Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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A Great Hero — Warts and All by D.G. MARTIN Over. Finally. The elections. Now the winners can get down to the problems that face our local and state govern- ments and find practical solutions. That task will be easier in North Carolina, thanks to the legacy of Albert Coates, the founder of the Institute of Government, now the School of Government, at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Coates’s determination to marshal the resources of the university to serve the needs of the citizens of North Carolina puts him in the pantheon of my state heroes. So it might surprise you to know that I sent an informal message to current UNC- Chapel Hill Chancellor Holden Thorp that went like this: “You may have the heavy weight of an NCAA football investigation on your shoulders, but at least you don’t have to worry about Albert Coates.” Why would I speak about one of my heroes in such a derogatory fashion? Blame it on Greensboro’s Howard Covington, author of a new book about Coates, The Good Government Man: Albert Coates and the Early Years of the Institute of Government. Covington’s book follows Coates from his growing up years in Johnston County, his financial struggles to pay for his college education at Chapel Hill, his brief military service at the end of World War I, and his challenging but “exhilarating” time at Harvard Law School. Upon graduation from Harvard in 1923, he joined the faculty of the UNC School of Law. Stories about Coates as a law teacher abound. He could be inspirational or erratic, once giving failing grades on a final exam to 40 percent of the class, including two students who had been tapped for Phi Beta Kappa. Coates explained that his students “had responded from memory, rather than with answers supported by their own reasoning and creativity.” He did not change their exam grades, but arranged for a new test. Coates was a popular speaker and the university sent him across the state. His “model law office” at the law school and his efforts to connect stu- dents with the realities of “on the ground” law enforcement gave him a state- wide reputation. During the Christmas season of 1930, Coates and his wife Gladys addressed two thousand envelopes to local and state government officials, law- yers, and judges and mailed the first issue of a magazine they called Popular Government. The 70-page magazine contained Coates’s critical examination of the state’s criminal justice system. Albert and Gladys paid the entire cost “even though their own finances were barely sufficient to afford a small rental house as their home.” In September 1931 Coates hosted a three day statewide conference on law enforcement. A year later 600 people attended a conference to introduce Coates’s Institute of Government and his plan to serve local governments. Coates and the new Institute were off and running. But not everyone was pleased, especially not the law school dean. Coates, busy with building his Institute, simply overlooked his law school teaching responsibilities. The dean wrote to UNC President Frank Graham in 1935, “Mr. Coates’ work has again been a failure. He has returned to the attitudes and methods, which caused my recommendation in 1933 that he be dismissed.” President Graham, a believer in the importance of Coates’s Institute of Government, worked out a compromise. But he and his successors had to cover for Coates’s “attitudes and methods” until 1962 when Coates reached 65 years, the mandatory retirement age. Covington’s “warts and all” portrait does not make Coates any less of a hero for me. But Coates’s story is an important reminder that the high- est performing innovators can sometimes cause the most trouble for their superiors and that determined people often drive their colleagues a little bit crazy on the way to amazing achievements. D.G. MARTIN, Columnist COMMENTS? 484-6200 ext. 222 or editor@upandcomingweekly.com WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM “BUY ORIGINAL, BUY LOCAL” Cape Fear Studios • 148 Maxwell St. • 433-2986 • capefearstudios.com Monday through Friday, 11am to 5 pm • Saturday 10am to 4pm. Fayetteville Art Guild • Gallery ONE13 • 113 Gillespie Street 910-223-2787 • Friday and Saturday 11am to 5pm or by appointment Arts Council of Fayetteville/Cumberland County • 301 Hay St. For gallery hours, visit www.TheArtsCouncil.com. Olde Town Gallery • 124 Maxwell St. • 485-4378 Fayetteville Technical Community College Gallery 2201 Hull Rd. • Rm 366A • Monday thru Friday • 11am to 5pm Gallery 208 • 208 Rowan St. • 484-6200 • Monday - Friday • 9am – 5pm Rosenthal Gallery Fayetteville State University 1200 Murchison Rd. • 672-1795 The Visual Arts Alliance (VAA) is dedicated to building a vibrant and enduring visual arts community. NOVEMBER 10-16, 2010 UCW 17