By Michelle Hines, University Relations
Contact: (336) 334-5371
Posted 9-9-09
GREENSBORO, N.C. – UNCG is now home to the Institute of Political Leadership (IOPL), a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that prepares potential candidates for political office in North Carolina.
IOPL will share space with the Center for Legislative Studies in the McIver Building. Founded in 1987, the institute was housed most recently at Greensboro College.
IOPL, funded by private and corporate funds, conducts two 10-week courses each year, training 15-20 fellows per session. Fellows are screened and interviewed by members of IOPL’s board, which includes former UNC system President Bill Friday and former NC Governor Jim Hunt. Most are recruited through party structures and nominations from IOPL alumni.
Sessions are held across the state on Friday evenings and Saturdays, with more than 80 percent of the curriculum focusing on campaign skills, including a television and radio module.
Dr. Robin Dorff, research professor of national security affairs at the Army War College in Pennsylvania, serves as IOPL’s executive director.
Dorff, said the new relationship “is a comfortable fit with great potential for expanding collaboration between the Institute and the University. It offers IOPL a central location in the state and the opportunity to collaborate with UNCG students and faculty,” he added. “And UNCG will benefit from its involvement in developing future political leaders in the community and around the state.”
Those community ties are already evident in the IOPL Board of Directors with both current board chair, Jim Melvin, and board member Henry Frye, the former Chief Justice of the NC Supreme Court, hailing from Greensboro.
Dr. Ruth DeHoog, head of the Department of Political Science, said the agreement between UNCG and IOPL is mutually beneficial. IOPL gets office space and DeHoog’s department secured a graduate assistantship for a Master of Public Affairs student to work with the institute.
“This has been a very positive confluence of events and people,” DeHoog said. “And there are several possibilities for additional collaborations.”
One such possibility is the resurrection of a statewide fellows program for college students interested in politics and eventually running for office themselves.
For more information on IOPL, call (336) 333-9010 or visit http://www.iopl.org.
