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.

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.

Faculty member Michele Hoyman, together with MPA alum Jamie McCall ’06, published an article in Economic Development Quarterly on the connection between social capital and economic development in U.S. counties.

Faculty member Willow Jacobson with co-author Jessica Sowa published an article in State and Local Government Review on workforce-related challenges municipal governments faced during the great recession and human resource-related innovations that were developed to respond.

Faculty member David Ammons will serve as keynote speaker at the national Public Performance Measurement and Reporting Conference on September 22, 2016. His address is titled, “So, Who Will ACTUALLY Do Performance Management in Your Government?” The conference is hosted by Rutgers University-Newark.

The new, sixth edition of faculty member Maureen Berner’s popular textbook, Research Methods for Public Administration, is now available from Routledge.

Assistant Professor Whitney Afonso‘s article, “State LST Laws: A Comprejensive Analysis of the Laws Governing Local Sales Taxes,” has been published in Public Budgeting & Finance.

Local sales taxes (LSTs) have received growing attention over the past decade, but a fundamental aspect of LSTs has remained largely unexplored: How do state laws governing LSTs differ from one another? The literature acknowledges that state laws vary widely, but leaves the discussion at that. This research seeks to fill that void by presenting a comprehensive set of state LST laws and creating a resource that will enable researchers to consider these differences in their analyses. State LST laws are framed within the lenses of jurisdictional eligibility and discretionary authority.

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. Her research into how the choice of revenue streams by state and local governments affect government and citizen behavior has been presented at the annual conferences for the National Tax Association, Association for Budgeting and Financial Management, American Society for Public Administration, and the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. In October 2016, she was recognized by Public Budgeting & Finance with its Jesse Burkhead Award. Her article, “Leviathan or Flypaper: Earmarked Local Sales Taxes for Transportation,” was selected as the journal’s top article in 2015. Afonso earned a BA in political science from Vanderbilt University, and an MA in economics and PhD in public administration and policy from the University of Georgia.