Summary:
- Theo is Carolina Forward’s new Director of Policy, a Chapel Hill Town Council member, and a former UNC PhD student who was drawn into politics by the legislature’s fiscal mismanagement and underpaying of educators.
- He led a successful 2022 campaign that won a historic 25 percent pay raise for UNC graduate instructors and later ran one of the largest statewide campus organizing programs in the country.
- At Carolina Forward, Theo is advancing a policy agenda centered on affordability, fairness, and freedom, with a focus on housing, utilities, and smart growth across North Carolina.
Hello, readers! My name is Theo. I’m the new Director of Policy for Carolina Forward, and I couldn’t be more pleased to be here.
I live in Chapel Hill, where I currently serve on the Town Council. Originally from Oklahoma, I’ve zig-zagged my way across the South for my education, which brought me to Chapel Hill in 2019 to pursue a PhD in early modern English poetry (think Shakespeare-era) at UNC Chapel Hill.
As readers of this blog, you’re familiar with the Republican legislature’s campaign to shrink the state budget and the terrible consequences their misrule has had for North Carolinians. Their fiscal mismanagement is actually what got me into North Carolina politics.
Back in 2022, I led a campaign to boost the minimum wage for graduate instructors at UNC. We ended up winning a 25% pay raise, taking us from $16,000 a year to $20,000. That was the largest raise grad students have ever received at UNC. Unfortunately, they’re still underpaid relative to grad students at peer universities. That’s because of our legislature’s reluctance to pay all kinds of teachers, from Kindergartens to the lecture hall, a competitive wage.
As part of that pay raise campaign, I went on a 40-stop listening tour. Students in every department repeated one simple message: my housing is too expensive.
So I joined the Town’s planning commission in search of solutions. A few months later, I filed for office, knocked a few thousand doors, and won.
Because students played a critical role in my run for office, I made a pitch to the Democratic party for a statewide campus organizing machine in 2024. They ended up hiring me to run that program in 24, which became the second largest in the country. Criss-crossing this state to help organize campuses gave me the chance to fall in love with North Carolina and her strong and diverse people.
Now, I’m excited to get to work for Carolina Forward. You’ve already seen that the pillars on which our goals rest are fairness and affordability, whether we’re talking about creating more housing, regulating utilities, or assessing the impacts of data centers. Expect more of that commitment from me. I’m laser-focused on researching and promoting a policy agenda that will make North Carolina more free, fair, and affordable.
If you host a meetup of policy advocates or community organizers and would like me to come share our agenda, or advise on your local issues, drop me a line: theo@carolinaforward.org
Affordability, fairness, and freedom. That’s what we’re chasing at Carolina Forward.
Thank you for chasing it with us. Onward!
Theo
