Will Goldsmith is a Teaching Assistant Professor in Public Policy. His research looks at how new electoral coalitions unlocked by the civil rights movement influenced economic development and education policy in North Carolina, and broadly, he is interested in how institutions exacerbate and ameliorate historical inequalities. He teaches classes on making public policy, state and local politics, and conflict and cooperation between the public sector and private sector. Before graduate school, he worked as a high school teacher and journalist. As a 17-year old, he (legally!) cast his first ballot at the Crooked Creek Fire Department in western North Carolina’s McDowell County.