New Director Heads Leadership in the Public Sector Program

Following a successful string of leadership positions in the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, Dr. Traciel V. Reid was appointed the program director of the leadership in the public sector program in August of 2021. Dr. Reid joins LPS at a pivotal moment in the growth of the program, and prides herself on working closely with the rest of the LPS staff to create a community where online students and nontraditional students can be successful.

SPIA Executive Director Irwin Morris said Dr. Reid is “uniquely qualified to lead LPS.” An extraordinary career of teaching experience and a wealth of successful leadership experience makes Dr. Reid “the ideal person to shepherd this great undergraduate program through the next stage of its extraordinary development.”

Dr. Reid’s research and teaching interests include judicial politics, gender politics, human rights policy, and comparative constitutional decision making in sub-Saharan African countries. Throughout her time at NC State, Dr. Reid has received two outstanding teaching awards and an outstanding advising award.

What drew you to NC State and LPS?

I am currently an Associate Professor of Political Science in the School of Public and International Affairs. I have a Ph.D. and M.A.in Government from the University of Virginia, after graduating with a B.A. in Political Science at Emory University in Atlanta.

I have held a number of administrative leadership positions during my time at NC State. In the School of Public and International Affairs, I was the Chair of the Political Science Department as well as the Interim SPIA Executive Director. I also served as the Director of Diversity and, later, as the Interim Director of the Institute for Nonprofits in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. 

I consider my tenure as LPS Director as the pinnacle of my administrative service. The LPS program was attractive to me for a couple of reasons. The first reason was that it provided me with the opportunity to work with Tracy Appling, the LPS instructor responsible for the program’s QM certification, and LaShica Waters, the program’s academic advisor. Tracy and LaShica are outstanding professionals who have contributed to the success of the program and the success of LPS students. They have been instrumental in ensuring that LPS curriculum provides its students with the requisite skills to be effective leaders in the public, nonprofit and, even private sectors. In short, I could not turn down the opportunity to join LaShica and Tracy, who are the heart and soul of the LPS program. 

The second reason relates specifically to the important mission of the LPS program. I wanted to be a part of the LPS team in providing an academically rigorous and pedagogically innovative online degree completion program that is tailored to students who must balance work/family demands with their pursuit of a bachelor’s degree. The LPS program is on the move; it is striving; and I wanted to do my part to continue the program’s upward trajectory!

What are your responsibilities as the program director?

The responsibilities of LPS Director are varied, and they are basically the same broad administrative tasks that are required of most academic program administrators.  Without outlining all of the responsibilities listed in the LPS Director job posting, suffice it to say that they can be placed in four categories: managing and overseeing the program; facilitating curricular and pedagogical development; representing LPS and its interests within the NC State community; and cultivating relationships with external partners, stakeholders and constituents.  

Despite this long list, I believe that my most important responsibility is to work collegially and collaboratively with the core members of the LPS leadership team (LaShica Waters, Tracy Appling, Dmitri Mitin, and Austin Dunlow) and its affiliate faculty. Honestly, the advances that the LPS program has achieved have resulted from the hard work and unwavering commitment from LaShica and Tracy. LaShica is the program’s award winning advisor who has been instrumental to the success of all LPS students while Tracy was instrumental in getting the LPS program certified via Quality Matters.   Basically, my job is to follow their lead. 

Furthermore, I believe in being transparent and inclusive. I firmly believe that collaboration is the key to any program’s success. My goal is to provide an environment that encourages the open communication of ideas, opinions and “out of the box” thinking. 

Which classes do you teach?

I teach the public law and judicial politics courses in the Department of Political Science. My courses include “Equality and Justice in US Law,” “Gender Issues in Law & Politics” and US Constitutional Law. I also have taught a course on “Human Right Policies and Politics” in the Master of International Studies program, and I am looking forward to teaching this course in the near future.

What do you enjoy most about your job and what is the most challenging part?

The most enjoyable part of my current position is working with the members of the LPS administrative team, the LPS core faculty and Irwin Morris, Executive Director of SPIA. The most challenging part is dealing with bureaucratic regulations and practices that were put into place when the program started. The current LPS program is a very different program today than it was at inception. My challenge is to adapt the program to today’s competitive online environment. I think that the LPS program has the capacity to become the best online bachelor’s program in North Carolina. My hope is that we will be able to let North Carolinians know what a great program LPS is.   

What’s something that people might find interesting about you?

I don’t know how interesting one of my guilty pleasures is, but I suspect that it might be unexpected. I am a big fan of the “John Wick” series and the “…Has Fallen” series. I watch them over and over and over.

What are your goals for the upcoming year?

My primary goal is to build upon the success that the LPS program has recently achieved: to continue to work with the LPS team to increase enrollment in the program; to work with Tracy and LPS faculty to expand QM certification to most, if not, all LPS courses; to cement LPS program’s relationships with several community colleges in NC; to facilitate professional development opportunities for LPS team; and, most importantly, to insure that the LPS curriculum adapts to the changing needs and interests of our students. Furthermore, I am very interested in building an LPS community in which current LPS students, LPS alumni and LPS faculty and staff will have opportunities to recognize and celebrate the common bond that they share with the LPS program.