Leisha DeHart-Davis is the most recent member of the UNC Master of Public Administration faculty to win national recognition for her scholarship. An article she co-authored, “Gender, Race, and Experiences of Workplace Incivility in Public Organizations“, was recently selected as a co-winner of the 2022 Best Article Award for Vol. 41 of the Review of Public Personnel Administration (ROPPA).

In choosing this annual award, ROPPA aims to celebrate research that examines important topics in public administration, advances the knowledge base around it, and raises questions for the field to address moving forward.

A troubling trend public sector organizations have recently faced is a shortage of workers, particularly in retaining them in governmental positions and losing them to the private labor market. To address this, DeHart-Davis and colleagues from Ohio State University, the University of Connecticut, and the University of Massachusetts Boston sought to examine how the public sector can remain competitive in retaining this sector of the workforce. The answer they found? Create an environment where coworkers treat each other well across gender, race, and other assorted demographics.

“Workplace incivility has been on the rise for a while and can hamper a government organization’s ability to retain good workers. Retention is a particularly important goal for government organizations given the worker shortages they face,” DeHart-Davis said. “To be competitive in the labor market, government organizations need to offer great workplaces, which include employees being respectful of one another.”

To arrive at this conclusion, the School’s Local Government Workplaces Initiative—a program led by DeHart-Davis which conducts research that helps cities and counties improve their workplace climates—collected data responses from a survey asking employees about a range of workplace experiences. The data for the paper was based on responses from two cities and two counties.

For DeHart-Davis, the collaborative approach to addressing this issue of increasing public sector retention perfectly illustrates the unique opportunity the School can provide to its scholars, when connected with other institutions of academia, to connect theory with practice and find concrete solutions to pressing public sector challenges. To be recognized by ROPPA was a welcome honor for the research team, fostering a needed dialogue around strategies to improve human resource management within government.

“ROPPA is a great journal, so it’s an honor to be published there,” said DeHart-Davis. “This award reflects the work of a team of talented researchers from all over the country. It also demonstrates how engaged scholarship works: that practitioner-relevant data can translate to academic research on public sector organizational dynamics.”

Longtime School faculty member takes the helm in fall 2021 as the first woman to lead the program.The UNC MPA program is pleased to announce that Willow Jacobson, School faculty member and Robert W. Bradshaw Jr. Distinguished Professor of Public Administration and Government, is the next director of the UNC MPA program. Her term commenced September 1, 2021.Jacobson currently directs the LGFCU Fellows program, which she helped create in 2011 and which focuses on developing local government leaders in North Carolina. She earned a Ph.D. in public administration from Syracuse University and her research has appeared in a range of journals, including Public Administration Review, Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, and Review of Public Administration. Learn more about Jacobson and her goals for the program below.You have been part of the MPA program for some time. What are you excited about in this new role? I am continuously inspired by the passion, talent, and public service commitment of our MPA students and alumni. I believe in our mission “to prepare public service leaders and create useable knowledge that improves governance,” and I see that mission come to life in the work of our alumni and students. I am excited to have the chance to serve in this leadership role as we continue to work to accomplish this mission. What do you hope to achieve in the long and short term as director of the UNC MPA program? In the last year we adopted a new vision for the MPA program: “A nationally recognized leader in engaged scholarship whose faculty, students, and alumni transform thought, organizations, communities, and lives.” I am excited to work alongside the other faculty, staff, students, and alumni to achieve this vision. In the short term, I am looking forward to getting to connect with more of our alumni and students and to hear from them about what is working and where we can be doing even better. As director, what would you like your relationship with the program’s alumni to be like? Our alumni are the best! They give so much back to the program. I consistently see our shared commitment to making the MPA program the best it can be. I look forward to continuing to develop a relationship of mutual respect and learning, trust, inclusion, and open communication. How will you maintain and improve the MPA program’s unique synergy with the School of Government and further connect theory with practice? The School of Government is an exceptional institution filled with such talented and committed faculty and staff. I was originally drawn to the MPA program because of its location at the School and its engaged mission (and because David Ammons told me I would like it here—once again, he was right). I think it is wonderful that the MPA program is housed in the School, an institution that is distinctively positioned to contribute to theory and practice in the engaged work that we do. I believe this unique setting is a tremendous value for the faculty and the students we serve, not to mention the 12,000 public officials that the School serves annually. I will work to continue to find opportunities for our students to engage with the School’s efforts and initiatives more broadly while continuing to support all the wonderful ways that the faculty bring their engaged scholarship and practice-based experiences into the classroom and our curriculum.

The School of Government is proud to announce that Shannon H. Tufts has been selected as the faculty recipient of the 2021 Robert E. Bryan Public Service Award by the Carolina Center for Public Service. The Bryan Award recognizes individual students, faculty, staff, and organizations at UNC-Chapel Hill for extraordinary public service and engagement.

Tufts currently serves as the director of the School’s Center for Public Technology (CPT) and teaches and advises on public sector information systems as a faculty member at the School. She has been selected for this honor in recognition of this outstanding expertise and her masterful direction of the CPT—specifically regarding her work to assist public officials in responding to cyber threats across the state.

Tufts was presented the award on Thursday, April 15, in a virtual ceremony held by the Center for Public Service. In his opening remarks, UNC Chancellor Kevin Guskiewicz said, “It’s important to recognize those who have gone above and beyond and taking the grand challenges of our time and seeking to make the world a better place.”

Tufts has spent the last two decades addressing the needs of information technology professionals working in local and state government. In her role as CPT director, she provides education and training for public sector leaders, managers, and staff professionals on the strategic use of technology and its application to the business of government. The Center also provides technical assistance on technology-related matters in the public sector, such as responding to cyberattacks on local governments, among other functions.

“Shannon represents the very best of the School and its work,” said School of Government Dean Mike Smith.

Early on in her career at the University, Tufts recognized that she could play an important role by steadily elevating the visibility and importance of information technology in the public sector. She designed and implemented the first local government Certified Government Chief Information Officers (CGCIO™) program in the United States and continues to run CGCIO™ programs for local government, state agency, K-12, and community college IT professionals across the United States. The various CGCIO™ programs have graduated hundreds of IT professionals across the country.

In her role as associate professor at the School, Tufts teaches courses on public sector information systems—including IT investment strategies, embracing technology, project management, and stakeholder engagement in technology-enabled government. Her students include public sector CIOs, court officials, newly elected legislators, and municipal and county administrators and officials, from clerks to attorneys to HR directors to property tax assessors. She also teaches as a core faculty member in the School’s Master of Public Administration program.

In 2019, Tufts was invited to join the NCLGISA IT Strike Team to help local government staff in the wake of natural disasters and cyberattacks. Now, she works in concert with the NC Department of Information Technology (NCDIT) Enterprise Security and Risk Management Office, the North Carolina National Guard’s cyber response team, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

This past fall, Tufts discussed the passion she has for her work with The Well. “I absolutely love my job. I’ve been here for 20 years, and I would never want to go anywhere else,” she said. “I love our mission. I love that we serve our communities in this state. Every single day, the School of Government helps make the work of our public servants more meaningful and more informed.”

A North Carolina native, Tufts said she feels a special connection and sense of pride of the outcomes of her work.

“I think the mission of the University and really focusing on public service is unbelievably important and we should do as much as we can,” said Tufts in her award acceptance remarks. “Everything that we do in the field we bring back into the classroom…because the goal is, ultimately, to secure all of our North Carolinian information in the best possible way.”

The School extends its congratulations to Shannon Tufts for receiving this honor and its gratitude for her indelible work helping local governments become champions of the complex field of IT and elevating this important profession in communities across North Carolina and beyond.

School of Government faculty member Kimberly Nelson has been selected to edit State and Local Government Review (SLGR), the premier journal of scholarship on state and local governance. Along with co-editor Eric S. Zeemering, the UGA School of Public and International Affairs Master of Public Administration Director, Nelson will curate the journal and develop its distinctive voice in the areas of state and local government politics, policy, and management.

With the help of an expanded and diversified editorial board, Zeemering and Nelson plan to develop a robust article submission process for the journal and increase the population of peer reviewers. They also plan to increase outreach to professional and academic associations.

For Nelson, this is an invaluable opportunity to further serve the journal’s mission by bridging the gap between practice and policy.

“I’m very excited to take on this role, because SLGR fills such an important niche in public administration and government scholarship,” said Nelson. “State and local governments are closest to the people and improving these governments can lead to meaningful differences in the people’s everyday lives. I look forward to helping connect research with practice in a way that’s rarely seen in academia.”

Historically, the pages of the journal illuminate the challenges faced by state and local policy makers and public managers. Now, as scholars think about the policy and management challenges stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, the political polarization that strains policymaking at all levels of government, and ongoing pressure for innovation in our federal system, Dr. Zeemering hopes SLGR will be among the first journals they think of as a source for high-quality research.

“Particularly now, scholars need journals to operate efficiently and provide valuable feedback during the process of peer review,” said Zeemering. “We are dedicated to managing a professional and constructive peer review process. We believe authors, reviewers, and readers will be excited about the changes coming to the journal.”

As co-editors, Nelson and Zeemering will work in tandem toward this goal – strengthening a collaborative bond between their respective institutions.

“Eric and I will work as partners, restructuring the journal, promoting it, and determining the content,” she said. “We also see this as an opportunity to develop a partnership between two institutions that are leaders in state and local government education and scholarship.

Founded by the Carl Vinson Institute of Government of the University of Georgia, State and Local Government Review is the official journal of the Section on Intergovernmental Administration and Management (SIAM) of the American Society for Public Administration. Peer-reviewed and published quarterly, the Review welcomes manuscripts that focus on state and local governments and those that explore the intergovernmental dimensions of public sector activity. The journal includes general interest research articles, perspectives essays from leaders in state and local government, field notes (including traditional research notes and examples of innovation from practitioners), and response essays. As they move forward with their planned changes, Nelson and Zeemering will enhance the journal as a venue for dialogue among scholars and public service professionals in state and local government. 

SLGRis published by SAGE Journals.

School of Government faculty member Carl Stenberg has been named an honorary member of the International City/County Management Association (ICMA). The award is given to individuals outside the local government management profession for distinguished public service and contributions to the improvement of local government.

“Carl has provided a lifetime of service to our profession,” wrote one ICMA member who nominated Stenberg for the award. “He’s a rare academic who understands the theoretical foundations of management and leadership, but who is also steeped in the practical aspects, especially at the local government level.”

Individuals named honorary members have included, but are not limited to, academic leaders, elected officials, and civic leaders. Since the inception of the award in 1924, only 77 honorary memberships have been granted by ICMA. Stenberg is the third School of Government faculty member to earn the honor, joining Warren Jake Wicker and Don Hayman.

In his award acceptance video, Stenberg said, “ICMA’s commitment to public service, to professionalism, to ethics, to social equity and racial justice has really been critical to building community and to building capacity. I’m proud and I’m appreciative to be recognized for my contribution to improving and strengthening local government through an honorary membership.”

Stenberg is the James E. Holshouser Jr. Distinguished Professor of Public Administration and Government at the School. He works closely with North Carolina’s city and county managers and liaises with the North Carolina City/County Managers Association (NCCCMA). He led the creation of the School’s Public Executive Leadership Academy (PELA)  and has written extensively in his areas of expertise, including serving as co-author of “Managing Local Government: An Essential Guide for Municipal and County Managers.” He has contributed to multiple ICMA textbooks and reports, acted as co-editor of “Managing Local Government Services: A Practical Guide,” and authored two Governmental Affairs and Policy Committee white papers for the organization.

“I’ve been engaged with ICMA for over 50 years in a variety of ways, including authoring research reports, books, and white papers; participating in the annual and regional conferences; and collaborating with the past three ICMA executive directors,” said Stenberg. “These activities and relationships have enriched my own professional development, and they’ve strengthened my teaching of current and future city and county managers.

Stenberg arrived at UNC in 2003 after serving as dean of the Yale Gordon College of Liberal Arts at the University of Baltimore, director of the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service at the University of Virginia, and executive director of the Council of State Governments. He previously served as director of the UNC MPA program at the School from 2006 to 2011.

A fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration and former president of the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA), he has also received the Donald C. Stone Practitioner and Academic Awards from ASPA for contributions to intergovernmental management.

Stenberg was named a 2020 honorary member alongside Phillip C. Harris, district recovery manager for Broward County Public Schools in Florida.