people?

[upbeat hip hop beat plays] - One does not reach their greatest potential without appreciating the value of those whose efforts paved the way for the opportunities of today.

In post-reconstruction, people of color, including Blacks and American Indians were banned from colleges and universities across the country.

Many people were running out of options to provide a better life for themselves and their families.

The only choice left was to innovate.

- [Toya] The Lumbee Indians, took it upon themselves to create this school, to teach their own.

And thus you have UNC Pembroke.

That is innovation, not waiting for someone else to do it, but to do it and create it for yourself and for your own people.

That's what UNC Pembroke has done.

And that's what historically black colleges and universities in North Carolina has also done.

You have now created this new generation of the black middle-class, who is going to help those coming behind them.

Only 3% of HBCUs making up the higher education landscape and producing engineers, doctors, lawyers, it's all there for you.

That's innovation.

- [Maya] My parents went here, and my grandparents went here, and my great grandparents went here, and my cousins went here.

My entire family grew up in an HBCU, and I did not go here undergrad.

And I decided that, you know what?

I want to try this school out.

This is close.

And I did not understand what it meant to go to an HBCU.

What it meant to have professors that looked like you, what it meant to have professors that were not only your same gender, but your same race, and to be talked to as though you were an equal.

I mean, I'm not saying that didn't happen everywhere else, but it's a concentration here.

It's something that is meant to happen.

It's not just an added bonus every now and then.

I know that when I go to a classroom, not only will I be seen, I will be heard and I will be allowed to speak my mind and it will pertain to me.

And then I know that everything that I'm learning, I'm learning from someone who had the exact same struggles that I did.

And there's something different about that.

Learning from somebody who had to go through walking through the world as a black female, is as tough as it is.

And then learning from someone who also can relate that back to you with your studies, they can take what you're learning in class and relate it to you in a way that you can use that for the future.

It's just different.

- The relationship between university and community that exists in these six schools is unparalleled.

The success of the students is directly linked to the community and vice versa.

Thus, the legacy of measuring the vibrance of the institution through the prosperity of its people, drives the advancement of students today.

[dramatic piano music plays] - So whenever you normally speak, explain and give scientific foundations in the lecture room, you have to actually see the actual direct and straightforward application of that.

No other environment makes more, comes more clearly and patterns like when you are on a farm setting.

The idea with my students to use this farm is the perfect scenario, for example, for alternative animal production areas like the bison.

And that offers a fantastic opportunity for students to come and see.

- [Trevor-Emily] I think what I like most about working with animals is, is the response you get back from them.

It's a give and take partnership, which you don't get with really anything else.

You have to learn to speak their language.

I can really look at them from a different perspective than most people can.

And when you really learn to speak their language, there's a whole new universe out there that you didn't know existed.

So it's a very rewarding process that you don't really get from anything else.

[birds chirping] Now, why is the area so good for raising bison?

- I think this area really provides ideal condition for bison production and bison rearing with all year round grazing, perfect integration with the grassland.

And also they integrate really well with normal conventional cattle.

- [Ronald] Bison, I love 'em.

Just trying to bring some of the past back to the present.

Bison had been here from the Atlantic to the Pacific, to Mexico to Canada.

They're great animals.

The Natives called them Tatanka.

They feel like they're next to God.

God sent 'em here just for the Natives, which I believe that too.

- I can feel that there is a link with the cultures, the local cultures and the bison.

- I want to help as many people as I can and do right by my community.

And I think UNCP has helped me achieve that.

[elegant hip hop beat plays] - BBRI's vision is to conduct health disparities research, but also to prepare minority researchers.

- The perception I always try to get across to students that what we do here in the lab not only impacts African-Americans, it does impact the world.

Because there are a lot more brown people and people of color on this planet, than any other group.

And to understand how different things impact the biology as well, the social and behavioral pieces helps us actually affect the entire world, not just North Carolina, not just the United States.

- [Deepak] You cannot make a dent in health disparities research, unless you have enough minority researchers.

- Representation matters in our country.

And when I consider all of the challenges facing our country around racial equity, health equity, social injustice, researchers will be negligent to not use their data, to help solve some of the problems facing minority communities.

- [Kinesha] The goal of the mobile unit is to meet people right where they are, in their homes and their communities, where they feel most safe at.

We can come to them and give them what they need instead of them having to find ways to get to us or find ways to get to better healthcare.

- And we've really taken some time to really build upon an innate relationship that exists between a historically black college and African-Americans within North Carolina.

Our goal is to capture the relationship between the biology of health disparities, as well as the social and behavioral pieces.

And by combining those two, you really bring to the table a unique, innovative approach to, to explaining or defining what those health disparities look like.

Whether they be cancer, cardiovascular disease or behavioral issues that might occur because of the environment and the social and behavioral pieces behind that.

Every student that comes to the door, I see my child.

I see my daughter.

I see my son.

And, and that takes on a different meaning.

When you realize that this is someone else's child and they aspire to be like you or be similar.

And I think that's the piece that kind of motivates me.

It's this desire to keep it going, keep the momentum going.

- [Kinesha] That passion, that motivation is knowing that if I complete my end game, that what I'm doing could possibly save someone's life.

That's my motivation.

Simply my motivation.

I don't think it's anything deeper than that.

What I do could save someone's life.

- [Deepak] And BBRI is not, is not a building.

It's a philosophy that we are living.

The whole idea of connecting health disparities research, where departments at NCCU come together to really try to make a difference in the community.

That's what BBRI is.

[dramatic piano music plays] - So we really wanted to help the military families in the area.

So that's why we took on the army project to look at blast effects on brain tissue.

Since many studies have shown that people in the military have a higher susceptibility of Alzheimer's disease, the Army wanted us to take the brain tissue that we keep alive in a dish, and they actually set off a military blast, real military explosives.

So it exhibits the shockwave right through the tissue.

And then we'd look at the small changes that happen in the tissue.

For finding the very earliest signs of changes to the connections in your brain, the same connections you use for memory and behavior.

And those start to show the earliest signs of what happens in Alzheimer's disease.

So years later, people might start developing dementia.

- My favorite part about going to school here is the Bahr lab.

Being part of the Alzheimer's research and having part to do with the military.

LAS research also, that's pretty amazing.

Here in Dr. Bahr's lab, I learned about transgenic mice and particularly like Alzheimer's disease mice, and we dissected their brains and we were able to immunostain them and see like the amyloid beta and tau buildup.

And I thought that was pretty fascinating to be able to see that.

- What we try to do is understand and make a way to make people live longer, but also live better.

And that is really important for us to understand in any aspect of change that is related with life, that is related to the environment, where they live and how this can affect and change the brain.

We have different students with different backgrounds and they can learn not only how to do science, but how to apply science, no matter which field they go.

And then we have many many examples of students that came here to train and work with us that they always teach us something.

And we always teach them at least a little bit about science.

- They have a broad view.

Sometimes we are too narrow looking at the data and a student just comes up, oh what are you doing?

Then we say, oh, I'm trying to see how does this possibly-?

And then the student just pointed out something and they say, yeah, that's what makes sense.

- I'll never forget the first time I met Dr. Bahr, and I wish every interaction happened like this.

So I come in for an interview and I sit down in his desk and then he comes in and he's like hi, I'm Dr. Bahr.

Nice to meet you.

I was like, nice to meet you.

Here's a brain tissue.

I was like, what?

He had this, this like thing on the glass with it.

And he's like, this is the CE1 of the hippocampus.

And I was just like, yes.

You know, instantly, it was like, I was hooked.

I was like, this is so cool.

And the, the practical applications of it, it's, it's not just like, we're not doing random things.

It's like we have this brain tissue that we're turning into this, this protein assay, because there's actual results here that we can find.

And that sort of made me fall in love more with science in general.

And so I feel like I wouldn't be the same person if I didn't come to the Bahr lab.

Words can't describe the amount of opportunity I'm given here in terms of procedure and in terms of just full autonomy.

I talked to, you know, a lot of different friends I have that go to different universities and this sort of thing, they talk about just being glorified pipetters.

That they're, you know, there's the samples put the gel in and you're good.

But there's so many times where they'll teach me something it's like, all right, go do it.

I'll be in the office if you have any questions.

You know, it's sort of just like full, like go.

And, you know, you make mistakes.

Of course you do, but you learn.

And, and given that opportunity, there's no words to describe how great that is.

- [Leslee] One of the things I'm most proud of, of being a Dean in the school of health sciences is that we have the center of excellence for eliminating health care disparities.

That gives access to all of the students to be able to learn how to go into the communities and to provide care to the underserved.

Our hope is that the students will take what they learn and their educational experience and translate that into their professional careers when they're out working independently.

The model was so say as, enter to learn and depart to serve.

So we want to ingrain into our students, the mindset of being servant leaders.

We want them to go out and be the leaders in their health care profession and help their practice areas to learn how to better serve our community.

- Our program is big on community service.

We serve through different free clinics throughout our city, and also taking the mobile unit into different neighborhoods within the East Winston area.

- While we're taking it from the textbooks out there to the real world.

So we're no longer in a controlled environment, you have the ability to look at a person face to face, and really share what it is that you know, and learn from them and learn from their experiences.

There's also a certain synergy that takes place when you have two people working together as a team collaboratively to solve a problem, there's a connection that just doesn't exist in a classroom where you're actually tangibly there.

- Mobile health clinic not only prepares you for what the real world is gonna give you in a clinical laboratory science career, but it helps you build that empathy that you need in order to provide the best healthcare possible.

- [Georgia] Because the school of health sciences has so many healthcare disciplines, we work really as an interdisciplinary team and we not only get the patient contact, the high impact practice of that patient contact, but interdisciplinary teamwork as well.

- [Nussan] I've been a part of the community here ever since I was little and I feel more comfortable with my community and always have been.

And I'm very proud that I come from Happy Hill Gardens, from the projects.

[laughs] I'm very proud of that.

Just as much as I'm very proud of being Alaskan Native.

And, you know, I don't toot my horn all the way, but being a Yupik Alaskan Native, African American woman and being the first of my tribe, that's part African-American woman graduating was something that was monumental to me and to my family and my dad, 'cause my dad went to college, but he didn't finish.

My mom did, but my dad didn't.

So out of my, on my dad's side, I'm the first one to graduate college.

[dramatic orchestral music plays] - The number of minority nurses are low.

And so one of the aspects of this program is to increase that representation because you do want to be cared for with someone who looks like you, who's been through the things you've been through and who can empathize with you.

- [Leroy] They understand where I'm coming from.

I understand where they're coming from.

I can engage with them on a different level.

- [Tina] I really think it increases the confidence of our patients.

They tend to trust someone that looks like them.

They feel like in some cases, you've probably been there.

And they won't feel like they will be judged.

So I think it opens a great pathway for us to reach our community more.

The broader health impact would be, we would see a decrease in those disparities.

We will see an increase in patient education.

We will see a decline in some of these, diabetes, some of the disparities, we will see patients taking hold of their health.

- Hello, my name is Madison.

I'll be your student nurse today.

What brought you in?

- [Simulated Patient] My chest hurts.

I'm gonna take a listen to your chest, is that okay?

- Yes.

- [Tina] Here on the campus of North Carolina Central, we have 14 human patient simulators that we have the capability to educate our students from the start of the nursing program, all the way to the end.

And we're able to see our students bring together that information that they've learned in their classrooms, their skills labs, we're able to see them come alive in that sim lab, connect those dots and critically think to provide safe, effective care to that patient.

And we create it in a safe environment to where the students are not penalized or feel like, oh my goodness, I can't make a mistake.

- [Taysha] And that's what the simulators do.

They give you that real world experience before you get to the hospital, and I appreciate that so much.

- [Simulated Patient] I'm having contractions!

- [Jessica] When you are training to become a nurse, everything that you do is critical.

Everything that you do is vital and everything that you do needs to be intentional because if you don't, then the person who pays for it is your patient.

And the one thing you want to do is save a life and not end one.

So with the simulation they teach you different lung sounds, different heart sounds.

They make you go through seizures.

They can do all these simulations to have you prepare.

- [Nursing Student] Hi Johnny, how are you today?

My name is Kaija Smith, I'll be your student nurse.

I'm from North Carolina Central.

First I'm just going to check your arm band.

- [Simulated Patient] I want my mom!

- You want your mom?

- Yes.

- Alright darling, do you know your name and date of birth?

- They definitely groom you to be a professional in nursing.

They groom you to know what signs and symptoms you need to be concerned with and what interventions you need to do from the start of your nursing career.

So you're able to put all of those things together by the time you reach your senior year.

- [Jessica] Ever since the day that I walked in through the doors and just asked for information, I always felt like I was home.

From the advisors to the professors.

Everyone makes you feel like you're a part of the family.

And when they needed to put you in your place, they will, if they needed to talk to you, they will.

So I appreciated the fact that I've learned and grown so much because transitioning from the CNA role to the RN role, I had to develop different skills and, and become that professional and be held to that higher standard, that higher expectation, which they totally prepared me for.

- They really want to see the students succeed not only in a nursing career, but after they leave NCCU.

- We are increasing the number of minorities that will travel, who will be the great leaders, who will be the providers, who will be the educators, and we need more representation.

And this is not just regionally, we need them globally.

- These students know that progress is germinated from the seed of hope for a better future.

It is the direct result of a desire to build on a legacy of innovation, which is exactly what these students, communities and institutions are doing today through job preparation, economic development, and technological advances.

Their impact is felt throughout the world.

They blaze the trails of tomorrow through the disruption of today.

[upbeat hip hop music plays] - Fayetteville state university is positioned perfectly to serve our military students, both on military bases, and here on campus.

We are closely located to Fort Bragg.

We're only about 10 miles away and we have an extremely large population of military students on our campus.

About 30% of our entire student body population are military connected.

So that's active duty, veterans, national guard, reservists, military family members, including children and spouses.

- [Kevin A.]

Serving my country means a lot to me, it's a big deal.

And I think it's an honorable thing to do for anyone that wants to do it.

I think it's part of my legacy.

A lot of my family members have served in the military.

So I think it was just the right thing to do.

And it was something that I was always destined to do.

I think it's in me to do.

Just following in that lineage and doing my part.

Growing up here in Fayetteville, my dad was in the 82nd airborne.

So I've always had paratroopers and military members around me.

When the time came I was like, I think I want to fly.

And from that, I've been able to gain a pilot slot, which is a really big thing in the air force.

From that plan to go wherever the air force decides to send me and wherever they send me, I want to do my best and just carry on that legacy.

- [Military Professor] Two individuals on this side, facing out this side of the road.

Bravo team leader will then do the same thing, but on the near side of the road.

- I believe that we do a very good job at creating tomorrow's leaders, not only with the different trainings and different opportunities that are afforded to us, but by the amount of cohesion that we have and the amount of competitiveness that is in the program and the atmosphere around here.

- [Monet] I chose FSU, because I am prior service at Fort Bragg so I was already established here.

But I specifically wanted to come to FSU Fayetteville State University, because it's an HBCU.

I definitely love the community, the minority community and bringing that experience and what I gained from that into the army.

- [Gregory] What I enjoy about the ROTC program is the competitiveness.

And it also allows me to tie the technical and tactical proficiencies that are found in a leader and connect them with anything that I may have not known as prior enlisted.

It also gives me the opportunity to provide leadership and mentorship to newer cadets.

- [Louis] You know, I want to provide them with those tools to be successful.

So in a group like this with consistent prior service, with a population of underclassmen that need that enrichment, I think we have the clear opportunity to give them that teaching, that coaching, that mentorship to allow them to be successful.

- [Peter] The MBA program has probably tripled in size over the last four or five years.

Students come here, they have a good experience.

They are well prepared for what comes next.

We also offer practical experiences and cooperate with the small business technology development center here at Fayetteville State to align students or set students up with specific businesses to work on real business problems.

- [Daniel] I go through this program and I learned more about business in this academy than I had through like the rest of my previous education.

And it's because you get to see it all interacting with one another.

And you're not just talking about it in theory, but you're seeing it in a system and seeing how one piece influences another.

So how production influences finance, how that influences transportation management, et cetera.

It was fascinating to me that it's kind of like the nervous system of the body, if an organization was a body.

And finance is interesting to me because you have to have a good head on your shoulders to do it.

And I enjoy problem solving.

And a lot of the work we do is usually figuring out a puzzle.

- It's never ending.

It continues to evolve.

We have to be flexible and always willing to adapt and learn very quickly.

The Broadwell college of business and economics at Fayetteville State University is an awesome program.

And I am so thankful that Mann+Hummel has fostered a relationship so that we can offer internship opportunities, so that the students will have real work experiences before they graduate from the university.

[minimal hip hop beat plays] - Here a student can have whatever area of AI they would like to explore.

- [Zhipeng] My area is artificial intelligence.

Particularly, my dissertation topic right now is in the aspect of IOT or internet of things where everything is connected.

That's why we're doing this, right?

We want to live in an environment where it's secure for us, where we all feel protected and you don't have to give your privacy for that.

- So currently I'm trying to identify approaches and methodologies to identify individuals.

And this is based off of either your DNA, so biometric information, as well as anything within the environment that can hint as to you the individual.

I'm trying to equate evidence to one's identity.

And as the suspects aligned to the fingerprint evidence and to the photographic evidence, you can see how they are combined after Dempster-Schafer theory is conducted.

So these values are mass values.

And the one that's the closest to one, so here it would be subject 201 and the person that you would start your investigation with.

Every 39 seconds on average, a cyber attack happens.

And as a cyber security professional, I have to be as innovative as the attacker and think about what is it that they are attacking, and I'm on the defense.

So therefore I need to figure out how do I solve or save that resource or that asset.

- [David] So it's really cool as a sophomore at A&T that I have the ability to work with automatic driving systems.

I feel like, you know, not many kids my age get to do that.

So the fact that I get to do it is really an honor and a privilege.

In America each year, there's hundreds of thousands of accidents causing death and serious injuries.

So what we wanted to do was, you know, really minimize all of this.

And the only way to do this is through automatic driving system.

Because when you eliminate the human error, you know, the freeways will be clean and clear.

So our task in this project, is what we're doing is we're analyzing all of the images coming in.

So on the self-driving car, there's three cameras, one on the side, one on the top and one on the right.

Data is being flooded into these cameras, you know, hundreds of pictures a second.

So it's our job to make out what these pictures are saying.

So what happens is that these three pictures are flooded into what's called a convolutional neural network.

So this convolutional neural network is fed in with the desired steering command.

And with this, you're always gonna get an error.

So it could be minimal, it could be high.

But we have something called backwards propagation, which goes back and corrects the error.

It'll adjust the weights to make it perfect.

And so that way you don't have to worry about it failing because it'll correct it by itself.

And after this is done, you'll be able to almost perfectly analyze cars, pedestrians, and street signs.

- I mean the students, they're the front and center of research.

They get excited, new knowledge, new understanding.

They can see that how they can apply how transformative they are, how translational they are.

So when I see that they're excited, you know, I get excited.

There are so many different projects and how we can use technology to transform people's lives.

[slow synthesized music plays] - We help provide access to information, we do it using computer tools, and we do it to serve our communities.

We could use it in way to really help make a difference in people's lives.

- [Maya] We put our stuff on paper, we put our stuff into data.

So how do we organize that?

Can we simplify that for everyone, so we all have the same access to that information in the exact same way?

Innovation is information sciences.

It's making data accessible to everyone, no matter who you are.

It encompasses all subjects, all fields, I mean, it's the definition for innovation in and of itself.

- When you look at how the world is changing around computers, it's really about how do we digitize information, lots of different ways.

And it's also about how do we use it in everyday life.

Our students have great knowledge about not only the computer side, but how to really design systems to meet needs wherever they may be.

- [Siobhan] And that's what makes the digital world so exciting.

Here at NCCU SLIS, we're doing machine learning with autonomous vehicles, election data, we're doing some state identity work, and we're also doing human computer interaction.

And so that's just a starting point The landscape of computing, it is growing very rapidly.

And so that looks like needing assistance in public policy, right?

Because the regulations and policies have not kept up with technology.

It also looks like training students, how to become great coders and programmers.

And also it looks like helping students work with businesses and organizations to help them realize their full potential with technology as well.

Because as we know now with the Coronavirus, people have had to catch up.

If they weren't already fully online, they've had to learn how to adapt and pivot.

And I'm confident that the students in the information science program, as well as our librarians that are in the library science program, will be able to help libraries and organizations keep up and move forward.

Now and forever.

[dramatic hip hop beat plays] - [Keith] Gamification is when we take certain elements that are similar to games and then put them into a non-game context in order to help provide some kind of a motivational boost to the people so that they can accomplish the things that they want to accomplish.

- As a first-generation college student in my family, and to be the only second graduate from college, it really means a lot because I'm the youngest out of six and the oldest being like 32.

Giving my brothers and sisters something to strive for, to achieve, is really important to me because I want to inspire them to further their futures as I have.

I've been interested in computer science since I was nine years old.

That's when I wrote my first program in LUA and ever since then, I've just loved everything about programming.

- We built ourselves a course gamification platform.

A platform which allow instructors to gamify their courses.

Because we are one of the first internationally to build such a platform and to do, I'm seeing growing the interest and the use of this and many more courses to be gamified.

In particular, in the secondary and higher education.

- [Keith] Our group right now is primarily research focused.

When we look at the history of gamification and education, we saw a lot of studies that sort of said we tried badges and it was great.

We tried leaderboards and it was great.

And they didn't really do a good job of separating out the effect of the gamification from the effect of the excitement of the professor, to be trying a novel thing.

What we actually have built here primarily is a research platform where people can try different gamification strategies.

So it's very, very configurable.

So you can do a whole bunch of different things.

- We are trying to see combination of game elements which makes the learning environment more gainful, interesting, and inspiring.

- Looking at the history of demand for computer science graduates, there has never been any prolonged period where it has shrank.

It's grown steadily ever since the 1970s and all the indicators are that it's going to keep growing.

[slow modern techno beat plays] - We have to collaborate across the disciplines because cyber security is interdisciplinary.

CREO, the center of excellence for cyber security research, education and outreach is mission to be interdisciplinary and to be innovative in research, education and outreach.

- [Carla] The increase of cyber crime has created opportunities for computer science and criminal justice to collaborate on different projects, right?

And so we are realizing that there is an intersection between criminal justice and cyber security.

- [Nyteisha] So my research specifically is investigating the data that's collected through those, protecting them and looking into users, right?

And giving people those tools to make sure that their privacy is protected.

And then also working to increase transparency, raise awareness, and hold companies accountable to how they deal with that data.

When I started my undergraduate degree, I went to school as a math education major because I was good at math.

And I liked helping people.

And at the time that was the only option I thought I had.

So for me, what helped me transition was there was a teacher, a professor.

She came to me and she said, you're my best student.

And you're not even a computer science major.

And I was just like, thank you.

Nice to know.

She's like no, this isn't a compliment.

I actually think you need to change your major.

And I was like, no, ma'am, I'm graduating next year.

I'm not changing my major.

And she was so persistent.

She went as far as giving me a change of major form every time she saw me.

- Oh my gosh.

And she was just like, there are so many opportunities for you, especially as a black woman in this field.

You can do this.

I gave it a go and my whole trajectory has changed since then.

- When I think of North Carolina's historically minority serving institutions, I'm astonished by their legacy of community driven innovation, a desire to push the boundaries of what is, and aim for what could be.

As well as the tangible impact they're having on all of our lives.

Not only in North Carolina, but around the world.

Through the eyes of the students, I'm reminded of the words of the late civil rights advocate and HMSI graduate Vernon Jordan.

You are where you are today because you stand on somebody's shoulders.

It's the quid pro quo of life.

We exist temporarily through what we take, but we live forever through what we give.

[upbeat hip hop beat plays]