Margaret was highly regarded and appreciated for her commitment to good writing, her hard work and attention to detail, and her willingness to help authors become better writers.  As one who benefited from her sharp blue pencil, Margaret insisted that everyone could become a better writer—and she helped to insure that you made progress.  These prizes honor Margaret by recognizing good writing and editing by our colleagues.

There are two awards.  One is for “collaboration between authors and editors who achieve the plain style for which Margaret Taylor was highly regarded.”  For this award the selection committee unanimously recommended The North Carolina Reinvestment Act, edited by Jennifer Henderson and written by Jamie Markham.

Here is what the committee said: “The book comprehensively describes sweeping changes to the law of sentencing and corrections in North Carolina. The author and editor worked together expertly within guidelines from an external funding source, the Division of Adult Correction, North Carolina Department of Public Safety, and a compressed publication schedule to produce a very valuable resource for use in the education of court and correction officials. Their smooth collaboration with each other, and with others in the publications division, resulted in meeting the demands of an outside funder while still achieving the high level of readability and clarity for which Margaret Taylor was known as the Institute’s publications coordinator.”

The second award is “for an author who creates an outstanding writing that displays the clear and direct style Margaret Taylor brought to Institute publications for so many years.”  The selection committee unanimously recommended Amendment One, North Carolina Public Employers, and Domestic Partner Benefits, a Public Employment Law Bulletin written by Diane Juffras.

Here is what the committee said about Diane’s work: “It is a prime example of excellence in engaged scholarship. This bulletin was composed and published within one month after voters approved the state constitutional marriage amendment. It carefully analyzes the difficult issue of the continued legality of the extension of benefits to unmarried domestic partners, an important question to public employers in North Carolina. The bulletin contains a thorough and easy-to-follow analysis. Its impact was demonstrated when columnist Bob Geary of Indy Week quoted extensively from her analysis and noted that “policy guidance from the School of Government is widely followed by local officials and, in particular, by city and municipal attorneys. In the absence of a court ruling, it takes on a quasi-official status.”

Congratulations to Jennifer, Jamie, and Diane.  There is much good writing and editing at the School, and I am happy that we can celebrate some of it through the Margaret Taylor Writing Prizes.  Special thanks to the hard-working Selection Committee for identifying these deserving recipients: Margaret Henderson, Katrina Hunt, Laurie Mesibov, and Chuck Szypszak (Chair).

I learned on Friday afternoon that Jessie Smith will be receiving one of Carolina’s most significant scholarly honors—a W.R. Kenan, Jr. Distinguished Professorship.  Congratulations to Jessie on this wonderful and well-deserved recognition.

According to the Provost’s letter announcing her award, “A distinguished professorship is one of the most prestigious and visible honors that The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill can bestow upon a member of the faculty, and it is a symbol of the value your colleagues have placed on your research and scholarship.”  It truly represents the pinnacle of scholarly recognition at Carolina.  Nominations came from every corner of the University and only nine people were recommended by the Distinguished Chairs Selection Committee for the available distinguished professorships.  We have only had two university distinguished professors in our 80-year history (Robert Phay and David Lawrence), and none since David retired in 2009.

First and foremost this is a terrific honor for Jessie.  It also serves as recognition for the School of Government, however, and confirms the University’s commitment to our high-quality engaged scholarship focused on North Carolina.  The Lambeth Professorship awarded to Aimee Wall similarly reinforces the value of our work for the campus.

The usual measure for scholarly productivity at Carolina is writing in peer-reviewed journals.  It is too narrow a measure in my opinion, but it is the only one used most of the time and it almost always is used to identify our most distinguished scholars for Kenan Professorships.  If you look at the underlying elements of distinguished scholarship, though, you will also find them in the best of our engaged work.  Original analysis and interpretation; high-level insights; creativity; clarity and coherence; accuracy; recognized leadership in the field; and progressive development of an important body of work.  Jessie is a brilliant scholar whose work includes all those elements of distinguished scholarship.

The only difference between Jessie and a more traditional legal scholar is the intended audience for her research and how it is presented.  The same could be said for most of the School’s work in law as well as our engaged scholarship in other disciplines.  I’m happy that the committee was willing to look beyond traditional measures and recognize excellence in work that advances the School’s unique mission.

Congratulations again to Jessie for this accomplishment and for shining a light on the excellent work done at the School of Government.  Kudos to Michael Crowell and Jim Drennan for putting together a persuasive nomination letter.

The 2013 SCUPSO (Southern Consortium of University Public Service Organizations) Conference was held last Thursday and Friday in Baltimore.  This year it was co-hosted by the Schaefer Center for Public Policy (University of Baltimore), the Institute for Governmental Service (University of Maryland), and the Institute for Public Administration (University of Delaware).  Others attending from the School were Ellen Bradley, Dave Brown, and Kelley O’Brien.  I was happy to have others involved because next April 24-25 we will be hosting the SCUPSO Conference in Chapel Hill.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, SCUPSO is interesting for a variety of reasons.  The organizations vary in terms of their focus and size, but all are committed to service and they are much more in line with our public-official mission than traditional academic units.  I always feel like I’m in the presence of kindred spirits.  I also inevitably learn something interesting from even the smallest centers and institutes, who often have little or no state support and who must be creative to survive.  Let me share a few random observations from this year’s conference.

The opening session included panelists from three different universities who talked generally about how universities approach public service and applied research.  I was especially interested in the comments of Dan Rich, the former provost and now a public policy professor at the University of Delaware.  His main theme was that the changing political economy of higher education—moving from a public good to a private good—threatens the long-term viability of public affairs programs and especially challenges the value of public affairs-related engagement with the community.  He believes strongly that the current emphasis on business entrepreneurship is too narrow, and he argued that universities are far too conservative to accept the risk of failure that goes with genuine entrepreneurship.  In particular, Rich worries that “the romance of entrepreneurship” threatens to displace a university’s broader commitment to community engagement.  It was an interesting counterpoint to the usual perspective on entrepreneurship in higher education.

I participated in a session on financial sustainability with Matthew Duke, Senior Director of the Center for Government and Public Affairs at Auburn University at Montgomery.  Matthew comes from Accenture in the private sector, and he has brought a consultant’s perspective to the Center’s work.  Rather than just asking public clients to pay for a service, he partners with them to seek grants that the public agency otherwise would not get.  For example, he offers grant writing as a fee-for-service, and the agency also contracts with the Center for an evaluation of the project if the client wins the grant.  Matthew also has shifted from a more exclusive focus on executive agencies to establishing relationships with the Alabama legislature.  The result has been encouraging and the legislature has contracted with the Center to conduct a number of efficiency studies that have reduced expenses in state agencies.

There were other good sessions, including one by Brian Dabson, Director of the Institute of Public Policy with the Truman School of Public Affairs at the University of Missouri.  Brian has been given the responsibility of insuring that the Institute is “the pre-eminent source of independent, nonpartisan, evidence-based public policy analysis for Missouri.”  He has visited Chapel Hill and talked with us about our goals related to public policy.  It was interesting to see the progress he is making through networking and collaboration on his campus.  He has established the IPP Policy Research Scholars, a group of ten faculty members from different units who have expressed an interest in connecting their academic research to the policymaking process.  Brian is shifting the Center’s soft-money funded staff slightly away from program evaluation and project management and more in the direction of translation services—translating the policy implications of existing academic research.  This summary doesn’t do justice to Brian’s work, and I’m interested in following his progress and learning from his experience.

In some ways the School’s closest analogue in SCUPSO has been the Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia.  They have not been as active in recent years, and so it was especially nice to meet their new Director, Laura Meadows.  It was interesting to learn a little about their international work, which involves Georgia government officials in a variety of ways.  Rather than detract from their Georgia focus, Laura believes that it improves their state-focused work and it is supported by their Georgia public-official clients.  There are differences between our two organizations, but I look forward to future conversations so that we can learn from one another.

It is exciting to think about hosting next year’s conference and showcasing some of the School’s work.  It is a very nice group of folks who are committed to doing good work in their states.

The North Carolina Center for Voter Education honored John Sanders last week with the 2013 Robert Morgan Service Award.  The award is named for Robert Morgan, a distinguished public servant who served as North Carolina’s Attorney General and then as one of its US Senators.  This award was a part of the Spectrum of Democracy Awards “honoring vital contributions to North Carolina’s democracy.”  Here is a link to a video about John that was shown at the award dinner last week.  In many ways like the earlier example of Albert and Gladys Coates, it is worth noting that John’s love and labor for the University and for North Carolina have been shared in full measure by his wife, Ann

In addition to recognizing John’s contributions as a faculty member and Director of the Institute of Government, it also noted that he “played a pivotal part in developing the statewide community college system, integrating the University of North Carolina and in preserving the State Capitol building.”  John also served as a trusted resource for lawmakers in crafting the current North Carolina Constitution, adopted in 1971.  According to the citation, “Mr. Sanders has been called ‘North Carolina’s invisible hand’ because of his decades of humble, dedicated service in helping to shape politics, law and government in our state.”

This is only the latest in a number of awards that John has received, and it is richly deserved.  For me his largest influence may be the impact he had on all of the faculty members who served with him at the Institute.  He demonstrated through his consistent example that excellence in all things matters, and that accepting less than excellence in small things might easily lead to mediocrity in large ones.  He proved that focusing your life’s work on improving one state is important and worth of your best efforts.  He also showed a willingness to do whatever was necessary to carry out our mission for North Carolina―no matter how small the task or how personally inconvenient.

The values that guide our work today are John’s values, and the values he taught us have become part of our organizational DNA.  In that way his impact will continue to be felt far into the future.  .

Jim’s career has been dedicated to seeking justice for all North Carolinians by improving their justice system.  He exemplifies professionalism, intellectual honesty, the highest legal ethics, and compassion.

It was an evening full of well-deserved good feeling for Jim, and also indirectly for the School of Government.  In presenting the award, Chief Justice Sarah Parker made lovely remarks about the many contributions Jim has made over the course of his career.  She clearly was speaking from the heart and from her own direct experience with Jim.  In addition to his teaching, writing, and advising for court officials, Chief Justice Parker described his leadership role in facilitating many important legal developments (including the reform of drunk driving and sentencing laws).  She also praised his leadership in creating the North Carolina Judicial College and serving as Director of the Administrative Office of the Courts.

Chief Justice Sarah Parker

Chief Justice Parker then introduced a video in which several people shared their reflections about Jim and his impressive career.  I was honored to be included in the video, along with UNC President Tom Ross, Chief Judge John Martin, and Chief District Court Judge Beth Keever.  Not surprisingly, common themes included Jim’s commitment to court officials and his unerring good judgment and wise advice.  Tom Ross referred to Jim as his personal Yoda, the one person he goes to for advice on difficult professional and personal issues.  Everyone reflected on the many positive differences Jim has made in the court system, as well as the importance of his friendship to them over the years.

Jim believes that the court system is about how we treat one another as a people, and it reflects our deepest democratic values of justice, fairness, and equality.  In addition to his many direct contributions to improving the court system, Jim has improved it indirectly by setting a perfect example of professionalism for his colleagues at the School.  We have seen someone who treats all court officials and everyone at the School with tremendous respect―without regard to their place on an organizational chart.  We have seen someone who puts the needs of court officials before his own, and who goes out of his way to help them on their terms.  Finally, we have seen someone who has great compassion for the needs of others.

Jim’s example has inspired all of within his orbit to be better at serving public officials in North Carolina and to be better colleagues for each other.  Think of it as the Drennan Multiplier Effect.

Of course Jim’s remarks in accepting the award were predictably humble and self-effacing.  He talked about each of the people in the video, and he mentioned each of his colleagues who attended the dinner.  Jim used the ceremony as an opportunity to shine a spotlight on the importance of justice in the court system, the commitment of North Carolina’s court officials, and the value of the School.  He talked about “catching the virus” of public service as a young faculty member and being inspired by our mission, and he has carried it out faithfully for nearly 40 years.  It was terrific that many of his colleagues from the courts group were able to attend, and it was especially meaningful for Jim to have his family with him that evening.

Jim Drennan

We will post the video from that evening on our website as soon as it is available from the Commission on Professionalism, along with a longer interview with Jim that was conducted by Franklin Freeman.  In the meantime, please congratulate Jim on this significant honor.

The campaign committee members did a wonderful job over a longer-than-usual fundraising period.  We started the campaign at the beginning of the recession, so our timing could not have been much worse.  George Little (an insurance executive from Southern Pines and a long-time leader in the Republican Party) persevered as chair of the committee―he was strongly motivated by his great affection for Governor Holshouser, his best friend.  Phil Kirk, another member of the committee, did extraordinary work in soliciting key donors for the professorship.  And there were many, many others, including Brad Wilson, President of Blue Cross and Blue Shield, who generously made a significant challenge gift toward the end of the campaign that was matched by Art Pope through the Pope Foundation.  Chuck Neely, a member of our Foundation Board, was instrumental in securing that gift.

It is perfectly appropriate that we are able to honor Governor Holshouser because he has been involved directly and personally with the School’s work.  In addition to relying on us during his tenure as governor, he has used our services regularly over the years as a county attorney, municipal attorney, and airport authority attorney.

I remember the first time I visited Governor Holshouser at his office in Pinehurst, and he kept me waiting in his lobby for about ten or fifteen minutes past our scheduled meeting time.  When he came out he had a mischievous smile on his face.  He explained the reason for the delay.  He had been talking with one of our faculty members, David Lawrence, about a pressing local government law question.  He finally had told David he needed to go because he had a meeting with his boss.

David’s response was “My boss?  Who are you talking about?”  Governor Holshouser especially enjoyed sharing that comment with me.  I’m reasonably certain it was the first time David had ever considered that he might have a boss, and of course he rejected the idea completely.

I’m proud that Governor Holshouser’s name will always be connected to the School of Government.  No other person is more widely respected for his commitment to North Carolina, and that respect crosses political ideology and party affiliation.  He works with Republicans, and he works with Democrats.  He is viewed by everyone as fair and helpful.

Those are exactly the same qualities that we have tried to promote as the School of Government.  Our mission is to work with all North Carolina officials so that they can be as effective and as efficient as possible.  We want to work with everyone by providing practical and helpful assistance.  We want to be viewed by everyone as fair and helpful.

Governor Holshouser is a great role model who always has exemplified the highest integrity and civility.  He is a good and humble person.  This professorship will serve as a permanent reminder, and inspiration, to follow his example in our work with North Carolina officials.

Governor Holshouser’s brief remarks about the School were heartfelt and wonderful.  He talked about his reliance on our faculty and how proud he was to have his name associated with us.  He encouraged people to participate in our next campaign, concluding that “my name may not be attached to it, but my heart will be.”

Many thanks to everyone who was involved in this campaign, especially Ann Simpson who did a great job herding all of the cats to the finish line.  Norma Houston also was incredibly helpful with ideas and contacts along the way.  Thanks to Ann and everyone else who made last week’s celebration such a wonderful event―Becky Carter, Jean Coble, Tatum Isenberger, and Random Gott.

Katrina Hunt nominated Todd because “through his excellent leadership and management skills, he promotes teamwork, encourages performance excellence, and supports a collaborative environment where everything is possible and everyone wins.”  “Another wonderful quality about Todd that makes him an effective manager is how he transfers difficult or controversial scenarios into positive learning experiences.”

Todd’s responsibilities at the School have increased over time because of his excellent skills as a manager.  He has tackled some of our s most challenging areas and produced major turnarounds every time.  Todd tries to understand deeply the facts and circumstances from a systemic perspective, and his reliance on data rather than superficial assumptions has enabled him to develop new insights and solutions.  His approach always includes a profound respect for the people reporting to him.  He engages them in thinking about solutions and then carefully mentors them as they begin to implement improvements.  Todd simultaneously is a rigorous, challenging, supportive, and affirming supervisor.  His management skills made him the obvious choice to lead the planning and implementation of MPA@UNC.  Todd’s contributions to the School have been impressive and his management skills have made us a much better organization.  I am pleased that he has received this wider recognition for his good work.

Jamie Markham―C. Felix Harvey Award to Advance Institutional Priorities.  Jamie Markham learned last week that he will be receiving the Harvey Award for “exemplary faculty scholarship that reflects one of the University’s top priorities.”  This is an annual competition that considers faculty ideas from across the campus and provides $75,000 to support the winning proposal.  Jamie will use the funding to develop “a mobile application (‘app’) for North Carolina’s primary criminal sentencing law, Structured Sentencing.  The heart of the app would be interactive versions of the charts that set out the permissible sentence lengths for criminal defendants under state law.  Recent legislative changes have made that law more complicated, leading to confusion and mistakes―often resulting in sentences that are longer than they should be.”

Jamie brought together a very impressive group of collaborators for this proposal, including our own Jeff Welty, who has some good experience with his ASSET (Arrest, Search, and Seizure Electronic Tool) application.  The “broad coalition of faculty, judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, and correctional officials, and others will ensure that the end product is legally correct, user-friendly, and responsive to real-world needs.  Putting this technology in the hands of practitioners will help users avoid sentencing errors and promote the efficient administration of justice.”  In a letter supporting the proposal, Susan Katzenelson, Executive Director of the NC Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission, wrote that Jamie “is very knowledgeable and proficient in sentencing laws and criminal laws in general.  He is the person that criminal justice professionals in North Carolina turn to for answers to their questions.  I have no doubt that he would develop an application that would be the best of its kind.”

Congratulations to Jamie for putting in the hard work to pursue this innovative opportunity in his field.  I love that he took the initiative to generate the resources that will allow him to have an even greater impact on sentencing practice in North Carolina.  It also happened to be the same week that his new book was published, The North Carolina Justice Reinvestment Act.  Jamie is on a roll.

I encourage you to congratulate Todd and Jamie for receiving these honors.  It is no surprise to me that the University regularly looks to the School for evidence of outstanding accomplishments by staff and faculty.  We have great people who are doing great things.  Thanks to everyone for your good work.

I mention the Division’s culture because it is one reason why our publications process over the years hasn’t always met our expectations for efficiency and effectiveness.  Good people have been involved in the work, but something in the culture prevented them from offering the highest quality service.  Lots of factors go into producing the secret sauce that ultimately becomes your organizational culture.  One of those things is leadership.

Katrina Hunt

One of our best decisions was to make Katrina Hunt the Manager of the Publications Division.  You have to love an annual report that quotes Miles Davis.  “I’m always thinking about creating.  My future starts when I wake up every morning . . . Every day I find something creative to do with my life.”  Katrina lives that sentiment and she brings enormous positive energy and a customer-service orientation to all of her work.  She begins the annual report by talking about the Division’s continued focus on improving and streamlining our editorial and design service for print publications, along with several new endeavors.  “Expanding services in these areas energized the team and contributed to our productivity.”

Miles Davis

Katrina would be the first to say that the credit should go to others in the Publications Division, which is true, but her leadership has been instrumental in shifting the culture to one that accepts challenges and sees change as positive.  It also is important to acknowledge the effective job that Todd Nicolet has done in mentoring Katrina in her new role.

The report recounts challenging projects that different staff members completed under difficult time frames.  Dan Soileau and Melissa Twomey worked with the IT Division and an outside consultant to produce our first dynamic, web-based publication―North Carolina Crimes.  They had to clear many hurdles in the process.

Nancy Dooly, Dan Soileau, and Kevin Justice helped produce a complicated report and issue brief for a public health study comparing different models for delivering public health services at the local level.  The materials were needed for an upcoming legislative session and for a webinar, and the lead time for getting them done was short.  The Publications Division received the report draft in mid-April and it was delivered to legislators by May 25.  It is a fantastic piece of work.

“The team worked long hours, communicated daily with Aimee [Wall] and IT staff, and stayed flexible, responsive, and efficient throughout a compressed timeframe with a tight deadline.  This multi-faceted project serves as a model for how faculty, external authors, and multiple support staff can successfully collaborate to deliver high quality, effective research of significant impact to state policymakers.”  Amen.

There are other examples in the report of the Division’s flexibility and its willingness to offer new services, like Melissa Twomey’s volunteering to offer cite-checking services in addition to performing her other editorial responsibilities.

Kudos to Katrina and all of her colleagues in the Publications Division.  They “enjoy being challenged and learning new skills that will contribute to the evolution of the School’s written presence.”

The other thing that comes through strongly in the report is the extent to which all of our staff divisions regularly must collaborate to do their work.  A project may belong primarily to the Publications Division, but it also often requires working closely with many other divisions, including IT, Library, Business and Finance, and Marketing and Communications, as well as with outside consultants.  Our professional staff must communicate and collaborate effectively to deliver the highest level of service, and they do it regularly.  We have raised the bar and they are clearing it.

One of the best parts of my job has been the occasional opportunity to interact with him.  He knew Mr. and Mrs. Coates from the early days of the Institute of Government and he was a strong supporter.  He knew John Sanders and drew on his expertise in a variety of formal and informal roles.  Given his love for North Carolina, it is not surprising that President Friday embraced our mission.

The North Carolina Progress Board was an idea that President Friday naturally supported and he encouraged its creation in 1995.  The Board was established in state government to develop statewide goals, targets, and measures for gauging progress for North Carolina.  It aligned with President Friday’s optimistic view of the world, a view supported by a deep belief that it lies within our power to improve the lives of all North Carolinians.  He believed that it was our individual and collective responsibility to exercise that power.

In July 1997 President Friday and Governor Hunt asked the Institute of Government to assume responsibility for the Progress Board because it was not reaching its full potential within the Department of Administration.  We conducted a thorough review and in the end recommended that the Board be established “as a not-for-profit corporation to ensure its substantial independence.”  David Ammons and John Stephens worked with others to produce a thoughtful report, and they worked with a steering committee that reviewed our research and critiqued our recommendations.  The committee included President Friday and other thoughtful leaders, including our own Norma Houston.

My purpose here is not to go into detail about the Progress Board, but instead to make a few points about President Friday.  I still remember the initial phone call from him suggesting that the Institute offered “the perfect home” for the Board.  He argued that its location in a state executive agency was one reason why legislators were not taking it seriously.  He believed that we would give the Board and its recommendations much needed credibility.  President Friday thought that the Institute’s nonpartisan history, along with our unwillingness to advocate for policy outcomes, positioned us perfectly to make the Progress Board an effective force for good in North Carolina.

Technically the request to study the Progress Board came from Governor Hunt, but I always believed that President Friday was the most important audience for our report.  In my mind he occupied a position higher than any governor and I did not want to disappoint him.  He and I talked several times about the Board’s need to educate (lobby) future legislators and governors to adopt whatever policies were necessary to meet its stated goals.  If we abandoned our neutrality to advocate for the goals of the Progress Board, even if only indirectly through a loose affiliation with the Board, I expressed my concern that the Institute would lose its reputation for objectivity.  One goal of the study was to recommend the best option for the Board, but an equally important goal for me was to convince President Friday that we were not that option.

I still remember our last conversation about the Progress Board.  President Friday told me that he had come to appreciate the risk to the Institute and that it was not a risk worth taking.  The Progress Board was the most recent in a series of statewide initiatives that he had worked on to improve North Carolina.  He believed strongly in the possibility of improvement through statewide visioning efforts, and in some sense the Progress Board represented his final attempt at that approach.

President Friday and President Kennedy in Kenan Stadium

I was impressed with how carefully he was willing to listen to the concerns of an inexperienced administrator, and how he was willing to focus on long-term interests.  Unlike many influential people, President Friday was able to look beyond his own short-term interests and hear things that didn’t support his position.  He told me that our credibility is what had prompted him to call in the first place.  He now recognized that his suggestion might undermine that very credibility, and he cared too much about the importance of our mission to let that happen.  I was nervous about the outcome, but President Friday comforted me by saying, “Don’t worry about this anymore.  I’m taking it out of your worry box.”

President Friday called on us for assistance many times after we declined take over the Progress Board, and he continued to support the Institute and the School.  He was an early supporter of the Civic Education Consortium, which was entirely consistent with his belief in the importance of educating young people for public service.

President Friday Meeting with Faculty Member Rachel Willis’s Students

I was with him on a Consortium panel for teachers and students early in its history.  Before the panel we talked briefly about a book I was reading by Doris Kearns Goodwin―No Ordinary Time.  It was about Franklin Roosevelt and America during World War II.  President Friday told me about the time he had escorted Eleanor Roosevelt during a visit to Carolina.  He said that the experience had been exhausting because she wanted to meet with everyone and she had unbelievable stamina.  On the final morning of her visit he was waiting for her in the lobby of the Carolina Inn.  He was sitting on a sofa, exhausted, with his back to the elevator.  Mrs. Roosevelt approached him from behind, placed her hand on his tired shoulder, and said: “Don’t worry.  It is nearly over.”

Eleanor Roosevelt with Frank Porter Graham in Memorial Hall

I loved that story at the time as he laughed in remembering it, and I love it now.  Given his own overflowing schedule over a long and full life, it was hard for me to imagine President Friday in anything approaching a state of exhaustion.  He was driven by a passion to improve the lives of others.  Whenever he talked to students, he would make the following statement: “Millions of North Carolinians living in poverty pay taxes to support your education.  What are you going to do to pay them back?”  It is now over for President Friday, but his example inspires us to continue our mission of improving the lives of North Carolinians by improving their government.  That is how we pay them back.  That is how we pay him back.  He understood and supported our mission, and he never took it for granted.  Thanks for all that you do.

President and Mrs. Friday

The first is a mysterious document called “Are We Candidate Conscious or Only Politically Minded” by Grace Evelyn Abbott.  The document is a questionnaire created “in the hope that it might be used in North Carolina for all candidates in coming elections.”  Abbott believed that using the questionnaire might produce “an awakened and more cooperative government.  Impartial facts impartially studied should bring results.”

The questionnaire contains only eleven questions, including the position desired, educational background, and whether the candidate would support consolidation of counties, reduction of court costs, and “differential laws for women.”  Not surprisingly, question 10 is my favorite: “Are you a member of the North Carolina Institute of Government?  Are you a regular subscriber to their monthly magazine, Popular Government?  Have you attended any of their conventions or study groups?  If so, state when.”

Abbot explains the reason for each question.  “Are you a member of the North Carolina Institute of Government is just another way of asking if the candidate is up-to-date and interested in modern methods of operating public offices.  By being a subscriber to the magazine Popular Government the candidate would show he is in touch with new developments as he read and joined with the men and women who are making North Carolina’s Institute of Government an institution to be praised and copied by other states.”

The document is undated and so far we have not been able to learn anything about Abbott.  Of course I like her notion that candidates for office have a responsibility to be well-informed and that reading our materials is a good way to learn about government.  We no longer publish Popular Government, but we have lots of other resources that would help first-time candidates and even incumbent public officials.  The wonderful Local Government Board Builder Series created under Vaughn Upshaw’s leadership includes a helpful introduction to many issues facing local governing boards.  County and  Municipal Government in North Carolina is a comprehensive reference work, and there are many other publications that candidates could find helpful.  Abbott’s explanation also makes it sound like anyone could become a “member” of the Institute, which is an intriguing idea.

 The other document that Marsha passed along is a speech given by Governor Luther Hodges on November 30, 1960 at the dedication of the Knapp Building.  According to Hodges, “Albert Coates caught hold of a vision more than thirty years ago and he has never let it go.  He dreamed, and by his own unceasing back-breaking efforts, his dreams were formed into substance.  They were given life.  We see a part of the culminating substance of that dream here in this lovely and useful building.”  Governor Hodges concluded that “[b]ecause of Coates’ dream come true, the administration of public affairs in North Carolina―at all levels―has been lifted up to standards of excellence second to none in the Nation.”

Governor Luther Hodges

Hodges honored Coates for his vision and for doing the job well.  He continued: “I don’t mean to say the job is finished.  It can never be.  Yesterday’s and today’s work, no matter how well done, cannot suffice for the work which must be done tomorrow and on all future tomorrows.”

Governor Hodges was right that the work started by Mr. (and Mrs.) Coates will never be finished, and they would be pleased to know the many ways that all of you are continuing that work.

Over the years many people have worked hard and effectively to implement the vision of Albert Coates.  Last week two of those people, Rich Ducker and Janet Mason, were honored for dedicating their careers to the mission of the Institute and the School.  Rich and Janet are excellent examples of faculty members who have helped to lift the administration of public affairs in North Carolina to the highest possible standards.

Rich is working part-time in phased retirement and he was honored by the state planners at their annual conference.  He received the Robert Reiman Professional Acheivement Award “for a career of service to the state’s planning community.”  Janet, who will retire at the end of the year and work part-time next year, was honored by the district court judges at their fall conference with a wonderful contribution to the Drennan Fund for Judicial Education.  Earlier this year the social services attorneys surprised Janet by honoring her with the Order of the Long Leaf Pine.

The Institute and the School have a wonderful history of service to North Carolina, and it is common for public officials to express their strong appreciation to faculty members for their work.  That work is supported by excellent professional staff members who often operate invisibly behind the scenes.  The efforts of everyone are needed to sustain and advance Albert’s vision.  Many thanks for your commitment.