{"id":842,"date":"2025-06-11T23:38:54","date_gmt":"2025-06-11T23:38:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/richard-d-young-lab\/?p=842"},"modified":"2025-09-10T16:54:36","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T16:54:36","slug":"press_2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/richard-d-young-lab\/press_2\/","title":{"rendered":"Inaugural Democracy Speaker Series Concludes"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4 class=\"h2\">FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE<\/h4>\n<p class=\"h5\">JUNE 11, 2025; 8:00AM MST<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-849 size-uncropped-small\" src=\"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/258\/2025\/06\/Anthony-Garcia_RDY_2m_032525-205x300.png\" alt=\"City Councilman Anthony Garcia introduces himself to students with a protest song.\" width=\"205\" height=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">Flagstaff, AZ \u2013 With support from the Dr. Richard D. Young endowment, the first Democracy Speaker Series concluded it&#8217;s final lecture this semester. The speaker series invited elected officials and respected community leaders across Arizona to speak to students in Dr. Stephen Nu\u00f1o&#8217;s <em>Campaigns and Elections<\/em> course. Participants gave their talk about their personal journeys to elected office and gave students a unique insight into their every day responsibilities.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">Beginning with Dr. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt&#8217;s renowned book, <a href=\"https:\/\/revista.drclas.harvard.edu\/how-democracies-die\/\"><em>How Democracies Die<\/em><\/a>, the theme of the series was to illustrate how shared values and mutual trust are important pillars of a healthy democracy. &#8220;By introducing them to the every day people who help run our government, it was important to me to spend a lot of time exposing the students to our elected representatives and their personal stories so they could experience who these civic servants are first hand, rather than the highly politicized view they get every day from the media,&#8221; said Dr. Nu\u00f1o.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">Participants included:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">Stephanie Berger, Founder of Berger &amp; Hirschberg Strategies<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">Audrey Sondenregger, Coconino County Recorder<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">Sarah Benatar, Coconino County Treasurer<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">Haley Creighton, Candidate for State Legislator District 6<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">Maiah Jaskoski, Professor and expert on Authoritarian regimes in Latin America<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">Jonathan Nez, Former President of Navajo Nation and candidate for Congressional District 2<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">Cesar Aguilar, Arizona State Legislator, District 26<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">Jeronimo Vasquez, Coconino Board of Supervisors, District 2<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">Anthony Garcia, City of Flagstaff Council<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">Abigail O&#8217;Brien, Arizona State Director for\u00a0 Senator Ruben Gallego<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">Walter Blackman, Arizona State Legislator, District 7<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">Randy Parraz, Organizer and author of Dignity by Fire<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left\">Jared Gorshe, Americans for Prosperity<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">###<\/p>\n<p class=\"cvGsUA direction-ltr align-start para-style-body\"><div class=\"eplus-bg-color-row bg-color-extra-light-gray\"><div class=\"eplus-bg-color-row-content\"><span class=\"OYPEnA font-feature-liga-off font-feature-clig-off font-feature-calt-off text-decoration-none text-strikethrough-none\">The RDY Lab comes from the Dr. Richard D. Young Faculty Fellowship, funded by an endowment to honor the memory of a highly regarded economist, and a beloved husband and father. Please consider a <a href=\"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/richard-d-young-lab\/giving\/\">contribution<\/a> to support the endowment. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"cvGsUA direction-ltr align-start para-style-body\"><span class=\"OYPEnA font-feature-liga-off font-feature-clig-off font-feature-calt-off text-decoration-none text-strikethrough-none\">We are committed to ensuring that NAU is at the forefront of transforming the emerging economic, social, and political landscape of the Grand Canyon State.<\/span><\/div><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE JUNE 11, 2025; 8:00AM MST Flagstaff, AZ \u2013 With support from the Dr. Richard D. Young endowment, the first Democracy Speaker Series concluded it&#8217;s final lecture this semester. The speaker series invited elected officials and respected community leaders across Arizona to speak to students in Dr. Stephen Nu\u00f1o&#8217;s Campaigns and Elections course. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/richard-d-young-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/richard-d-young-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/richard-d-young-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/richard-d-young-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/richard-d-young-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=842"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/richard-d-young-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1292,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/richard-d-young-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842\/revisions\/1292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/richard-d-young-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/richard-d-young-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/richard-d-young-lab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}