Wheatley Institute and BYU Political Science Department were pleased to host Mónica Guzmán as the keynote speaker for the first annual Initiative for Peacemaking Peace Conference.

Paul Lambert, director of Wheatley Institute's Religion Initiative, was recently appointed to the board of directors for the One America Movement, a national organization dedicated to fighting toxic polarization in American politics.

Wheatley Fellow Shima Baughman spoke in the Baskerville Institute's 2025 Diplomacy of the Heart Conference. The event focused on fostering understanding through empathy, dignity, and respect, learning how to be peacemakers in today's complex political climate, particularly in areas with rich multicultural heritage.

Utahns have a long tradition of showing up with compassion and caring for each other. We each have a role and a responsibility here. We can choose dignity over division. We can disagree better. We can heal together.

A recent article in The New Yorker investigated various AI companion websites, citing a Wheatley Institute report on how dangerous and widespread the use of romantic chatbot services is.

"There are many reasons people choose not to have children or not to get married, but false messages about happiness should not be one of them. The articles I read long ago were right that parenting (and marriage) can often be exhausting. But they ignored the sense of meaning that comes from parenthood and the connection of physical touch at the core of family life."