Save the Date for Happy Hour Hubs!

More details to follow. Hope you can join us!

• Raleigh, NC: May 1
• Asheville, NC: May 13

Learning to Achieve Public Sector Goals: How DFI and LFNC Shape Future Leaders

The School of Government recently highlighted the work between Lead for North Carolina and the Development Finance Initiative, and how participants have found their way to the MPA Program. Current students Skye Allen and Layne Cole, as well as MPA alumnus Liam Brailey, are featured in the article. Read the article here!

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.

BlackOut Queer Prom

Friday, April 4, 6-7:30 pm

Gerrard Hall

End Pride Week 2025 in style! Join us in Gerrard Hall for a black light-themed prom featuring a DJ and special black light activities. Wear your best! Stand Out and Show Out to Celebrate Pride Week 2025!

Graduate Student Appreciation Week

Graduate and Professional Student Appreciation Week (GPSAW) is celebrated in April each year to recognize the contribution of graduate and professional students like you! This year, it will take place from April 7-11. Check out the events we have planned below!

Monday, April 7

☕ Grad Café

10:00AM - 12:00PM

Free coffee and snacks at the Bynum Hall fountain.

📸 Headshot for Heels

1:00PM - 4:00PM

Free headshot and networking event at the GSC.

Tuesday, April 8

🍨 SweetWater Ices

1:00PM - 3:00PM

SweetWater Ices, swag giveaways and therapy animals at the GSC!

Wednesday, April 9

✏️ Writing Wednesday

10:00AM - 2:00PM

Lunch will be provided from 11am-1pm at the GSC. More to come!

Thursday, April 10

⭐ Annual Graduate Student Recognition Celebration

4:00PM - 5:30PM

Join us at the Carolina Club at the George Watts Hill Alumni Center for a wonderful afternoon of honoring and celebrating our 2025 student, faculty and staff award winners. There will be a short recognition ceremony followed by poster presentations from current graduate students and a reception with free hors d'oeuvres. Register here by April 7 and contact Laura Thorp with any questions.

Friday, April 11

🎨 Free Ackland Museum Tours

2:00PM - 3:00PM or 3:00PM - 4:00PM

⚾ Graduate Student Night at UNC Baseball Game

6:00PM at Boshamer Stadium

Vouchers for concession stands will be provided!

Professional Development

🔵 Effective Mentoring Skills Series for Graduate Students

April 2 – 30, Wednesdays 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM

Mentoring principles are universal and apply to a variety of professional settings in and out of academia. This mentoring workshop series will provide training in competencies and skills with effective mentoring. Graduate students and postdocs in all disciplines are welcome to participate.

Nominate an Outstanding Mentor for a Faculty Mentoring Award!

Has a UNC faculty mentor made a meaningful difference in your life? Nominate them today for consideration for a Faculty Mentoring Award.

Nominations for the 2025 Faculty Mentoring Awards sponsored by the Carolina Women’s Leadership Council are now open.

Since 2006, the Carolina Women’s Leadership Council has sponsored the Faculty Mentoring Awards to recognize outstanding faculty members who go the extra mile to guide, mentor and teach. Each year the Council recognizes outstanding faculty mentors with awards in each of the following categories:

· Faculty-to-undergraduate student mentoring

· Faculty-to-graduate student mentoring

· Faculty-to-junior faculty mentoring

View the list of previous Faculty Mentoring Award recipients.

Nominations for Faculty Mentoring Awards can be submitted by any student, faculty, or staff member. All faculty who mentor students, graduate students, and/or faculty are eligible. Nominations are due by Monday, April 7, 2025.

Nominate a Faculty Mentor here.

Contact our team at CFEMentoringDevelopment@unc.edu for questions.

Town of Chapel Hill Budget Basics

On April 9^th from 5-7 at the Chapel Hill Library, the Town of Chapel Hill is hosting a 2-hour session for the community on the budget process. The event will include a presentation as well as a fun budgeting game.

We hope you will consider attending the Town’s Budget Basics workshop! 

Volunteer Judges needed for National High School Ethics Bowl National Championship

The weekend of April 11-13, 2025 the Parr Center for Ethics (Part of the UNC Philosophy Department) will host the National High School Ethics Bowl (NHSEB) National Championship, in the Graham Student Union on UNC Campus.

I’m writing in hopes that you’ll share this information with your graduate student body to ask if they would like to join us as volunteer judges for the NHSEB's 2025 national competition. As a judge, your students would play a crucial role in helping high schoolers reason ethically about a wide variety of challenging issues and engage productively in contexts of disagreement. Unlike typical debate competitions, Ethics Bowl rewards students for the depth and breadth of their thought, their ability to think carefully about complex problems, and the consideration they display of the perspectives of their peers. As always, the support and engagement of our community is a vital part of what makes these conversations valuable to our students! It means so much to the competitors to have UNC students there, and it wouldn’t be possible to make this important event a continued success without our incredible volunteers.

No particular background or training in philosophy is required to serve as a judge. Indeed, we prefer a variety of volunteers from different educational contexts and backgrounds! In addition to the training resources linked below, the Parr Center team will also provide brief training sessions for judges during the weeks leading up to the event.

If you, your students, or staff and faculty in your department are available to volunteer, please have them fill out our interest form as soon as possible with information and availability here. We will send out confirmation of official judging assignments in short order.

Judge Resources 

·             NHSEB ​National Case Set (2025)

·             NHSEBAcademy Judge Training Videos

·             NHSEBAcademy JudgeKit: A downloadable collection of all resources needed to get started as a judge, including our full Rules Manual, NHSEB’s Scoring Criteria, and the NHSEB Score Sheet.

Please don’t hesitate to be in touch with any questions you may have, and I thank you, as always, for your support.

Anyone who wishes to come to the event as a spectator will be more than welcome, and I very much hope to see you at the NHSEB next month!

Thank you so much for your time,

Leo Kirby (he/him)

Director, National High School Ethics Bowl

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!