MIA B. LOVE

In 2021, Love became the national outreach coordinator for the USU Center for Growth and Opportunity (CGO), a nonpartisan organization housed in the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business that conducts research to assist policymakers with pressing issues. She shares the research and data with her former congressional colleagues and other officials, then brings back their questions so students can start new projects to help find answers. Love also coaches students to help them articulate and clearly explain their research to others. Love prescribes to the philosophy that one should not let “perfect” be the enemy of a “really good” win. As such, she hopes that sharing data with decision-makers on both sides of the aisle will help leaders find common ground in facts and come together to create effective policies.

Former Utah Representative Mia B. Love accomplished several firsts when she was elected to U.S. Congress in the state’s 4th Congressional District in 2014: she was the first HaitianAmerican elected to Congress, as well as the first Black person elected from Utah, and the first Black woman elected as a Republican.

An east coast native, Love moved to Utah in 1998 and soon found her calling in public service. She began as a community spokesperson in Saratoga Springs and later won a seat on the city council. She served for six years before being elected mayor in 2009.

During her two terms in Congress, Love sat on the Financial Services Committee, Terrorism and Illicit Finance Subcommittee, Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit Subcommittee, and the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives. She also was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Love is well known for her conservative principals and spent her time in office working toward reducing burdensome regulations and reforming immigration policy. She has also advocated for more transparency and innovation in higher education.

In addition to her work with the CGO, Love has been a panelist for the Leadership Forum Series in the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business, speaking about leadership in business, politics, and public service. She has served as a nonresident senior fellow at the United States Studies Centre at the University of Sydney and is also a fellow of the Institute of Politics and Public Service at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University.

Love has been a political commentator for CNN since 2019 and a guest host on the ABC talk show “The View.” She recently published her memoir, “Qualified: Finding Your Voice, Leading with Character, and Empowering Others.”

Love and her husband, Jason, have three children, two of whom are Aggies.

For her dedication to public service; her support of women, minorities, and other marginalized groups; and her commitment and involvement with higher education, Utah State University is proud to bestow upon Mia B. Love the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters.