The North Carolina Community College System is a statewide network of 58 public community colleges. The system enrolls nearly 600,000 students annually. It also provides the North Carolina Learning Object Repository as a central location to manage, collect, contribute, and share digital learning resources for use in traditional or distance-learning environments.

James Terry Sanford was an American lawyer and politician from North Carolina. A member of the Democratic Party, Sanford served as the 65th Governor of North Carolina from 1961 to 1965, was a two-time U.S. presidential candidate in the 1970s, and served as a U.S. senator from 1986 to 1993. He was a strong proponent of public education and introduced several reforms and new programs in North Carolina's schools and institutions of higher education as the state's governor. From 1970 to 1985, Sanford served as the president of Duke University.