Dealing with differences in a polarized world
Tue, April 15, 2025, at 11am
Bill Doherty
Professor emeritus, author, and Braver Angels co-founder
Event to be held via Zoom.
Professor emeritus, author, and Braver Angels co-founder Bill Doherty made his mark in family therapy, specializing in working with couples in the throes of divorce. When he saw a similar pain in the country, taking over our politics and eroding trust in government, he dove into addressing the growing polarization of political differences in the U.S.
In 2016, Doherty co-founded a citizens organization aimed at “uniting red and blue Americans in a working alliance to depolarize America”—an ambitious undertaking. Braver Angels, as it’s known today, is now a national movement and campaign with nearly 15,000 members organized in 111 local alliances.
Many UMRA members may recall Doherty’s presentation—on bridging the red/blue divide in communities—for the UMRA Forum at the Campus Club in 2018.
For UMRA’s April 15 Living Well Workshop via Zoom, Doherty will share with us what he has learned about dealing with each other across differences in a highly polarized world.
Engines of inspiration
Doherty and his collaborators have become engines of inspiration, generating methods for overcoming polarization in our families and communities. He works with other therapists to help them develop as “citizen therapists,” acknowledging that therapists are “in the democracy business.”
Along the way, he developed a model for democratic community-building in families, and started the nonprofit Doherty Foundation for Social and Civic Well-Being together with his daughter, Elizabeth Doherty Thomas.
Going deep over time
Following the 2017 killing of Philando Castile by a police officer in Falcon Heights near the U of M Twin Cities campus in St. Paul, Doherty and a colleague co-founded the Police and Black Men Project. With Doherty as the process facilitator, the group has met ever since, first bi-weekly and then monthly.
Doherty described their process as “… going deep over time … without knowing at the start what steps we would take.” Angela Davis of Minnesota Public Radio poignantly documented a recent visit by Doherty and other project participants to historic civil rights sites in Montgomery, Alabama.
At the University of Minnesota, Doherty is professor emeritus of family social science and past director of the Marriage and Family Therapy Program in the Department of Family Social Science. He retired from the faculty in the spring of 2024.
Doherty signs his emails with “Keep hope alive.” Let’s talk with him on April 15 about how he built his life and career around helping people reconcile their differences, and what we can learn about keeping our hope alive.
Please register for this free Zoom webinar starting at 11 a.m. on Tuesday, April 15.
—Jan Morlock, UMRA past president and Program Committee member
Additional resources:
- “Becoming a Citizen Therapist,” 2024 book co-authored with Tai J. Mendenhall, and The Ethical Lives of Clients, published in 2021.
- “The Truth About Marriage,” 2018 documentary by Roger Nygard; Doherty is interviewed.
Upcoming Events
Morris Campus Retirees will host a Zoom meeting. Morris Campus Retirees are part of the University of Minnesota Retiree Association (UMRA). The group has already held two meetings in its first year of existence.
Peter Moe, retired Minnesota Landscape Arboretum director and UMRA member, will be leading a hiking tour of the Arboretum again this year. The amazing tulip display was at its peak for our hike last year, and we will undoubtedly enjoy seeing many spring-blooming trees, shrubs, wildflowers, and perennials. Plan to stay for lunch together (optional) after the hike at the Rootstock café in the Oswald Visitor Center.
UMRA’s Family History Interest Group will meet via Zoom on Wednesday, May 7, for an open discussion of ideas, insights, questions, and issues related to family history, and to discuss topics for next year’s meetings.
We will revisit the University of Minnesota Archives, with its major holdings largely tucked away in two huge underground caverns along the Mississippi River under the West Bank campus, holds the essential records of our University of Minnesota’s past. University Archivist Erik Moore will interpret the holdings and bring out a sampling of what it holds. We will also get a tour of the caverns (Minnesota Library Access Center), revealing where these precious materials are housed, including the original tapes of KUOM, now Radio K.
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The UMRA Photo Club is having a photo shoot at the Como Park Conservatory in St. Paul on Tuesday, May 13.
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The UMRA Book Club will discuss The Frozen River by Ariel Lawhon when it meets via Zoom on May 16.
.Wood Lake Nature Center is a peaceful 150-acre cattail marsh, woodland, and restored prairie that is a haven for migrating birds and waterfowl. This UMRA hike is a great opportunity for those who would like a shorter, easier hike. The trails are dirt, grass, and woodchip, with some bridges and a bit of paved trails. Only a couple small hills to navigate, the park is mostly flat.
University of Minnesota Regent Penny Wheeler, MD, will be the featured guest for the UMRA luncheon forum on May 20. In place of the usual speech format for our forums, Regent Wheeler will be interviewed by UMRA member and liaison to the Board of Regents John Finnegan, professor and dean emeritus of the U of M School of Public Health.
I, Claudius by English writer Robert Graves, published in 1934, will be up for discussion when UMRA's Fourth Friday Book Club meets via Zoom on May 23.
The UMRA Book Club will discuss The Great River by Boyce Upton when it meets via Zoom on June 20.
Learn about writing memoirs, technology for seniors, campus architecture, and more at the fourth annual Age-Friendly University Day to be held in the McNamara Alumni Center on the Twin Cities campus in Minneapolis on Monday, June 23.
Catch up with friends and former colleagues, meet new UMRA members, enjoy delicious food, and participate in the third annual UMRA Summer Social Quiz at the Como Lakeside Pavilion in St. Paul on Wednesday, June 25.