Senior administrators, including Chancellor James Oblinger, unveiled new plans for N.C. State for the next decade when members of the University of North Carolina Tomorrow Commission visited campus.

The plan included increased enrollment to around 40,000 students, including greater number of students taking distance education courses and a larger percentage of graduate students, according to Provost Larry Nielsen.

However, we would like to see plans for more facilities, especially in residence halls and cafeterias to accommodate the nearly 10,000 extra students that may be coming to the University.

An overall focus on graduates helping the state of North Carolina was a crucial part of the plan, as it is naturally part of NCSU’s mission.

This aspect is always important, as the University is a land-grant institution first. Most research or business partnerships that North Carolina can benefit from are major pluses.

A possible way to accommodate the increase in students is the distance education courses that will be offered. But a dependence on this is also dangerous. There is no substitute for a classroom education.

But this increase, along with a focus on the expansion of summer classes that the Provost is pushing for, will hopefully help the fix the negative trend of students who are taking more than four years to graduate.

The University should build more off-campus housing such as Wolf Village. This is the most realistic method of housing the increase in students.

Research will be a major focus in the years to come, as there will be an increase in percentage of graduate students at NCSU. But this can make it easy to neglect other parts of campus where research may not be as prevalent.

This is where students must step up to the plate. Last semester, students in the College of Management took it upon themselves to create a buzz and excitement for their program by hosting an event to raise awareness.Other colleges must do this as well, rather than argue that they are being left in the dark.

We applaud the administration’s emphasis on the state and the continual growth of the campus. But let’s never forget the student who lives and goes to classes on campus — the student who will promote NCSU to the Wolfpack’s next generation