Spring Fellows – Weekend Six

Our sixth weekend begins with Ralph Mitchell. Ralph is Chairman of the Board and co-founder of Nehemiah—The Leadership Company. He will lead us in a thought-provoking and perhaps not always a comfortable exploration of diversity and politics in North Carolina. This session will touch on some of the most difficult and potentially sensitive areas in contemporary American politics. Some of the exercises will force you to make tough choices and to articulate your views and why you have them. The changing face of North Carolina is apparent everywhere today and projected demographic changes over the next two decades promise even more diversity. With that diversity, we can expect intense political debates and you must be prepared as political leaders at all levels to address the issues in an informed, substantive, and effective manner. Leading your constituents and shaping public opinion will require strategic political leadership—simply getting elected and holding to old political platitudes will not be enough if North Carolina is to adapt to these changes and thrive economically, socially, and politically. The issues of race and gender, among others, and their linkages to a number of this state’s most challenging public policy problems (education, poverty, crime, jobs, and economic development—all of which are part of the budget debate, too, of course), cannot be fully and meaningfully addressed without confronting some of our most personal thoughts and even biases.

These sessions are critical to the development of future political leaders. During the evening session, we will be joined by Mayor Nancy Vaughan, Executive Director – City of Greensboro, Marcus Brandon, Executive Director – CarolinaCan, and Jose Oliva, Fellow – ZSR Foundation. Together they will form a panel and discuss the issues of diversity affecting minorities, i.e. Women, LBGTQ, and Latinos.