Jonathan Alger became the 6th president of James Madison University (JMU) on July 1, 2012.  Under his leadership, this public comprehensive university in Virginia with approximately 22,000 students developed a bold new vision to be "the national model of the engaged university.”  JMU has evolved significantly under President Alger's leadership, developing new undergraduate and graduate programs as well as many significant new and renovated buildings. Prior to coming to JMU, Alger served as senior vice president and general counsel at Rutgers University. He had previously worked as assistant general counsel at the University of Michigan. Earlier in his career he worked in the national office of the American Association of University Professors on issues such as academic freedom, shared governance, tenure, and due process.  He also served for several years in the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights, where he was the point person on the development and implementation of national policies on race-conscious financial aid, racial harassment and free expression.  He began his career as an associate in the Labor and Employment Section of the international law firm of Morgan, Lewis and Bockius.

Kevin Hallock is the 11^th president of the University of Richmond (UR). He enjoys working and engaging with UR’s students, faculty, alumni, parents, and friends. And he believes the University can become even more remarkable by focusing on five strategic priorities: academic excellence, belonging and community, access and affordability, well-being, and experiential learning and community engagement. An award-winning teacher, Kevin is a labor market economist and the author or editor of 11 books and over 100 publications. He holds the appointment of Distinguished University Professor of Economics at UR and most recently taught a First-Year Seminar for Richmond students on what they earn.

Kress is the sixth president of Northern Virginia Community College, a role she began in January 2020, after a career of almost three decades in higher education that includes serving as a tenured faculty member in English and in numerous academic administrative roles at community colleges in Florida and New York. At NOVA, Kress focuses on fulfilling the college’s commitment to equity in opportunity and its promise that every student succeeds, every program achieves, and every community prospers. Kress serves on the boards of higher education groups including the American Council on Education, the American Association of Community Colleges, and the Taskforce on Higher Education and Opportunity. She serves on a program advisory board for the University of Maryland Global Campus and on the board of Generation Hope, which supports the success of student-parents. Kress co-chaired the most recent Virginia Community College System strategic plan, Opportunity 2027, for which she received the Dana B. Hamel Award, the highest honor the system bestows. She has also testified before Congress and served as a negotiator on federal regulations on higher education.

Major General Cedric T. Wins is the 15^th Superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute. He is a graduate of VMI where he played basketball and is one of the top five scorers in the school's history. After graduation he commissioned into the Army as field artillery office. He has had a storied military career through multiple deployments and being the first Commanding General of the U.S Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (CCDC). His awards and badges include the Distinguished Service Medal (with One Oak Leaf Cluster), the Defense Superior Service Medal, the Legion of Merit (with One Oak Leaf Cluster), the Bronze Star Medal, the Defense Meritorious Service Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal (with One Oak Leaf Cluster), the Joint Service Commendation Medal, the Army Commendation Medal (with Two Oak Leaf Clusters), the Joint Service Achievement Medal, the Army Achievement Medal (with One Oak Leaf Cluster) and Parachutist Badge, Joint Chiefs of Staff Identification Badge and Army Staff Identification Badge. He took office at VMI in 2021 and in the light of racism allegations against the Institute, he has steadied the ship through the One Corps One-VMI plan.

Jered Cooper currently attends the University of Virginia. A fourth year, he is a government major with a deep passion for understanding the inner workings of politics and public policy. His love for American history has been a driving force throughout his academic journey, as he finds inspiration in exploring the narratives of the past. He is a writer for the Virginia Undergraduate Law Review and a co-host for Bipodisan, a new student-run podcast that seeks to build consensus across the aisle and encourage healthy political dialogue. His future professional goals include attending law school to study constitutional theory and interpretation.

Leslie Kendrick is the White Burkett Miller Professor of Law and Public Affairs and the Elizabeth D. and Richard A. Merrill Professor of Law at the University of Virginia School of Law. She serves as Special Advisor to the Provost on Free Expression and Inquiry, Director of the Center for the First Amendment, and a Fellow at the Shannon Center for Advanced Studies. Kendrick’s work focuses on torts and freedom of speech. Kendrick is a recipient of the University of Virginia’s All-University Teaching Award and the Law School’s Carl McFarland Prize for outstanding research by a junior faculty member.

A longtime HxA member and advocate for viewpoint diversity in education, Michael has a background in nonprofit management and public policy. Prior to joining HxA, he co-founded LEEP Dual Language Academy, Brooklyn’s first Spanish immersion charter school, which quickly grew to serve over 400 families across two campuses. Previously, Michael worked as Director of Policy and Research at the New York City Charter School Center. He earned his bachelor’s degree in political theory from Princeton University and his master’s degree in social sciences from the University of Chicago.

Raj Vinnakota is president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, effective July 1, 2019.  He is currently working on a project for a group of institutional funders to map the general civic education space, in order to better understand the level and types of resources currently out there and to help everyone working in the field identify promising areas for growth and increased impact.  Raj is former executive vice president at the Aspen Institute, founding the Youth & Engagement Programs division.  The thrust of Raj’s work was developing young citizens who care as much about the direction of their communities as their own self-interest (Aristotle’s civic virtue).  Prior to joining the Aspen Institute, Raj was the co-founder and CEO of The SEED Foundation, a non-profit managing the nation’s first network of public, college-preparatory boarding schools for underserved children.  Raj attended Princeton University, from which he received a degree in Molecular Biology, as well as certificate of studies from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy. 

Jonathan W. White is professor of American Studies at Christopher Newport University and is the author or editor of 13 books, including Abraham Lincoln and Treason in the Civil War: The Trials of John Merryman (2011), and Emancipation, the Union Army, and the Reelection of Abraham Lincoln (2014), which was a finalist for both the Gilder Lehrman Lincoln Prize and the Jefferson Davis Prize, a “best book” in Civil War Monitor, and the winner of the Abraham Lincoln Institute’s 2015 book prize. He has published more than one hundred articles, essays and reviews, and is the winner of the 2005 John T. Hubbell Prize for the best article in Civil War History, the 2010 Hay-Nicolay Dissertation Prize, and the 2012 Thomas Jefferson Prize for his Guide to Research in Federal Judicial History (2010). He serves on the Boards of Directors of the Abraham Lincoln Institute and the Abraham Lincoln Association, as Vice Chair of The Lincoln Forum, the Ford’s Theatre Advisory Council, and the editorial board of the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography.

Peter Lee Hamilton is a Fourth-Year JD/MBA student at the University of Virginia and graduate of Georgetown University from Vienna, Virginia. He serves as the Darden School of Business Representative to the University Judiciary Committee, Vice President of the Darden Catholic Student Association, Co-Organizer of the Lawlympics, and Co-Comissioner of the UVA Fun Club. Additionally, he co-founded and currently serves as CEO of Ema.ai, a technology startup, President of the National Korean Student Alliance, a non-profit dedicated to supporting Korean American College Students, and Chair of Young Asian Pacific American Leaders, a community organization for young Asian American professionals. At Darden, he has been recognized with the Raven Scholarship and the William Michael Shermet Award.

Chief Brown has extensive experience working in the private sector and state government, serving in senior executive positions for three previous Governors. As Commissioner of the Virginia Department of Social Services, he led and managed over 1,700 employees in 120 locations, overseeing the development of an online customer portal, safe reductions of children in foster care, and increases in adoption, as well as the development of a practice model strengthening Virginia’s families at every client contact. As Advisor to the Governor for Prisoner Re-Entry & Family Re-Integration, he established a best-practice family-strengthening program, now expanded statewide. As Policy Advisor to the Governor – he coordinated the state visit of Mrs. Coretta Scott King and the recognition of Martin Luther King, Jr. as the first African American permanently memorialized on Virginia’s Historic Capital Square.

Mary Kate Cary, director of Think Again at UVA, 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. Today, Cary serves as a free speech advocate at UVA. She has served on UVA’s Committee on Free Expression and Free Inquiry, co-founded the UVA chapter of Heterodox Academy, founded the UVA Student Oratory Contest, and she serves as faculty advisor to The Jefferson Independent, an independent student newspaper.

Gerard Alexander has taught at UVA since 1997 and has been a tenured professor in the Department of Politics since 2002. He’s a specialist in comparative politics, especially Western Europe. In addition to academic writing, he has published articles in the New York Times, the Washington Post, National Review, and other publications.

Laura Beltz is a Philadelphia-area native who graduated from Penn State University with a B.A. in English through the Schreyer Honors College. She is also a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and is a member of the Pennsylvania state bar. At Penn Law, Laura was an associate editor of the Journal of Constitutional Law, and completed internships with FIRE and the National Constitution Center. In her free time, she enjoys hiking — especially when there’s an opportunity to visit a craft brewery afterwards.

John Coleman joins FIRE after a distinguished career in the public sector. For over six years John served as counsel for the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, assisting the Committee on legal and constitutional policy issues, including those involving First Amendment freedoms. He also worked in the legal departments of two federal agencies before joining state government as a senior policy advisor in the South Dakota Office of the Governor. John earned his bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Mary Washington and his J.D. from American University Washington College of Law.

Mya is a senior at James Madison University, majoring in Public Administration and minoring in Honors Interdisciplinary Studies and Spanish. She currently works with the James Madison Center for Civic Engagement as one of their undergraduate Democracy Fellows. Throughout college, Mya has spent time working in various nonprofit and public service opportunities connected to civic engagement, education, and public policy, including as a 2023 Governor’s Fellow in the Office of First Lady Suzanne S. Youngkin and as a Communications Intern with the National Association of State Boards of Education. She is currently completing her undergraduate Honors thesis on cultivating civic engagement among Virginia middle and high school students through JMU’s Department of Political Science.

Mike Wasserman is the Vice President of Growth and Development at CDI, where he oversees the organization's program growth strategy, partnerships, and fundraising efforts. Mike brings 15 years of leadership experience in innovative, high-impact education organizations. Most recently, Mike served as Executive Director of the Boston Debate League and before that as the Massachusetts Executive Director of Bottom Line. He is currently a faculty member at the Institute for Nonprofit Practice. Mike earned his bachelor's degree in Public Policy and Urban Education from Brown University and his MBA in Nonprofit Management from Boston University.

Dr. Poliakoff became part of the ACTA team in March 2010 as the Vice President of Policy, and became ACTA’s third president on July 1, 2016. He previously served as Vice President for Academic Affairs and research at the University of Colorado and in senior roles at the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Council on Teacher Quality, the American Academy for Liberal Education, and the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

He has taught at Georgetown University, George Washington University, Hillsdale College, the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Wellesley College. He received his B.A. magna cum laude from Yale University and went on to study at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, and the University of Michigan, where he earned a Ph.D. in classical studies. He has been a junior fellow at the Center for Hellenic Studies, and his research has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst, and the Alexander Von Humboldt Stiftung. He is the author of numerous books and journal articles in classical studies and education policy and has received the American Philological Association’s Excellence in Teaching Award and the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s Distinguished Service to Education Award.