Dr. J. Oliver Williams - Promotion to Professor Emeritus
Retirement June 30, 2009
During 36 years as a tenured professor, Dr. Williams has been recognized as an outstanding teacher and researcher. He has been named a University Outstanding Professor and has received two prestigious Fulbright teaching and research fellowships from the U.S. State Department while publishing twelve scholarly articles in academic journals, co-authoring a graduate textbook in public administration and co-authoring a study of gubernatorial politics and leadership. Additionally, he has been recognized on campus for international service and minority student advocacy and has served in three program and departmental leadership roles including director of the Master of Public Affairs Program, director of the undergraduate program in political science and as head of the Department of Political Science and Public Administration. He has undertaken leadership roles on two university standing committees and served in other important service roles on campus including the Faculty Senate.
Williams has also been active in local and state political affairs including service on the Raleigh Planning Commission and the Raleigh City Council where he served as chair of public works and a member of the transportation committee of the National League of Cities.
Williams was employed as an assistant professor in l969 and was promoted to associate professor with tenure in l973. He was promoted to full professor in l979. During his tenure at North Carolina State, he has served as an exchange professor at the University of Warwick in Coventry, England, and taught for a year as a senior Fulbright professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. He has also directed North Carolina State’s summer study abroad programs at Oxford University and at Zhejiang University in China.
Williams began his teaching career in the fields of state politics and policy and the epistemology of the social sciences, following doctoral study at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. For two decades he taught an undergraduate course in state politics and co-authored one of the leading books on the office of state governor. For more than twenty years, he taught required undergraduate and graduate courses in research methodology, introducing statistical analysis and pioneering in computer applications in the social sciences and the development of the Social Science Research Laboratory on campus. He also directed the Masters Program in Public Affairs and co-authored a leading textbook in principles of public administration. While serving as director of the MPA program, he was successful in obtaining certification of the program during the first cycle of program recognition by the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration [NASPAA]. During the time that he led the NCSU MPA program, he was named to the executive council of NASPAA and served as chair of the committee that established accreditation standards for public policy and administration schools in the U.S.
While directing the graduate program in public affairs, he was chosen as the first recipient of the Advocacy Award of the African-American Graduate Student Association for his efforts in promoting minority admission and career placements in state and local government administration in North Carolina.
In l987, when he was senior Fulbright professor at Chinese University of Hong Kong, he lectured at several of China’s leading universities and other universities in East Asia. Following his tenure in China, he returned to N.C. State, studied Mandarin language and developed an undergraduate course in the Politics of China and U.S. – China Relations. He has taught this course as an upper level social science elective with an international dimension for 19 years. It fulfills educational requirements in the College of Engineering and has attracted students from a dozen or more disciplines.
In recognition of his success in teaching and performance in the classroom, based on student evaluations, he was named a University Outstanding Professor and was inducted into the University’s Academy of Outstanding Teachers in l999.
During his career, Dr. Williams has published scholarly articles on North Carolina politics, American public policy and public administration, and Chinese politics in the Journal of Politics, Social Science Computer Review, International Journal of Public Administration, Public Administration in China, Publius: The Journal of Federalism and the Journal of Chinese Studies. His analysis of twentieth century politics in North Carolina, which he co-authored with Dr. Preston Edsall, the first head of the NCSU Department of Politics, was published in the compendium, Changing Politics of the South.
His article on the transition of Hong Kong to Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China, published in the Journal of Chinese Studies, established him as a leading scholar of the development of political parties and democracy in Hong Kong and led to his being the recipient of a Fulbright research fellowship in China in 2003. He continues to conduct research and writing on democracy on China’s borders which includes democratic developments in Hong Kong, Taiwan and the Pearl River delta region of Guangdong Province and south China.
In recognition of his research and writing, he was inducted into the NCSU chapter of the national scientific society, Sigma Xi.
He has continued to travel, lecture, and conduct research in China, publishing two articles on civil service reform in state ministries in China. Twice he has conducted five-week travel-study tours for students, and he led a group appointed by United Nations group to conduct meetings with the Chinese Consultative Committee on Human Rights. He delivered a paper “Privatization of Human Rights: Can Multi-National Corporations Excel Where Governments Fail,” in Beijing in 2003. The paper is being reviewed for publication.
In recognition of his contribution to the international programming at N.C. State, he received the Jackson Rigney Award for International Service in l998.
Williams has served on two campus standing committees, the University Admissions Committee and the Employee Welfare and Benefits Committee, which he chaired for two terms. He currently serves on the NCSU committee of the UNC in Washington program, the campus Fulbright Review Committee for faculty and graduate student applicants, and the O Max Gardner Award committee. He previously served on the University Planning and Environment Committee.
For nearly two decades, he has been the faculty advisor of Phi Sigma Pi, the social fraternity that incorporates scholarship and service standards for its membership. A member of this fraternity himself as an undergraduate, he helped establish the Beta Delta chapter at NCSU in the early l990’s. The NCSU chapter has received several chapters of the year awards among chapters nationally.
In his last administrative appointment as director of the Political Science program, he led a faculty effort to redesign the undergraduate political science curriculum which was implemented as “Political Science 2000.” This effort was recognized by the university as a significant contribution to undergraduate teaching and received the university’s Outstanding Teaching Department Award.
As a teacher of political science, he has a commitment to public service. He has twice served as a consultant in state government. He was appointed by Governor Robert Scott to devise a transition between gubernatorial administrations which led to North Carolina’s transition law. He also conducted a study of delay in the court system which became the basis for the state’s speedy trial statute. He directed the North Carolina Legislative Internship Program during two sessions of the General Assembly.
Following his advocacy of growth management and planning in Raleigh, he was appointed by the Wake County Board of commissioners as extra-territorial member of the Raleigh Panning Commission. In l973, he was elected as an at-large member of the Raleigh City Council. He received a Distinguished Service Award from the City of Raleigh in l975. He received a Distinguished Service Award from the Wake County Democratic Men’s Club in recognition of his role in founding the club and serving as first president. He has been an active member of the North Carolina Democratic Party, serving as delegate to the l980 national presidential nominating convention and as first vice chairman of the Wake County Democratic Party.
In addition to his academic career, Williams has been a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army Artillery and a reporter and editor with two North Carolina newspapers.
At the completion of his phased retirement in June 2009, Williams plans to continue in teaching, writing and university service. He is currently collaborating on a history of the department. His career here spans all but one year of the department’s existence.
The School of Public and International Affairs has named a scholarship in his honor to be awarded annually to an undergraduate student at N.C. State University.
