Staff

Ferrel Guillory - Director

guillory@unc.edu
919.962.5936

Ferrel Guillory founded the  Program on Public Life (formerly the Program on Southern Politics, Media and Public Life) in 1997 to build bridges between the academic resources at UNC-Chapel Hill and the governmental, journalism and civic leaders of North Carolina and the South. He is also an adjunct faculty member in the Department of Public Policy.

In addition, Guillory is a senior fellow at MDC Inc., a workforce and economic development nonprofit research firm in Chapel Hill. Through MDC, he has co-authored The State of the South, a series of biennial reports to the region and its leadership (1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2007).  He also co-authored the book, The Carolinas: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: An Exploration of Social and Economic Trends, 1924-1999 (Duke Press, 1999), commissioned by the Duke Endowment.

Gov. Mike Easley appointed Guillory to the North Carolina Education First Task Force and to the Council on the Southern Community of the Southern Growth Policies Board. In addition, he served on the steering committee of the Rural Prosperity Task Force, appointed by Gov. Jim Hunt and chaired by Erskine Bowles. For the James B. Hunt Jr. Institute for Educational Leadership and Policy, he wrote the paper, “Education Governors for the 21st Century.’’ In 2000, Guillory taught at Davidson College as the James K. Batten Professor of Public Policy.

Before working in academia, Guillory spent more than 20 years as a reporter, editorial page editor and columnist for The News & Observer in Raleigh, N.C. He has had free-lance articles published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, The New Republic, America, Commonweal, Southern Cultures and The Atlanta Constitution.  Guillory has contributed chapters to books on David Duke and the politics of race, on economic transition in tobacco regions and on North Carolina politics and government. He was inducted into the North Carolina Journalism Hall of Fame in 2007.

Thad Beyle - Faculty Associate

www.unc.edu/~beyle
beyle@email.unc.edu
919.962.0404

Dr. Beyle is the Thomas J. Pearsall Professor of Political Science and founding editor of North Carolina DataNet. Since 1985, he has edited an annual edition of State Government, published by Congressional Quarterly.

Dr. Beyle served as a National Center for Education in Politics Faculty Fellow in the North Carolina Governor's Office (1964-65), and as a research associate to former North Carolina governor Terry Sanford's "A Study of American States," (1965-67) which took the lead in establishing the Education Commission of the States and produced the McGraw-Hill publication Storm Over the States (1967).

He has been a consultant to several public and private agencies including helping establish the Southern Growth Policies Board (1969-71), and serving as the Director of the Center for Policy Research and Analysis for the National Governors' Conference. Consultant to the National Governors' Association on gubernatorial transitions, both out of and into office (1982, 1990).

He has been a member of the Board of Directors of the N.C. Center for Public Policy Research, 1977-1992, and chairman of the Board 1980-89, and a member of the Board of Directors of the N.C. Institute of Political Leadership 1987-97, and chairman of the Board, 1995-97.

In addition to his annual CQ book, he has authored chapters on governors and state executive branch activities in The Book of the States (Council of State Governments, biennially 1982-94); on "Governors" in Politics in the American States (Little, Brown 1983, 1990, CQ Press 1996, 1999), and in The State of the States (CQ Press 1989, 1993, 1996).

Dr. Beyle was born in 1934 in Syracuse, N.Y. He was educated at Syracuse University, A.B. (1956) and A.M. (1960), and at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Ph.D. (1963). He has taught political science at UNC-Chapel Hill since 1967. Previously, he taught at Denison University (1963-1964) and at the University of Illinois (1960-61).

Hodding Carter, III - Faculty Associate

hoddingcarter@unc.edu
919.843.3236

Hodding Carter, III was appointed University Professor of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in January 2006. Carter came to that post after almost eight years as president and CEO of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation in Miami. Knight is a $2 billion foundation concerned with community and civic development in selected American communities and the furtherance of press freedom and improvement of press performance at home and abroad.

From 1959 to 1966,  Mr. Carter was variously reporter, managing editor, and editor/associate publisher for his family's daily newspaper in Greenville, Mississippi.  While there, he won the national professional journalism society’s award for editorial writing in 1961 and a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard for 1965-66. 

He worked in Lyndon Johnson’s presidential campaign in Washington and Jimmy Carter’s campaign in Atlanta.  Following Carter’s victory, he was named assistant secretary of State for Public Affairs and State Department spokesman.

He left that job in 1980 and went into news and public affairs television.  Working variously as anchor, commentator, production company president and reporter over the next 14 years, he won four national Emmys and the Edward R. Murrow Award for best foreign documentary.  During the same period he was a regular panelist on This Week with David Brinkley, an op-ed columnist for the Wall Street Journal and frequent contributor to magazines and newspapers across the country.  At one time or another he worked on air for or with PBS, CNN, NBC, ABC, BBC and CBC.

Mr. Carter has written two books and contributed to nine others.  A trustee of Princeton University over a 15 year period, he is currently on the boards of The Century Foundation,  the Center for Public Integrity,  the Enterprise Corporation of the Delta, the Foundation for the Mid-South and seven Dreyfus Corporation mutual funds. Past board memberships include Independent Sector, the Japan Society, the American Committee on US-Soviet Relations, the George C. Marshall Foundation, the American Council of Young Political Leaders, the Atlantic Council, the Center for International Journalists, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the Action Council for Peace in the Balkans. 

A native of New Orleans who spent half his life in Mississippi, Mr. Carter holds a degree from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School.   He has been awarded nine honorary degrees.

Andrew Holton - Assistant Director for Research

holton@unc.edu
919.843.0039

Andrew Holton began his work with the Program in December, 2005. A recent law school graduate, Andrew spent the 2005 legislative session clerking for N.C. State Senator Linda Garrou (D-Forsyth). While in law school, he spent summers as a clerk with the Chicago Lawyers' Committee on Civil Rights Under Law and the City of Chicago's Law Department. Prior to law school, Andrew worked as a fellow for the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation in Winston-Salem, N.C. and as a litigation clerk with an insurance defense law firm in Chicago.

Born and raised in Durham, N.C., Andrew holds a J.D. from the University of Wisconsin Law School where he was a member of the Wisconsin Law Review. As an undergraduate Andrew studied history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

D. Leroy Towns - Research Fellow

dltowns@email.unc.edu
919.843.5388

Leroy Towns' career spans more than three decades as a political correspondent, press secretary and chief of staff for U.S. Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas. During his years with Sen. Roberts, Leroy served as Sen. Roberts chief advisor on political and legislative issues, managed eight successful U.S. Congressional campaigns and one successful U.S. Senate campaign, and served as the Senator’s designated staff on the Senate Select Committee on Ethics.  Prior to his time in Washington, Leroy served as press secretary for Kansas Governor Robert F. Bennett, reported as the Kansas statehouse and political correspondent for the Harris Newspaper Group, and worked as an editor for the Topeka, Kansas-based Capital-Journal.    He holds a M.A. from the Graduate school of Political Management at George Washington University and a B.A. in Journalism from Kansas State University.