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Does politics belong in the laboratory? Is science inevitably political or does politics hinder good research?

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As the 12th largest research institution in North America, this discussion is paramount at UNC-Chapel Hill. On February 8th at 5:30 p.m., the UNC Program for Public Discourse and General Alumni Association bring together scientists from academia and publishing for Science and Democracy, an online Abbey Speaker Series event exploring the interplay of science and politics.

Date: February 8, 2022

Times: 05:30 pm – 07:00 pm

Audience: Public Event

Venue: Online

Holden Thorp ‘86 is the current editor-in-chief of Science and former chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a position he held from 2008 - 2013. Before his selection as chancellor, Thorp taught at UNC for 15 years, during which time he directed the Morehead Planetarium, was appointed as a Kenan professor and chair of the Department of Chemistry and served as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Thorp co-founded two biotechnology companies and has written two books with co-author Buck Goldstein about higher education's role in entrepreneurship and its relationship to the American people. Between his appointments at UNC and Science, Thorp served as provost of Washington University in St. Louis.

Luana Maroja is an associate professor of biology and chair of the biochemistry and molecular biology program at Williams College. Her areas of expertise include evolutionary genetics, speciation, and landscape genetics, and she teaches courses on evolution and leads a lab researching the evolution of barriers to gene exchange. Maroja’s work has been published in various journals, including Ecology and Evolution, G3, and Nature, and she wrote for The Atlantic about the potential dangers of self-censorship in the sciences in higher education. Maroja holds bachelor’s and master's degrees from the Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro and a doctorate from Cornell University.

Chris Clemens is Provost and Jaroslav Folda Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has held numerous administrative roles at Carolina, including department chair, senior associate dean for natural sciences, and senior associate dean for research and innovation. In these roles, he helped launch the Environment, Ecology, and Energy program (E3P) and collaborated with chairs to build the research enterprise and develop the curriculum in the College’s newest departments — applied physical sciences and biomedical engineering. Clemens holds a bachelor's degree in astrophysics from the University of Oklahoma and a doctorate in astronomy from the University of Texas at Austin.

The Agora Fellows' first topic this semester is a nuanced one; it invites meaningful discussion and encourages us to think about questions that are multifaceted and often contingent. What counts as gambling? Who decides? Should there be restrictions on who can gamble, or where they can do so? What are the various costs associated with gambling? The benefits? Consider the various ways you might approach the question (foregrounding economic or moral or public health concerns, for instance), and how that might lead to different answers.

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Participants should read at least one of the following sources:

1. “The Supreme Court opens up sports betting across the country”
2. “Gambling boom in 2021 sets new record after pandemic slump”
3. “‘Prior to gaming, we had nothing.’ Cherokee deem sports gambling a success”

The Agora Fellows meet bi-weekly on Thursday evenings, 7:00 - 8:30 pm.

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Interested in becoming a Fellow? Let us know here.

Date: February 3, 2022

Times: 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Audience: Agora Fellows

Venue: Online, Zoom

The Program for Public Discourse invites all undergraduates to join or attend a meeting with the Agora Fellows, a cohort of students committed to the study and practice of public discourse.

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This first meeting gives new and returning Fellows a chance to meet with Kevin Marinelli and our new graduate fellows, Nick Gerstner and Josh Youakim from the Department of Communication, for a discussion about what topics to cover in this semesters' debates and discourse.

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The Agora Fellows meet bi-weekly on Thursday evenings, 7:00 - 8:30 pm.

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Interested in becoming a Fellow? Let us know here.

Date: January 20, 2022

Times: 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Audience: Agora Fellows

Venue: Online, Zoom

Register here through the Center for Faculty Excellence

This semester, the Center for Faculty Excellence and the Program for Public Discourse invite you to participate in a series of three workshops designed to empower educators across the curriculum with the necessary tools to facilitate robust discourse across controversial terrain.

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Robust discourse requires candor, and candor demands a climate of trust. In this workshop, Professor Marinelli will simulate his “Ground Rules for Discussion” class activity, designed to foster a robust climate of public discourse by cultivating a healthy disposition toward disagreement. Faculty across the curriculum are invited to participate in a workshop that will prove especially useful at the start of the semester. Both faculty with minimal-to-no experience and those seasoned in facilitating controversial conversations are encouraged to attend.

Date: January 18, 2022

Times: 03:00 pm – 04:15 pm

Audience: UNC Faculty

Venue: Center for Faculty Excellence, Online

Kevin Marinelli serves as Executive Director of the Program for Public Discourse and teaches in the Department of Communication. He teaches courses in rhetorical studies, and his scholarship centers on public argument. He has published essays in Rhetoric Society Quarterly and Argumentation and Advocacy, including his most recent essay on the emergence of Black Lives Matter. Kevin also leads the Agora Fellows, a group of undergraduate students committed to the study and practice of public discourse in contemporary democracy. Currently, Kevin is investigating practices of rhetorical citizenship.

Emily Boehm is a PPD Faculty Affiliate and an educational developer and evolutionary biologist working with faculty members to bring active and inclusive learning methods to their classrooms, leading the CFE’s initiatives for faculty new to UNC. She also serves as the co-facilitator for the Faculty Administrator Development Program.

The Agora Fellows meet to review their discourse for the Fall 2021 semester.

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The Agora Fellows meet bi-weekly on Thursday evenings, 7:00 - 8:30 pm in Bynum 336.

Date: December 2, 2021

Times: 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Audience: Agora Fellows

Venue: Bynum 336

The Agora Fellows meet for their second discussion of Parts VI-VII of Danielle Allen's Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality. The Agora Fellows meet bi-weekly on Thursday evenings, 7:00 - 8:30 pm in Bynum 336.

Date: November 18, 2021

Times: 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Audience: Agora Fellows

Venue: Bynum 336

The Agora Fellows meet bi-weekly on Thursday evenings, 7:00 - 8:30 pm in Bynum 336.

Date: November 11, 2021

Times: 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Audience: Agora Fellows

Venue: Bynum 336

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Across the volatile landscape of American politics today, perhaps few issues remain more polarizing than voting reform. For this Debating Public Policy Series event, the UNC Program for Public Discourse hosts an agonistic dialogue on the topic Monday, November 8, at 8:00 p.m. on Zoom. The dialogue features UNC Political Science Professor Jason Roberts and Republican strategist and UNC alumnus Douglas Heye '94, who will share their competing perspectives on the contentious issue. The dialogue is moderated by Rick Su, Professor of Law at UNC.

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As always, we also invite audience questions to help round out what promises to be a robust discussion.

Date: November 8, 2021

Times: 08:00 pm – 09:00 pm

Audience: Public Event

Venue: Zoom

Jason Roberts is a Professor in the UNC Department of Political Science specializing in American political institutions, with an emphasis on the U.S. Congress. He earned his B.S. in Political Science from the University of North Alabama (1998), his M.A. in Political Science from Purdue University (2000), and his Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis (2005). Before joining the faculty at UNC, Professor Roberts was an assistant professor of Political Science and Law at the University of Minnesota. His research interests include parties and procedures in the U.S. Congress and congressional elections. Professor Roberts’ work has appeared in numerous journals, including the American Journal on Political Science and Legislative Studies Quarterly. He is currently working on a project that explores the role of ballot type on the competitiveness of congressional elections in the United States.

Douglas Heye is a former Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics and has served in leading communications positions in the House of Representatives, the United States Senate, the Republican National Committee, and the George W. Bush Administration. Heye also previously served as Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications for House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, garnering bi-partisan praise for his team-building, communications, and strategic planning abilities. He has written for a number of publications, including U.S. News & World Report, POLITICO, The Hill, and Capitol File magazine. Heye graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1994.

Rick Su is a Professor of Law at the UNC-CH School of Law, where he teaches and writes in the areas of local government law, immigration, and federalism. His research focuses on the intersection between cities and immigration. His work has appeared in the Columbia Law Review, the William & Mary Law Review, the Emory Law Journal, and the North Carolina Law Review. Professor Su received his B.A. from Dartmouth College in 2001 and his J.D. from Harvard Law School in 2004. After graduating from law school, he clerked for The Honorable Stephen Reinhardt on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and worked in the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Before joining the Carolina Law faculty in 2019, Professor Su taught at the University at Buffalo School of Law and was a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School in 2015 and Washington University in St. Louis School of Law in 2018.

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Discussions of contemporary America often focus on the perceived differences between rural and urban residents. Are the lives and interests of rural and urban Americans really all that different?  How can city-dwellers, suburbanites, and rural residents better understand each other? 

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For this Abbey Speaker Series event, and as part of this year's Public Discourse and Democracy theme, the UNC Program for Public Discourse convenes a panel of experts to discuss how citizens can better understand and bridge the rural-urban divide.

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This hybrid event will be held on November 4th, from 5:30 - 7:00 pm in the Nelson Mandela Auditorium, in the Florence and James Peacock Atrium of the FedEx Center for Global Education.

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This event is co-sponsored by the Arete Initiative, part of the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University.

Date: November 4, 2021

Times: 05:30 pm – 07:00 pm

Audience: Public Event

Venue: FedEx Global Education Center, Nelson Mandela Auditorium; Online

Samar Ali is Co-Chair of the Project on Unity & American Democracy and a Research Professor of Law and Political Science at Vanderbilt University, where she works at the intersection of national security, economic development, and human rights. Originally from the small town of Waverly, Tennessee, Ali credits her experience growing up there with teaching her how to connect with humanity and understand the responsibility that comes with being part of a lifelong community. After serving as a White House Fellow for the Obama administration, Ali returned to Tennessee and joined the administration of Republican Gov. Bill Haslam, where she worked as the assistant commissioner of international affairs. Ali's current research focuses on how to achieve positive compromise through promoting conflict-resolution best practices among people, communities, and nations experiencing polarization.

Chris Arnade is a writer and photographer who covers addiction and poverty in the United States of America. After receiving a PhD in Physics from Johns Hopkins University, Arnade worked on Wall Street for twenty years before exiting the industry in 2012 to begin documenting addiction in the Bronx. Since then, his work has appeared in numerous publications, including The Guardian, The New York Times, and others. His most recent book, Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America, explores poverty and addiction throughout the United States and the divide between the country’s upwardly mobile “Front Row” and those lacking the necessary credentials and advantages.

Elizabeth Corey is the Honors Program Director and Associate Professor of Political Science in the Honors Program at Baylor University, where she teaches courses on political science and great texts in the university’s Interdisciplinary Core. Her writing concerns what it means to be a traditionalist in a progressive society and has appeared in a broad range of publications, including First Things, National Affairs, and The Wall Street Journal. Her recent writings for Law & Liberty deal with the meaning of civility - and its necessity - in times of political polarization.

Marc Hetherington is the Raymond H. Dawson Distinguished Bicentennial Professor of Political Science at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His focus is on the American electorate and the polarization of public opinion. Previously, he taught at the Paris Institute of Political Studies, Vanderbilt University, and Bowdoin College. Hetherington has published several books and over a dozen articles in academic journals. His most recent book, Prius Or Pickup? How the Answers to Four Simple Questions Explain America’s Great Divide, co-written with fellow UNC faculty member Dr. Jonathan Weiler, explores the psychological aspects of the United States’ deadlocked politics.

Our undergraduate Agora Fellows meet for discourse on the state of politics in academia.

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The Agora Fellows meet bi-weekly on Thursday evenings, 7:00 - 8:30 pm in Bynum 336.

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Undergraduate students can inquire about becoming an Agora Fellow here.

Date: October 28, 2021

Times: 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Audience: Agora Fellows

Venue: Bynum 336