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, Maddux Vernon, 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.
Deniz Erdal, President Emeritus
Graduate | TransAtlantic Masters
Joined: September 27, 2021
“Ed Markey’s desk was thrown into the hall by the Statehouse bosses…Markey’s bill is now the law”
– Ed Markey for Congress campaign ad
Logan Grodsky, Senator
Senior | Business Administration and Public Policy
Joined: October 18, 2021
“Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us footprints on the sands of time.”
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “A Psalm of Life”
Nathaniel Shue, President Emeritus
Senior | Political Science and History
Joined: November 8, 2021
“I never liked Morrissey. And I don’t like you.”
– John Darnielle
Maddux Vernon, Di President
Senior | Political Science and Peace, War, & Defense
Joined: November 15, 2021
“If we wait for the moment when everything, absolutely everything is ready, we shall never begin.”
– Ivan Turgenev
Anna Crist, President Emeritus
Senior | Biology and English
Joined: February 28th, 2022
“A rush and a push and the land that we stand on is ours. It has been before, so it shall be again.”
– Morrissey
Bruce McRae, Senator
Senior | Philosophy
Joined: April 2oth, 2022
“Fun things are fun.”
– Hirasawa Yui
Conor Buchanan, Senator
Junior | 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
Daniel Gallagher, Senator
Senior | History
Joined: October 17th, 2022
“To have ruined one’s self over poetry is an honour.”
– Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Grey
Rania Alaoui, Ambassador to the United Kingdom
Junior | Philosophy and Peace, War, and Defense
Joined: October 24th, 2022
“Fine philosophers take vitalism to court.”
– Jean Baudrillard
Cormac Lynch, Joint Senate President
Senior | Economics
Joined: November 14th, 2022
“What is important is not to see but to understand.”
– Inscribed on the tombstone of a blind girl at Lourdes, brought there seeking the miracle of sight.
Dean Pearce, Senator
Senior | Biology and Chemistry
Joined: November 16th, 2022
“Mental illness is not funny.”
– Phillip K. Dick, VALIS
Ashley Dowdney, Senator
Junior | 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, Senator
Junior | 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
Sophomore | Global Studies and Judaic Studies
Joined: October 9th, 2023
“Love is the longing for the half of ourselves we have lost.”
– Milan Kundera
Tolu Osungbesan, Ambassador to the United Kingdom
Sophomore | 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 Pro Tempore
Junior | 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, Critic
Junior| 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
Sophomore | Psychology and Computer Science
Joined: January 22nd, 2024
“The books are to remind us what asses and fools we are.”
– Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
Elias North, Senator
Sophomore | History and American Studies
Joined: March 4th, 2024
“Now, if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life, for the furtherance of the ends of justice, and MINGLE MY BLOOD FURTHER WITH THE BLOOD OF MY CHILDREN, and with the blood of millions in this Slave country, whose rights are disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments – I say; LET IT BE DONE.”
– John Brown, at his trial
Lena Osborne, Senator
Sophomore | Music and Statistics
Joined: March 25th, 2024
“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
– Mr. Tilney, Northanger Abbey
Garrett Barnes, Senator
Junior | 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
Junior | Political Science and Entrepreneurship
Joined: April 15th, 2024
“The things we fear the most have already happened to us.”
– Robin Williams
Thomas Larson, Senator
Junior | Political Science
Joined: October 7th, 2024
“There are more things to admire in men than to despise.”
– Albert Camus
Austin Haenni, Treasurer
Freshman | 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
Violet Frost, Clerk
Sophomore | Public Health, Spanish, Studio Art
Joined: November 7th, 2024
“In my end is my beginning.”
– Supposedly Mary, Queen of Scots, before her execution
Robert Staresinic, Senator
Freshman | 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
Freshman | Chemistry
Joined: November 17th, 2024
“Insist on your cup of stars.”
– Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House
Lilah Childers, Senator
Freshman | Biology, English
Joined: January 27th, 2025
“I am a victim of introspection.”
– Sylvia Plath
Samuel Harper, Senator
Freshman | History, 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
