1940s
Six Institute faculty join the military in the months following Pearl Harbor while the home front staff supports war activities by organizing and teaching schools for volunteers in the Citizens Defense Corps, the Victory Speakers Corps, and the Office of Civilian Defense, and by preparing guidebooks used by leaders in the civilian war activities throughout the state.

1940
In October, the Institute collaborates with the FBI and state and local leaders to inaugurate a series of monthly police schools for municipal police, county sheriffs and deputies, ABC officers, state highway patrolmen, SBI agents, and representatives of Federal agencies operating in North Carolina. Although police training had been offered by the Institute to police instructors and department heads in the 1930s, this series of schools puts police training within reach of thousands of law enforcement officers across North Carolina.

1941
At the request of the North Carolina Bar Association and with the approval of the North Carolina State Bar, the Institute begins to participate in legal institutes to provide continuing legal education with assistance from members of the Carolina, Duke, and Wake Forest Law School faculties. The first of these Institute-led courses is taught in April 1941. The Institute’s participation in this program continues with law refresher courses for veterans returning to the bar in North Carolina throughout the 1940s.

1942
In January the Institute of Government officially becomes an integral part of the structure of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

A symposium is held at Graham Memorial Student Union with registration at the Institute of Government in Chapel Hill on the protection of public water supplies in wartime. The symposium is sponsored by the UNC School of Public Health and the State Board of Health and attended by two hundred waterworks officials and state administrative officers.

The Institute holds war traffic schools in Charlotte, Asheville, Wilmington, and Chapel Hill. The schools are conducted by the FBI as a part of its civilian defense program for peace officers. The Institute also organizes and hosts statewide and district training schools for instructors in civilian protection sponsored by the U.S. War Department. Lectures from the training program conducted in 1942 are compiled in Guide to Victory, published in May 1943 for the North Carolina Office of Civilian Defense.

1943
An eight-week in-service training course is held at the Institute in cooperation with UNC, the State Board of Health, the Department of Sanitary Engineering of the UNC School of Public Health and the North Carolina Water Works Operators Association in response to an urgent need for trained chemists and laboratory technicians for water purification plants in North Carolina. A three-day sewage treatment school, which is taught by the U.S. Army’s Fourth Service Command, follows.

1944
Schools for law enforcement officials expand beyond lectures to include demonstrations and practical skills training in enforcement methods. Training is provided in traffic law enforcement, traffic engineering, general law enforcement, and a three-day administrative school for police executives.

1946
Although schools for highway patrol recruits have been taught by the Institute throughout the 1930s (after the 1929 creation of the State Highway Patrol by the NC General Assembly), State Highway Patrol training schools expand in 1946 thanks to the new facilities at the Institute. Terry Sanford locates and transfers U.S. Army barracks to the future site of the Institute of Government for use in the schools for State Highway Patrol officers, police, and sheriffs. The Institute administers the training program until 1968 and shares teaching responsibilities for the program until the Highway Patrol moves to its own training facility in Raleigh in September 1977.

1947
Council members in Charlotte and county commissioners in Mecklenburg County ask the Institute to conduct a consolidation study of the city and county governments. This is the first major study of this type.

A Special Commission for the Improvement of the Administration of Justice is established by an act of the 1947 General Assembly. The Commission proposes legislation for consideration by the 1949 General Assembly.

1948
A jail management course is held in October at the Institute following the 1947 legislation establishing an advisory committee of sheriffs and police officers regarding the personal safety, welfare, and care of inmates incarcerated in county and municipal jails and city lock-ups.

1949
Faculty member Phil Green is hired to develop the field of local government planning. Phil retires nearly 40 years later as the state’s pre-eminent expert in planning and zoning law. His most significant legacy is his work on legislation that authorizes local governments to zone, enforce the State Building Code, adopt subdivision regulations, and engage in a wide range of planning and regulatory activities.

The Report of the Commission on Public-Local and Private Legislation is submitted to the governor and the legislature. Created by a resolution of the 1947 NC General Assembly, the Commission’s work is completed with the extensive assistance of the Institute faculty. Albert Coates serves as a member of the Commission and became director of research for the Commission.

Faculty member Donald Hayman helps draft a modern personnel system that is enacted by the 1949 General Assembly. In the following years Hayman works with more than 200 cities and counties to draft personnel ordinances and to prepare position classification and pay plans.

By the end of the 1940s, thirty-six guidebooks have been compiled for use by officials in law enforcement, taxation and finance, health and welfare, public works, elections, and civilian defense. Guidebooks have also been prepared on federal-state-local relationships and postwar planning.