Thomas H. Thornburg

Profile

Tom Thornburg has been the School's senior associate dean since 2004 and director of the North Carolina Judicial College since December 2011. He joined the School of Government (then the Institute of Government) in 1990, and he was associate director, then associate dean, from 1996 until 2004. His responsibilities include overseeing faculty recruitment and welfare, assisting with day-to-day School management, and program development and oversight. He is a 2010–2011 Academic Leadership Fellow at UNC-Chapel Hill’s Institute for the Arts and Humanities. Thornburg is a member of several commissions and boards, including the North Carolina Criminal Justice Education and Training Standards Commission, the School of Government Foundation Board of Directors, and the Earlham College Board of Trustees. His faculty work focused primarily on criminal law and courts. Thornburg was chief legal counsel to the North Carolina Department of Correction in 1992–1993. He edited and revised North Carolina Crimes: A Guidebook on the Elements of Crime (Fourth Edition, 1995); revised Introduction to Law for North Carolinians (Second Edition, 2000); edited and revised Notary Public Guidebook for North Carolina (Ninth Edition, 2004); and has published on the topic of juvenile curfews. He earned a BA from Earlham College and an MPP and JD from the University of Michigan.