The Dialectic Senate proudly carries on the tradition of Society-father James Mebane, who presided over the first student organization at the University of North Carolina and the second student organization at any American university. The Dialectic Society has always stood as UNC’s symbol of student extracurricular achievement. The ideals of virtus and scientia and the current Dialectic President, Garrett Barnes, guide the Society as it continually strives to better itself and the university. Below is a list of active Dialectic Senators. The Dialectic Constitution may be viewed here.
Conor Buchanan, Ambassador to the Republic of South Africa
Senior | Public Policy and History
Joined: October 3rd, 2022
“What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.”
– Richard Bach, Illusions: Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah
Rania Alaoui, Senator
Senior | Philosophy and Peace, War, and Defense
Joined: October 24th, 2022
“Fine philosophers take vitalism to court.”
– Jean Baudrillard
Ashley Dowdney, Senator
Senior | Classics and Peace, War, and Defense
Joined: February 27th, 2023
“Ne te quaesiveris extra.”
– Persius Satire 1.7, Epigraph to Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”
Christopher McClanahan, Joint Senate President
Senior | Computer Science
Joined: February 27th, 2023
“Don’t believe everything you see on the Internet.”
– Abraham Lincoln
Neil Sharma, Senator
Graduate | Masters in Public Policy
Joined: April 10th, 2023
“If you don’t believe in yourself, believe in the me that believes in you!”
– The Great Kamina
Addie Rockoff, Senator
Junior | Global Studies and Judaic Studies
Joined: October 2nd, 2023
“Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.”
– Milan Kundera
Tolu Osungbesan, Senator
Junior | Economics and Public Policy
Joined: October 16th, 2023
“Don’t try to act like someone else… be secure with yourself.”
– Frank Ocean’s Mom
Katherine Fiore, President Emerita
Senior | History and Public Policy
Joined: October 23rd, 2023
“Was it a vision, or a waking dream?
Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?”
– John Keats, May 1819
Gabriel Walsh, Senator
Senior| Public Policy and Peace, War, and Defense
Joined: November 6th, 2023
“That some achieve great success is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.”
– Abraham Lincoln
Nicholas Hinson, Senator
Junior | Psychology and Computer Science
Joined: January 10th, 2024
“The books are to remind us what asses and fools we are.”
– Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
Elias North, Senator
Junior | History and American Studies
Joined: February 26th, 2024
“He has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?”
– Micah 6:8
Kaitlyn Maloy, Senator
Junior | Political Science and Public Policy
Joined: March 18th, 2024
“I hopped off the plane at LAX
With a dream and my cardigan
Welcome to the land of fame excess
Am I gonna fit in?
Jumped in the cab, here I am for the first time
Look to my right, and I see the Hollywood sign
This is all so crazy
Everybody seems so famous
My tummy’s turning and I’m feeling kinda homesick
Too much pressure and I’m nervous
That’s when the taxi man turned on the radio
And a Jay-Z song was on
And a Jay-Z song was on
And a Jay-Z song was on
So, I put my hands up
They’re playing my song, the butterflies fly away
I’m nodding my head like, yeah
Moving my hips like, yeah
I got my hands up, they’re playing my song
They know I’m gonna be okay
Yeah, it’s a party in the U.S.A.
Yeah, it’s a party in the U.S.A.
Get to the club in my taxi cab
Everybody’s looking at me now
Like, ‘Who’s that chick that’s rocking kicks?
She gotta be from out of town’
So hard with my girls not around me
It’s definitely not a Nashville party
‘Cause all I see are stilettos
I guess I never got the memo
My tummy’s turning and I’m feeling kinda homesick
Too much pressure and I’m nervous
That’s when the DJ dropped my favorite tune
And a Britney song was on
And a Britney song was on
And a Britney song was on
So, I put my hands up, they’re playing my song
The butterflies fly away
I’m nodding my head like, yeah
Moving my hips like, yeah
I got my hands up, they’re playing my song
They know I’m gonna be okay
Yeah, it’s a party in the U.S.A.
Yeah, it’s a party in the U.S.A.
Feel like hopping on a flight (on a flight)
Back to my hometown tonight (town tonight)
Something stops me every time (every time)
The DJ plays my song and I feel alright
So, I put my hands up, they’re playing my song
The butterflies fly away
I’m nodding my head like, yeah
Moving my hips like, yeah
I got my hands up, they’re playing my song
They know I’m gonna be okay
Yeah, it’s a party in the U.S.A.
Yeah, it’s a party in the U.S.A.
So, I put my hands up, they’re playing my song
The butterflies fly away
I’m nodding my head like, yeah
Moving my hips like, yeah
I got my hands up, they’re playing my song
They know I’m gonna be okay
Yeah, it’s a party in the U.S.A.
Yeah, it’s a party in the U.S.A.”
– Miley Cyrus
Lena Osborne, Senator
Junior | Music and Statistics
Joined: March 25th, 2024
“How fleeting are all human passions compared with the massive continuity of ducks.”
– Dorothy Sayers
Garrett Barnes, Di President
Senior | Political Science and Public Policy
Joined: April 1st, 2024
“The two most important days of your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.”
– Mark Twain
Doug Daniel, Senator
Senior | Political Science and Entrepreneurship
Joined: April 15th, 2024
“The things we fear the most have already happened to us.”
– Robin Williams
Thomas Larson, Senator
Senior | Political Science
Joined: October 7th, 2024
“There are more things to admire in men than to despise.”
– Albert Camus
Austin Haenni, Senator
Sophomore | Business Administration
Joined: October 21st, 2024
“The only thing that isn’t worthless: to live this life out truthfully and rightly. And be patient with those who don’t.”
– Marcus Aurelius
Robert Staresinic, Senator
Sophomore | Economics and Political Science
Joined: November 7th, 2024
“Friendship is certainly the finest balm for the pangs of disappointed love.”
– Jane Austen
Maya Zimmerman (Johnston), Senator
Sophomore | Biomedical Engineering
Joined: November 17th, 2024
“Because someday, someone just might be looking for you, pointing at you, wanting you. Or someone like you”
– État libre d’Orange marketing team
Lilah Childers, Senator
Sophomore | Biology and English
Joined: January 27th, 2025
“I am a victim of introspection.”
– Sylvia Plath
Samuel Harper, Senator
Sophomore | History and European Studies
Joined: February 17th, 2025
“The new world has never achieved a greater triumph than by this demonstration that, given its political and social organization, ordinary people of good will can accomplish feats which only heroes could accomplish in the old world!”
– Karl Marx
Liam Kiley, Senator
Sophomore | Statistics and Political Science
Joined: March 17th, 2025
“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
– Robert J. Hanlon (allegedly)
Jacob Binder, Historian
Freshman | History
Joined: September 29th, 2025
“But what is liberty without wisdom and without virtue? It is the greatest of all possible evils; for it is folly, vice, and madness, without tuition or restraint. Those who know what virtuous liberty is, cannot bear to see it disgraced by incapable heads, on account of their having high-sounding words in their mouths.”
– Edmund Burke
Adam Zheng, Senator
Freshman | Community and Global Public Health
Joined: November 3rd, 2025
“If I can’t leave anything behind, wouldn’t it be kind of a pity?”
– Hatsune Miku, The Disappearance of Hatsune Miku
Hadley Pridgen, Senator
Freshman | Political Science and History
Joined: November 10th, 2025
“The events which cannot be prevented, must be directed.”
– Klemens Von Metternich
Emily Brietz, Senator
Sophomore | Media & Journalism and History
Joined: November 13th, 2025
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”
– 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 NIV
Gracen Riggsbee, Senator
Sophomore
Joined: November 13th, 2025
Jiya Bhadra, Senator
Freshman | Biomedical Engineering
Joined: November 17th, 2025
“Hello, but I’m not sorry.”
– Mr. Frog, Smiling Friends
