North Carolina State University has announced a $3 million gift from alumni Joseph and Deborah Kapp Gordon to its College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS).

The gift will support initiatives designed to boost the number of students from rural areas of North Carolina who benefit from an NC State education. To that end, a portion of the gift will be used to establish an endowment for the Farm to Philanthropy program. The first initiative under that program — the ACT Supplemental Preparation in Rural Education (ASPIRE) — is designed to help rural students prepare for standardized college entrance examinations. A second initiative, Student Transfer Enrollment, Advising, and Mentoring (STEAM), will enable selected students who begin their higher education at a North Carolina community college or other university to participate in activities at NC State that support their academic development. Upon successful completion of the STEAM program, participants will be guaranteed admission during their sophomore year to a degree program in CALS.

One of the goals of the Farm to Philanthropy program is to help responsible students graduate without debt. "Graduating debt-free will enable physical, emotional, and philanthropic creativity to inspire students to 'pay it forward' to future program participants," said Deborah Gordon. "It is my hope to see programs like this spread to other institutions within the University of North Carolina system so each student can graduate debt-free."

Joseph Gordon, a veterinarian, serves on the board of the North Carolina Veterinary Foundation. In 1988, he founded Care First Animal Hospitals in Wake County. Deborah Gordon double majored in math education and computer science at the university.

"Students in rural and underserved communities are often frustrated by their inability to successfully compete for college admission, which makes this gift and these initiatives so important to our land-grant mission," said CALS dean Richard Linton. "In North Carolina, for example, SAT scores among our top ten agricultural counties are more than seventy points lower than the national average, and sixty points lower than the statewide average. This program will help ensure that there is more than one pathway to an NC State degree in fields related to agriculture and life sciences."