Director

Dr. Prudence Layne is an experienced global educator, administrator, academic and scholar, highly skilled at developing and implementing programming that guides students to recognize the realities of privilege and social exclusion. She actively engages students in personal growth and discovery. As a requested speaker and workshop leader/facilitator, her specializations reflect a commitment to raising awareness, fostering inclusion and diversity, giving voice to marginalized groups, and providing opportunities for students, faculty, staff and community partners to incorporate these values into their respective learning, pedagogy and work. Visit Dr. Layne’s website to learn more.

Associate Director of Curriculum and Instruction

Dr. Joel T. Shelton is Associate Professor of Political Science and Policy Studies and Coordinator of the Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) minor. He teaches courses in international political economy, international relations, and comparative politics, as well as interdisciplinary courses in the PPE minor, the International and Global Studies program, and the Elon Core Curriculum. His research focuses on the political economy of governance, development, and statecraft in historical and theoretical perspective. His published work includes a single-author monograph, Conditionality and the Ambitions of Governance: Social Transformation in Southeastern Europe (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), a co-authored text, Research and Writing in International Relations, 3rd ed. (Routledge, 2019), and several peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on a variety of subjects, including the role of crisis discourse in shaping policy decisions in the European Union; the appropriation of classical economic ideas in contemporary schools of economics; the idea of the public purpose in political economy; and the advance of resentment politics and the decline of the public trust in the United States and Europe.

Operations Project Coordinator

Tammy Womack previously served as the Program Assistant for the Elon Honors Program, Undergraduate Research, National and International Fellowships, the Lumen Prize, and the Center for Research on Global Engagement from 2014-2022. Prior to joining Elon, she served in a wide variety of business roles over a two-decades long career with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She joined the Elon Freedom Scholars team in 2024.