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Editor's note: This is the third of four Massey Award winner profiles.
Mike Smith still remembers how impressed he was with one publication he found
while writing a paper for the University's law review.
Finding the publication to be clear, informative and useful, Smith wondered
where it came from.
"Turns out it was right across the parking lot," Smith said.
That's how Smith discovered the many public services of the Institute of
Government. He finished law school at Carolina in 1978 and then walked across
that parking lot for good to join the institute's faculty. He was named
director in 1992.
All that time, Smith has embraced the institute's long history of public
service, first by advising the North Carolina Department of Corrections on
legal issues. Lately he's played a crucial role in creating both the Tar Heel
Bus Tour and the Center for Public Service.
For all his work at the University, Smith received the C. Knox Massey
Distinguished Service Award this spring.
"To be singled out has made me feel a bit uneasy because I've been working
with so many people on every project," Smith said. "Meeting the Massey family,
and the other winners, was a pleasure because it highlighted all the great
things that are happening on this campus."
The late C. Knox Massey, a former Durham advertising executive who served 20
years as a University trustee, created the award in 1980. The program is
supported by three generations of the Massey and Weatherspoon families.
Practical scholarship
"Public service" has been the cornerstone of Smith's tenure at the University.
His attraction to the Institute of Government came from its mix of academic and
outreach work.
"I really wanted to do something that wasn't purely academic," he said. "I
feel that I continue to have my hands in practical issues, yet at the same time
I liked the scholarship, research and writing."
While the term "public service" can mean different things to different people,
Smith has his own definition.
"I define it as faculty taking their academic expertise and applying it to
real-world problems and issues," Smith said. "For students, service often means
volunteer work."
The foundation of Smith's on-campus service has come from working with the
Public Service Roundtable.
Smith got involved in the roundtable with a number of people from across
campus. He served as co-chair of the group, a role that allowed him to become a
catalyst for good ideas, whether his or someone else's.
As his Massey Award citation says: "His method has been to be a
thought-provoker, question-asker, perceptive listener, drawer-out of others'
ideas, and stimulator of aspiration in identifying needs among North Carolina's
many publics that the University's parts and its whole could supply."
The group's goal is to publicize the public service already being done on
campus as well as look for ways to get people interested in public service in
touch with one another. For example, the roundtable put out a magazine about
the public service work at the University.
"There was criticism from outside that the University was not doing enough,"
he said. "The roundtable tried to identify the number of good things already
going on. That helped say that we were doing a lot."
Successful service
The idea for the Tar Heel Bus Tour -- the weeklong summer tour of the state
for new faculty and administrators -- came from the roundtable.
Smith is thrilled with the overwhelming success the bus tour has enjoyed and
places the lion's share of the credit with one person: Michael Hooker.
"Lots of good ideas get batted around but don't happen without a champion,"
Smith said of the bus tour. "He was a real champion."
Smith said Hooker called in March with the news that Smith had won the Massey
Award, a point Smith thought appropriate because the bus tour was mentioned
prominently in the citation.
"It was nice to get the call (from Hooker) since he had been such a big
supporter of the tour," Smith said.
Smith also credits a lot of hard work by a lot of people with making the Tar
Heel Bus Tour work. Now three years old, Smith hopes the bus tour has become a
tradition that continues for years to come.
"I believe the tour has had a profound impact on the people who went," he
said. "I hear them talk about how they feel more a part of the state for having
gone."
Another important outgrowth of the roundtable is the Center for Public
Service, which is just getting started. Smith is leading the search for the
center's first director.
"The center is a great continuation of the roundtable in that it takes it to
the next level," he said. "I see it as a vehicle for facilitating people
interested in service, bringing together people who didn't even know they could
come together."
"I also see the center as a place where folks in the community who need the
University's help can go to get that help," he said.
These days Smith is focused on the expansion of the Institute of Government's
building. That expansion will allow the institute to teach more students and,
as always, be more of a service to the state.
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