Courses

Leading and Managing with Respect

This course will be held in-person at UNC School of Government, Knapp-Sanders Building from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Building and sustaining mutual respect is a hallmark of an influential and effective leader. How can public professionals feel and convey genuine respect for their colleagues, supervisors, and direct reports –...

May 7, 2026

UNC School of Government | Knapp-Sanders Building
Chapel Hill, NC

There are additional offerings of this course available.

A Closer Look at Termination of Parental Rights

This new 2-day course focuses exclusively on termination of parental rights proceedings, both when there is and is not an underlying abuse, neglect, or dependency proceeding. The course will highlight procedural and substantive issues that often present in termination of parental rights cases and requirements for the court orders that are...

There are additional offerings of this course available.

Regional Magistrate Training (West)

NOTE: This course is now cancelled for 2025

Registration is now open for the 2025 Regional Magistrate Training (West), sponsored by the North Carolina Judicial College. These regional schools, offered through the North Carolina Judicial College, are intended for magistrates who may have trouble attending in-person training because of time...

There are additional offerings of this course available.

Regional Magistrate Training (East)

NOTE: This course is now cancelled for 2025

Registration is now open for the 2025 Regional Magistrate Training (East), sponsored by the North Carolina Judicial College. These regional schools, offered through the North Carolina Judicial College, are intended for magistrates who may have trouble attending in-person training because of time...

There are additional offerings of this course available.

Special Topics in Small Claims for Magistrates

This seminar is intended for magistrates who hold Small Claims court, and focuses on a different topic each year allowing a “deep dive” into skill-building and substantive law for small claims magistrates at various stages in their careers. The 2025 Special Topics class will cover the same material as the 2024 offering, focusing on...

June 8, 2026

UNC School of Government
Chapel Hill, NC

There are additional offerings of this course available.

Conducting Hearings and Entering Judgment for Magistrates

This two-day course is offered through the North Carolina Judicial College. It is intended for magistrates who would like to become more comfortable conducting hearings and entering judgments in small claims court. Topics will include courtroom decorum, legal research, judicial decision-making, procedural fairness, common evidence problems, and...

June 10, 2026

UNC School of Government
Chapel Hill, NC

There are additional offerings of this course available.

Building and Maintaining a Competitive Workforce

This course can be offered on demand via a request from your jurisidiction. Please contact lydian@sog.unc.edu if you are interested in this option.

The impending exodus of baby boomers from the nation’s workforce, coupled with the increasing competencies and skills required of public-sector employees...

There are additional offerings of this course available.

Top 10 Primer: What Local Elected Officials Need to Know about Public Health and Social Services

This is a free online course from 10–11:15 AM on October 19, 2022.

Being an effective local elected official requires a basic understanding of what your local government agencies do. The public health and social services agencies are two public agencies that are touch points for many of the people in your communities. Their services...

There are additional offerings of this course available.

LELA 201: Bridging Divides: Techniques for Productive Governing

This course has been canceled.

Elected officials today must navigate a host of diverse political perspectives when confronting challenges in their communities. To foster productive conversations and create policy solutions to local issues, they must learn to find commonalities amongst differences of opinion with their neighbors, build a...

There are additional offerings of this course available.

Performance Management in Elections Administration

This class is part of the Performance Management Course Series. To see the full list of courses offered please click HERE

This course will take place online via Zoom from 1pm - 5pm and will include around 4 hours...

There are additional offerings of this course available.

Resolving Public Disputes: Workshop I

Workshop I: Conflict Assessment and Negotiation Skills

This workshop is part one of a three-course sequence to improve individual negotiation skills and responses to conflict, as well as strengthening group facilitation, collaboration, and problem-solving abilities. Participants can take any of the three workshops; there are no...

There are additional offerings of this course available.

Intermediate Purchasing Seminar

The next offering will be held on November 19-21, 2024.

This course is intended for officials with two or more years of experience in local governmental purchasing, and will cover bidding and property disposal, capital leasing, performance management and benchmarking, insurance and risk management, electronic bidding and contract...

There are additional offerings of this course available.

Sexual Offense Law Training

This course will be offered through the North Carolina Judicial College. The August 2021 offering of this program has been postponed. Information about the next program offering will be posted soon.

There are additional offerings of this course available.

Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA)

This 3.5 day Judicial College course focuses on the Indian Child Welfare Act, a federal law enacted in 1978 that applies to all abuse, neglect, dependency; termination of parental rights; and adoption actions. A small group of district court judges will have the opportunity to travel to Cherokee, North Carolina to learn about ICWA and Cherokee...

There are additional offerings of this course available.

Judicial College Webinar: Motivating Officers to Apply for the Job

Recruitment and retention of police officers is challenging even for the most well-resourced agencies, leading police departments nationwide to "think outside the box" in their recruitment and retention efforts. This session reports on one such effort, a pilot study conducted by the UNC School of Government in parthernship with police...

There are additional offerings of this course available.

Advanced Leadership Corps Ambassador Program

Annual Leadership Training and Reunion for ALC Alumni

September 11-12, 2025

Our program will focus on values-based communications and best practices for strategizing, creating, and delivering your message to constituents and other audiences. Our instructor is Chris Lundberg, UNC Associate Professor and...

There are additional offerings of this course available.

Advanced Americans with Disabilities Act Course

The Advanced Americans with Disabilities Act class is an intensive, two-day program taking an in-depth look at ADA issues of particular concern to government and community college employers. The class is limited to 65.

Prerequisite: You must have completed Introduction...

There are additional offerings of this course available.

Lead Across Boundaries

It is open to both professional and elected officials.

Many, if not most, of the complex issues in the public sector are not neatly contained within the purview of one organization. Just as we have seen with the response to the Hurricane Helene disaster, no one person, organization, or sector has all the ability,...

There are additional offerings of this course available.

LELA 201: Social Media Strategies and Best Practices

This course will be offered online via Zoom on September 21, 2023 from 9:00am-12:00pm.

As an elected official, does your social media presence reflect what you value? Does it deliver the message you want to the people you want to reach?

This on-line class will familiarize you with the variety of different social media platforms and...

There are additional offerings of this course available.

Advanced Juvenile Delinquency Training

This course, which will be held in Morganton, will focus on serious and violent offenders in the juvenile justice system. It will include a visit to Western Youth Institution, the Department of Correction Facility that houses the youngest inmates in the adult system, including those whose cases were transferred from juvenile court. Factors...