A new Libraries endowment preserves two important legacies

What projects and people inspire you? Alumni Mitchell Moravec (BS ‘18, BA ‘18, MPA ‘20) has a ready answer, and he’s creating a Libraries endowment in order to tell you.

Moravec’s donation creates the Rupert Nacoste Libraries Wolf Tales Endowment which will provide support for Wolf Tales—the Libraries’ story-collecting program to document and archive NC State’s history in the voices of those creating it.

The project, run by the Libraries’ Special Collections Research Center (SCRC), collects the stories of the NC State community, past and present, in the form of video narratives and interviews. Students, faculty, staff and other members of the NC State community can record their stories at special events or use the SCRC’s Virtual Wolf Tales platform to record their own stories on a personal device and submit it online.

“Wolf Tales is something that I really thought was important at the time as a student,  to have this space for people to come in and just talk and share memories,” Moravec says. “My dear friend Jackie Gonzalez, who was Student Body President, recorded one at the end of her term. It just became something that I wanted to be a cheerleader for.”

“As I graduated and thought more about it, I just wanted to make sure people remembered that Wolf Tales was a thing and that it was important. And I had this opportunity to endow it and make it last.”

Moravec has named the endowment after Dr. Rupert Nacoste, an Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor of Psychology who recently retired after an over-30-year career at NC State. An acclaimed author and NC State’s convocation speaker in 2017, Nacoste earned honors including the Board of Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2013, Student Government Distinguished Professor in 2011, the Panhellenic Association’s Outstanding Educator Award in 2005, and the Alumni Distinguished Undergraduate Professor in 1999.

“I took his PSY 311 course, which is Social Psychology,” Moravec recalls. “I was moved by the content of his course—social psychology is the meat and potatoes of how we interact and go about in our crazy world here. But it's also just his presence and presentation.”

A frequent essayist in Psychology Today and author of Taking On Diversity: How We Can Move From Anxiety to Respect and the memoir Making Gumbo in the University, Nacoste was NC State’s first Vice Provost for Diversity and African American Affairs. He developed the course "Interpersonal Relationships and Race” to help students understand diversity dynamics in their everyday social interactions.

In the classroom, Moravec saw how Nacoste applied psychological lessons to his students’ everyday lives. It reminded him of why he found Wolf Tales so important.

“That’s where Dr. Nacoste ties in with Wolf Tales—he puts students and their experiences first,” Moravec says. “You listen to him lecture or you read his books, and he dives into the student experience and lets their voices come out. To connect him to this project that truly captures the voices of the Pack is just a no-brainer to me. It’s so important to honor his legacy and his support of this university, and to revive and revitalize this storytelling project that does the same thing.”