CHAPEL HILL - For two years, the anti-poverty center at UNC-Chapel Hill has served as a vehicle for former Democratic Sen. John Edwards to talk about the issue that has become a centerpiece in his quest for the White House.

The UNC Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity provided Edwards with a platform to travel the country discussing poverty. It buttressed his credentials on an issue important to many Democratic voters. And it allowed Edwards to court labor leaders who could be important to his presidential prospects.

But UNC-CH officials say they, too, benefited from the arrangement. They say Edwards used his star power to draw major speakers and big donors, and made the privately funded center a permanent institution.

"There was skepticism both within and outside the university whether this would be a genuine academic, worthwhile exercise," said Jack Boger, dean of the UNC School of Law, where the center is housed. "My opinion is that it has exceeded everyone's expectations."

When Edwards resigned as director last month, Edwards said the center had "helped spark a nationwide renewal of interest" in the problems of poverty.

Gauging the effectiveness of a think tank is difficult because they trade in the ephemeral world of ideas, conferences and reports. The center's work was overshadowed by Hurricane Katrina, which dramatized the problems of poverty in ways that no forums or reports ever could.

The naming of a prominent politician to head an academic institution raised some eyebrows on campus.

"It didn't seem he had any expertise on poverty law," said Roger Lotchin, a UNC-CH history professor. "I didn't think the university should be appointing someone to an important institution unless they are highly qualified to be in charge of it."

Edwards had made inequality a cornerstone of his 2004 presidential run. Three months after Edwards lost the vice presidential race, he and UNC-CH set up the nonpartisan poverty center.

Edwards has long had a relationship with the law school, from which he and his wife Elizabeth graduated. Elizabeth's father once headed the Naval ROTC program at UNC-CH. Boger holds the Wade Edwards chair, named for the couple's son who was killed in a 1996 automobile accident.

Poverty or politics?

There are anti-poverty centers based on campuses around the country, most notably one at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. But those centers are mainly focused on research into the causes of poverty.

The UNC center was designed to be different, focusing on solutions as well as raw research. It brings together researchers and activists, as well as academics and those running community programs, according to Marion Crain, a law professor who was recently promoted from the center's deputy director to be its new director. The program also pulled together academic disciplines in departments across campus.

The speakers at a dozen forums, panels and other center events included experts on such issues as health insurance, education, minimum wage and job training. In April, the center will publish a book, "Ending Poverty in America," with essays from some of the participants.

Among those who spoke at center events were two of the most influential labor leaders in the country, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney, and Anna Burger, chairwoman of the breakaway labor group Change to Win -- both of whom could be important to Edwards' chances of capturing the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008.

There was a sprinkling of conservative speakers, such as former Republican U.S. Rep. Jack Kemp, and Tim Kane, a scholar with the Heritage Foundation in Washington.

Kane, in a recent interview, said there seems to be some value to the center. But he also said it has an ideological tilt.

Kane said there is "a built-in assumption that poverty is worsening in America when the opposite -- a true growth miracle -- is the story of the last half century in the U.S."

George Leef, an executive with a conservative think tank in Raleigh, said the center seemed mostly interested in pursing "union approved policies."

He said the center should cast a wider net for scholarly input.

"It seems to me that the poverty center was exclusively interested in discussing well-known liberal ideas about poverty that have been thoroughly demolished time and time again as unworkable and as counterproductive, such as raising the minimum wage," said Leef, vice president for research at the John Williams Pope Center for Higher Education.

Walker Blakey, who regards himself as the conservative maverick in the law school faculty, gives the center high marks.

"I have heard nothing negative," Blakey said. "We have good people working with the center. I've read the annual reports. It appears to me they are doing a good job. You're talking about a huge problem. No one is going to reverse poverty in a few years."

Money

Edwards' job at the center, which has three employees, was billed as part-time. Edwards has spent much of the past two years traveling as he laid the groundwork for his presidential bid -- stumping in 39 states for local candidates, pushing for a minimum wage increase in six states, editing a book on childhood homes, and meeting with foreign leaders in such counties as Israel, China and India.

Edwards, a multimillionaire, was paid $40,000 per year as director, which UNC officials said came from investment returns on private funds.

The center did not pay Edwards' travel costs.

The center's major donation was $2 million from a Chapel Hill couple, Michael Cucchiara and Marty Hayes, who until recently owned an irrigation equipment company, and who are behind the Greenbridge condominium and office development in downtown Chapel Hill.

Cucchiara and Hayes, who have given $20,000 to Edwards or related political committees since 2004, said they became involved, in part, at Edwards urging. Cucchiara said he and his wife were looking for ways to become engaged in the community. He said he had long been interested in poverty and the lack of affordable housing.

The $2 million endowment will generate $100,000 annually to cover staffing costs, according to the center's annual report.

Overall, the center has received $3.3 million in private contributions or pledges since it was created, including $500,000 for a Boyd Tinsley endowed professorship -- named after a member of the Dave Matthews Band. The center also received contributions of more than $10,000 each from trial attorneys such as Douglas and Margaret Abrams, Wade Byrd and David Kirby, from AIG International, an insurance company, and Chapel Hill real estate executive Timothy Toben.

Boger, the law school dean, said he hoped some of the ideas generated by the center will become government policies and laws, and that leaders will regard UNC-CH as a home for critical thinking about poverty.

"I have heard some people say he [Edwards] is using this," Boger said. "He had people willing to give $2 million. Instead of using it for a campaign, he leaves it on the campus and walks away. That is generous. I think we got a great deal more than we gave."