SCiLL welcomes 11 new faculty members
The faculty represents a diverse range of disciplines and is particularly strong in political theory.
UNC-Chapel Hill’s new School of Civic Life and Leadership welcomes 11 new faculty to the Carolina community this academic year.
“UNC-Chapel Hill is ideally positioned to provide a civic education that equips students to flourish in a pluralistic democracy,” said Jed Atkins, dean and inaugural director. “Our faculty are committed to cultivating a free-speech culture inside and outside the classroom.”
Provost Chris Clemens said he was excited about the high caliber of incoming SCiLL faculty. “Attracting a team like this so quickly and outside the normal hiring cycle affirms both the vision for this school and its leadership,” he said. “These new faculty are impressive teachers and scholars who will inspire our students in the classroom and enrich our community of scholars.”
The new faculty includes:
- Danielle Charette is an assistant professor who studies the history of political economy, slavery, and economic thought. At the University of Virginia, she served as associate director of the program on constitutionalism and democracy.
- Flynn Cratty is a professor of the practice and historian of early modern Europe, including French and British history. He was the founding executive director of Harvard University’s council on academic freedom and served as associate director of the Human Flourishing Project.
- David Decosimo is an associate professor specializing in ethics, religion and politics. At Boston University, he directed the Institute for Philosophy and Religion and was chair of the university’s academic freedom committee.
- Connor Grubaugh is an intellectual historian and political theorist whose research centers on hope in the history of liberal political thought from Locke to Rawls. He will begin his appointment as an assistant professor in SCiLL on July 1, 2025, after a postdoctoral fellowship at the Kenan Institute of Ethics at Duke University.
- Melody Grubaugh is an adjunct assistant professor and a political scientist whose work focuses on constitutional studies, political theory and politics and literature. She was a senior reader at the Canterbury Institute in Oxford.
- Michael Hawley is an assistant professor who is an expert in Catholic and Islamic political thought; political rhetoric; and contemporary just war theory. At the University of Houston, his research examined classical and modern republicanism and liberalism.
- Rita Koganzon is an associate professor who works in the history of political thought. At the University of Houston, she was associate director of the Tocqueville Forum on American Ideas and Institutions.
- Jose Maria Andres Porras is an assistant professor with extensive knowledge of the intellectual, cultural and social history of Western Europe in the late Middle Ages. At the University of Oxford, he researched how natural philosophy, medicine, theology and political thought shaped conceptions of human personhood and society.
- John Rose is a professor of practice and a nationally known expert on teaching civil discourse. He will also direct the Morehead-Cain Scholarship Foundation’s Dialogue and Discourse Program. At Duke University, he served as the associate director of The Civil Discourse Project.
- Dustin Sebell is a professor and a leading expert on classical political philosophy. At Michigan State University, he served as director of the LeFrak Forum on Science, Reason, and Modern Democracy.
- Lauren Brown Sebell is an adjunct assistant professor and a political scientist whose interests include ancient and modern political philosophy; French political thought; and constitutional law and jurisprudence. Her previous role was at Michigan State University.
These faculty will be joined by two new adjunct associate professors who hold primary appointments in other academic units at Carolina: Li-ling Hsiao, chair of the Asian and Middle Eastern studies department, and Michael Morgan, associate professor of history.
