Members of the ������Ƶ School of Law Advisory Board gathered in Greensboro this week for their regular fall meeting, providing strategic guidance and professional insights to university and law school administrators while devoting significant time to students through panel discussions and small-group mentoring conversations shared over meals.

The 21-member board includes prominent attorneys, judges and business leaders from across the country who advise ������Ƶ Law and ������Ƶ leaders on the law school’s development and strategic direction.

A Wednesday, Sept. 16, panel featured Jennifer Bowden L’09, principal at R. Steve Bowden & Associates; Marla Crawford, general counsel at Cimplifi; and Gerald Walden G’14, general counsel at The Fresh Market. Student Bar Association President Trey McClenny L’26 moderated.

Their conversation offered students practical advice drawn from careers spanning private practice, corporate law, litigation and emerging legal technology. Among their key takeaways:

Treat law school like your first professional job.

Bowden encouraged students to take advantage of access to professors and seek their guidance rather than trying to navigate difficult material alone. Walden similarly urged students to make law school a priority and to be intentional about learning from classmates who excel in different legal areas, as well as faculty.

Stay open to where a legal career can lead.

All three panelists described careers that evolved in directions they hadn’t necessarily anticipated in law school. Crawford encouraged students not to arrive with a fixed idea of where they must end up. Opportunities others overlook, she said, can sometimes become defining moments in a career. For her, that arose through first managing discovery, which became her specialty and led to managing the nation’s first electronic discovery case in the complex Enron case that began in 2001. She then leveraged that skill to become an expert in technology and the law, and is now focused on AI.

Get legal experience (even if it isn’t your dream job).

The panelists emphasized internships, summer work and other law-related opportunities as ways to test practice areas and workplace environments. Students can learn as much from discovering what they don’t enjoy as from finding an immediate fit.

Build relationships deliberately.

Walden reminded students that their professional networks already include the classmates sitting beside them. When meeting practicing attorneys, he advised students to follow up, reference the conversation and give the attorney something memorable to know about their own interests and goals.

Referencing a specific conversation and expressing interest in continuing it can help turn a brief introduction into a meaningful professional connection, he said.

The panel was only one part of the board’s interaction with students. Members joined students for a community dinner in the ������Ƶ Law Library on Wednesday, Sept. 16, creating opportunities for informal conversations about careers, law school and professional life.

Those connections continued Thursday, Sept. 17, when board members met with students in smaller mentoring conversations over lunch.

The interactions reflect ������Ƶ Law’s emphasis on connecting students with practicing attorneys, judges and other leaders throughout their legal education, as well as the Advisory Board’s dedication to providing top-notch law school experience to law students as they develop professional networks and clearer understanding of opportunities available.

It started as a conversation between friends. A memory from the Ecuadorian Amazon. A question asked after a trip that left them curious about guayusa, a leaf long consumed by Indigenous communities for focus and energy. It had become months of supplier calls, product tests, faculty feedback, formulation decisions and late nights spent figuring out how to turn a shared vision into something real.

Now, the plant-based energy drink they built together is ready for distribution and is being sold at The Oak House at ������Ƶ.

For Vargas-Lopez and Chiriboga, the milestone carries them back to McEwen Dining Hall on campus, where their friendship began during their first year at ������Ƶ in 2022.

Chiriboga, an entrepreneurship major from Quito, Ecuador, and Vargas-Lopez, a sport management major from Austin, Texas, quickly connected over language, culture, soccer and a shared curiosity about the world. They became close friends long before they became business partners.

The idea for YAPA came later, after Chiriboga brought Vargas-Lopez to visit his home country during Thanksgiving break of their sophomore year. It was Vargas-Lopez’s first time in South America, and the trip included time in the Amazon rainforest, where the two were struck by what Chiriboga describes as the “immensity” of the Amazon, from its abundance of life to the plants that have long shaped daily living in the region.

“We came back from visiting the Amazon forest and were just talking through the trip,” Vargas-Lopez says. “That’s when the idea came out. What if we took one of those plants and built a drink around it?”

That question became YAPA, a plant-based energy drink made from guayusa and a larger idea of giving people something more than expected.

The company’s name comes from an Andean expression. In Ecuador, “yapa” refers to a small token added with generosity. At a market, it might be an extra piece of fruit. At a family table, it might be a little more food on someone’s plate.

“It’s a little extra you were not expecting,” Chiriboga says. “That is what we want the product to feel like.”

Building From the Ground Up

Once the idea took hold, Vargas-Lopez and Chiriboga began studying the beverage industry, talking with community members in Ecuador, seeking feedback from mentors and testing whether their concept could become a real business.

They were drawn to the growing interest in cleaner, more transparent beverage options.

“I think the issue we were looking at was the energy drink industry and what a lot of those products contain,” Chiriboga says. “We saw people looking more for clean-label, natural ingredients and more transparency in what they consume.”

That focus helped define YAPA’s direction. They describe the drink as plant-based and made without preservatives, with an emphasis on ingredient transparency, quality and sourcing. Its ingredients include guayusa along with hibiscus, turmeric, ginger, prebiotics and electrolytes, each chosen with a purpose.

For the founders, the product also carries a connection to the place that inspired it.

We came back from visiting the Amazon forest and were just talking through the trip. That’s when the idea came out. What if we took one of those plants and built a drink around it? — Bernardo Vargas-Lopez ’26

In the Amazon, Chiriboga says, guayusa is traditionally consumed in community. People gather early in the morning, drink together and share their dreams before beginning the day. The leaf is associated with focus and energy, but not the jittery rush often linked with conventional energy drinks.

“It gives you that mental clarity and that energy that you need without being hyper,” Chiriboga says.

Turning that inspiration into a company required more than enthusiasm. The two spent months working through sourcing, formulation, packaging, shipping, pricing and compliance while balancing college life.

They also made early decisions about where they would not compromise, even when higher standards meant harder financial choices.

“We decided there were a few strategic points where we would not go for lower quality,” Chiriboga says. “Starting from ingredients and sourcing, we were not going to sacrifice what the product stands for.”

Asking the Right Questions

Both founders say their experience in the Martha and Spencer Love School of Business gave them the confidence to approach YAPA not as a finished idea, but as something to test, refine and keep improving.

They turned to faculty members including Sean McMahon, professor of entrepreneurship; Elena Kennedy, associate professor of entrepreneurship; and Brittany Mercado, associate professor of management and chair of the Department of Management and Entrepreneurship.

“The ability to communicate clearly with people who know a lot more than we do has been huge,” Vargas-Lopez says. “The Love School of Business does an amazing job of making professors approachable.”

As YAPA developed, informal conversations became intentional. They stayed after class, brought specific questions to faculty and connected what they were learning in their courses to the choices they were making for the company. The feedback was not always easy, and that was part of its value.

“We don’t need people to just cheerlead,” Vargas-Lopez says. “We need people who will tell us what worked, what didn’t and how to improve. That’s what has really helped us move forward.”

Their time studying abroad also shaped the venture. Chiriboga was in Japan while
Vargas-Lopez was in Australia, making day-to-day operations difficult, so they used the distance to listen.

“We couldn’t really work on operations, so the only thing we could do was talk to people,” Chiriboga says.

They spoke with people in the Amazon, professionals at large companies and mentors in finance, gathering insight before returning to campus.

“We were sponges during that time,” Chiriboga says. “We just gathered as much information as we could.”

A Friendship First

Before they were co-founders, Vargas-Lopez and Chiriboga were friends. They built the kind of trust that later became essential to starting a company together. When one person could not take on a task, the other stepped in. When the work became overwhelming, the friendship helped steady them.

“If I cannot do something right now, I know Juan Daniel can do it, and vice versa,” Vargas-Lopez says. “That trust was built before the business.”

Living together strengthened that rhythm. It also taught them the importance of boundaries.

“We’ve gotten really good at knowing when to talk business and when not to,” Chiriboga says. “If it’s not working time, we try to focus on being friends and being present with other people.”

For Vargas-Lopez, the partnership has been less about dividing every task evenly and more about sharing responsibility over time.

“It’s not always 50-50 all the time,” he says. “But we know we’re in this together, and that makes it easier to handle everything that comes up.”

For Chiriboga, building YAPA with his best friend has been one of the most meaningful parts of the experience.

“I couldn’t be more grateful that my best friend is also my business partner,” he says.

Now based in Austin, Vargas-Lopez and Chiriboga are carrying YAPA into its next stage. The venture that started as a conversation between friends has become something people can open, taste and share.

The process has changed how they think about risk, learning and what it means to build something from scratch. It has also reinforced the value of starting before everything feels certain.

“Don’t be afraid to start,” Chiriboga says. “If you don’t believe in yourself, no one else will.”

Vargas-Lopez says the venture has taught him to stay open to what others know and humble enough to keep asking questions.

“Use your resources,” he says. “Ask questions. Learn from every conversation. We haven’t had a single meeting where we didn’t learn something.”

The article, “,” was published Sept. 8 in the Journal of Sport Management, a leading scholarly journal in the sport management field. Dabbs and Burton collaborated on the research with Jeffrey Graham of Texas A&M University and Anton Schulz of Texas Tech University.

Using in-depth interviews with 16 women NCAA head coaches, the researchers explored how coaches responded to unexpected career-defining moments, primarily termination or institutional investigations. Their analysis identified three interconnected themes: an abrupt and isolating separation from the professional world; an attack on personal and professional identity; and lasting consequences affecting finances, health, families and future plans.

Rather than viewing forced job loss simply as a professional transition, the research frames the experience as a broader life crisis and points to the need for more humane off-boarding practices within sport organizations, including compassionate communication and access to independent mental health, financial and career-transition resources.

“This topic is important to me because the experiences of women coaches following an investigation or forced exit are rarely discussed openly,” Dabbs said. “These women entrusted us with deeply personal stories about losing not only their jobs, but also their professional identities, financial security, relationships, and sense of belonging.”

Dabbs said she hopes the findings will draw greater attention to the experiences of women coaches and encourage sport organizations to reconsider how they handle difficult career transitions.

“I wanted this research to give them a voice, shed light on a serious problem within college coaching, and encourage sport organizations to develop more ethical and humane exit strategies,” she said.

The publication also represents the culmination of a faculty-student research collaboration between Dabbs and Burton, who worked on the project while an ������Ƶ student. Burton played a pivotal role in the study’s qualitative data analysis, working with the 16 interview transcripts and collaborating with the research team to examine, code and organize the coaches’ experiences into the themes ultimately presented in the article.

Dabbs mentored Burton throughout the process, teaching her how to conduct qualitative data analysis and write the methodology section of a scholarly article.

“Her careful engagement with the participants’ stories contributed meaningfully to both the rigor of the analysis and the development of the manuscript,” Dabbs said.

For Dabbs, Burton’s involvement illustrates the value of providing students opportunities to participate directly in research. Such collaborations allow students to apply concepts learned in the classroom while gaining firsthand experience with how scholarly research is conducted and developed.

“They learn to work carefully with evidence, recognize patterns, question their assumptions, and communicate findings responsibly,” she added.

Another benefit? The experience can also reshape how students view their own place within an academic and professional community.

“Students gain confidence from knowing that their work can contribute to meaningful conversations in their field,” Dabbs said. “Mentored research helps them see themselves not only as students, but also as scholars and professionals whose ideas and contributions matter.”

Sarah Gustafson, assistant professor of politics at The Catholic University of America, led the discussion, titled “The Declaration of Independence and the American Political Imagination.” Gustafson’s research is focused on 19th century political thought, particularly the work of French political thinker, Alexis de Tocqueville, whose writings on American democracy became a central focus of her presentation.

Gustafson described the Declaration as an urtext of the American story. Although the Constitution and Bill of Rights carry greater legal authority, she said the Declaration continues to have “rhetorical and sentimental force.” Its language, she explained, has been repeatedly used by Americans to discuss the country’s ideals, including in Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”

Rather than treating the Declaration as an isolated historical document, Gustafson used Tocqueville’s observations to explore the political culture that existed around it. Tocqueville traveled through the United States in the 1830s and later published “Democracy in America,” a detailed study of American democracy and political life.

One of the examples Gustafson highlighted was Tocqueville’s experience in Albany, New York, on July 4. He witnessed military demonstrations, Revolutionary War veterans being honored, and copies of the Declaration being printed in the street. The celebration concluded with a public reading of the document.

Tocqueville found the experience had “something deeply felt and truly great about it.” For Gustafson, the celebration showed how Americans are able to pass down history and traditions through local communities and organizations rather than relying on institutions

Gustafson compared those formal institutions to the first floor of a house, supported by a basement made up of families, clubs, religion, ethics and other informal institutions.

“They provide the dynamism, strength, and support, without which that first floor would not hold.” said Gustafson.

During the question and answer session, Gustafson encouraged students to apply those ideas locally rather than focusing exclusively on national politics.

“Go build something,” Gustafson said. “Go work with your hands. Go work with other people.”

For Gustafson, civic education is about more than memorizing founding documents. It is about developing a ‘political imagination’ that connects the words of those documents to the communities, relationships, and traditions that give them meaning.

The Constitution Day program came during a year of national attention on the Declaration’s 250th anniversary. The event was supported by a grant from the Jack Miller Center for Teaching America’s Founding Principles and History and organized with support from the Department of Political Science and Public Policy.

“The research I do has nothing to do with dance,” says Scherich, the A.L. Hook Emerging Professor in Science and Mathematics and assistant professor of mathematics and statistics at ������Ƶ. “Dance is just the mechanism in which I communicate my research.”

Scherich’s research focuses on topology, a branch of mathematics that studies flexible geometric shapes that remain preserved through deformation such as twisting, stretching or bending without opening holes, tearing or passing through themselves. More specifically, her research centers on knot theory, a field examining mathematical knots and braids.

Advanced mathematics requires years of foundational knowledge and technical language that can be difficult to explain to those outside the discipline. This challenge prompted Scherich to think creatively about how to share her work with broader audiences in an accessible way.

“Mathematics can be very abstract and uses a lot of specific jargon language,” Scherich says. “It can be difficult to tell somebody about your work, because first you have to define years’ worth of math before you can even get started. I was looking for ways to explain what math is in a way where you do not necessarily understand the technicalities, but you can get a flavor for what we are studying.”

Dance allows her to bypass that barrier, not by simplifying math but by translating it into a story with motion and emotion.

“Dance is a really effective way to emotionally story-tell,” she says. “I don’t really think in terms of dialogue. I think in terms of movement.”

Scherich’s work intentionally challenges stereotypes surrounding mathematics. Many of her videos feature female dancers and traditionally feminine aesthetics, in contrast to what has historically been a male-dominated field.

“When you think of a ballet dancer, you think of a woman,” Scherich says. “When you think of a mathematician, you probably don’t.”

The intersection of dance and mathematics flows into her work with students. She collaborated with Sol Addison ’25 and Lila Snodgrass ’26 on research examining how dancers move across a stage over time to define a new knot invariant called the danceability index.

In the classroom, Scherich uses videos of her dances as part of a larger narrative. She might begin a lecture by introducing different branches of mathematics such as algebra, geometry and topology through movement, giving students a conceptual framework before diving into formal definitions. One of her recent pieces uses , a foundational result in knot theory. The videos do not replace traditional instruction but provide students with another way to grasp complex ideas.

Scherich’s path to mathematics was far from linear. Growing up in California, she left high school early to pursue performance opportunities and began college at 14, initially planning a future in performing arts. Encouraged by her father, a high school math teacher, she also enrolled in math courses as a backup plan.

I was looking for ways to explain what math is in a way where you do not necessarily understand the technicalities, but you can get a flavor for what we are studying. — Nancy Scherich

She changed majors several times — performance, French, biochemistry, chemistry — before mathematics finally stuck. The turning point came during a calculus class when she learned how to calculate the volume of a three-dimensional shape created by rotating a two-dimensional object.

“I was like, ‘I think I just became a mathematician; this is so cool. I’m in,’” Scherich says.

For years, Scherich kept dance and math separate. That changed during graduate school at the University of California, Santa Barbara when she learned about Science magazine’s “Dance Your Ph.D.” competition. Encouraged by a friend, she spent an entire summer creating a dance video inspired by her dissertation research. The project went on to win the competition.

“I feel like the video I created is probably my life’s masterpiece,” Scherich says. “So much love and passion went into that dance video. Since then, every time I am doing research or learn a new piece of mathematics, or I’m having trouble explaining math to someone, I think ‘Can I make a dance about this?’”

While the approach is unconventional, Scherich says the response from the mathematics community has been overwhelmingly positive.

“People will come up to me at conferences and say, ‘You’re the math and dance girl, right?’” Scherich says. “They appreciate that it’s making math accessible and fun.”

The 2025-26 academic year also marked major milestones in Scherich’s career. She was named the A.L Hook Emerging Professor in Science and Mathematics and received a $125,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to support her research and community building within ������Ƶ’s Department of Mathematics and Statistics.

Through her work, Scherich continues to demonstrate that mathematics is not limited to formulas and symbols on a page. By combining movement, storytelling and research, she offers students and audiences a new way to see mathematics — as dynamic, creative and deeply human.

How well is the United States living up to the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence?

Which moments in the nation’s history represent American democracy at its best?

How do Americans assess the country’s current condition?

What do people expect the nation to look like when it celebrates its 300th anniversary in 2076?

Those were some of the questions behind one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken by the ������Ƶ Poll. The findings were cited in nearly 600 media stories and opinion pieces across the ideological spectrum and contributed to public discussion during the nation’s semiquincentennial.

Established in 2000, the ������Ƶ Poll is among the country’s longest running university-based public opinion polling organizations, with a reputation for accuracy in measuring public opinion on elections, public policy and issues affecting North Carolina and the nation. The America250 project built on that foundation to explore questions that are rarely included in national polling.

Professor Jason Husser, director of the ������Ƶ Poll, coordinated with a group of faculty and staff to dig deep into the American psyche, stepping away from typical questions related to current events to explore how Americans think about their nation’s past, present and future. The result was a comprehensive report released just weeks before Independence Day that offered a broad portrait of how Americans view the United States at one of the most significant milestones in its history.

Husser, a professor of political science and public policy, said Americans’ divergent views in the survey results were not surprising. “Pluralistic, democratic societies rarely generate true consensus about public affairs,” Husser says. “Nonetheless, when we read the findings in their totality, especially considering the optimism of young Americans, we see an underlying theme of perseverance perhaps best reflected in three-quarters of Americans who agreed with President Abraham Lincoln: ‘Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.’”

Proud of the country, concerned about its direction

Taken together, the results revealed a public that remains strongly attached to the United States while expressing considerable concern about its democratic institutions.

Nearly seven in 10 Americans said they are proud to be American, and two-thirds said they would not want to live in another country. At the same time, 52% said the nation is not successfully living up to its founding ideals, while 73% rated the overall health of American democracy as only “fair” or “poor.”

Forty percent said that at least once a week they have felt the nation is on the brink of a major crisis, and 70% said the current period is more turbulent and unstable than average across U.S. history.

Those findings echoed a theme that appeared throughout the survey: Americans expressed confidence in many of the country’s enduring ideals while offering a more cautious assessment of its present condition.

That pattern appeared in one of the survey’s most widely discussed results: 69% of respondents said they believe the signers of the Declaration of Independence would be more disappointed than proud if they could see American democracy today.

Reflecting on the nation’s history

The survey also invited Americans to think about the nation’s defining moments and leaders.

Asked which event best represented American democracy at its highest ideals, respondents most often selected the Civil Rights Movement, followed by World War II and the end of slavery. Abraham Lincoln was named both the historical figure who best exemplified American democracy and the nation’s greatest president. Other top presidents, in order of popularity, included Barack Obama, George Washington, Donald Trump, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan.

Looking ahead

If Americans found inspiration in parts of the nation’s past, they expressed greater uncertainty about its future.

Sizable majorities predicted that by 2076 the country will be more politically divided, have more polluted air and water, and less freedom for citizens. Only about one-third expressed confidence that American political institutions would make mostly good decisions over the next 50 years.

Yet the survey also uncovered a notable generational pattern. Across many questions, younger adults expressed more optimism than older Americans. Respondents under 30 were more likely to believe the nation is living up to its founding ideals and more confident that American institutions will make good decisions in the decades ahead.

Toward a ‘more perfect union’

������Ƶ President Connie Ledoux Book wrote in the report’s introduction that civic engagement has long been central to the university’s mission.

“������Ƶ was founded in an era when American higher education increasingly saw democracy itself as dependent on an informed and engaged citizenry,” Book wrote. “That conviction remains central to the university today.”

For the ������Ƶ Poll, the America250 project demonstrates a broader role that universities can play in public life. Beyond measuring elections and political campaigns, polling can also document how Americans understand their democracy, their history and their future. As the nation looks forward to its tricentennial in 2076, this survey provides an important benchmark as Americans continue to strive for the “more perfect union” envisioned in the U.S. Constitution.

The America250 survey, conducted April 30 through May 4 with field work by the international polling firm YouGov, included responses from 1,000 adults nationwide and was designed to represent the U.S. adult population. For the survey report, full data and methodology, visit elon.edu/elonpoll.

The study, “,” looked at whether the growing availability of generative AI has changed who enters the video game market and how developers use AI in the creative process.

Kim and his co-authors analyzed more than 66,000 developers whose first game was published on Steam between 2014 and 2025. They found that more indie developers entered the platform in 2024 and 2025 than earlier trends predicted, while new non-indie developers remained within the expected range.

Key findings

• More indie developers entered the market after generative AI became widely available. The increase was greater than researchers’ models predicted based on previous trends.
• Images were the most common use of AI. Both indie and non-indie developers most often reported using AI to generate images, while use for music, voice and coding was lower.
• Indie developers used AI differently. Compared with non-indie developers, indie developers were more likely to use AI for music and coding.
• AI was associated with shorter indie games. The researchers say this may reflect AI’s usefulness in helping developers quickly develop and test ideas.
• The study shows an association, not causation. The researchers do not conclude that generative AI caused more indie developers to enter the market.

Kim plans to bring the research into his business analytics courses.

“I will use this paper in class to demonstrate the positive role of AI in facilitating human creativity by enabling individuals to quickly prototype and implement their ideas,” Kim said.

The research was published in ACM AI Letters by the Association for Computing Machinery and co-authored with Seonbin Jo and Woo-Sung Jung of Pohang University of Science and Technology and Jisung Yoon of the KDI School of Public Policy and Management.

Kim joined ������Ƶ in Fall 2023 from Boston University. His expertise includes business analytics, innovation, misinformation, and computational social science. He is currently the director of the Center for Applied Analytics and AI at ������Ƶ.

Executive Director of the Core Curriculum and Associate Professor of Music and Education Matt Buckmaster was invited to join a panel to share insights on general education assessment using the AAC&U VALUE rubrics.

Part of AAC&U’s VALUE Week webinar series, the panel was titled “Doing the Work: How Institutions Are Using VALUE Rubrics to Understand Student Learning.”  Buckmaster shared ������Ƶ’s process and design to student learning assessment in the Core Curriculum, including the successes and challenges encountered in the process.

������Ƶ’s emphasis on engaged learning and student-centered curriculum led to very positive outcomes, and areas for continued improvement were able to be identified as well. The investment ������Ƶ has made in assessment in the Core Curriculum will inform faculty development opportunities, course and assignment design resources, and potentially future curriculum revisions.

������Ƶ is a member of the .

Constitutional Amendment – Photo ID

Likely voters in the November general election are strongly in favor of changes to the North Carolina Constitution to require a photo ID for all forms of voting, including absentee mail-in ballots. The ������Ƶ Poll found that 63% of likely voters favored this constitutional amendment compared with 25% who opposed it and 12% who were unsure. The amendment reads as follows:

Constitutional amendment to require all voters, not just those presenting to vote in person, to present photo identification before voting.

Following an April 2023 ruling by the North Carolina Supreme Court, absentee voters must include a photocopy of their photo IDs with their mailed-in ballots or complete an ID Exception Form. This constitutional amendment would lock that requirement into the state’s constitution so it could not be changed by lawmakers.

Constitutional Amendment – Income Tax

Likely voters strongly favor changes to the North Carolina Constitution to lower the maximum allowable state personal income tax rate from 7% to 3.5%. In this survey, 67% favored this constitutional amendment, compared with 18% who opposed it and 16% who were unsure. The amendment reads as follows:

Constitutional amendment to keep the State income tax rate from being raised higher than three and one‑half percent (3.5%).

North Carolina’s current individual income tax rate is a flat rate of 3.99%, down from 4.25% in 2025. The rate is to 3.49% in 2027 and 2.99% in 2028. This amendment would set a constitutional cap at 3.5% starting in 2027.

Constitutional Amendment – Property Tax

Likely voters are strongly in favor of changes to the North Carolina Constitution requiring the General Assembly to limit increases in property taxes levied by local governments. In this survey, 72% favored this constitutional amendment, compared with 14% who opposed it and 14% who were unsure. The amendment reads as follows:

Constitutional amendment requiring limits on property tax increases by local governments.

This amendment would not set a specific cap on property tax increases but would require state lawmakers to pass laws that limit how much local governments can increase total property tax revenue from one year to the next. The amendment calls for a “levy limit” to cap growth in total dollars collected by a local government, rather than a “rate cap,” which would limit the tax rate for property owners. If the amendment passes, the General Assembly would need to enact laws defining the revenue limits and any exceptions.

“Following a long history of most constitutional amendments on the Noth Carolina ballot being approved by voters, the three 2026 amendments all have multiples more ‘for’ than ‘against,’ said Jason Husser, director of the ������Ƶ Poll and professor of political science and public policy. “In the case of the 2026 amendments, all three lock in current status quo rather than leading to immediate policy change, which decreases their potential for controversy in an election cycle currently focused on the politicians on the ballot.”

North Carolina constitutional amendment process

All three of these questions were put on the ballot by the General Assembly, which has sole power to pose constitutional questions to voters. In this poll, 58% of likely voters favored creating a process for citizens to introduce constitutional amendments, with 15% opposing citizen-initiated amendments and 27% unsure.

“State constitutional amendments impact state law and policy in complex ways,” Husser said. “However, ballot language that voters see on election day is often short. Our poll very closely replicated the ballot text that voters will see. If the ballot language differed or provided more detailed summaries for each amendment, we would likely find different results.”

Marijuana laws

North Carolina adults were strongly in favor of legalizing the use of marijuana for medical purposes and also supported legalizing the recreational use of marijuana in the state. Medical use of the substance was favored by 75% with only 11% in opposition. For recreational use, 55% were in support of legalization compared with 30% who opposed it and 15% who were unsure.

These levels of support for marijuana legalization are mostly unchanged from an ������Ƶ poll in January 2021.

There was a significant partisan divide on the legalization questions with Democrats far more likely to support loosening marijuana laws. Eighty-nine percent of Democrats favored legalizing medical marijuana compared with 57% of Republicans. For recreational use of marijuana, 74% of Democrats favored legalization compared with only 33% of Republicans.

Related to hemp-derived products like seltzers and gummies with THC levels that can cause intoxication, 53% supported legalization and 28% said those products should be prohibited, with 19% unsure. Among Democrats, 62% favored legalization of these THC products compared with only 35% of Republicans.

An overwhelming majority of all adults (82%) favored prohibiting the sale of hemp-derived products to anyone under the age of 21.

Husser pointed out that the ������Ƶ Poll has tracked marijuana attitudes over the last decade in North Carolina. “We found a significant increase in support for legalization between 2017 and 2021 as North Carolinians saw legalization occurring in other states,” Husser said. “Over the last five years, support for legalization has largely been stable with a large majority supporting medical legalization and a small majority favoring recreational legalization. In turn, support for allowing hemp-based THC has similar levels of support and high correlation with support for recreational marijuana. However, North Carolinians are largely unified in wanting hemp consumables restricted to those 21 or older.”

Poll Methodology

Access the poll topline and methodology at: . The survey was developed by the ������Ƶ Poll and fielded by the international marketing and polling firm YouGov as an online, web-based survey, self-administered through online panels. Between August 21 and August 31, 2026, YouGov interviewed 1,121 North Carolina adults aged 18 and older. These respondents were then matched down to a sample of 800 to produce the final dataset.

The matched cases were weighted to the sampling frame using propensity scores based on age, gender, race/ethnicity, years of education, and home ownership. The margin of error for likely voters in this survey is +/- 5.5%, for registered voters in this survey (adjusted for weights) the margin of error is +/-5.05%, and the margin of error for all adults in this survey is +/-5.09%.

Marna Winter, teaching professor of education and associate director of ������Ƶ’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning (CATL), will present two projects exploring student reflection, joy and engagement at the (SoTL) Summit, held virtually Sept. 16-18.

The conference brings together educators from colleges and universities across the United States and internationally to share SoTL research and approaches to teaching. Since its beginning in 1993, the summit has developed into a space for both experienced and emerging teacher-scholars to exchange research across disciplines and explore new approaches to student learning.
In “When Students Wonder, Instructors Learn: Building a Metacognitive Feedback Loop,” Winter will present alongside  professor of psychology and director of SoTL at the United States Air Force Academy.

Their work grew from the “I Wonder” project, an activity originally used by Winter at the end of a semester to encourage students to reflect on lingering questions about their learning. Winter found that those reflections could also reveal misconceptions, gaps in understanding and areas of curiosity that could inform teaching. After presenting initial work at the 2025 SoTL Summit, Winter connected with Scharff, leading to a contribution to the  blog and ongoing collaboration. At the summit, Winter and Scharff will share new findings and introduce a metacognitive instructional cycle for using student reflection to inform pedagogical decisions.

Winter’s second presentation, “From Play to Pedagogy: Reflective Inquiry into Joy and Student Engagement,” explores how brief, intentional “mini play sessions” at the beginning of class can help students pause, connect and transition into learning. Drawing on student reflections and survey data, Winter’s ongoing SoTL inquiry considers how small moments of play can foster curiosity, focus and engagement, positioning joy not as an addition to learning but as part of creating the conditions for meaningful learning.

Together, Winter’s two presentations reflect a broader focus on her active scholarship on creating learning environments that are responsive to students and attentive to how they experience the classroom.

For Winter, presenting at the SoTL Summit offers an opportunity not only to share what she has learned through her own teaching, but also to continue developing that work through conversation with educators examining similar questions about student learning and engagement.