As a land-grant institution, agricultural study at North Carolina State University has always been an integral part of instruction. The earliest courses of study were only in agriculture and mechanics, with classes in the former category consisting of "general agriculture, horticulture, arboriculture, and botany." Gradually, as the curriculum expanded, sets of classes were organized into "faculties" and then departments. Professors named to head these faculties or departments were usually given titles according to their speciality, such as Arborist or Agronomist. Additionally, experimental and practical work at the North Carolina Experiment Station and the Extension Service was increasingly undertaken by State College personnel. As agricultural instruction (and research and extension activities) grew in size and specialization in the first decades of the twentieth century, administering these disparate activities grew more demanding and unwieldy. In addition, a poor administrative set-up made it difficult for the different arms to work together to coordinate research or teaching activities. By the spring of 1923, State College President Wallace Riddick wanted something done about the current state of affairs, not just for agricultural study, but college-wide. In March, Riddick called in George F. Zook, an education specialist at the United States Department of Education, to review the situation and make recommendations for improvements to the Board of Trustees. Zook completed his report by mid-April.

Among Zook's numerous recommendations were two that have had lasting impact. First, the Trustees acted on the recommendation to divide college instruction into four schools, creating schools of Agriculture, Engineering, General Science, and a Graduate School. Second, within the new School of Agriculture, directors were named to head the three distinct divisions within it: Resident Instruction, the Agricultural Extension Service, and the Agricultural Experiment Station. Not until 1925, however, were the four top positions in the Ag School (the above three plus Dean), staffed by four different individuals.

With the reorganization of campus and academic administration came a shuffling of the curriculum within the new Agricultural School. Programs, or "instructional areas" were reduced to six: Agronomy, Animal Industry, Botany, Horticulture, Poultry Science, and Zoology. At the same time, work at the Experiment Station and in the Extension Service was more fully integrated into these programs, and cooperation among the three branches of the School took off. This situation remained largely unchanged until the creation of a Forestry program in 1929, which eventually became the Division of Forestry in 1931. In 1932 the School of Agriculture became the School of Agriculture and Forestry.

New programs were added through the 1930s and 1940s, but the organization of the School remained largely unchanged. Several changes occurred in 1950, however. The Division of Forestry was split from Agriculture to become the new School of Forestry, and Agriculture reverted to the "School of Agriculture." The other change was the creation that same year of the Division of Biological Sciences, combining the Faculties of Botany, Entomology, Plant Pathology, and Zoology, adding Genetics in 1951. This set-up continued until 1958, when the Division was disbanded and its constituent parts granted department status as individual units within the School of Agriculture. The 1950s also saw dramatic increases in budgets for research and teaching and the first international effort for the School, the Peru Project, started in 1955.

The 1960s brought another decade of change to the School, not least of which was another name change in 1964, becoming the School of Agriculture and Life Sciences. One reason for the new name was an increase in the importance and development of the biological sciences, prompting the creation of the Institute of Biological Sciences in 1962, which in large part succeeded the disbanded Division of Biological Sciences. The Agricultural Policy Institute was created in 1960 in conjunction with the Kellogg Foundation, and worked with agricultural institutions across the south to address and mold public policy issues regarding southern agriculture.

The recent decades have seen steady growth in physical space, students, research, and funding. In 1987, a final name change occurred, and the School of Agriculture and Life Sciences became the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. In 2006 the Department of Botany became the Department of Plant Biology. Currently, the College consists of 22 academic and extension departments and administers the North Carolina Agricultural Research Service and the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service. College faculty work closely with academic departments across NCSU, as well as with extension and agricultural workers from around the state. The College continues to strive to meet its three primary functions--teaching, research, and extension--as first laid out over a century ago.