Q: Tell us a little about yourself and why you decided to pursue the MPA.
I’m from Irvine, California, and grew up in Southern California, where I first got into acting in 8th grade—both of my parents were actors, so it felt like a natural path. For undergrad, I went to UNC School of the Arts and earned my BFA in Acting. While I loved acting, I realized I was most passionate about storytelling and collaboration. Over time, though, I began questioning whether I wanted to pursue acting professionally. I spent summers in Maine with friends, staying at this beautiful, renovated barn where we’d write and produce our own plays for the local community. I found myself gravitating towards producing and administrative roles because I loved helping artists bring their visions to life. That inspired me to join the MPA program—to strengthen my skills as a nonprofit administrator. I knew I wanted to grow into an executive director role for a nonprofit one day, and this felt like the best step to get there.
Q: What did you discover or learn about yourself through the MPA program?
A huge thing I got out of the MPA is just this understanding of how the public sector works – the ins and outs of it, the logistics, but also the deeper purpose of it.
Q: What have you loved most about the program?
This idea that everyone in the program is there to serve people and communities really stood out to me. One of the biggest benefits was getting to meet so many people with different experiences, backgrounds, and interests, but all aligned in the value of wanting to help improve the world we’re living in. You’re in a class of 15 people, and your classmates are bringing real examples and issues to the table, especially as they relate to leadership. You get to talk about and reflect on these challenges, not just in their areas of work but also in my own areas of work and interests.
Q: How has this program changed you?
During the first year of the program, I remember thinking, “Wow, this is a lot of information.” It felt helpful, but I wasn’t sure what it was really doing or where it was going. Then in my second year, it all started to solidify. I saw it show up in my work—identifying what wasn’t working, what we should be doing, and rethinking how I approached our organization. It completely reshaped the way I work. The program also made me more confident as a leader. I’m someone who listens, values collective thinking, and puts shared values first. That really resonated with me because it’s not always the status quo. It reassured me that my leadership style—one that prioritizes quieter voices in the room—is not only valid but necessary.
Q: What advice do you have for people considering a career in public service or specifically the MPA degree?
My advice would be if you do this program, you’ll be surrounded by people who believe in the potential for government and public service to improve and make a real impact. Use your time in the program to learn collectively from each other’s passion and experience. It’s truly inspiring.
What’s your current title, and tell us a little about what you do? I am the Director of the Division of Land and Water Stewardship in the NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. My division houses the Natural Heritage Program, which is the state agency responsible for gathering and sharing information about rare species and natural communities, and the North Carolina Land and Water Fund, an agency makes grants to protect and restore North Carolina’s natural and cultural treasures. Through our work identifying and conserving these places, we have contributed to the protection of 50 Game Lands, 43 State Parks and Natural Areas, local parks and land trust preserves too numerous to count, miles upon miles of trout streams, drinking water supplies, rare plants and animals, and historic areas, such as the one that may hold clues to the fate of the Lost Colony.
You were a seasoned professional when you came into the program. Why did you decide to pursue the MPA?
I now have over 16 years of service in this organization, during which time I have progressed through many roles with increasing administrative and leadership responsibilities. Despite that extensive on-the-job experience, I felt compelled to hone my skillset to better meet the challenges of managing a program of this size and importance. When I was appointed Director in 2022, I immediately began researching programs that were well-respected and capable of meeting my needs as a working student. I was thrilled to find that the best online MPA program in the country was right next door.
Looking back on who you were at the start of the program to who you are now, how have you changed? What I learned is that org charts, processes, meetings, division of labor, workflow, etc. are not things that naturally optimize themselves organically. The MPA program made me aware that administration was a science, complete with data, researchers, and publications, and instructed me how to effectively make use of it. I am now more self-aware as a leader and therefore more intentional in my actions.
What is one class, one project, one faculty member, one experience, one discussion, or some other aspect of our program that had an impact on you and proved to be meaningful in your professional life? I truly cannot single out a single event or experience more useful than another. I would say it was extremely rare that a week went by without learning something that I could immediately use in my professional life.
Q: What was the path you took to get to where you are now?
A: So the shortest way to answer: I took the part time job I had while in the MPA and turned it into a full-time job. I’ve never left. I started with Rebuilding Together of the Triangle as the first employee in fall of 2008 and when I finished the program in 2010, they offered me a full-time role, and I’ve been there ever since. The oranization has grown – my title is the same, but my job has changed very much over the last 6-8 years
Q: Have you pursued any other certifications since your MPA?
I’ve done a few speciality licenses in my field – like Licensed General Contractor, Licensed Septic Installer, and all sorts of things like that. Since I have a leadership role in housing preservation, I’ve had to learn about contracting.
Q: Is the field you are working in now relevant to your MPA degree?
A: Yeah – Housing and non-profit. Public interest in affordable housing is at an all-time high right now. I went to the MPA interested in housing recovery and disaster management, and it ended up a lot of what I did and the opportunities I had were around addressing housing quality issues. A lot of the work I do is done in partnerships with local, state, and federal gov and their housing efforts, so it’s been a great degree for me.
A lot of the relationships I formed initially through the program have also been a big part of my professional life. In an MPA group project I did with Catawba County and the [then] Assistant County Manager Lee Worsley, UNC MPA alum – now Executive Director with Central Pines Regional Council in the Triangle is a primary local partner of mine now. We formed a relationship in the program that has been instrumental to our current work.
Q: How did the MPA program specifically prepare you for future work experiences or inform what you do now?
A: The biggest thing was helping me more thoroughly understand the way that the governing process worked internally and providing an understanding of how to develop programs and strategies that work in public-private-non-profit spaces. Also, the relationships that elected officials and organizations have to approach challenges and problems and how they can become community partners to come to the table with solutions. The MPA program gave me the tools to be a good partner and to build programs that we can actually work with.
Dylan Russell is the executive director of Lead for North Carolina at the UNC School of Government and a co-founder of Lead for America. Lead for North Carolina places students in high-impact fellowships in local government across the state. He has secured over $6 million in private support to advance Lead for North Carolina’s mission and has placed 110 young people in local government fellowships across the state. Dylan also launched the NC COVID-19 Student Response Corps with the Office of Strategic Partnerships and placed 300 student interns in local governments and nonprofits across North Carolina. Prior to serving as executive director, Dylan was a development officer at the School of Government, a policy analyst at the NC Department of Public Instruction, a fifth-grade public school teacher, a White House intern, and a member of the Board of Trustees at Appalachian State University. Dylan served as president of the Graduate Student Body at UNC and president of the Student Body at Appalachian. Dylan was awarded the Robert E. Bryan Public Service Award from the UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor and the Plemmons Leadership Medallion by the Appalachian State University Board of Trustees.
Russell is an instructor in the UNC School of Government’s Master of Public Administration program. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Appalachian State University, an MPA from UNC-Chapel Hill, and is pursuing his Ph.D. at North Carolina State University.
The UNC MPA Program gave Dylan the tools, network, and skills he needed to launch Lead for North Carolina and co-create Lead for America. The UNC MPA Program was where he first studied the silver tsunami and human capital pipeline concerns in public management. The School’s commitment to bridging scholarship to practitioners inspired Dylan to create a similar model to connect future talent with high impact positions in local government. The faculty’s mentorship, guidance, and support were and continue to be critical in Lead for NC’s operations.
Q: Looking back on who you were at the start of the program to who you are now, how have you changed?
A: I’ve become a more thoughtful and strategic, forward-thinking person. The MPA program helped me move outside of my linear thinking patterns and consider the systems that create embedded problems and approaches we can take to change systems at the source to lead to better outcomes.
Q: What is one class, one project, one faculty member, one experience, one discussion, or some other aspect of our program that had an impact on you and proved to be meaningful in your professional life?
A: My Applied Research Project experience was incredibly valuable. I researched work characteristics among hybrid and remote staff members at U.S. colleges and universities that promoted organizational commitment (ultimately, information sharing across distances and clear, equitable performance management). I was able to apply my findings directly to the development of an institution-wide flexible work program at my place of work. We will be tracking the results of our program over the next few years to see its effects on retention and recruitment. UNC gave me the guidance I needed to engage in this research and the language to bring my findings to HR and university leaders.
Q: A brief quote or piece of advice for those considering the UNC MPA or a career in public service?
A: Join the UNC MPA program! It will help you with any number of paths forward in public service or even to help you bring important public service values into other sectors. The MPA program teaches you about inter-sector relationships, systems, and encourages you to “ask the second question” to reach real solutions.
Adrienne Augustus spent her childhood stepping up. As a peer leader, a Girl Scout, and class president, she was always looking for ways to serve her community. Years later, she’s still wholly dedicated to that mission.
After graduating with a BA in Journalism from the University of Maryland, she began a reporting career in Greenville, North Carolina. “I was hoping to help my community by uncovering the ills of our world and eliciting positive change, one news story at a time,” she says.
Seven years and one Emmy nomination for investigative reporting later, she shifted to the demanding world of corporate communications.
Community service never took a backseat. She served on the board of directors for a local Girl Scouts affiliate. She supported the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. She volunteered with local nonprofit organizations by lending her extensive knowledge of communications, public relations, and fundraising efforts. The more she contributed, the more she reconsidered her priorities—and her career goals.
An MPA “Just Made Sense”
“After building a professional career stressing about corporate bottom lines, I decided if I was going to be stressed out about work, the work needed to matter,” she says.
In 2015, she left the for-profit sector and dove face-first into finding the right master’s program—one that would allow her to elevate her professional know-how and pursue a new career direction.
“After building a professional career stressing about corporate bottom lines, I decided if I was going to be stressed out about work, the work needed to matter.”
Augustus started exploring Master of Public Administration (MPA) programs. An MPA would help her understand the complex, evolving relationships between governments and communities. It would also give her the versatile skill set she’d need to take charge in a nonprofit environment. The more she thought about it, the more “it just made sense.”
“When I read about the MPA program at UNC, I realized I had found the beginning of my new career,” she says. “The opportunity to take electives that focused on nonprofit management was the icing on the cake.”
Aligning Public Service and Mental Health Equity
Augustus started the program with a renewed sense of purpose and an ambitious goal: to found her own nonprofit organization.
“I initially expected to use my degree to build a career as a nonprofit management consultant, mental health advocate, and public speaker,” she says. “But then an incredible UNC MPA administrator offered me the opportunity to lay the groundwork for my nonprofit a year before graduation. The time I spent launching the organization would fulfill a graduation requirement, but we never expected my efforts to move so quickly from concept to reality.”
Guided by that momentum and support, Augustus founded A Beautiful Mind Foundation (ABMF). ABMF funds organizations that address the cultural differences impacting communities of color and the unique challenges those communities face in receiving mental health support. Its mission is to “positively impact lives by investing in culturally competent mental health services that educate, enlighten, and empower our diverse community.”
“We never expected my efforts to move so quickly from concept to reality.”
Augustus says her own experiences, volunteerism, and mental health struggles have “very clearly” informed the organization’s development.
“As an African American woman, I have faced challenges finding doctors and support groups that provided the kind of treatment I needed—not just as an individual with bipolar disorder, but as a whole person who faces adversity unique to Black Americans,” she says. “Members of the Latinx, Asian American, and Native American communities also face unique challenges when addressing mental illness that are shaped by their culture, native language, and generations of well-established norms and generations-old traumas.”
Identifying and funding organizations that acknowledge and respect those cultural differences is critical. That’s where ABMF comes in.
“Despite the coronavirus pandemic, we brought in nearly $26,000 in just 10 months of fundraising—and nearly all of it came from individual donors,” she says. In July, the board of directors announced the foundation’s first 20 grant recipients, representing 10 states and the District of Columbia, with awards totaling $22,315.
A Powerful Tar Heel Network
“UNC Tar Heel footprints are all over the creation and ongoing development of this organization,” says Augustus. “Two board members are UNC MPA alum—Molly Murray and Debbie Adams. One I met in class and the other I met at a virtual MPA happy hour. Three other volunteers I met through my online MPA courses. Two out of the three of us who led our inaugural grant-making cycle are recent UNC MPA graduates.”
Augustus says countless others, including MPA staff and professors, have made personal financial contributions, donated through family funds, offered priceless advice, and offered other forms of support. Through it all, she’s had multiple chances to reflect on her education—and the true meaning of service.
“UNC Tar Heel footprints are all over the creation and ongoing development of this organization.”
“Being an effective part of the public sector requires so much more than learning how to do a job. Earning an MPA at UNC teaches you how to be a leader in the public sector—how to make a meaningful, positive impact for your community, whether it be at the local, state, or national level. If you truly want to be a public servant and make a positive change in our community, an MPA will give you the know-how to lead not just effectively, but ethically and equitably too.”
The last three years of Augustus’ life have unfolded in ways she never could have expected. “Busy” doesn’t begin to cover it: She’s earned an MPA. She’s founded a nonprofit organization. On top of it all, she’s starting a new job as the media relations and mental health program manager for her local police department.
“If you truly want to be a public servant and make a positive change, an MPA will give you the know-how to lead not just effectively, but ethically and equitably too.”
“Less than one month ago, that position didn’t exist,” she says. “A key component of my role as a civilian at the department will be to support goals set by the department’s leadership to create and launch community-centered emergency mental health support services for the city.”
As for Augustus? She’s already thinking about what comes next.
“A friend recently asked me when I was going to run for office,” she says. “The way my life has been going, I won’t be surprised if that role is somewhere down the road. I didn’t set out to work for the government, but the MPA from UNC certainly gave me the knowledge and desire to lead in the nonprofit sector, in any capacity, at a high level.”