As higher education faces rapid changes and executive orders from the Trump administration, the UNC Office of Federal Affairs continues to advocate for the University on the national stage.
Kelly Dockham leads the effort as the director of the federal affairs office. She said the pace has increased since President Trump took office in January, but many aspects of the transition between administrations and Congressional members remain the same.
“A big part of my job is being that connector between Chapel Hill and Capitol Hill,” Dockham said.
When Congress is in session, Dockham spends one to four days a week in Washington, D.C., meeting with the 16 offices of North Carolina's federal delegation. The rest of her week is spent working with stakeholders on campus including students, faculty and administrators.
“The point is to know about the University as a whole and exactly what our priorities are at the federal level,” Dockham said. “Obviously the first one being funding, making sure that we have solid, robust funding for our federal aid programs such as Pell Grant, Federal Work Study, SEOG, those type of things.”
Dockham said that the President releases a budget request every spring and then Congress starts the annual appropriations process. This months-long task includes committee hearings with federal administration officials and appropriations subcommittees that work to divide the money.
UNC is a member of the Association of Public & Land-Grant Universities, which works to advance the positive impact of public research universities regardless of who is in office, Craig Lindwarm, the organization’s senior vice president for governmental affairs, wrote in a statement to The Daily Tar Heel.
Lindwarm wrote that every administration brings its own priorities into office that come with challenges and opportunities.
“What has shifted most is not the priorities themselves, but rather the political climate for advancing and defending these priorities,” he wrote.
