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Character Studies is an INDY series about familiar faces around the Triangle—and the stories you may not know about them.
Maddie Jennette was walking through Gardner Hall at North Carolina State University (NCSU) when she noticed a collection of student projects enclosed within a glass display. There was a canvas with three painted flowers. A piece illustrating the yellowing leaves of a plant. And a stuffed weasel.
The creature was slightly smushed between corkboard and a glass panel. Silver pins under its belly raised its rear slightly into the air. Beady eyes stared out at Jennette as she asked herself a very reasonable question: Why is there a taxidermied weasel in there?
She didn’t mull over rationale. Instead, she snapped a picture, opened Instagram, and hit post.
Jennette never uncovered the weasel’s origin story, but that didn’t stop her from making it the insignia for her Instagram page, @exploring.ncsu. She created the account days after graduating with a computer science degree from NCSU in May 2023 to catalog her discoveries across campus.
When Jennette started the account, she was anonymous—partially because she thought it would be funny, and partially so people would focus on her discoveries instead of her appearance. It stayed that way until October 2025, when she ranked buildings at an in-person event on campus and posted a photo of herself: “EXPLORING.NCSU FACE REVEAL,” the caption read. But that was the only time she shared her face in a post, so Jennette says she still sees comments from people she knows who don’t realize it’s her behind the account.
“It’s still funny that I have my face on my profile, but people still aren’t aware it’s me,” she said.
By now, all of Jennette’s close friends know about the passion project. They aren’t the only ones keeping up with her adventures, though—@exploring.ncsu has amassed over 2,100 followers.
NCSU’s libraries catalog the university’s history, but most of the archives focus on centuries past instead of more recent changes. The university, like any college campus, is an incredibly transient space; it looks different every year, just like its students do.
“There are so many things on campus, even just my freshman year—that was 2018, so it wasn’t even that long ago—that I know for a fact existed, but I can’t find photo evidence of them anywhere on the internet, and it drives me insane,” Jennette said. “I just wanted to archive campus as I remember it.”
I just wanted to archive campus as I remember it
maddie jennette
So when Jennette isn’t working at a bookstore and a screenprinting studio in Raleigh, she’s exploring her alma mater to find and photograph lesser-known spots, unique art projects, and campus oddities.
Her discoveries—including handmade, $1,000 lamps shaped like seashells in the David Clark…
