Upcoming Happy Hour Hubs

Raleigh, NC - Thursday, May 1, 5-7:30 pm

Trophy Brewing and Pizza

827 W. Morgan Street, Raleigh, NC 27603

Take some time to (re)connect with MPA alumni, students, faculty, and staff for drinks, light bites, and great conversation at Trophy Brewing and Pizza, Raleigh! Register here.

Asheville, NC: May 13 - location TBD

Photos of the Week

Celebrating 10 years of HR Fire Drills, where Professor Leisha DeHart-Davis challenges MPA students with real-world HR scenarios alongside alum Eric Peterson. Read more here!

New Town Manager Uses MPA Skills in Helene Response

UNC MPA alum Matt McKirahan was recently highlighted on the UNC website for his work setting up the Mills River Resource Hub following Hurricane Helene. Read more here!

Recent Faculty Publications

Read what your professors have been working on this past year!

• Obed Pasha - Benchmarking 2.0

NCLGBA Scholarships Available

The North Carolina Local Government Budget Association is happy to announce two different scholarship opportunities:

NCLGBA Conference Scholarship

The Conference Scholarship provides registration and accommodations for the upcoming Summer Conference to be held in Asheville, July 9-11, 2025. Eligible applicants include first-time professional attendees or student attendees. Interested individuals should submit their application via e-mail to scholarship@nclgba.org with the subject line “#NCLGBA Scholarship Program”. Applications for the conference scholarship are due no later than Friday, May 23, 2025, at 11:59pm EST. Scholarship recipient(s) will receive registration and lodging accommodations for the 2025 Summer Conference. The scholarship application can be found here.

NCLGBA Hurricane Helene Scholarship

The Board is proud to announce the addition to our scholarship offerings to provide for some of our members that have been affected by Hurricane Helene. Many of our local governments that are in the affected disaster areas are experiencing travel freezes or budget cuts to their travel budget that will affect their ability to attend conference.  With our conference being located within the disaster affected region, the board has created an application process for members who were part of the declared disaster area to provide them with conference registration, if they are under a travel freeze or have had their travel budgets cut due to the disaster. Since conference is in the disaster region, this scholarship will only cover registration costs and will not cover lodging accommodations. We are working to have these scholarships sponsored by a vendor and allow everyone that requests assistance to have funding. If we do not have enough funding to cover all applications, a lottery process will be utilized for scholarship selection.  The application can be located here.

Please let Megan Powell (mpowell@withersravenel.com) know if you have any questions. If you have any connections for potential sponsors that might be interested in this special scholarship, please let our sponsorship team know. (sponsors@nclgba.org)

If you would like to be considered for both scholarships, you must complete both applications.

You will not be considered for both scholarships after completing one application. 

Additional information on the conference can be found here: Summer Conference.

Please direct any questions, comments, or concerns to scholarship@nclgba.org.

Upcoming Nonprofit Career Events & Professional Development Opportunities

Upcoming Non-Profit Career Events

The Graduate School is excited to announce a series of events focused on non-profit careers for grad students. These events will include opportunities to meet representatives from local non-profits including:

• The National Humanities Center
• The Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina
• Women in Engineering Proactive Network (WEPAN)

April 22: The Graduate School will host a virtual panel with recent Carolina alumni focused on making the transition from graduate school to a non-profit career.

April 29: Grad students will have the opportunity to participate in a non-profit lunch & learn event with six local non-profit representatives – seats for this event are very limited so be sure to register early!

Professional Development

Negotiating Job Offers

April 16 1:00 PM - 2:00 PM (Zoom)

April 21 12:00 PM - 1:00PM (In-person)

Learn how to effectively negotiate job offers to secure a deal that aligns with your professional goals and personal needs. This workshop will guide you through the key factors to consider—salary, benefits, location, job scope, work culture and more—and teach you strategies for crafting a thoughtful response to any offer. Participants will leave with practical tools to evaluate job offers, negotiate confidently, and ensure they make informed decisions based on both career goals and personal priorities. Lunch will be provided at the in-person event on April 21.

Acing the Interview

April 24 12:00PM - 1:00PM

Behavioral questions are a common component of hiring, especially outside academia. “Tell me about a time when…” is a useful way of getting to know more about how you have handled real-life professional situations in the past, bringing tangible evidence to the hiring process. In this workshop, we will explore strategies for successfully answering behavioral questions, from identifying high-impact stories in your professional life, to crafting a response using the STAR format.

Lunch and Learn with Non-Profit Leaders (in person)

April 29 12:00PM - 2:00PM

Join CareerWell for an opportunity to learn from local leaders about non-profit career opportunities for Carolina graduate students. Students will have the opportunity to request the non-profit leader they’d prefer to dine with, and over a catered lunch, our esteemed guests will work with student attendees on collaborative problem-solving prompts.

This is just a snapshot. Check out more great events from CareerWell.

37th Annual Carolina Blood Drive

The Employee Forum invites you to make a difference at the 37th annual Carolina Blood Drive on Wednesday, April 30, from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Dean E. Smith Center.

For 37 years, the Carolina Blood Drive has helped impact more than 120,000 lives. Join us for this long-standing Carolina tradition and help us save even more lives!

What to expect:

·    Free parking or easy access via Chapel Hill Transit

·    A commemorative T-shirt for all presenting donors

·    Free food from local favorites MedDeli, Brandwein’s, Merritt’s Grill and Rise Southern Biscuits & Righteous Chicken

Schedule your appointment today:

·        Call 1-800-RED CROSS (1-800-733-2767)

·        Visit RedCrossBlood.org

·        Use the Blood Donor App and enter sponsor code UNC

Walk-ins are welcome, but appointments are encouraged!

For UNC employees, donating blood or volunteering is considered work time with supervisor approval.

Learn more or sign up to volunteer at carolinablooddrive.unc.edu.

Join us and be a part of this life-saving tradition!

Fall 2025 Course: PUBH 785 Community Engagement for Governance

3 Credit Elective Course

Instructor: Dr. Karl Johnson

Time: Friday, 9:05AM - 12:05PM

No Prerequisites

Description: This seminar style and practice-oriented course prepares students to understand the work of public health governance. Students will learn to distinguish between governing and administrative functions of the US and global public health systems, identify and describe the roles and responsibilities of organizational governing boards in assuring the health of populations, and understand the importance of working with non-health governing boards to secure vital conditions for health and well-being. With partner organizations, students will work to co-design and develop evidence-driven approaches to strengthen governance practices to better protect and promote population health outcomes.