The Program for Public Discourse is proud to announce its upcoming annual speech competition. Our theme this fall will be “Empowering North Carolina.” Undergraduates across the university are welcome to compete for a chance to win up to $500 by preparing a 5-minute persuasive speech broadly connected to our designated theme. The event will take place on Tuesday, December 3, 12:30-1:45 p.m. in 201 Coker Hall. We encourage interested students, or faculty interested in nominating students, to contact Kevin Marinelli at kmarinelli@unc.edu for additional details.

Date: December 3, 2024

Times: 12:30 PM – 1:45PM

Audience: Public Events

Venue: 201 Coker Hall

Event gathered community leaders and organizers from around the triangle to discuss their work, share ideas, and strategize opportunities to foster democratic engagement and civic discourse across their local communities.

Date: November 16, 2024

Times: 10:00AM – 01:00PM

Audience: Public Event

Venue: Northwest Cary YMCA

The Program for Public Discourse is pleased to invite students across the university to voice their opinions and reflect on their experiences concerning the 2024 Presidential Election. Facilitated by the Agora Fellows, students will have the opportunity to converse in small groups, followed by a general discussion addressing which issues they find most important, the state of American politics, and the state of American public discourse specifically. The event will be held on Wednesday, November 6, 4-5:30 p.m. (Location GSU-3408). Event satisfies CLE credit. Pizza will be served afterwards. Please contact Kevin Marinelli for additional details.

Date: November 6, 2024

Times: 4:00PM – 05:30 pm

Audience: Public Events

Venue: GSU-3408

As part of its ongoing series, Conversations on Teaching in Challenging Times, the Center for Faculty Excellence invites PPD Executive Director, Kevin Marinelli, to facilitate a conversation on discussing politics in the classroom. Marinelli’s presentation, “Scaffolding Political Discussions in the Classroom,” will take place on Thursday, October 31, 12:15-1:15 p.m. in 304 Wilson Library and via Zoom. Faculty across the university are invited to participate in a robust discussion of the challenges, strategies, and possibilities for discussing politics in the classroom during challenging times. Faculty are invited to register for this and additional series conversations at the link below: Registration Link

Date: October 31, 2024

Times: 12:15 PM – 1:15PM

Audience: Public Event

Venue: 304 Wilson Library & via Zoom

Following the election theme of our fall calendar, the Program for Public Discourse wants to interrogate the value of democracy itself. Co-sponsored with the Steamboat Institute, the debate will feature renowned political theorists, Jason Brennan and Helene Landemore. Brennan specializes in politics, philosophy, and economics at Georgetown University and is author of the iconoclastic, Against Democracy (Princeton University Press, 2016). Landemore teaches political philosophy at Yale and conducts research on citizens’ assemblies. She is author of Open Democracy: Reinventing Popular Rule for the Twenty-First Century (Princeton University Press, 2020). The panelists have also co-authored the book, Debating Democracy: Do We need More or Less? (Oxford University Press, 2021). Moderated by Hadley Heath Manning, the event will take place in the Carolina Union Auditorium on Wednesday, October 30, 5:30-7:00 p.m., with pizza served afterwards. Event satisfies CLE credit.  Recorded Event Link

Date: October 30, 2024

Times: 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM

Audience: Public Event

Venue: Frank Porter Graham Student Union Auditorium

The Program for Public Discourse and the Graduate and Professional Student Government proudly invite graduate students across the university to participate in a public forum concerning the tensions between political and scholarly activity informing life in the academy. Graduate students will be invited to voice their concerns and reflect on their experiences navigating their commitments as graduate students in an increasingly polarized political environment. Event will take place on Monday, October 28, 4-5:30 p.m. (Location:Graduate Student Center (GSC) 211A W Cameron Ave). Refreshments will be served directly following. Please contact Kevin Marinelli for additional details. Registration Link

Date: October 28, 2024

Times: 4:00PM – 5:30 pm

Audience: Public Event

Venue: Graduate Student Center (GSC) 211A W Cameron Ave

The Agora Fellows proudly welcome students, faculty, staff, and community members to participate in its upcoming Braver Angels Debate on affirmative action. Participants will deliberate the following: “As North Carolina’s flagship institution, does UNC have a responsibility to ensure its student demographics reflect those of the state?” Co-hosted with the College Debates and Discourse Alliance, the forum invites participants to share competing perspectives in a supportive environment, facilitated by a trained moderator. Guests are welcome to speak or simply observe. The event will take place on Wednesday, October 23rd, 5:30-7:00 p.m. in Murphey Hall Room 0116. Pizza and refreshments will be served afterwards. Event satisfies CLE credit

Date: October 23, 2024

Times: 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM

Audience: Public Event

Venue: Murphey Hall Room 0116

Join us on October 1st in the Frank Porter Graham Student Union Auditorium from 5:30-7:00 pm for a conversation between Richard Ebeling and Michael Meeropol about threats to liberal democracy, both past and present. The event is co-sponsored by the Politics, Philosophy, and Economics Program and Carolina Alumni.

Pizza in the lobby afterward!

Students who attend in-person can get CLE credit. No tickets are necessary. Seating is first-come-first serve, but we will reserve tickets for guests coming from outside Chapel Hill. Please email publicdiscourse@unc.edu for reserved seats.

Richard M. Ebeling is professor of economics at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina. He is recognized as one of the leading members of the Austrian School of Economics and is the author of numerous books, including “For a New Liberalism” (American Institute for Economic Research, 2019) and “Ludwig von Mises and the Austrian Tradition” (Routledge, 2010). Professor Ebeling has also served as president of the Foundation for Economic Education (2003-2008) and the Society for the Development of Austrian Economics (2020). 

Michael Meeropol is professor emeritus of economics at Western New England University, Springfield Massachusetts, where he also served as department chair. He is the son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, the only American couple ever executed by the United States for conspiracy to commit espionage. His publications include “Surrender: How the Clinton Administration Completed the Reagan Revolution” (University of Michigan Press, 2017) and “We Are Your Sons, the Legacy of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg Boston” (Houghton-Mifflin Co., 1975), co-authored with Robert Meeropol. 

Graeme B. Roberston (moderator) is professor of political science and director of the UNC Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies. His research and teaching focus on authoritarianism, and he is especially interested in how authoritarians manage and seek to influence both supporters and opposition. Roberston currently serves as associate editor of comparative politics for the American Journal of Political Science. Along with Samuel A. Greene, he is the author of Putin v. the People: The Perilous Politics of a Divided Russia (Yale University, 2019).

Date: October 1, 2024

Times: 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM

Audience: Public Event

Venue: Frank Porter Graham Student Union Auditorium

On behalf of the School of Civic Life and Leadership, join us on 9/27 at Wilson Library for our inaugural public event: a day-long symposium on the topic: “Is Democracy on the Ballot this November?” Beginning with a welcome from Chancellor Lee H. Roberts, we will convene a series of panels featuring nationally distinguished public intellectuals from across the political spectrum and representing a diverse range of approaches and views in relation to this fraught, deeply consequential question. Because we believe the Carolina community has much to contribute on this topic and much to gain by discussing it thoughtfully together, there will be ample time throughout the day for questions and conversation. Please drop in and out as your schedule allows and please consider publicizing the event to your colleagues and to students, who can receive CLE credit for each panel they attend. We look forward to welcoming you! 9:45-10:00 a.m. Chancellor Lee H. Roberts, Welcome David Decosimo, Introduction 10:00-11:30 a.m. Leah Litman, Professor of Law, University of Michigan John McGinnis, Professor in Constitutional Law, Northwestern University 1:00-2:30 p.m. Jeff Sharlet, Professor, Dartmouth University Sarah Rogers, First Amendment attorney Aaron Sibarium, Journalist, Washington Free Beacon 3:00-4:15 p.m. Shadi Hamid, Columnist, The Washington Post 4:30-5:45 p.m. All Speaker Panel

Date: September 27, 2024

Times: 09:45 am – 05:45 pm

Audience: Public Event

Venue: Pleasants Family Assembly Room in Wilson Library

On September 18th from 5:30pm-7:00pm in the Frank Porter Graham Student Union Auditorium, the Abbey Speaker Series returns with “Are Election Security and Voter Access Compatible?” Six weeks before Americans head to the polls to choose their president, UNC political science professor Jason Roberts will moderate a conversation between Derek Bowens (Durham County Board of Elections), John Fortier (American Enterprise Institute), and Sophia Lakin (American Civil Liberties Union).

The event is co-sponsored by Carolina Alumni.

Students who attend in-person can get CLE credit. No tickets are necessary. Seating is first-come-first serve, but we will reserve tickets for guests who are coming from outside Chapel Hill and who are not currently working for or attending the university. Please email publicdiscourse@unc.edu for reserved seats.

Pizza in the lobby afterward!

Derek Bowens joined the Durham County Board of Elections in June of 2017 as the Director of Elections. Previously, Bowens was the Director of Elections in New Hanover County, North Carolina and has served as an election administrator since 2012. He has been nationally recognized by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), the National Association of Counties (NaCo), and CompTIA for innovation in election administration. He also sits on the Board of Directors for the National Association of Election Officials and is a member of the Committee for Safe and Secure Elections (CSSE), the Bi-Partisan Policy Center’s Election Workforce Advisory Council, the Union for Concerned Scientists Election Science Taskforce, and the Partnership for Large Election Jurisdictions (PLEJ).

John C. Fortier is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on Congress and elections, election administration, election demographics, voting (and absentee voting), the US presidency, and the Electoral College. Before rejoining AEI, Fortier was director of governmental studies at the Bipartisan Policy Center, and the principal contributor to the AEI-Brookings Election Reform Project. He is the author and editor of After the People Vote: A Guide to the Electoral College (AEI Press, 2004; fourth edition, 2020), Second-Term Blues: How George W. Bush Has Governed (Brookings Institution Press, 2007), and Absentee and Early Voting: Trends, Promises, and Perils (AEI Press, 2006). A prolific writer, Fortier has been published in scholarly journals and the popular press, including Politico and The Hill.

Sophia Lin Lakin is the director of the American Civil Liberty Union’s Voting Rights Project, where she directs and supervises the ACLU’s voting rights litigation strategy nationwide. Lakin has an active docket protecting voting rights and combatting voter suppression and discriminatory redistricting plans across the country and has led or worked on successful challenges to discriminatory voting laws in multiple states including North Carolina. She has testified on election law issues before Congress numerous times and has written opinion pieces for The Hill and The Boston Globe. Before joining the ACLU, Sophia clerked for the Honorable Raymond J. Lohier, Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and the Honorable Carol Bagley Amon of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York.

Jason M. Roberts (moderator) is a professor of political science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is the co-author of The Politics of Ballot Design (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Ambition, Competition, and Electoral Reform (University of Michigan Press, 2013), and various editions of The American Congress (Rowman and Littlefield). His research has appeared in the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Legislative Studies Quarterly, and other outlets. He has served as a member of the Orange County, NC Board of Elections since 2019.

Date: September 18, 2024

Times: 5:30 PM – 7:00 PM

Audience: Public Event

Venue: Frank Porter Graham Student Union Auditorium