The UNC School of Government is saddened to share the passing of John L. Sanders, former longtime faculty member and two-time director. Sanders passed away on Sept. 22, 2021 at the age of 94. A memorial service will be planned for a later date.

Longtime School faculty member takes the helm in fall 2021 as the first woman to lead the program 

The UNC MPA program is pleased to announce that Willow Jacobson, School faculty member and Robert W. Bradshaw Jr. Distinguished Professor of Public Administration and Government, is the next director of the UNC MPA program. Her term commenced September 1, 2021.

This story was featured in the Summer 2021 issue of IMPACT, a publication of the UNC MPA program at the School of Government. Click here for all previous issues.

The School of Government is excited to welcome Teshanee Williams into its faculty ranks as an assistant professor of public administration and government. Williams originally joined the School in 2019 as a Carolina Postdoctoral Program Faculty Diversity Fellow, researching strategies to manage effective, efficient, and equitable policy outcomes through the public sector and nonprofit partnerships.

Units of local government have a great deal of purchasing power. From office chairs to major construction projects, these public entities buy goods and services that total billions of dollars in expenditures each year.

Historically, there has long been a discrepancy between minority and women-owned businesses who are—in legal parlance—"ready, willing, and able” to work on public contracts, and the percentage of minority contractors that actually obtain those contracts.