How Americans can disagree better

Since 2021, Spencer J. Cox has served as Utah’s 18th governor. He previously served as a city councilmember and mayor of Fairview, Utah, a Sanpete County commissioner, and a member of the Utah House of Representatives, before being appointed as Utah’s lieutenant governor in 2013. Governor Cox also served as the 2023-2024 chairman of the National Governors Association (NGA). His NGA Chair’s Initiative, “Disagree Better: Healthy Conflict for Better Policy,” studied the problems of polarization, elevated solutions implemented by groups nationwide, and spotlighted governors showing what disagreeing better looks like, featuring public debates, service projects, public service announcements, and other public-facing efforts. After attending Snow College, Utah State University, and the Washington and Lee University School of Law, Governor Cox clerked for U.S. District Judge Ted Stewart and worked at a Salt Lake City law firm.

Since taking office in 2018, Philip D. Murphy has served as New Jersey’s 56th governor. After being re-elected in 2021, he became the first Democratic governor in New Jersey to serve a second term in 44 years. From 2009 until 2013, Governor Murphy served as the United States ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany, a position to which he was appointed by President Obama. He has served on numerous nonprofit boards, including the Local Initiatives Support Corporation and 180 Turning Lives Around, a Monmouth County women’s shelter. In 2014, Governor and Mrs. Murphy founded New Start New Jersey, a “think-and-do tank” dedicated to seeking new policy directions to grow New Jersey’s economy and middle class. From 2006 to 2009, Governor Murphy served as national finance chair of the Democratic National Committee. During his tenure, Democrats recaptured both houses of Congress, and his efforts helped build the infrastructure that elected President Obama in 2008.

Mary Kate Cary is the director of Think Again @ UVA. She served as a White House speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush from 1989 to early 1992, authoring more than 100 of his presidential addresses. She also has ghostwritten several books related to President Bush’s life and career and served as senior writer for communications for the 1988 Bush-Quayle presidential campaign. Currently an adjunct instructor in the University of Virginia’s department of politics, Cary teaches classes on political speechwriting, the greatest American political speeches, and the 2020 presidential election.  In her first year in the politics department, she was recognized by the UVA Student Council for excellence in teaching.

Jennifer Lawless is a Miller Center faculty senior fellow and the Lenore Reeves and George Spicer Professor of Politics and the chair of the department of politics at the University of Virginia. Prior to joining the UVA faculty, she was a professor of government at American University and the director of the Women & Politics Institute. Before that, she was an assistant and then associate professor at Brown University. Lawless’s research focuses on political ambition, campaigns and elections, and media and politics. She is the author or co-author of six books, including Women on the Run: Gender, Media, and Political Campaigns in a Polarized Era (with Danny Hayes) and It Still Takes a Candidate: Why Women Don’t Run for Office (with Richard L. Fox). Her research, which has been supported by the National Science Foundation, has appeared in numerous academic journals and is regularly cited in the popular press.

James E. Ryan serves as the ninth president of the University of Virginia. A respected and accomplished educator and legal scholar, Ryan earned his law degree from UVA and previously served on the School of Law faculty for 15 years. An elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a leading expert on law and education, Ryan has written extensively about the ways in which law structures educational opportunity. Before serving as UVA president, Ryan was the Charles William Eliot professor and dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education.