In the video, “Food for the Summer,” School of Government and MPA faculty members Maureen Berner and Margaret Henderson highlight how one mayor convened local government and community organizations to expand efforts to feed hungry kids during the summer. Over several years, Berner has documented food insecurity in North Carolina through research into the chain of services necessary to feed hungry kids and families, from the farms that donate crops to the non-profit, volunteer-run food banks that distribute the food in communities. For more information about this research, visit www.sog.unc.edu/resources/tools/hunger-research.
Faculty member Charles A. Szypszak is teaching two courses at Adam Mickiewicz University (AMU) Faculty of Law and Administration in Poznań, Poland, from May 22 to June 10. One course, for law students, is Learning Law Through Analytical Dialog. It will enable students to enhance their analytical thinking and expression through legal analysis and engaged dialog. The second isTeaching Law Through Analytical Dialog for doctoral students who teach law subjects and are preparing for careers as law teachers. It is aimed at giving teachers an opportunity to participate in Socratic exchanges, see demonstrations of how such exchanges are most effectively done, consider the advantages and limitations of this method, and experience its use in leading discussions.
AMU is one of the largest academic institutions in Poland. Its faculty are involved in public administration and ourts throughout Poland and the European Union. Szypszak will be collaborating with Hanna Suchocka, the chair of the AMU faculty, who was legal advisor to Solidarity and Poland’s first woman prime minister. Other faculty are known throughout Europe for their work in constitutional reform, human rights, the courts, and other fundamental law and public policy subjects.
In 2015, Szypszak was a visiting professor at Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland, where he led a doctoral seminar called “Learning Law Through Analytical Dialog” for students in law who plan to be teachers. And in 2014, he was awarded a Fulbright Specialist grant to teach seminars for graduate students and faculty at the University of Wrocław. He also taught a course on current issues in real estate for Polish and international law students.
In the MPA program, Szypszak teaches an introduction to law course and an elective on military leadership and public administration. He also teaches an introduction to legal thinking course in UNC’s undergraduate curriculum. He provides counsel to state, national, and interntional institutions, organizations, and public officials on real property registration and conveyance laws.
UNC President Margaret Spellings will deliver the 2017 Deil S. Wright Lecture on March 31 at the School of Government. The event is free and open to the public. Nationally known as an education thought leader and public policy expert, Spellings most recently served as president of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Texas. Spellings previously served as president and CEO of Margaret Spellings & Company, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation, US secretary of education, and chief domestic policy advisor for President George W. Bush. Spellings is a graduate of the University of Houston, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in political science. She also received an honorary doctorate and Distinguished Alumna Award from the university in 2006.
The Deil S. Wright Lecture Series is hosted by the Master of Public Administration program at UNC-Chapel Hill and sponsored by Fidelity Investments and the MPA Alumni Association.
In a blog post for the Harvard Law and Policy Review, faculty member Maureen Berner proposes innovative ideas for reframing food insecurity as an economic development issue.
Faculty member Kimberly Nelson has been appointed to the editorial board for Public Administration Review, a journal dedicated to the theory and practice in public administration. She will serve for a three-year term.
Alice Rivlin, former director of the Office Management and Budget and founding director of the Congressional Budget Office, will deliver the 2018 Deil S. Wright Lecture at 3:15 p.m. on Friday, April 6 at the UNC School of Government. An expert in monetary and fiscal policy, Rivlin currently serves as a senior fellow in Economic Studies and the Center for Health Policy at the Brookings Institution and is a visiting professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown. The title of Rivlin’s lecture is “Fixing Our Broken Policy Process: The Case for Bipartisan Consensus on Economic Policy.”
In 2002, the MPA Alumni Association honored Professor Deil Wright for his 34 years of teaching MPA students by creating the Deil S. Wright Lecture in Public Administration. Each year, a distinguished professional from the field of public administration enriches the educational experience of students, alumni, faculty, and interested members of the community.
Rivlin served as director of the Office Management and Budget (OMB) in the first Clinton Administration (1993-96) and served as vice chair of the Federal Reserve Board (1996-1999). She was the founding director of the Congressional Budget Office (1975-83) and served as chair of the District of Columbia Financial Management and Assistance Authority (1998-2001). She was director of the Economic Studies Program at Brookings (1983-87). She also served at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare as assistant secretary for planning and evaluation (1968-69).
In 2010, Rivlin was named by President Barack Obama to the Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform and co-chaired, with former U.S. Senator Pete Domenici, the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Task Force on Debt Reduction.
The Deil S. Wright Lecture Series is hosted by the Master of Public Administration program at UNC-Chapel Hill and sponsored by Fidelity Investments and the MPA Alumni Association.
Assistant Professor of Public Administration and Government Whitney Afonso was elected to serve on the Executive Committee for the Association of Budgeting and Financial Management (ABFM). An expert in public finance, Afonso will serve a three-year term beginning January 2018.
“It is an essential part of our mission when Carolina MPA faculty members like Whitney Afonso assume such important leadership roles within the public administration community, said William C. Rivenbark, Professor of Public Administration and Government and MPA Program Director.
ABFM is a section of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA), the leading interdisciplinary public service organization involving the science and practice of public and non-profit administration. ABFM aims to promote the professional development of budgeting and financial management in the public and non-profit sectors.
At AFBM’s annual conference on September 28-30, Afonso presented on “Internet Taxation and Local Government Sales Tax Capacity” and “A First Look at the Time to Adoption of Local Option Fuel Taxes.”
Afonso joined the School of Government in 2012. She was named Albert and Gladys Hall Coates Distinguished Term Assistant Professor for 2015–2017. Prior to that time, she taught at the University of Georgia, Department of Public Administration and Policy; and Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Administration.
Faculty member Leisha DeHart-Davis, associate professor of public administration and government, was quoted in a News & Observer article that examines the increasing number of women running for public office.
In the article entitled, “Women are half the population. Now they’re half the Raleigh City Council, too,” N&O reporter Henry Gargan examined the trend of women running for public office, both in North Carolina and across the nation. DeHart-Davis commented, “I think women are absolutely more motivated to run. My impression is that women are seeing political issues being addressed very narrowly and not taking into account a range of concerns, and I expect we’re going to see an increasing number of women running in the coming years.”
DeHart-Davis directs the Local Government Workplaces Initiative, which conducts organizational research for improving city and county workplaces, and is also a faculty partner in Engaging Women in Local Government, a program that seeks to equip women to pursue public service leadership positions. Earlier this year, DeHart-Davis was a guest on UNC’s podcast “Well Said,” discussing women in leadership. Listen to the podcast online.
In fall 2017, Professor of Public Administration and Government Maureen Berner traveled to Belgium to conduct research on food insecurity and poverty as a visiting scholar at Ghent University and its Centre for Global Studies. Berner also exchanged homes with University of Antwerp historian Maarten Van Ginderachter, who visited the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to work on his book and collaborate with faculty here in the United States.
The scholarly exchange was recently featured in Endeavors, a magazine about research and creativity at the University: “In Belgium, Berner observed many similarities between Europe and America. ‘Europe also focuses on employment policies, job training, business growth, education, community development, and social welfare,’ she shares. ‘Affordable housing is a significant issue, and recycling is a priority. Local government is local government in most ways.’”
Berner commented, “Obviously, there are great differences in how governments and non-profits work in Belgium and in Europe, but there is a lot of good information to be shared when we are all talking about the same issues and the same human condition.”
Berner wrote more about lessons learned in her semester abroad for the Community and Economic Development blog.
Read more about Berner’s exchange with visiting faculty at Endeavors online.
Faculty member Leisha DeHart-Davis has been elected as a fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration. Among a group of 41 distinguished practitioners of public administration recognized this year, DeHart-Davis will be officially inducted into the Academy in Arlington, VA, this November. She will join fellow School of Government colleagues Carl Stenberg and David Ammons in NAPA fellowship.
The Academy is a prestigious, non-partisan, nonprofit organization that recognizes individuals with distinguished contributions to the field of public administration through service and scholarship. Its more than 850 Fellows range from professors to Congress members to business executives. DeHart-Davis will be in the company of former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor and former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. In addition, Leon Panetta, former U.S. Secretary of Defense and CIA Director, will join her as an inductee to the class of 2018.
For 51 years, the Fellows have leveraged their expertise to advise government leaders on addressing the issues and ever-changing discourse surrounding American governance. In the words of the Academy, they are the “primary vehicle for addressing current and emerging issues and contributing to the intellectual and popular discourse on government.”
Leisha DeHart-Davis is a professor of public administration and government, having joined the School’s faculty in 2012. She directs the Local Government Workplaces Initiative, which conducts organizational research for improving city and county workplaces, and is also a faculty partner in Engaging Women in Public Service, a program that seeks to equip women to pursue public service leadership positions. She teaches in the Carolina MPA program, and has been published in the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Public Administration Review, International Public Management Journal, Administration and Society, and Review of Public Personnel Administration. Her book, Creating Effective Rules in Public Sector Organizations, was published by Georgetown University Press in 2017. DeHart-Davis holds a PhD in public policy from the Georgia Institute of Technology.