Liz Cheney joins University of Virginia faculty

The University of Virginia (UVA) in Charlottesville announced on Mar. 1 that former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney has joined the faculty as a professor of practice.

An announcement from UVA’s Center for Politics says that Cheney’s appointment will last through the fall 2023 semester with the option to extend. 

“Over the course of her tenure as a Professor of Practice,” the announcement reads, “Cheney will participate in university-wide lectures, serve as a guest lecturer in student seminars with Professor [Larry] Sabato and other Center faculty, contribute to Center for Politics research, and participate in other University and community events to be announced at a future date.”

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Cheney, who “received her Juris Doctor from the University of Chicago,” is a “specialist in national security and foreign policy,” according to the announcement. 

From 2017 to 2023, Cheney served as the U.S. representative from Wyoming in positions including the chair of the House Republican Conference and a member in “the House Armed Services Committee, China Task Force, Natural Resources Committee, and the House Committee on Rules.”

Sabato, the current Center for Politics director, founded it to provide events and programming that encourage civic participation for K-12 students and the UVA community.

“The Center for Politics has long operated the Youth Leadership Initiative, which provides free educational tools for civics educators and programs to get students interested in politics, such as E-Congress and mock elections,” Kyle Kondik, the communications director of the Center for Politics, told Campus Reform. 

“The Center’s Crystal Ball newsletter and our documentaries, many of which have won Emmy Awards, are designed to inform the public in a nonpartisan way about politics, elections, and other matters of national importance. In 2021, we launched a survey analysis program called Project Home Fire, which seeks to explain the divides in American life and identify ways to bridge them.”

Cheney’s appointment, the Center’s announcement suggests, is part of the culture at UVA of exposing students to ideas across the political spectrum. Whitt Clement, the rector of the Board of Visitors, said in the announcement that the university is “committed” to giving “students an array of diverse viewpoints.”

“Just within the last few years, the Center for Politics has hosted a wide variety of different political speakers for classes and/or public events,” Kondik told Campus Reform. “Some recent examples are Paul Ryan, Adam Schiff, Ted Cruz, and Bernie Sanders.”

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Kondik continued, saying that when former Vice President Mike Pence spoke at UVA, the Center “hosted a reception with students.” Other students took to depicting “Pence’s views on LGBTQ individuals and their rights … as dangerous rhetoric” in a student newspaper editorial, according to an ABC affiliate.  

“We think it’s important for students and the broader community to be exposed to a wide variety of political viewpoints,” Kondik said. 

Campus Reform contacted the University of Virginia for comment and will update this article accordingly. The best efforts were made to reach Liz Cheney.