Former N.C. Governor Cooper To Join Harvard School of Public Health as Leadership Fellow

Beginning in late March, former North Carolina Governor Roy A. Cooper III will spend eight weeks as Menschel Senior Leadership Fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health.

As a fellow, Cooper will begin teaching on March 24 and is in the process of developing a curriculum for HPM552: “Health Policy and Leadership,” a course taught by Menschel Fellows.

He will serve as a Menschel Fellow during the same term as former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Marcia L. Fudge, who served under the Biden administration through March 2024. Fudge’s plans to come to Harvard were announced in December.

During his tenure as North Carolina governor from 2017 to 2025, Cooper raised average teacher salaries by 19 percent, invested in early care and child learning, and focused on public health initiatives.

As governor, Cooper extended Medicaid coverage to over 600,000 North Carolinians and led state responses to the Covid-19 pandemic and natural disasters, such as Hurricane Helene.

Fudge spent more than a decade representing Ohio’s 11th congressional district before joining Joe Biden’s Cabinet. She left her post in March 2024, several months before the end of Biden’s term, saying she wished to retire into life as a private citizen.

As HUD secretary, Fudge issued 120,000 federal housing vouchers, the most in recent history. She ended the controversial Road Home program, which offered funding to Louisiana homeowners impacted by Hurricane Katrina but mired many in lawsuits after they spent the money on storm repairs rather than home elevations as intended.

Director of the Senior Leadership Fellows Program Eric Andersen wrote in a statement that the Menschel program’s fellows “teach to their real-world leadership experiences, where the instructor uses their record of leadership to teach about decision-making.”

In addition to Cooper’s role as a fellow, the Menschel program plans to have him host a session at the Harvard Chan Studio, which holds talks and panels on health policy.

The fellowship aims “to bridge the gap between academia and practical leadership, demonstrate to students what it’s like to serve in these important positions, and to talk about decision making,” Andersen said.

Previous fellows include Miro Weinberger, Mayor of Burlington, Vermont, and Rochelle P. Walensky, former director of the Centers for Disease Control.

Prior to becoming governor, Cooper served as the 50th Attorney General of North Carolina and in the State House and State Senate, where he wrote the state’s first children’s health insurance initiative. The fellowship continues Cooper’s long-standing career in health policy.

“We think that this program is helping our students be better prepared in times of leadership, in times of working with leadership, whether that be at the state, city or the federal level, and to understand how important decisions are made,” Andersen said.

—Staff writer Kaitlyn Y. Choi can be reached at kaitlyn.choi@thecrimson.com.

—Staff writer Sohum M. Sukhatankar can be reached at sohum.sukhatankar@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @ssukhatankar06.