2025 Center for Civility Conference Speakers

Leslie A. Garvin

Panelist – Collaborative Regional Approaches

Leslie Garvin is the Executive Director of North Carolina Campus Engagement, a collaborative network of 40 colleges and universities committed to the public purposes of higher education. Leslie helps develop and oversee programs, trainings, and resources to help institutions effectively partner with their communities to address public challenges, prepare students for civic and social responsibility, and strengthen democracy. A passionate civic builder and bridgebuilder, she is a skilled facilitator and trainer in dialogue and deliberation, training hundreds of faculty, staff, students, and community partners across the state and country in multiple dialogue methods. She serves on the Board of Directors of the National Issues Forum, You Can Vote, and on the NC Commission on Volunteerism and Community Service. She is the NC state rep for the Braver Angels Network.

Ashley Horst

Panelist – Campus Models for Next-Gen Leadership in a Divided Age

Ashley Horst is the Executive Director of the Stubblefield Institute for Civil Political Communications at Shepherd University, a role she’s embraced since 2022. With a Master of Arts in Communications, Culture, and Technology from Georgetown University and a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communications from Shepherd University, Horst brings a studied passion for shaping the way we communicate. Before joining the Stubblefield Institute, she had 15 years dedicated to marketing and fundraising at a nonprofit hospice organization, where she honed her skills in nonprofit communications and development.

In addition to her work at the Stubblefield Institute, Horst actively contributes to her community through several leadership roles. She serves on the Board of Directors for both the Eastern WV Community Foundation, where she chairs the Grants Committee, and the Virginia Tri-State Chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, where she is a member of the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access Committee. Her commitment to service is further exemplified by her two-decade involvement in various leadership positions at Arden United Methodist Church, including serving as the church’s lay representative to the Baltimore-Washington Conference.

Donovan E.C. Bethea

Panelist – Collaborative Regional Approaches

Donovan E.C. Bethea is a strategic thinker and dynamic communicator from Holly Springs, North Carolina, with a lifelong passion for innovation, dialogue, and community impact. His journey in leadership and service began early, driven by a natural ability to connect ideas, people, and purpose.

A graduate of Apex Friendship High School and a member of the Class of 2025 at North Carolina A&T State University, Donovan earned his Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the Willie A. Deese College of Business and Economics. During his time at the #1 public HBCU, he built a reputation for leading student initiatives, championing youth engagement, and consulting with small businesses to drive growth and impact.

Donovan’s work centers around creating spaces for meaningful conversation, shared understanding, and collaborative problem-solving. Whether facilitating peer leadership programs, advising community efforts in Apex, or volunteering with civic organizations across the Triad, he brings empathy, clarity, and innovation to every table he joins.

As he looks toward the future, Donovan remains committed to organizations and movements that prioritize equity, strategic dialogue, and actionable change.

Graham Bullock

Panelist – Collaborative Regional Approaches

Graham Bullock is an associate professor of Political Science at Davidson College, where he also serves as the faculty director of the Deliberative Citizenship Initiative. He teaches a variety of courses including American Politics, Environmental Politics, Business and Politics, and State Politics, while also researching polarization, public policy, and sustainability. Dr. Bullock completed his PhD at the University of California, Berkeley, his Master’s in Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and his BA at Princeton University.

Leila Brammer, Ph.D.

Panelist – Campus Models for Next-Gen Leadership in a Divided Age

Director of Curriculum
The Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression
The University of Chicago

Leila Brammer is the Director of Curriculum for the Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression at the University of Chicago. She established a nationally recognized civic learning curriculum and a public deliberation and dialogue program. She develops curricula, programming, and outreach to advance the Chicago Principles of Freedom of Expression and foster the capacity for vigorous, inclusive, and productive discourse in the classroom, campus, and civic life. She works with high schools, colleges, and civic leaders to build capacities for productively engaging about, with, and across differences and disagreements.

Kevin Marinelli

Panelist – Collaborative Regional Approaches

Teaching Associate Professor
Department of Communication
Senior Fellow of Rhetorical Studies
Program for Public Discourse
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Kevin Marinelli is a rhetorical scholar whose work examines the role of public argument in democratic life. He teaches courses in rhetoric and public communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he also directs the Program for Public Discourse. He has contributed essays and book chapters on topics ranging from civic education to the rhetoric of social protest, which have been published in academic journals such as Rhetoric Society Quarterly and Argumentation and Advocacy. His current scholarship examines the rhetoric of moral disagreement. He spends much of his time working with students and communities, building spaces for public dialogue and deliberation.

Maia Ferdman

Moderator – Campus Models for Next-Gen Leadership in a Divided Age
Presenter – UCLA Mapping

Maia Ferdman is the Deputy Director of the UCLA Bedari Kindness Institute (BKI), which was established to provide an interdisciplinary platform dedicated to the research, education, and practice of kindness. BKI is home to two other initiatives: The UCLA Initiative to Study Hate, a 3-year pilot initiative to understand and mitigate hate in the world, and the UCLA Dialogue Across Difference Initiative (DaD), which aims to build a culture of empathy, active listening, and intellectual engagement on campus. As Staff Director of DaD, Maia oversees training programs to support students, staff, and faculty in building their capacity to have difficult conversations.

Maia is also the founder of Bridges Intergroup Relations Consulting, which supports organizations and communities to build vibrant spaces of belonging – spaces celebrating our complex identities, proactively exploring our differences, and building resilient relationships between groups. She has developed numerous interfaith programs, trained government and nonprofit groups in cultural competency, and facilitated conversations across differences about policing, homelessness, Israel-Palestine, and more. She has worked with and consulted for agencies and organizations including the California State Water Boards, the City of Los Angeles, Pepperdine University, the Western Justice Center, Resetting the Table, the Museum of Tolerance, and NewGround: A Muslim-Jewish Partnership for Change.

Before coming to UCLA, she staffed The City of Los Angeles Human Relations Commission, a mayor-appointed advisory board tasked with fighting discrimination and promoting positive intergroup relations in Los Angeles. In this position, Maia led numerous intentionally designed community engagement initiatives, including facilitated conversations about police-community relations and large-scale interfaith convenings. She is also a trained mediator with the City Attorney’s Dispute Resolution Program.

Matt VandenBerg

Moderator – Campus to Community; Third Party Organizations

President, Ohio Wesleyan University

As President of one of 45 national “Colleges That Change Lives,” Matt has led partnerships and initiatives to make tuition more affordable, help students persist to graduation, help community college students to earn four-year degrees, train all students and employees in civil discourse, and establish a sister school agreement with Claflin University, creating one of higher education’s most comprehensive collaborations between a Historically Black College and University (HBCU) and a Predominantly White Institution (PWI). Before joining Ohio Wesleyan, Matt was President of Presbyterian College. He holds a Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) from the University of Pennsylvania, a Master of Public Affairs from Indiana University, and a Bachelor of Arts from Alma College, where he graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa.

Paula Lustbader

Panelist – Campus Models for Next-Gen Leadership in a Divided Age

Executive Director, Alfie Scholars Program
Executive Director, Civility Center for Law
President, The Civility Fund
Professor of Law Emerita, Seattle University School of Law

Known for her energy, passion, and advocacy for equity, access, and social justice, Paula Lustbader is the Executive Director of the Alfie Scholars Program and the Civility Center for Law, and President of The Civility Fund. A Professor of Law Emerita at Seattle University School of Law, she is internationally recognized for her work in advancing equity, access, and civility in legal and higher education.

As a law professor, she co-founded and directed the Academic Resource Center and its Access Admissions program, mentoring over 1,000 underrepresented law students and helping shape a more diverse legal profession. She is a co-founder of multiple national initiatives focused on academic support and teaching methods and was honored for her leadership by the Association of American Law Schools, the Washington State Bar Association, and the Loren Miller Bar Association.

In 2010, she launched the Civility Center for Law to promote respectful discourse within the legal field through innovative seminars and partnerships. She later founded the Alfie Scholars Program to cultivate civility-focused leadership among underrepresented transfer students at Seattle University.

Andrew Weinzierl

Panelist – Campus to Community; Third Party Organizations

Chief Data & Analytics Officer, BridgeUSA

Andrew manages data related to BridgeUSA chapters to better understand and provide support to students on the ground. This includes running surveys to better understand chapter operations and difficulties, managing an internal dashboard of chapters, and more. Andrew started a BridgeUSA chapter in 2018 at Minnesota State University, Mankato. Before BridgeUSA, Andrew worked as a researcher at Meta (formerly Facebook) and as a Public Opinion Research contractor.