American Magazine: August 2014
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
TROUBLED TEENS<br />
FIND REDEMPTION<br />
p. 18<br />
SOC’S MOST<br />
TELLING TALES<br />
p. 22<br />
THE EVERGLADES IS<br />
THIRSTY FOR SURVIVAL<br />
p. 30<br />
UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE AUGUST <strong>2014</strong><br />
Myths and misconceptions about the Capital City<br />
(no, Washington wasn’t built on a swamp)<br />
p. 12
An AU insider’s<br />
perspective on next page
Marjorie Merriweather Post’s treasures include a diamondstudded<br />
crown, glistening chalices, ornate Fabergé<br />
eggs—and, of course, the sprawling, Georgian-style mansion<br />
that houses them. But the CROWN JEWEL of the Post<br />
cereal heiress’s collection may be the EXQUISITELY<br />
MANICURED GREENERY that surrounds her<br />
northwest D.C. estate.<br />
Forty years after Post’s death, master gardener Jason<br />
Gedeik has a hand—literally—in carrying on her LEGACY<br />
OF IMPECCABLE TASTE and affinity for flowers.<br />
As head of greenhouse and design operations at the<br />
Hillwood Estate, Museum, and Gardens, Gedeik maintains<br />
25 ACRES bursting with vibrant azaleas, roses, peonies,<br />
tulips, delphiniums, and POST’S BELOVED ORCHIDS.<br />
(Hillwood has more than 2,000 specimens and hundreds of<br />
varieties of the exotic flower.)<br />
Gedeik says the gardens, nestled near Rock Creek<br />
Park, were designed for spring and fall, when Post would<br />
host EXTRAVAGANT SOIRÉES for the who’s who of<br />
Washington—but the property is picturesque year-round.<br />
“I love creating beauty for our visitors and continuing<br />
to tell Mrs. Post’s story, which is one of GRACE AND<br />
CHARM in an era long since gone,” says Gedeik. “People<br />
don’t live this way anymore.”<br />
Jason Gedeik<br />
SPA/MPP ’05<br />
18<br />
22<br />
28<br />
30<br />
Incarcerated D.C. youth<br />
are more than the sum<br />
of their rap sheets<br />
Tools of the trade<br />
have changed, but<br />
SOC’s mission remains<br />
the same<br />
Al-Qaeda to Zeta Function<br />
and 24 projects in between<br />
Even gator-infested waters<br />
need a protector
1 POV<br />
4 4400 Mass Ave<br />
Ideas, people, perspectives<br />
16<br />
Metrocentered<br />
35 Your <strong>American</strong><br />
Connect, engage, reminisce<br />
AMERICAN<br />
<strong>American</strong> University magazine<br />
Vol. 65, No. 1<br />
SENIOR EDITOR<br />
Adrienne Frank, SPA/MS ’08<br />
ASSOCIATE EDITORS<br />
Suzanne Bechamps<br />
Amy Burroughs<br />
Ali Kahn<br />
STAFF WRITER<br />
Mike Unger<br />
WRITERS<br />
Adrienne Frank<br />
Ali Kahn<br />
Kerry O’Leary<br />
ART DIRECTOR<br />
Maria Jackson<br />
PHOTOGRAPHER<br />
Jeffrey Watts<br />
CLASS NOTES<br />
Traci Crockett<br />
VICE PRESIDENT,<br />
COMMUNICATIONS<br />
Teresa Flannery<br />
ASSISTANT VICE PRESIDENT,<br />
CREATIVE SERVICES<br />
Kevin Grasty<br />
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR,<br />
CONTENT STRATEGY<br />
Laura Garner<br />
<strong>American</strong> is published three<br />
times a year by <strong>American</strong><br />
University. With a circulation<br />
of 118,000, <strong>American</strong> is sent<br />
to alumni and other members<br />
of the university community.<br />
Copyright©<strong>2014</strong>.<br />
An equal opportunity,<br />
affirmative action university.<br />
UP15-001<br />
For information regarding the<br />
accreditation and state licensing<br />
of <strong>American</strong> University, please<br />
visit american.edu/academic.<br />
End of Watch<br />
During my sophomore year of high school, I began<br />
working as a community columnist for my local paper,<br />
the Chandler Arizonan. I use the term “working” loosely,<br />
as I wasn’t paid for my prose. But the dozens of clips I<br />
collected were priceless.<br />
I was, by far, the youngest of the dozen or so<br />
columnists who worked for editor Susan Keaton, and<br />
my articles, while lively and technically proficient, were<br />
hardly hard-hitting. (Susan, with her friendly Southern<br />
drawl, would call them “charming.”) While my fellow<br />
columnists weighed in on immigration issues and the<br />
housing boom, I penned 400 words about such topics as<br />
my first fender-bender, which occurred, embarrassingly<br />
enough, in my parents’ garage.<br />
In <strong>August</strong> 1995, however, my column took a more<br />
serious turn when I chronicled the funeral for my dad’s<br />
friend and colleague, Arizona Highway Patrolman Bob<br />
Martin, who was gunned down during a traffic stop on<br />
a stretch of road my father also policed. I didn’t go to the<br />
service intending to write about it. My dad asked me to<br />
join him because, at 16, I was old enough to understand<br />
the danger of his job, to share in his grief. But the<br />
experience left me profoundly moved.<br />
My heart ached for Officer Martin’s family, but it also<br />
swelled with pride for my dad. Despite my teenage angst,<br />
I was always proud of him. I remember beaming when he<br />
brought his cruiser to my elementary school and passed<br />
out plastic badges to my classmates. But this was<br />
different. Sitting next to him in the pew, I realized that<br />
the world can be cruel and unforgiving and that it takes<br />
a special kind of person to run towards danger when<br />
my instinct—our instinct—is to run away from it.<br />
As a writer, you pore over every word, but you can<br />
never be sure if anyone will read it, or care. The job is a<br />
bit anticlimactic that way. But I know my dad read that<br />
column—and sometimes an audience of one is enough.<br />
That clip, now yellow with age, will always hold a special<br />
place in my heart.<br />
This issue, writer Mike Unger asked School of<br />
Communication professors, students, and alumni to<br />
share their most impactful stories to celebrate the<br />
school’s new home in the renovated McKinley Building.<br />
I think you’ll find their stories powerful and engrossing.<br />
Do you have a story of your own to share? Email me<br />
at afrank@american.edu. And follow us on Twitter<br />
@au_americanmag.<br />
Adrienne Frank<br />
Senior editor
on campus<br />
NO CAMPUS GROUP IS<br />
CREATING A BIGGER BUZZ<br />
than the AU Beekeeping Society.<br />
Apologies for the pun, but as<br />
you’ll see, there are few things AU’s<br />
beekeepers appreciate more than a<br />
play on words.<br />
School of International Service<br />
professor Eve Bratman beegan the<br />
project in 2011 with one colony.<br />
Interest quickly beelooned, and now<br />
two hives on the roof of the Mary<br />
Graydon Center are tended to by<br />
dozens of students, staff, and faculty.<br />
“Bees are the most important<br />
pollinators, and without pollination,<br />
we wouldn’t have 75 percent of the<br />
food we eat on our tables,” Bratman<br />
says. “We don’t keep them on<br />
leashes, but we’re basically their<br />
landlord. We provide a safe and<br />
healthy home for the colony. We<br />
check the hives to make sure that<br />
the queen is alive and laying eggs,<br />
the bees are free from predators,<br />
and they have enough sugar syrup<br />
to have decent food supplies.”<br />
Buzzworthy<br />
Last year, the group harvested 90<br />
pounds of honey from the hives, and<br />
used some of it to make lip balm that<br />
proved so popular it sold out almost<br />
immediatebee.<br />
Lindsay Booth, SIS/MA ’14, was a<br />
beeliever in the group from the start.<br />
“There are so many interesting<br />
facts: A queen can lay about 1,500<br />
eggs in a day. Each chamber in<br />
the comb is exactly the same<br />
measurement. The bees talk to each<br />
other through dance,” she says.<br />
“And then there are the puns. We<br />
named our first hive Beeyonce.<br />
Others have been Lord of Stings,<br />
Bee Arthur, and Obeewon. Bee<br />
people are weird, what can I say?”<br />
ILLUSTRATION BY HEATHER HARDISON<br />
4 AMERICAN MAGAZINE AUGUST <strong>2014</strong>
expert<br />
3 MINUTES ON . . . TV Series Finales<br />
Cristel Russell<br />
Professor, Department of Marketing,<br />
Kogod School of Business<br />
Everybody<br />
watches TV.<br />
You sit next to somebody on a<br />
plane and before you know it<br />
you’re talking about the shows<br />
you watch. But what happens<br />
when a TV show ends?<br />
Soap operas like General<br />
Hospital and All My Children<br />
aired for decades.<br />
Every day people<br />
would watch an<br />
episode, sometimes<br />
by themselves, but<br />
sometimes with their moms or<br />
grandmas. Viewers<br />
were devastated<br />
when the shows were cancelled.<br />
Part of it was ‘what happened to<br />
this character?’<br />
They were in<br />
mourning;<br />
they were grieving.<br />
Other shows, like<br />
Entourage, ended well in the<br />
sense that people<br />
knew it was<br />
coming so they<br />
were able to<br />
prepare themselves<br />
for the death of the show.<br />
They were able to slowly<br />
disconnect.<br />
We call these shows<br />
narrative brands:<br />
the story being told<br />
is also a market<br />
product. They’re<br />
sold to the audience<br />
for commercial time. Lots of<br />
shows have product<br />
placements in them.<br />
If there’s a brand connected<br />
to a character that a lot of<br />
people are influenced by, the<br />
brand can suffer when the<br />
show’s killed.<br />
The brands of places can also<br />
be captured in shows.<br />
There’s a TV show<br />
made in New Zealand<br />
called Outrageous<br />
Fortune. It’s about a<br />
family of criminals<br />
trying to go clean. People want to<br />
visit places on the show in<br />
Auckland, just as they visited<br />
New York to see sites<br />
featured<br />
on Seinfeld.<br />
When a<br />
show’s killed, the brands of places<br />
can suffer.<br />
Similarly, if you watch a show<br />
with other people, when it’s<br />
cancelled you no longer<br />
have that connection. We studied<br />
a group of Sopranos fans who<br />
would get together<br />
religiously every<br />
Sunday night. They<br />
would have Italian<br />
food and watch the<br />
show. When it ended,<br />
they had re-run<br />
marathons, but<br />
it wasn’t the same. They tried to<br />
find another show that would<br />
give them that same kind of<br />
connection, but they never did.<br />
Now the friends no longer see<br />
each other regularly.<br />
It’s a lot easier to adjust if a<br />
show ends well. If the storylines<br />
are resolved and there’s<br />
narrative closure,<br />
then people are more at peace<br />
with the fact that it’s gone.<br />
The Sopranos was completely<br />
anti-climactic. There were<br />
a lot of<br />
unanswered<br />
questions.<br />
That’s never good—people<br />
want finality.<br />
Anecdotally, we do have<br />
evidence that<br />
people will buy<br />
DVD box sets to<br />
watch re-runs. Some buy it<br />
as a memento, like a<br />
tombstone, so that they remember<br />
it, whether they watch it or not.<br />
I think Breaking Bad was<br />
everyone’s favorite<br />
finale. It had everything<br />
you expected, and yet there were<br />
a few surprises. You knew Walter<br />
White was going<br />
to die, you just<br />
didn’t know how.<br />
It tied all<br />
those loose ends and<br />
provided narrative closure. It<br />
was brilliant.<br />
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 5
Alyssa Frederick Braciszewski, CAS/BS ’12, received a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship to<br />
study the nutritional physiology of marine organisms at the University of California, Irvine.<br />
While other rising seniors<br />
were basking on the beach,<br />
environmental studies major<br />
Daniel Pasquale spent his<br />
summer splashing around a<br />
different body of water.<br />
The recipient of the<br />
prestigious Environmental<br />
Protection Agency (EPA)<br />
Greater Research Opportunities<br />
Fellowship, which offers<br />
$50,000 for tuition and travel,<br />
Pasquale monitored bacteria<br />
levels in the Potomac River<br />
to determine the impact of<br />
combined sewer overflow events<br />
on the river’s health.<br />
It was a banner year for<br />
students and alumni of AU’s<br />
science programs. Pasquale and<br />
15 others received prestigious<br />
research awards, including<br />
Fulbright and National Science<br />
Foundation (NSF) grants and<br />
fellowships from the National<br />
Oceanic and Atmospheric<br />
Administration and the EPA.<br />
Physics major Ben Derby<br />
traveled to Boulder, Colorado, on<br />
a National Institute of Standards<br />
and Technology fellowship to<br />
build a Raman spectrometer<br />
to measure grapheme, a newly<br />
discovered “wonder material,”<br />
while Ben Gamache, CAS/BS ’13,<br />
went to the Spanish National<br />
Cancer Research Center on<br />
a Fulbright to study how the<br />
enzyme telomerase relates to<br />
aging and cancer.<br />
“What makes this year<br />
so special is the range<br />
of recipients we had for<br />
prestigious science awards,”<br />
says Paula Warrick, director<br />
of the office of merit awards.<br />
From the CIA to the FBI, a new master’s degree will groom students in<br />
the Department of Justice, Law and Criminology for careers fighting<br />
threats to homeland security.<br />
The School of Public Affairs (SPA) launches the master’s in terrorism<br />
and homeland security policy (american.edu/spa/protect) this fall.<br />
The program, which prepares students for careers in federal agencies<br />
and private firms, focuses on the sources of security threats and the<br />
development of domestic terrorists.<br />
The degree isn’t SPA’s only new offering. Busy practitioners can now<br />
pursue a master’s in public administration and policy online (programs.<br />
online.american.edu/mpaponline). The 36-credit program gives students<br />
a foundation in budgeting and public program evaluation.<br />
Across the quad, the School of Communication and College of Arts<br />
and Sciences are bolstering their persuasive play initiative with a<br />
new master’s in game design (american.edu/gamelab). The program,<br />
which welcomes its first cohort this fall, trains students in design and<br />
development, play theory, and engagement strategies. During their<br />
second year, students will intern at the AU Game Lab Studio, working<br />
on real-world projects for external clients.<br />
PHOTO COURTESY OF KIHO KIM<br />
MOVIN’ ON UP<br />
AU ranks No. 2 for Presidential Management Fellowship<br />
(PMF) finalists with 34—a new high. The program, which<br />
drew 7,000 applicants this year for 608 slots, grooms<br />
grad students for careers within the federal government.<br />
Last year AU was No. 3 with 19 finalists.<br />
AMERICAN DREAM<br />
SPA executive in residence Anita McBride received the Ellis Island Medal of<br />
Honor from the National Ethnic Coalition on May 10. The former chief of<br />
staff to First Lady Laura Bush—honored alongside boxer Evander Holyfield,<br />
Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA), and Wall Street reporter Maria Bartiromo—was<br />
recognized for her contributions to the Italian <strong>American</strong> community.<br />
6 AMERICAN MAGAZINE AUGUST <strong>2014</strong>
news<br />
AU has gotten one step closer to its<br />
commitment to carbon neutrality<br />
by 2020, signing an agreement with<br />
George Washington University and<br />
George Washington University<br />
Hospital to source 53 percent of its<br />
electricity from renewable power.<br />
The three institutions will buy<br />
52 megawatts of solar photovoltaic<br />
power—enough electricity to light<br />
up 8,200 homes a year—from<br />
Charlotte-based Duke Energy<br />
Renewables at a fixed rate over<br />
the next 20 years. The project<br />
will supply the partners with<br />
123 million kilowatt hours of<br />
emissions-free electricity per year,<br />
drawn from 243,000 solar panels<br />
at three sites in North Carolina.<br />
“AU is firmly on its way to<br />
achieving carbon neutrality by<br />
2020,” says President Neil Kerwin.<br />
“We are home to the largest<br />
combined solar array in D.C., are<br />
resolved to growing green power<br />
through our purchase of renewable<br />
energy certificates, and are now a<br />
partner to the largest non-utility<br />
solar energy purchase in the U.S.”<br />
The project will eliminate<br />
60,000 metric tons of carbon<br />
dioxide per year—the equivalent<br />
of plucking 12,500 cars off<br />
the road.<br />
Rising senior Caroline Brazill always knew what she wanted to be<br />
when she grew up.<br />
“There was a career fair in middle school where you had to dress<br />
up and make a poster,” recalls the Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania, native.<br />
“The girl next to me was a professional ballerina in a tutu; the girl next<br />
to her was in scrubs. And I’m over there with a pantsuit and an <strong>American</strong><br />
flag, saying I want to be a foreign service officer.”<br />
Brazill, an international studies major, and Eric Rodriguez,<br />
CAS/BA ’14, who worked for the Yakama Nation police department<br />
in Washington State before coming to AU to study anthropology,<br />
are among 59 Truman Scholars selected from a nationwide pool of<br />
655 candidates. The prestigious award, established as a memorial to<br />
33rd President Harry S. Truman, provides recipients with leadership<br />
training, internships, and up to $30,000 for graduate study leading<br />
to careers in government or the nonprofit sector.<br />
AU is one of only five institutions to have four finalists and<br />
one of only five to have two scholars. The university has produced<br />
13 Truman Scholars since 2000—including 11 over the last decade.<br />
Baseball is as <strong>American</strong> as apple<br />
pie, hot dogs, and wonks.<br />
Celebrate AU with Clawed,<br />
Screech, and your fellow Eagles<br />
during the third annual AU Night<br />
at Nationals Park, 7:05 p.m.<br />
on Friday, <strong>August</strong> 22, when the<br />
hometown sluggers take on<br />
the San Francisco Giants. AU’s<br />
female a cappella group, Treble<br />
in Paradise, will perform the<br />
national anthem.<br />
In 2012, AU entered into<br />
a strategic partnership with<br />
the Nats that includes AU<br />
advertising in the park as part<br />
of the wonk brand campaign.<br />
During AU Night, fans will<br />
go fact to fact against the<br />
university’s people in the know,<br />
including School of Public<br />
Affairs professors Anita<br />
McBride, Jennifer Lawless, and<br />
Connie Morella and the College<br />
of Arts and Sciences’s U. J. Sofia,<br />
who’ll be featured in wonk<br />
challenges on the Jumbotron.<br />
The Washington-centric<br />
quizzes will focus on White<br />
House history, D.C. geography,<br />
baseball trivia, and more. Events<br />
also include a pre-game picnic<br />
overlooking right field and<br />
T-shirt giveaways.<br />
The AU community can<br />
enjoy discounted Nats tickets<br />
all season long. Visit nationals.<br />
com/wonk and use the coupon<br />
code “wonk.”<br />
SUPREME IN COURT<br />
The AU mock trial team enjoyed its best season yet, placing fourth in<br />
its division and eighth in the country at the national championships<br />
in April. More than 650 teams from 330 colleges competed at the<br />
Orlando tourney. Rising senior Iain Phillips also earned outstanding<br />
witness honors.<br />
STRENGTH OF (140) CHARACTERS<br />
#<strong>American</strong>U is the seventh most influential college on Twitter, according<br />
to CollegeAtlas.com. AU scored points for using social media to highlight<br />
academic achievements and for being an early adopter. (AU joined the<br />
Twittersphere in 2009 and now has more than 21,000 followers.)<br />
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 7
international<br />
AU ALUMNI CURRENTLY<br />
IN PEACE CORPS SERVICE<br />
PRODUCER OF PEACE CORPS<br />
VOLUNTEERS AMONG<br />
MEDIUM-SIZE SCHOOLS<br />
AU VOLUNTEERS IN MORE<br />
THAN 100 COUNTRIES<br />
SINCE 1961 (SEE MAP)<br />
OVERALL FOR MASTER’S<br />
INTERNATIONAL (NO. 10) AND<br />
COVERDELL FELLOWS (NO. 9)<br />
PROGRAMS<br />
MEG FOWLER ’12 KNEW<br />
SHE WANTED TO JOIN THE<br />
PEACE CORPS after graduating<br />
with a dual major in international<br />
studies and economics. She packed<br />
off for Morocco, where she teaches<br />
high school students how to succeed<br />
in business, plant a community<br />
garden, and speak English.<br />
Ukraine volunteer Shelby Lane<br />
taught English, launched a<br />
newspaper for young readers, and<br />
ran workshops on topics from HIV/AIDS<br />
awareness to the environment. That<br />
experience and a Coverdell fellowship<br />
led her to AU to pursue dual master’s<br />
degrees in international peace and<br />
conflict resolution and secondary<br />
education while leading the AU Peace<br />
Corps Community and Creative Peace<br />
Initiatives and volunteering with Little<br />
Friends for Peace.<br />
What do they have in common? An<br />
urge to serve and an AU connection.<br />
AU and the Peace Corps go back,<br />
all the way to 1961, when the first<br />
groups of volunteers took off for<br />
postings in places like Pakistan and<br />
the Philippines. Back in the day the<br />
connection was simple and straight on:<br />
You go to college. You graduate. You<br />
join the Peace Corps.<br />
Bringing It Home<br />
Today, says Stephen Angelsmith,<br />
director of Peace Corps programs at<br />
AU’s School of International Service,<br />
the partnership has many moving<br />
parts, keeping students engaged in<br />
a cycle of service made possible by<br />
two Peace Corps–associated graduate<br />
programs: the Master’s International<br />
(MI) and the Paul D. Coverdell Fellows.<br />
MI students spend a year in the<br />
classroom and two years in the Peace<br />
Corps, for credit, after which they<br />
return to campus to complete their<br />
graduate work. Coverdell fellows—<br />
all returned Peace Corps volunteers<br />
(RPCVs)—receive scholarships for<br />
graduate studies that include an<br />
internship in an underserved U.S.<br />
community, an opportunity to teach<br />
<strong>American</strong>s about the world beyond<br />
our borders.<br />
RPCVs may donate memorabilia to<br />
the Peace Corps Community Archive,<br />
a repository of living history curated<br />
by the AU library.<br />
“I’ve realized how important it is to<br />
be a role model,” says Lane. “I believe<br />
in and enjoy service, and have seen<br />
the power it has to inspire change.”<br />
8 AMERICAN MAGAZINE AUGUST <strong>2014</strong>
mastery<br />
Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers: The Story of<br />
Success offers a formula for success—being born<br />
at the right place and time and investing at least<br />
10,000 hours in pursuit of your goal. For some, that<br />
goal emerges at an early age, and for others, like<br />
Kogod School of Business professor Casey Evans,<br />
it requires more exploration. Evans, 35, came to<br />
Washington to fight crime (“21 Jump Street was<br />
my favorite show growing up,” she recalls). After<br />
discovering an aptitude and affinity for numbers,<br />
however, she opted for a different sort of law<br />
enforcement career: chasing down white-collar<br />
criminals, calculator and spreadsheets in hand.<br />
Helped lead the FTI team<br />
investigating Bernard L.<br />
Madoff Investment<br />
Securities, one of the largest<br />
investor frauds in <strong>American</strong><br />
history. Working alongside<br />
the FBI, “WE PIECED<br />
TOGETHER THE STORY<br />
USING DATA AND<br />
DOCUMENTS AS OUR<br />
STARTING POINT.”<br />
Appointed Kogod<br />
executive in residence.<br />
“TEACHING WAS<br />
ALWAYS MY LONG-<br />
TERM GOAL.” The<br />
timing was serendipitous:<br />
The job came along just as<br />
the Madoff investigation<br />
was wrapping up.<br />
Son Oliver was born.<br />
Voted Kogod undergrad<br />
professor of the year<br />
by students.<br />
ILLUSTRATION BY PETER HOEY<br />
After settling on a Florida<br />
university, the Orlando<br />
resident was accepted<br />
to AU. The allure of D.C.<br />
proved too powerful to<br />
resist. “I WENT FROM<br />
WANTING TO BE A<br />
POLICE OFFICER TO<br />
AN FBI AGENT.”<br />
Switched majors from<br />
justice, law and society<br />
to accounting after<br />
taking Principles of<br />
Financial Accounting<br />
over the summer.<br />
“THE LANGUAGE<br />
OF BUSINESS<br />
RESONATED WITH<br />
ME LIKE NOTHING<br />
ELSE HAD.” Since AU<br />
didn’t yet have a forensic<br />
accounting track, took<br />
classes that would prepare<br />
her to investigate fraud<br />
and financial irregularities.<br />
Tutored other accounting<br />
students.<br />
Sat for the CPA after<br />
five months of intensive<br />
study. “I WOULD DO<br />
FLASH CARDS AT<br />
STOPLIGHTS ON<br />
MY WAY TO WORK.”<br />
Licensed in 2003.<br />
Earned a master’s in<br />
accounting from Kogod.<br />
Accepted an auditing job<br />
with Arthur Andersen.<br />
Graduated from the<br />
Kogod School of<br />
Business. Immediately<br />
jumped into the master’s<br />
program in order to sit<br />
for the Certified Public<br />
Accountant (CPA) exam,<br />
which requires 150 credit<br />
hours of course work.<br />
Interned at Arthur Andersen<br />
in Tysons Corner—at the<br />
time, one of the “big five”<br />
accounting firms.<br />
Left Arthur Andersen in<br />
the wake of the Enron<br />
scandal. “MY GROUP<br />
WAS ACQUIRED<br />
BY NAVIGANT<br />
CONSULTING, BUT<br />
I DECIDED TO<br />
START FRESH.”<br />
Moved to Knoxville with<br />
boyfriend Le Evans, whom<br />
she met at AU in 1996 and<br />
who was accepted to law<br />
school at the University<br />
of Tennessee. Took a<br />
staff accountant job at<br />
McWilliams and Company<br />
doing audit and tax work.<br />
Earned the Certified Fraud<br />
Examiner (CFE) credential.<br />
Transferred to McWilliams’<br />
litigation consulting group<br />
and worked on first fraud<br />
investigation. Combed<br />
through a dentist office’s<br />
financials to discover the<br />
secretary had embezzled<br />
$150,000.<br />
Married Le.<br />
Joined FTI Consulting’s<br />
forensic and litigation<br />
consulting practice in D.C.<br />
Specialized in forensic<br />
accounting and fraud<br />
investigations generated<br />
by the Securities and<br />
Exchange Commission and<br />
Department of Justice.<br />
Returned to Kogod as an<br />
adjunct professor, first<br />
teaching Principles of<br />
Financial Accounting—the<br />
same class she took nine<br />
years earlier. Also teamtaught<br />
Kogod’s first Forensic<br />
Accounting course before<br />
taking it over in 2008.<br />
Returned to D.C. Accepted<br />
a senior forensic<br />
accountant position at<br />
Dubinsky and Company<br />
in Bethesda, where she<br />
provided litigation support<br />
services in civil and<br />
criminal fraud cases.<br />
Created advanced forensic<br />
accounting class for grad<br />
students. Helped develop<br />
a graduate certificate<br />
in forensic accounting.<br />
Kogod’s program is unique:<br />
“OUR CUTTING-<br />
EDGE CURRICULUM<br />
GIVES STUDENTS<br />
SKILLS TO WORK<br />
IN THIS EXCITING<br />
FIELD.” Twenty students<br />
are already working toward<br />
the 12-credit certificate.<br />
Appointed program<br />
director of Kogod’s<br />
master’s in accounting<br />
program.<br />
Received university-wide<br />
award for outstanding<br />
teaching in a term<br />
appointment.<br />
Voted Kogod undergrad<br />
professor of the year<br />
again by students.<br />
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 9
play<br />
ON THE HEELS OF A<br />
BANNER YEAR that saw<br />
three AU teams capture Patriot<br />
League titles and the men’s<br />
basketball and women’s volleyball<br />
teams captivate the campus, not<br />
even the conclusion of on-thefield<br />
play could stop the Eagles<br />
from picking up victories. In<br />
June, Alexis Dobbs was<br />
nominated by the Patriot League<br />
for the <strong>2014</strong> NCAA Woman of the<br />
Year Award, and Darius “Pee<br />
Wee” Gardner was named the<br />
2013–14 Patriot League<br />
Sportsmanship Award winner.<br />
“This year we built some<br />
momentum in the fall with field<br />
hockey, and then volleyball had<br />
a spectacular season,” says Billy<br />
Walker, director of athletics and<br />
recreation. “The new coaches<br />
in both basketball programs got<br />
people excited. The way the<br />
women started out, and when<br />
the men got into league play,<br />
everybody got pretty fired up.”<br />
That’s an understatement.<br />
Throughout the year, more than<br />
3,500 alumni—the most ever—<br />
attended athletics-sponsored<br />
events held from San Francisco<br />
to Milwaukee, where the men’s<br />
basketball team played in the<br />
NCAA Tournament, to New York.<br />
The Blue Crew student group has<br />
more than 3,000 members, also its<br />
high-water mark.<br />
“We want to do whatever we<br />
can do to make people feel like<br />
they’re part of the family,” says<br />
Walker, who came to AU from<br />
the U.S. Air Force Academy in<br />
February 2013.<br />
In November, the field<br />
hockey team shut out Boston<br />
University to capture its<br />
ninth Patriot League<br />
crown. A conferencebest<br />
18 players<br />
were named to the<br />
Patriot League Academic Honor<br />
Roll. The volleyball team also<br />
won a conference championship,<br />
then proceeded to shock Georgia<br />
and Duke in the NCAAs.<br />
Winter saw the women’s<br />
basketball team, under the<br />
direction of first-year coach<br />
Megan Gebbia, earn a postseason<br />
tournament at-large berth for the<br />
first time. When the men’s team,<br />
led by first-year coach Mike<br />
Brennan, beat BU in Beantown<br />
to win the Patriot League title,<br />
students, faculty, and alumni<br />
who didn’t make the trip to<br />
Wisconsin were glued to their<br />
TVs watching the Eagles in the<br />
NCAA’s Big Dance.<br />
Throughout the year, more than 3,500<br />
alumni—the most ever—attended<br />
athletics-sponsored events held from<br />
San Francisco to Milwaukee.<br />
“Our diverse campus is a<br />
wonderful thing,” says David<br />
Bierwirth, associate athletics<br />
director. “One thing that<br />
can bring everyone together<br />
is athletics.”<br />
After the seasons, nine<br />
women’s basketball players and<br />
five men were named to the<br />
Patriot League Academic Honor<br />
Roll. Men’s swimming and diving<br />
and women’s soccer earned<br />
NCAA awards for posting perfect<br />
academic progress rates in<br />
2012–13. It all made for a sweet<br />
rookie season for first-year<br />
AD Walker.<br />
“I want to make sure<br />
our athletes succeed in the<br />
classroom, compete on the field,<br />
are active in the community, and<br />
I want to make sure we’re having<br />
fun,” he says.<br />
Four out of four ain’t bad.<br />
TWITTER CHAMPS<br />
VLAD MOST VALUABLE<br />
Fans took to Twitter to show their love for AU field hockey, choosing<br />
the squad as the Patriot League Women’s Team of the Year. Using<br />
designated hashtags, fans cast their votes over 24 hours. The Eagles<br />
beat out six other squads to earn the honor.<br />
Former men’s basketball standout Vlad Moldoveanu ’11 capped his third professional season<br />
overseas by leading his squad, Kalev/Cramo, to a sweep of the Estonia KML Finals, earning<br />
most valuable player honors during the playoffs. In the title-clinching game, Moldoveanu<br />
registered a double-double, scoring 19 points and grabbing 11 rebounds.<br />
10 AMERICAN MAGAZINE AUGUST <strong>2014</strong>
news<br />
PHOTO: COURTESY OF ANDREW ST. GEORGE PAPERS, MANUSCRIPTS AND ARCHIVES, YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY; DOCUMENT: COURTESY OF CARTER LIBRARY<br />
For two countries that officially<br />
share no diplomatic relations, the<br />
U.S. and Cuba sure like talking to<br />
each other.<br />
In the forthcoming book, Back<br />
Channel to Cuba: The Hidden<br />
History of Negotiations between<br />
Washington and Havana, School of<br />
Public Affairs professor William<br />
LeoGrande and his co-author,<br />
Peter Kornbluh, unveil the<br />
successes and failures of these<br />
often secretive meetings, and<br />
suggest 10 lessons for <strong>American</strong>s<br />
who will consider how to engage<br />
with Cuba in the future.<br />
The authors visited Cuba about<br />
a dozen times over the course<br />
of the 10 years they spent on the<br />
project. They combed through<br />
declassified<br />
documents,<br />
obtained<br />
others<br />
through<br />
Freedom<br />
of Information requests, and<br />
interviewed dozens of key players<br />
involved in the talks, including<br />
Fidel Castro, former president<br />
Jimmy Carter, and his national<br />
security advisor, Zbigniew<br />
Brzezinski.<br />
“One of the things that makes<br />
this book unique is that we have<br />
accounts of these negotiations<br />
from the people who sat across<br />
the table from one another,”<br />
LeoGrande says. “Not surprisingly,<br />
they sometimes saw<br />
U.S. Ambassador Philip W. Bonsal met Fidel Castro for the first time in 1959<br />
outside Havana. Top: A 1977 presidential directive signed by Jimmy Carter<br />
instructs the U.S. to work toward normalization with Cuba.<br />
what was happening<br />
very differently.”<br />
Every presidential<br />
administration since<br />
Eisenhower has held<br />
some form of talks with<br />
Cuba. In 1978, when<br />
U.S.-Cuban relations<br />
were strained because<br />
of Cuba’s involvement<br />
in conflicts in Angola<br />
and Ethiopia, a series<br />
of secret negotiations known to<br />
only a handful of people in the<br />
U.S. government were held in<br />
Washington, New York, Atlanta,<br />
Mexico, and Havana. The Reagan<br />
administration dealt with the<br />
Cubans on migration, as did the<br />
Clinton administration in 1995.<br />
Those talks were so secretive that<br />
not even the State Department<br />
officials responsible for Cuba<br />
knew about them.<br />
Among the results of those<br />
negotiations was a provision<br />
calling for official talks between<br />
the two countries twice a year.<br />
Both nations now use them to<br />
discuss migration and other issues.<br />
“The two sides have to listen<br />
carefully to one another, because<br />
sometimes they talk in code and<br />
it’s easy for them to misunderstand<br />
each other,” LeoGrande says.<br />
“What the Cubans want more<br />
than anything is to be treated with<br />
respect, as a coequal sovereign<br />
country. That’s one of the hardest<br />
things for the United States to do,<br />
because we’re so much bigger,<br />
we’re so much more powerful,<br />
and they’ve defied us for so long.”<br />
What happens to college graduates<br />
after they leave campus? What<br />
is the value of their college degree?<br />
Is it worth the investment?<br />
Thanks to its graduate census<br />
data, <strong>American</strong> University is<br />
uniquely positioned to know.<br />
In September a new website<br />
(american.edu/knowsuccess) will<br />
enable anyone to discover where<br />
AU graduates are working and<br />
their salary range. No other<br />
school of AU’s size (or larger) is<br />
accumulating data in such a manner.<br />
An impressive 81 percent<br />
of graduates from the Class of<br />
2012 responded to the survey,<br />
which showed that nine out of 10<br />
undergrads were employed, enrolled<br />
in graduate school, or both within<br />
six months of graduation. Ninetytwo<br />
percent of new undergrads work<br />
in a position related to their degree<br />
or career objective. About half work<br />
for private companies, and more<br />
than a quarter work for nonprofits.<br />
Eighty-seven percent of master’s<br />
graduates were working within six<br />
months of earning their diploma,<br />
and almost half of those secured<br />
jobs prior to graduating.<br />
Furthermore, AU is drilling<br />
down to degree level, so visitors<br />
to the site can see where graduates<br />
are working, in what capacity, how<br />
much they make, or where they’re<br />
going to grad school. The site<br />
also will feature videos and stories<br />
about graduates and their paths<br />
to success.<br />
DIVE INTO THE THINK TANK<br />
Jennifer Lawless, director of SPA’s Women<br />
and Politics Institute, has joined more<br />
than 300 policy experts at the Brookings<br />
Institution. The Governance Studies fellow<br />
will examine gender and youth issues.<br />
MADE IN THE USA<br />
The Ford F-Series pickup and the Chevrolet<br />
Corvette take the checkered flag in Kogod’s <strong>2014</strong> Made in America<br />
Auto Index (scoring 87.5 out of 100). Professor Frank DuBois maintains the<br />
index, which considers production factors overlooked by other indices.<br />
The Buick Enclave, Chevy Traverse, and GMC Acadia round out the top five.<br />
BUSY BODIES, SHARP MINDS<br />
As physical education minutes increase, so do test scores.<br />
Stacey Snelling led a CAS team analyzing the impact of D.C.’s<br />
Healthy Schools Act, enacted in 2010 to reduce obesity. They<br />
found kids who got more physical activity performed better<br />
on the D.C. Comprehensive Assessment System.<br />
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 11
BY ADRIENNE FRANK<br />
Did you know that D.C. boasts one lawyer for every 12 residents or that<br />
more wine is consumed in the District—26 liters per person, per year—than<br />
any U.S. state?<br />
Did you know that the average annual rainfall for Washington is three<br />
inches more than that of Seattle? (The difference: it drizzles in the Emerald<br />
City and pours in the Capital City.) And did you know—despite D.C.’s<br />
infamously muggy summers—that the city wasn’t built on a swamp?<br />
Washington is home to 646,449 people, more than the populations of<br />
Wyoming and Vermont, and more Labrador retrievers than any other breed.<br />
Seventeen million tourists per year clog the sidewalks; 106 miles of Metrorail<br />
track crisscross the city; and 167,000 seats dot four sports venues.<br />
This great city and its suburbs are also home base for more than 40<br />
percent of AU alumni, which means the trivia below will come in handy<br />
at your next cocktail party—where wine will undoubtedly be served.<br />
Statue of limitations<br />
Heard of the “hoof code”—the legend<br />
that the number of hooves in the air on<br />
equestrian statues indicates how the rider<br />
died? Well, it’s a bunch of horse hooey. Of<br />
the 30 equestrian statues in Washington,<br />
only 10 follow the code (one hoof raised,<br />
rider was wounded; two hoofs raised,<br />
rider died; all hoofs on the ground, rider<br />
was unharmed).<br />
A sticky situation<br />
While it’s true that D.C. is the third worst<br />
city in America for mosquitoes (according<br />
to a 2013 report from pest control<br />
company Orkin), the Federal City wasn’t<br />
built on a swamp. When architect Pierre<br />
L’Enfant surveyed the city 200 years<br />
ago, he did discover wetlands near the<br />
rivers—however the majority of presentday<br />
D.C. was crop land, wooded slopes,<br />
and bluffs. In fact, historian Don Hawkins<br />
estimates that swamp lands covered only<br />
about 1 percent of the total area L’Enfant<br />
was tasked with designing. You can chalk<br />
up the muggy, swamp-like summers to<br />
Washington’s humid subtropical climate.<br />
Record highs<br />
Red Line to the record book: Washingtonians<br />
needn’t travel far to traverse the longest<br />
set of single-span escalators in the Western<br />
Hemisphere. The Wheaton Metro station’s<br />
escalators are 230 feet long, with a vertical<br />
rise of 115 feet. From platform to street level,<br />
the trip takes 2 minutes and 45 seconds—<br />
longer, of course, if the escalator is out<br />
of service.<br />
Ward’s last stand<br />
Although AU students have feted their<br />
neighbor, Artemas Ward, with barbecues,<br />
concerts, and game shows, the<br />
Massachusetts general wasn’t always<br />
so welcome on Mass Ave. Members of<br />
the AU community and the surrounding<br />
neighborhood objected to Ward’s<br />
representation of military power—a<br />
distasteful image in the pacifist era of the<br />
1930s, when the statue was erected. The<br />
Revolutionary War general wasn’t wellknown<br />
in D.C., causing the Eagle editor to<br />
write in 1937, “At least so little is known<br />
about the man that his statue can have no<br />
evil effects on the minds of the young.”<br />
Can you spare a hand?<br />
Even sculptor Felix de Weldon, the artist<br />
behind the Marine Corps War Memorial,<br />
disputes the long-held myth that the statue,<br />
based on Joe Rosenthal’s iconic, Pulitzer<br />
Prize–winning photograph, Raising the Flag<br />
on Iwo Jima, features a 13th hand among the<br />
jumble of mitts gripping the flagpole. (Some<br />
speculate the extra hand symbolizes the<br />
hand of God—or the Corps.) “Who needed<br />
13 hands? Twelve were enough,” said the<br />
exasperated artist.<br />
A tall tale<br />
When it was completed in 1883, the<br />
Washington Monument was the tallest<br />
structure in the world, but it was eclipsed<br />
by the Eiffel Tower six years later. At<br />
555 feet, it’s the tallest structure in D.C.<br />
but not the highest point (Washington<br />
National Cathedral, while only 301 feet<br />
tall, is perched on a hill, 676 feet above<br />
sea level). Despite popular belief, there’s<br />
no law that prohibits structures taller<br />
than the Washington Monument. While<br />
an 1899 cap was based on the height of<br />
the Capitol dome (289 feet), the Height of<br />
Buildings Act was amended in 1910 to limit<br />
a building’s height to 20 feet more than the<br />
width of the street that it faces—stunting<br />
the District’s skyline at about 13 stories.<br />
Monumental myth<br />
The Washington Monument, the<br />
tallest all-stone structure in<br />
the world (and the tallest<br />
obelisk), is two different<br />
colors—not because<br />
of a great flood but because the Civil War<br />
caused an 18-year construction delay. When<br />
construction commenced, stone from the<br />
original quarry was no longer available.<br />
The dark side<br />
A grotesque of Darth Vader looms over<br />
the most unlikely of places. Washington<br />
National Cathedral held a decorative<br />
sculpture competition for children in<br />
the 1980s, in the midst of construction<br />
on the west towers. Nebraska native<br />
Christopher Rader took home third place<br />
with a drawing of the Star Wars villain<br />
who was to kids in 1983 what Frozen’s<br />
Elsa is to youngsters today. Sculpted by<br />
Jay Hall Carpenter, Darth Vader is located<br />
on the east face of the cathedral’s<br />
northwest tower along with other<br />
winning entries: a raccoon, a<br />
girl with ponytails and braces,<br />
and a man with an umbrella.<br />
That’s what<br />
autocorrect<br />
is for<br />
An engraver inadvertently<br />
carved an “E” instead of an “F”<br />
in Honest Abe’s second inaugural<br />
address, depicted on the Lincoln<br />
Memorial’s north wall. The typo<br />
was fixed by filling in a portion<br />
of the letter.<br />
12 AMERICAN MAGAZINE AUGUST <strong>2014</strong>
Face that launched<br />
a thousand myths<br />
Rumor has it that Daniel Chester French—<br />
a starving, Depression-era sculptor and<br />
Confederate sympathizer—carved Robert<br />
E. Lee’s face onto the back of Abraham<br />
Lincoln’s statue. Thousands of visitors<br />
to the Lincoln Memorial claim to see Lee,<br />
looking across the Potomac to his old<br />
home, Arlington House. But much like<br />
Virgin Mary sightings in toast, there’s no<br />
truth to this one. The “face” is nothing<br />
more than the viewer’s interpretation<br />
of Lincoln’s hair.<br />
Site selection<br />
How the hulking Treasury Building, the<br />
third oldest federal structure in the city,<br />
came to sit on 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue<br />
is the subject of much speculation. Some<br />
theorize that President Andrew Jackson,<br />
whose relations with Congress were rocky,<br />
selected a swath of land immediately east<br />
of the White House so he couldn’t see the<br />
Capitol out his window. Others say Jackson<br />
was out walking with his aides when the<br />
hotly debated locale of the new Treasury<br />
Building came up. Angry, he slammed<br />
down his walking cane and ordered, “Put it<br />
here!” Unfortunately, the truth is far less<br />
interesting: the building was erected on<br />
what was cheap government land.<br />
Cracking the code<br />
Sculptor James Sanborn’s “Kryptos,”<br />
a 10-foot-tall copper installation that<br />
resembles paper emerging from a printer,<br />
has been teasing brains at the CIA’s<br />
Langley headquarters for 24 years. The<br />
sculpture—named for the Greek word for<br />
“hidden”—features an 865-character code.<br />
Three of the four encrypted messages,<br />
which include all 26 letters of the standard<br />
Latin alphabet, have been decoded (it took<br />
a CIA analyst eight years to crack the first<br />
three sections), but the fourth remains<br />
one of the most famous unsolved codes in<br />
the world. A Yahoo! Group with more than<br />
2,000 active members has been trying to<br />
solve the riddle for more than a decade—<br />
but if the spies can’t solve it, is there<br />
any hope for the rest of us?<br />
Street surrender<br />
H, I, K, L: what about J? The omission<br />
of J Street on the downtown grid has<br />
puzzled Washingtonians and tourists alike<br />
for generations. Many believe the city’s<br />
architect, Pierre L’Enfant, held a grudge<br />
against the first Supreme Court justice,<br />
John Jay, and thus wiped J Street from<br />
the map. (L’Enfant was reportedly irked<br />
about the controversial Treaty of Amity,<br />
Commerce, and Navigation—otherwise<br />
known as the Jay Treaty—which was seen<br />
as more favorable to Brits than <strong>American</strong>s.)<br />
The truth? The letters “I” and “J” were<br />
often indistinguishable, especially when<br />
handwritten. (Fun fact: Thomas Jefferson<br />
marked all his possessions with the initials<br />
“T. I.”) Having both I and J Streets would’ve<br />
been redundant and confusing.<br />
Lobbying for answers<br />
Ulysses S. Grant might have referred to<br />
the hangers-on who hounded him for<br />
favors and jobs in the lobby of the Willard<br />
as “those damn lobbyists,” but the 18th<br />
president, who frequented the downtown<br />
hotel for cigars and brandy, didn’t coin the<br />
term. It can be traced back to seventeenthcentury<br />
England and the lobbies in the<br />
House of Commons, where powerbrokers<br />
mingled with the public. The verb “to<br />
lobby” appeared in print in the United<br />
States in the 1830s—three decades before<br />
Grant took office. (That’s not to deny the<br />
Willard’s storied history: Martin Luther King<br />
Jr. penned his “I Have a Dream” speech<br />
there, and Abraham Lincoln stayed in the<br />
hotel on the eve of his inauguration.)<br />
CHECK OUT THE NOVEMBER<br />
ISSUE OF AMERICAN FOR MORE D.C.<br />
TRIVIA AND THE CHANCE TO WIN YOUR<br />
OWN PRESIDENTIAL BOBBLEHEAD.
syllabus<br />
INTERNATIONAL<br />
SERVICE 419<br />
Conflict Cuisine<br />
The best way to win hearts and minds<br />
might be through the stomach.<br />
Last semester, 19 School of<br />
International Service students<br />
whet their intellectual appetites<br />
with a first-of-its-kind course on<br />
gastrodiplomacy: the use of food<br />
to foster cultural understanding.<br />
The undergrads munched their way<br />
across D.C. to learn how conflicts in<br />
Vietnam, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, and<br />
El Salvador influenced local cuisine<br />
and the diaspora who prepare it.<br />
“Sitting around the table with<br />
the chef . . . who can explain the<br />
history of a cuisine or a specific<br />
regional dish is an invaluable way to<br />
understand the course of a nation’s<br />
history,” says scholar in residence<br />
Johanna Mendelson-Forman.<br />
SIS students aren’t the only<br />
ones taking a bite out of<br />
gastrodiplomacy. In 2012, former<br />
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton<br />
organized a corps of 80 chef<br />
ambassadors who travel abroad<br />
on public diplomacy missions.<br />
Next course<br />
HEALTH AND FITNESS 535<br />
Global Nutrition<br />
On students’ plates: a survey of<br />
the nutrition-related aspects of<br />
infectious and chronic diseases<br />
in developing countries.<br />
MANAGEMENT 596<br />
The Business of Water<br />
Kogod students are lapping up this<br />
class about the $450 billion water<br />
industry. Topics include regulation<br />
and sustainability.<br />
14 AMERICAN MAGAZINE AUGUST <strong>2014</strong>
wonk<br />
Q. Why is it important that humankind continue<br />
space exploration?<br />
A. We don’t exist on the surface of the Earth anymore.<br />
We exist from the surface of the Earth about 25,000 miles<br />
out in geosynchronous orbit.<br />
We keep our weather satellites and our communication,<br />
global positioning, and navigation systems in space. It’s as<br />
much a part of our existence as going to Chicago, only with<br />
Chicago you travel across the globe, and with space you go up.<br />
Space exploration is important for commercial reasons,<br />
for scientific reasons, for national security, and for national<br />
prestige. We’d also like to diversify humanity onto more than<br />
one orb.<br />
The big move for NASA right now is public-private<br />
partnerships. NASA has tried since 1972 to reduce the cost<br />
of space access and they haven’t yet been successful. The<br />
new technique is to farm it out to entrepreneurs like Elon<br />
Musk and Richard Branson. SpaceX has already successfully<br />
docked cargo carriers with the International Space Station.<br />
Out of that hopefully will come technological<br />
breakthroughs that conquer the money barrier in space.<br />
It costs about $10,000 to launch a pound of material into<br />
space—we need to be able to move large structures into space<br />
less expensively.<br />
The prestige of the space program is still terribly<br />
important in the geopolitical forum. A great nation, a great<br />
economy, it is thought, has to be a space-faring nation. You<br />
can see this in China, Russia, and other nations that are<br />
coming up like Brazil and Thailand. One of the amazing<br />
things about the Air Malaysia loss is that it caused a lot of<br />
nations that you didn’t think had space assets to reveal them.<br />
It’s a club, and if you’re going to be a major world power,<br />
you want to be a leader in the club.<br />
HOWARD MCCURDY<br />
School of Public Affairs professor and winner of the <strong>American</strong><br />
Astronautical Society’s 2013 John F. Kennedy Astronautics Award<br />
“Public interest in<br />
space exploration has<br />
been fairly constant<br />
since the Apollo years:<br />
30 to 40 percent of<br />
the population favors<br />
space exploration and<br />
an aggressive space<br />
program. It’s a sizable<br />
enough block to keep<br />
the government<br />
program for civil<br />
space alive at about<br />
$17 billion a year.<br />
Military spending for<br />
space is even greater<br />
than that.”<br />
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 15
WORK-Sarah McElveen,<br />
WCL/JD ’04<br />
Attorney, Wade, Friedman and<br />
Sutter, P.C., Washington Street<br />
between Wythe and Pendleton<br />
Streets, and president,<br />
Alexandria Bar Association<br />
WORK-Breanna Bock-Nielsen,<br />
BA/SPA ’10, MS/SPA ’12<br />
Director of government affairs,<br />
National Sheriffs’ Association,<br />
Duke Street between Peyton<br />
and West Streets<br />
WORK-Elliot Bell-Krasner,<br />
SPA/MPP ’12<br />
Youngest-ever member of the<br />
Historic Alexandria Resources<br />
Commission, which meets monthly<br />
at the Lloyd House, Washington<br />
and Queen Streets
An urban playground. A laboratory for learning. A professional hub.<br />
A vibrant collection of neighborhoods—and neighbors. Washington’s<br />
got it all. And for our alumni, students, and faculty, Metro is their<br />
ticket to ride, connect, and explore AU’s backyard.<br />
Which Metro stop is the center of your world? Share your story: magazine@american.edu.<br />
WORK-<br />
Simone Echeverri-Gent,<br />
CAS/BA ’08<br />
Director of strategic<br />
alliances, Entrepreneurs’<br />
Organization, Montgomery<br />
Street between<br />
Pitt and St. Asaph Streets<br />
CHRONICLE-Michael Pope,<br />
WAMU 88.5 reporter<br />
Old Town resident and author,<br />
Hidden History of Alexandria and<br />
Ghosts of Alexandria<br />
LET’S TALK #AMERICANMAG 17
ART BY TREVOR BLAKE, DENNIS FLEMING, AND KERRY O’LEARY<br />
WASHINGTON COLLEGE OF LAW<br />
ALUMNI WHITNEY LOUCHHEIM<br />
AND PENELOPE SPAIN HELP<br />
INCARCERATED D.C. YOUTH<br />
REWRITE THEIR FUTURES<br />
DEALERS, DOPERS, DROPOUTS, DELINQUENTS.<br />
They wear the labels given them by teachers,<br />
peers, family, and society, which has turned<br />
its back on them—or never had much hope<br />
for them to begin with. Trouble finds them,<br />
or they find trouble, and they’re plucked off<br />
the streets to spend six months, maybe 12 or<br />
18, in the District’s optimistically named New<br />
Beginnings, a $46 million juvenile detention<br />
center tucked away in Laurel, Maryland.<br />
But to Whitney Louchheim, WCL/JD ’05,<br />
and Penelope Spain, WCL/JD ’05, these thieves<br />
and thugs, corner boys and bangers, are more<br />
than the sum of their rap sheets. These young<br />
men, nearly all of them D.C. born and raised,<br />
are children deprived of a childhood, troubled<br />
souls in need of an advocate, a confidante, a<br />
mentor, a North Star.<br />
SPAIN AND LOUCHHEIM WEAR LABELS OF<br />
THEIR OWN: do-gooders, bleeding hearts,<br />
idealists. But just like the juvenile offenders<br />
with whom they work at Mentoring Today, the<br />
nonprofit they founded in 2005, they aren’t so<br />
easily categorized.<br />
“One of the kids once said, ‘Y’all are like<br />
goldfish that bite,’” laughs Louchheim, 35.<br />
“They look friendly enough, but don’t mess<br />
with them.”<br />
In truth, the pair are idealists. Like<br />
generations of <strong>American</strong> University students<br />
before them and waves still to come, Spain and<br />
Louchheim came to Washington in fall 2002<br />
“to make a difference.”<br />
“We just needed to define it,” recalls<br />
Spain, 38.<br />
A native of Napa, California—a community<br />
of vineyard owners and the migrant workers<br />
who labor in their fields—Spain’s family<br />
constantly teetered on the poverty line. She<br />
met Louchheim, who came from a liberal,<br />
human rights–focused family in Gettysburg,<br />
Pennsylvania, during their first day of<br />
orientation at the Washington College of Law<br />
(WCL). The women chatted for hours after<br />
their serendipitous meeting, swapping stories<br />
about their childhoods, their spirituality, and<br />
their desire to use their law degrees for good—<br />
whatever that might look like.<br />
A budding interest in juvenile justice<br />
solidified their bond.<br />
“The summer after my first year of law<br />
school, I shadowed a public defender at Oak<br />
Hill Youth Center and was blown away by<br />
the conditions,” says Spain of the violent,<br />
crumbling facility, which preceded New<br />
Beginnings. “It broke my heart that we were<br />
treating kids like this in America.”<br />
Struck by the shortcomings of the juvenile<br />
justice system—the rats and roaches that<br />
roamed Oak Hill, the mountains of case files<br />
that littered social workers’ desks, the racial<br />
disparity among D.C.’s juvenile offenders—she<br />
knew she’d found her calling.<br />
In fall 2003, Spain and Louchheim,<br />
who clerked for a magistrate judge in D.C.<br />
Superior Court’s child abuse and neglect<br />
division, founded Students United, pairing<br />
WCL student mentors with 16- to 21-yearold<br />
inmates at Oak Hill. The goal: to help<br />
the young men successfully reintegrate into<br />
their neighborhoods and empower them to<br />
become productive members of society. Today,<br />
Mentoring Today draws its corps of volunteers<br />
exclusively from Students United. (Over the<br />
last nine years, Mentoring Today has matched<br />
58 mentors with 64 mentees.)<br />
“I remember we were walking the halls of<br />
Oak Hill one day [as law students], watching<br />
the mentors and mentees work together, and I<br />
said to Whitney, ‘Wouldn’t it be amazing if this<br />
was our job?’” says Spain.<br />
The goldfish finally had something to sink<br />
their teeth in.<br />
ACCORDING TO A 2010 REPORT by the federal<br />
Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency<br />
Prevention, 67 percent of incarcerated youth<br />
(roughly 70,000 kids nationwide) reported<br />
having witnessed someone severely injured<br />
or killed. Twenty-two percent had attempted<br />
suicide, and 30 percent (five times the rate for<br />
all kids) had dabbled with crack or cocaine.<br />
Locally, 70 percent of the approximately<br />
1,000 juveniles arrested annually in the<br />
District grew up east of the Anacostia River<br />
in Wards 5, 7, and 8—communities marred by<br />
poverty, high unemployment, and dismal high<br />
school graduation rates. Fifty to 80 percent<br />
of the young men who churn through New<br />
Beginnings, which opened in 2009, have<br />
also cycled in and out of Washington’s child<br />
abuse and neglect system. Some are homeless;<br />
many wrestle with mental health issues, drug<br />
problems, or post traumatic stress disorder.<br />
Nearly all come from fatherless homes.<br />
Given the complexity of the juveniles’<br />
issues, the first rule Spain and Louchheim<br />
share with Mentoring Today volunteers is a<br />
surprisingly simple one: show up.<br />
“ONE OF THE KIDS<br />
ONCE SAID, ‘Y , ALL<br />
ARE LIKE GOLDFISH<br />
THAT BITE.’THEY<br />
LOOK FRIENDLY<br />
ENOUGH, BUT DON’T<br />
MESS WITH THEM.”<br />
- WHITNEY LOUCHHEIM<br />
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 19
“These kids are used to empty promises,<br />
so they don’t expect much,” Louchheim says.<br />
“The first step to building trust is showing up<br />
every week.”<br />
D.C. native Marquis was used to being left.<br />
His mother went to prison when he was eight,<br />
and he bounced around the foster care system<br />
until her release, seven years later. Marquis<br />
was arrested for the first time at age 12 for<br />
stealing a car; he was wrapping up a nearly<br />
two-year stint at New Beginnings for drug<br />
charges in 2010 when he was matched with<br />
mentor Claire Grandison, WCL/JD ’14.<br />
“I think we’ve been to every restaurant,<br />
library, and museum in the city. I also call her<br />
with my lady problems,” says Marquis, now 22,<br />
with a gentle laugh. Grandison, who will work<br />
at Philadelphia’s Community Legal Services<br />
starting next year, helped Marquis with<br />
everything from his Spanish homework to job<br />
and college applications to apartment searches.<br />
“She taught me how to advocate for<br />
myself—how to properly ask for what I need—<br />
and to be a productive, positive person,” says<br />
Marquis, a polite young man with a charismatic<br />
smile, who greets everyone with a hug.<br />
Grandison is gratified to have witnessed<br />
Marquis’s transformation from lost boy to a<br />
mentor himself. “Despite confronting so many<br />
obstacles, he remains a constant optimist<br />
who never ceases to develop creative goals<br />
to improve himself and his community. It’s<br />
been incredibly rewarding to watch Marquis<br />
work hard to get the jobs he wanted, continue<br />
his education and training, and advocate on<br />
behalf of himself and others in the juvenile<br />
justice system.”<br />
Today, Marquis works as a youth leader<br />
with FREE Project, a group founded by<br />
Mentoring Today mentees that advocates for<br />
education and employment opportunities<br />
for kids caught up in D.C.’s criminal justice<br />
system. In June, he collected the Coalition<br />
for Juvenile Justice’s prestigious Spirit of<br />
Youth Award during the nonprofit’s annual<br />
conference—with Grandison proudly looking<br />
on from the audience.<br />
“She’s not just my mentor, she’s my<br />
friend,” Marquis says. “Anything I need, I<br />
know she’s always going to answer my calls.<br />
She’ll always be there—and you can’t say<br />
that about many people.”<br />
THE SUMMER BEFORE HER THIRD YEAR<br />
OF LAW SCHOOL, Spain did something<br />
unprecedented: she took time off.<br />
She retreated to Venezuela, where she once<br />
worked for the Carter Center, to undertake<br />
a silent meditation and pen a business plan<br />
for Mentoring Today. She envisioned an<br />
organization where volunteers would serve<br />
not only as mentors but also as legal advocates,<br />
helping juveniles—who opt into the program—<br />
navigate the murky reentry process.<br />
Unlike other programs, which connect<br />
mentors with kids after they return home,<br />
Spain wanted to begin building relationships<br />
with the juveniles four to six months before<br />
their release. “There’s this really rich moment<br />
where the kids are literally a captive audience,”<br />
she says. “If you wait until they come home,<br />
they quickly get sucked back into their old lives,<br />
and you’ve lost that window of opportunity.”<br />
Louchheim, meanwhile, took crash courses<br />
in grant writing, website development, and<br />
fund raising—all while studying for her last<br />
round of finals. “I was researching things like<br />
insurance—we couldn’t pay for it just yet, but I<br />
knew what we needed.”<br />
“WE WERE ESCORTED<br />
TO WORK EVERY<br />
DAY BY THE DRUG<br />
DEALERS FROM D.C. , S<br />
LARGEST OPEN-AIR<br />
HEROIN MARKET.”<br />
- PENELOPE SPAIN<br />
In October 2005, a month after they sat<br />
for the bar exam, Spain and Louchheim—who<br />
also work as defense attorneys, representing<br />
young, lower-level offenders in delinquency<br />
court—got their nonprofit status. Soon after,<br />
they found space in a warehouse near Marvin<br />
Gaye Park in northeast D.C. Calling it an<br />
“office” might be too generous; the converted<br />
closet had lights and a small desk, but no heat,<br />
air conditioning, or windows. (The space<br />
was, however, great for fund raising. “Donors<br />
would say, ‘We’ll give you money just to get<br />
out of here,’” laughs Louchheim.)<br />
“We were escorted to work every day by the<br />
drug dealers from D.C.’s largest open-air heroin<br />
market,” Spain recalls. Staff retreats consisted<br />
of snacking on ice cream sandwiches and<br />
strolling through the park. And they couldn’t<br />
have been happier, she says.<br />
In July 2006, the women received a<br />
$45,000 award from D.C.’s Justice Grants<br />
Administration. Weeks later, they made their<br />
first seven matches inside Oak Hill. Mentoring<br />
Today was up and running.<br />
WHEN THEY FIRST MEET UNDER THE HARSH<br />
LIGHTS of the New Beginnings cafeteria, the<br />
mentees don’t tell their new mentors what<br />
landed them under the supervision of D.C.’s<br />
Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services<br />
(DYRS). The details will emerge eventually, but<br />
up to this point the youth have been defined by<br />
their crimes: drug slinger, auto thief, disturber<br />
of the peace. For the first time in a long time,<br />
the kids have a clean slate. “We want them to<br />
lead with their goals, to focus on the future,”<br />
Louchheim says.<br />
There are games and food—carefully<br />
laid out on the same tables each week, as<br />
structure and routine are important—to help<br />
the pairs get to know one another in a relaxed,<br />
nonthreatening environment. Though they<br />
receive 10 hours of training, the mentors, who<br />
are recruited every September, don’t come in<br />
with an agenda for those first few 90-minute<br />
sessions. “We want them to develop a level of<br />
comfort and understanding with the mentees,”<br />
Louchheim says. “We don’t want them to get<br />
too deep, too fast.”<br />
Early on, the mentors’ job is to encourage<br />
the young offenders to take accountability<br />
for the choices that landed them behind bars<br />
and challenge them to imagine a life outside<br />
the watchful, unblinking eye of the criminal<br />
justice system. As the final months of the<br />
juveniles’ sentences begin to tick away, the<br />
mentors switch into advocacy mode, sitting<br />
in on meetings with DYRS and social service<br />
officials to hash out the terms of release and<br />
ensure housing, education, mental health, and<br />
employment needs are addressed. That’s where<br />
the volunteers’ legal training comes into play.<br />
“The academic lessons I learned in the<br />
classroom felt incomplete without seeing their<br />
practical effect,” says Marquis’s mentor, Claire<br />
Grandison. “Mentoring provided a window<br />
through which I was able to learn about the<br />
intricacies of the juvenile and criminal justice<br />
systems and see how they function in practice.<br />
“Addressing issues in a piecemeal fashion is<br />
often ineffective because housing, employment,<br />
education, safety, and other factors are all<br />
connected, and a deficiency in one area<br />
threatens security in all.”<br />
When juveniles are released from New<br />
Beginnings, they’re assigned to one of a dozen<br />
group homes scattered across the District for 30<br />
to 90 days. They’re fitted with GPS monitoring<br />
20 AMERICAN MAGAZINE AUGUST <strong>2014</strong>
Whitney Louchheim, left, and Penelope Spain in<br />
the H Street Corridor, blocks from the Mentoring<br />
Today office in Northeast Washington<br />
bracelets, which must be charged for one hour,<br />
twice a day. They submit to weekly or twiceweekly<br />
drug tests, counseling, and substance<br />
abuse treatment and must attend school, work,<br />
or both. They have multiple—often conflicting—<br />
curfews and daily appointments that can take<br />
them to opposite ends of the city. (A frequent<br />
question for mentors: How do I pay for $12 a<br />
day in Metro fare?)<br />
And as their lives get more complicated<br />
postrelease, so do the juveniles’ relationships<br />
with their mentors.<br />
DESPITE THE RIGOROUS TERMS OF THEIR<br />
RELEASE, the youth enjoy more freedom on<br />
the outside. It’s easy to slip into old habits;<br />
temptation seemingly lingers on every corner.<br />
“Kids get out and they’re looking over their<br />
shoulders. They can become more guarded,<br />
they’re easily derailed,” Louchheim says. “In<br />
some ways, mentors have to start all over.”<br />
Some juveniles see the mentoring<br />
relationship as an escape—from their group<br />
home, at the very least. Others fall off the radar<br />
but reemerge when a crisis arises and leads<br />
them back to their mentor for help. “Kids know<br />
they can come to us with anything,” Spain says.<br />
Whether they stick together from the start<br />
or reconnect down the road, most of Mentoring<br />
Today’s pairs weather the storm of reentry.<br />
Nationally, 45 percent of mentoring<br />
relationships last 12 months. Twice as many<br />
of Mentoring Today’s matches—90 percent—<br />
hit the year mark and, in fact, most pairs work<br />
together for about two and a half years. Under<br />
the guidance of the WCL students, 97 percent<br />
of youth active in Mentoring Today enroll in<br />
school or a GED or vocational program upon<br />
their release—compared to only 57 percent of<br />
juvenile offenders nationwide. Many go on to<br />
college. Seventy-one percent also obtain partor<br />
full-time employment.<br />
Often, as is the case with Marquis and<br />
his mentor, Claire Grandison, they stay in<br />
touch even after the mentor collects her law<br />
degree and takes a job outside of the D.C.<br />
area. It’s at that point that a different kind<br />
of relationship emerges.<br />
“The kids have learned to advocate for<br />
themselves, but they still want someone to<br />
talk to,” Louchheim says. “In the end, it’s a<br />
friendship that remains.”<br />
LOUCHHEIM, A SELF-PROFESSED DATA<br />
WONK, is always quick with a statistic. You<br />
have to be when you’re accountable to donors<br />
and funding agencies.<br />
But asked for evidence that the Mentoring<br />
Today model works, Louchheim—a mother<br />
of two young sons, whose instinct to nurture,<br />
encourage, and protect extends to her other<br />
kids—offers an anecdote.<br />
“When we go to New Beginnings, I hug<br />
all of our mentees—that’s powerful. These<br />
kids are more childlike than they appear,<br />
and they just want to be loved. For them, our<br />
meetings are a very bright spot in a rough<br />
week, a rough month.”<br />
A rough life.<br />
“KIDS GET OUT<br />
AND THEY , RE<br />
LOOKING OVER THEIR<br />
SHOULDERS. THEY<br />
CAN BECOME MORE<br />
GUARDED, THEY , RE<br />
EASILY DERAILED.”<br />
- WHITNEY LOUCHHEIM<br />
Spain says it’s easy to get discouraged.<br />
“Kids are still coming through our program<br />
in dire straits. Have we eradicated the need<br />
for a program like Mentoring Today? No.<br />
Will we ever? I’m not sure.” The mother of a<br />
nearly two-year-old son, Spain says she finds<br />
encouragement in the “ripple effect.”<br />
“Some of our mentees are having kids<br />
themselves. One of them said to me, ‘I never<br />
had a father figure, but I’m going to do<br />
things differently for my daughter.’ That<br />
gives me hope.”<br />
Spoken like a true idealist.<br />
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 21
this is a story about<br />
by mike<br />
unger
From<br />
Aristotelian<br />
times to<br />
the age<br />
of Twitter,<br />
people have<br />
educated,<br />
entertained,<br />
and<br />
enlightened<br />
humankind<br />
through<br />
stories.<br />
<strong>American</strong> University began teaching<br />
journalism in the 1920s, when pen,<br />
paper, and film were the primary tools<br />
of the trade. Nearly a century later, the<br />
School of Communication’s new home<br />
in the McKinley Building features mindblowing<br />
technology like a Sony 4K cinema<br />
projector (one of only five deployed in<br />
North America) in the 144-seat Michael<br />
Forman Theatre and state-of-the-art<br />
television and audio studios in a gleaming<br />
2,500-square-foot media innovation lab.<br />
You can’t walk through the halls<br />
without seeing students pecking at their<br />
phones or swiping pages on their tablets.<br />
Laptops are rendering desktops obsolete,<br />
and digital cameras have made darkrooms<br />
feel like relics of the dark ages.<br />
In the world of communication,<br />
technology seems to evolve as quickly as<br />
breaking news. But yet, at its core, SOC’s<br />
mission hasn’t wavered.<br />
“Things change all the time, but<br />
for us, what has been fairly solid is<br />
good storytelling,” says professor John<br />
Douglass, director of the film and media<br />
arts division. He’s been at AU since<br />
1978. “How you use [technology] really<br />
depends on your vision and the stories<br />
you’re telling. We need to prepare our<br />
students to tell their stories in whatever<br />
medium is best suited for the story<br />
and for the audience that they’re<br />
reaching out to.”<br />
But stories don’t exist in a vacuum.<br />
Like a tree falling in that hard-to-wrapyour-head-around<br />
forest with no one in<br />
it, they must be heard (or read or seen)<br />
to exist at all.<br />
“Story is a platform for engagement,”<br />
Dean Jeffrey Rutenbeck says. “It’s<br />
a construct, a narrative strategy.<br />
Engagement is ultimately the concept<br />
that unites all the pieces of the school.<br />
We are engaging people through the<br />
journalism that we do, through the films<br />
we make, the campaigns we develop, and<br />
eventually the games we make. We’re<br />
not just telling stories to do one thing.<br />
We seek not just to entertain but to<br />
inform, to transform; we seek to revise,<br />
to reinforce. There are a lot of verbs that<br />
come along with storytelling.”<br />
SOC’s January move into historic<br />
McKinley, whose cornerstone was laid<br />
by President Theodore Roosevelt in<br />
1902, is the latest chapter in SOC’s story.<br />
Ever since being granted independence<br />
in 1984 (prior to that it was housed<br />
in the College of Arts and Sciences),<br />
it’s been a nomadic unit, its faculty,<br />
classrooms, and centers headquartered<br />
on the cramped third floor of the Mary<br />
Graydon Center but also scattered<br />
throughout campus. The relocation<br />
to McKinley, which underwent a $24<br />
million renovation that preserved its<br />
classic architecture while adding a<br />
sleek, modern expansion, was in one<br />
sense a reunification.<br />
“By occupying such a prominent,<br />
historic place on campus, it reaffirms<br />
the role that communication plays in<br />
the structure and life of the university,”<br />
Rutenbeck says. “It’s a promotion of sorts.<br />
You go from a smattering of spaces and<br />
places to a powerful physical presence.”<br />
To celebrate<br />
SOC’s new<br />
home—and to<br />
contextualize<br />
it—we asked<br />
faculty, alumni,<br />
and current<br />
students to<br />
share with us<br />
a story that<br />
impacted<br />
them in some<br />
meaningful way.<br />
It didn’t have to be an article that won<br />
a Pulitzer or a film that took home an<br />
Oscar (though an Oscar winner is among<br />
our storytellers), we said, rather, just a<br />
tale that for some reason made a lasting<br />
difference in your life.<br />
In The Art of Storytelling, Nancy<br />
Mellon writes that “because there is a<br />
natural storytelling urge and ability in all<br />
human beings, even just a little nurturing<br />
of this impulse can bring about astonishing<br />
and delightful results.”<br />
We think she’s right. We hope you<br />
do, too.<br />
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 23
Charles Lewis<br />
professor and executive<br />
editor, Investigative<br />
Reporting Workshop<br />
Forty years ago, while doing my undergraduate<br />
senior thesis research about the U.S.<br />
destabilization of Chile, I met and talked<br />
with Pulitzer Prize–winner Seymour Hersh<br />
at the New York Times’s Washington bureau.<br />
Months earlier, he had broken the story about<br />
the Nixon administration’s successful, covert<br />
efforts to topple the democratically elected<br />
government of President Salvador Allende.<br />
That same remarkable day, I interviewed<br />
Orlando Letelier, the former Chilean defense<br />
minister under Allende who had been granted<br />
asylum in the U.S. and was teaching at AU’s<br />
School of International Service.<br />
Letelier told me that<br />
the U.S. had illegally<br />
wiretapped the Chilean<br />
embassy in Washington,<br />
which later was<br />
revealed to be one of the<br />
Watergate “plumbers’”<br />
illegal break-ins. He also<br />
showed me secret Chilean intelligence cables<br />
in Spanish indicating that, at the exact time of<br />
the coup d’état that led to Allende’s death and<br />
the brutal new regime of President <strong>August</strong>o<br />
Pinochet, U.S. naval forces had been nearby,<br />
just off the coast of Santiago. Letelier was<br />
deeply suspicious, and he certainly did not<br />
believe that was coincidental.<br />
I left his Bethesda home that day stunned<br />
by what I had heard. A year and a half later, in<br />
September 1975, I was in a grad school class<br />
when I heard constant and very loud sirens. A<br />
few blocks away, on Sheridan Circle, Letelier<br />
had been assassinated by killers specifically<br />
sent to Washington by President Pinochet. In<br />
the dead of night, they had placed a radiodetonated<br />
bomb beneath his car parked in<br />
that same cul-de-sac in Bethesda where I<br />
had driven and parked the year before. It was<br />
and remains the first and only time a foreign<br />
head of state ordered a known political<br />
assassination on the streets of Washington.<br />
24 AMERICAN MAGAZINE AUGUST <strong>2014</strong><br />
I was 21 years old and had never met anyone<br />
who was later brutally murdered. The U.S.<br />
destabilization of Allende and the assassination<br />
of Letelier were defining moments for me.<br />
From then on, there could be no higher calling<br />
for me than exposing abuses of government,<br />
corporate, or other power, through tenacious,<br />
tough, but fair investigative reporting.<br />
Jeffrey Rutenbeck<br />
SOC dean<br />
I went to the University of Missouri to become<br />
a journalist. I was in the journalism library<br />
late at night, looking for a book in the stacks.<br />
A book fell off the shelf<br />
and hit me in the head.<br />
It was called Existential Journalism by a guy<br />
named John Calhoun Merrill, who actually<br />
was a faculty member at Missouri.<br />
It was maybe 150 pages. I sat down<br />
and read it immediately, and reading that<br />
book changed my mind about becoming<br />
a journalist. I decided to become a scholar<br />
of journalism.<br />
Russell Williams<br />
SOC/BA ’74,<br />
distinguished artist<br />
in residence<br />
When I was still a student at AU, I cohosted a<br />
Saturday afternoon radio program. One day I<br />
was watching local news, and there was a story<br />
about Maya Angelou being in town for a book<br />
signing. I thought, we’re just a little college<br />
radio show, but maybe if we go down there and<br />
beg and plead, we might get an interview.<br />
She was staying at the Madison Hotel, and<br />
she sat down and gave me an interview like<br />
I was somebody from 60 Minutes. She talked<br />
about how she pulled herself up out of the<br />
South and went to Europe, and about how<br />
disappointed she was at the youth of the time<br />
who seemed reluctant to take an educated risk,<br />
a risk that would eventually pay big dividends.<br />
After we played that on the air, I<br />
would periodically go back and revisit her<br />
comments. After I graduated I said, if I<br />
don’t go out to L.A. I’m always going to<br />
be saying “what if.” I had applied to the<br />
<strong>American</strong> Film Institute’s (AFI) directing<br />
program. As luck would<br />
have it, the same day<br />
I got a rejection letter<br />
from AFI, the U.S.<br />
government sent me a<br />
nice tax return. So I took a<br />
90-day leave of absence and went to L.A.<br />
I didn’t see her again for 17 years. The<br />
night before I won Oscar No. 2 for Dances with<br />
Wolves, she was at a black-tie dinner. When I<br />
got to the lectern, I looked out at the audience<br />
and saw her. I said, “You probably don’t<br />
remember me, Ms. Angelou, but I took your<br />
advice.” That was an omen—I felt I would win.<br />
Leena Jayaswal<br />
SOC, CAS/BA ’94,<br />
professor, film and<br />
media arts<br />
The summer after my first year of grad school,<br />
I cold-called Mary Ellen Mark, a photographer<br />
who shot for Life magazine and still shoots<br />
for Rolling Stone. A lot of her photos focus on<br />
India, where my family’s from, so I’d always<br />
been attracted to her work. I called her New<br />
York studio and said, “Can I work for you?”<br />
I got the job.<br />
One day she was shooting the “Women in<br />
Rock” issue for Rolling Stone, which included<br />
a photo of Yoko Ono. It was exciting to see<br />
Mary Ellen so nervous on set, because she had<br />
been doing this for 40-some years. She was<br />
published in every major magazine, so to watch<br />
her get nervous about shooting somebody<br />
was a real lesson to me: you always have to be<br />
humble, you have to keep yourself grounded.<br />
I got to be Yoko Ono’s<br />
stand-in while they<br />
were organizing the<br />
lights, because I was<br />
about the same height.<br />
When Yoko Ono came out, I was standing<br />
between her and Mary Ellen Mark thinking,<br />
how is this my life? Here I am with these<br />
two amazing women artists. It was one of<br />
those defining moments that made me think<br />
anything is possible for me in this career.
Eric Vignola<br />
CAS/BA, BS ’17<br />
For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved<br />
playing video games. My earliest memory<br />
with them is of my cousin, my uncle, and<br />
myself all crowded around a small television<br />
screen playing a game called Mega Man X.<br />
It was also during this time that my father<br />
introduced my brother and me to football.<br />
As time went on, I found that I didn’t enjoy<br />
playing football quite as much as my brother,<br />
but it soon became apparent that football was<br />
a source of bonding for my brother and father.<br />
I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to share<br />
a common interest with my father like my<br />
brother did.<br />
A game console called<br />
the Super Nintendo<br />
helped to build a bridge<br />
between my father and<br />
me. Some of my fondest memories are<br />
sitting next to him, ducking my head under a<br />
blanket because I was afraid of the zombies we<br />
fought together. I may have been scared, but I<br />
always knew my old man was there to protect<br />
me. Not only did we spend time actually<br />
playing the games, but we also enjoyed many<br />
conversations about them as well.<br />
In the years that followed, I bonded with<br />
many new people over video games. They<br />
helped me through moving, helped me make<br />
friends in school, and continue to shape my life.<br />
I attend AU on the Frederick Douglass<br />
Distinguished Scholars scholarship. My fellow<br />
scholars and I have made the decision to<br />
dedicate our careers to helping others, and I<br />
believe that video games are the way to do it. I<br />
hope that the games I make can educate, help<br />
others through tough times, or create bonds in<br />
the same way they did for me.<br />
John Watson<br />
professor and director,<br />
journalism division<br />
I was working at the Jersey Journal, a small<br />
newspaper in northern New Jersey with a<br />
circulation of 100,000. One day, two longtime<br />
friends went to a bar in Bayonne after work<br />
for a beer. The bar hung balloons near the<br />
mugs; you could toss a tiny pen knife, and if<br />
you popped the balloon, you got a free beer.<br />
In a one-in-a-billion,<br />
freak accident, the<br />
knife one friend threw<br />
ricocheted off a glass<br />
and slit his friend’s<br />
jugular vein. He bled<br />
out in minutes.<br />
We covered the story about the horror of<br />
killing your best friend. The police came and<br />
took the guy home.<br />
Eighteen months later, we got another<br />
story about two cousins riding the subway<br />
back to Jersey from lower Manhattan, where<br />
they were watching Kung Fu movies. They<br />
were pantomiming the fights when one guy<br />
hit the glass, fell onto the tracks, and died.<br />
The cousin who kicked the other one was<br />
taken out in handcuffs and charged with<br />
involuntary manslaughter.<br />
I looked at the story: legally, it was identical<br />
to the story in Bayonne. Why was this guy<br />
being charged? He’s black. That’s the only<br />
difference I could see.<br />
Our front-page story compared the cases: this<br />
one was facing a felony indictment and this one<br />
never even went to the police station. The next<br />
morning the prosecutor dropped the charges.<br />
Richard Stack<br />
professor, public<br />
communication<br />
Seventeen years ago my daughter was born 15<br />
minutes into my first sabbatical. I had a baby<br />
to play with in the morning, a three-year-old<br />
to play with in the afternoon, and a little time<br />
on my hands.<br />
One day I watched Dead Man Walking, and<br />
later I read the book. I was so inspired by it.<br />
One of the footnotes led me to Steve Hawkins,<br />
the executive director of the National<br />
Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty. I told<br />
him, “I have time on my hands, motivation, a<br />
legal background, and the resources of terrific<br />
students. What can I do?” He asked me to take<br />
a look at the organization’s reading room.<br />
It was a small, dinky space, and I examined<br />
their books, videos, posters, and bumper<br />
stickers. I reported back that the coalition had<br />
two groups with incredibly powerful stories to<br />
tell, yet neither had a voice. The two were the<br />
universe of exonerates and murder victims’<br />
families for reconciliation.<br />
After analyzing their literature and<br />
messages, I helped reframe the debate. It<br />
boiled down to this question: is the death<br />
penalty a deterrent to violent crime? I looked<br />
at studies that went both ways and thought,<br />
if you ask the wrong question, you won’t get<br />
the right answer.<br />
I thought that if<br />
we’re going to move<br />
the debate forward,<br />
we’ve got to change<br />
the question. The new question<br />
I was part of developing was, “Can we trust<br />
our government to make such irreversible<br />
life and death decisions when it makes so<br />
many mistakes?”<br />
No matter how ultraconservative the<br />
political point of view, the execution of an<br />
innocent person destroys the credibility of the<br />
system. Now conservatives no longer use the<br />
deterrence argument. It’s been discredited by<br />
and large. Along with several other people, I<br />
was part of a group that changed the debate on<br />
the death penalty. If I’ve got any contribution<br />
that I’m proudest of, it’s this little nugget.<br />
Amy Eisman<br />
professor and director,<br />
Media Entrepreneurship<br />
and Interactive<br />
Journalism<br />
As a young reporter, I covered the family of<br />
a young man who had been taken hostage in<br />
Iran during the 444 days in captivity known as<br />
the hostage crisis. The parents at first refused<br />
to talk to journalists, but I sat outside the<br />
father’s Baltimore office—he was a professor—<br />
until they would talk. He said I reminded him<br />
of a student. I ended up covering the family<br />
rather closely, sleeping several times at their<br />
eventual home in Memphis—I guess I was an<br />
early embed—and driving my rental car to a<br />
pay phone so I could file my stories to rewrite<br />
at the News <strong>American</strong> in Baltimore.<br />
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 25
I have a picture of me,<br />
sitting on the sofa with<br />
them, watching the<br />
scratchy TV news as<br />
their son was freed.<br />
I also was mentioned in a New York Times<br />
story about media, noting how I was describing<br />
phone calls that came in before dawn. I used<br />
to ask the parents why they talked; the families<br />
just wanted their stories told, to keep their<br />
relatives front and center. They grew bolder as<br />
time wore on. Mostly I wrote about everything<br />
they tossed into keepsake boxes for their son’s<br />
return—cards, news clippings, political flyers,<br />
pictures, knickknacks the neighbors left. I<br />
guess what I wrote was in there, too. This was<br />
before cellphones, social media, and the world<br />
online. For a while we sent holiday cards but<br />
eventually lost touch. Then the parents and I<br />
reunited several years ago after finding each<br />
other on Facebook.<br />
We giggled like relatives, and I was glad<br />
I had treated them with respect so long ago.<br />
John Sullivan<br />
journalist in residence and<br />
Washington Post reporter<br />
I got hooked on investigative reporting<br />
in 1995. I had recently quit my job selling<br />
title insurance to banks and was working<br />
for free at the Chicago Reporter. After a<br />
few months, my editor, Tom Corfman,<br />
assigned me to gather data for a story on<br />
hate crimes, an annual roundup of reported<br />
bias-motivated crimes throughout the<br />
city and suburbs.<br />
As I set out to gather the data,<br />
I discovered that the<br />
Illinois State Police<br />
officers were breaking<br />
the law by failing to<br />
track hate crimes. The new<br />
computer system they had spent hundreds<br />
of thousands of dollars on was plagued by<br />
glitches that made electronic collection of<br />
the data impossible. But instead of reverting<br />
to the old paper system, state police just<br />
ignored them.<br />
26 AMERICAN MAGAZINE AUGUST <strong>2014</strong><br />
In the meantime, using data we gathered<br />
from the Chicago Police Department, Tom<br />
taught me how to analyze data using FoxPro<br />
for DOS. It was a revelation to see how one<br />
reporter with the right tools could produce<br />
such a detailed and revealing analysis.<br />
Public reaction to the story and the<br />
failure to track crimes was strong, and I<br />
was asked to appear on an hour-long drivetime<br />
show on Chicago’s public radio affiliate.<br />
U.S. senator Paul Simon, who had sponsored<br />
a federal law mandating collection (a separate<br />
state law mandated the state police to<br />
collect the data), weighed in to lament his<br />
state’s performance.<br />
Local papers published blurbs about<br />
the story, and soon the state police vowed<br />
to gather the statistics on hate crimes.<br />
I realized then the power of the press to<br />
set right a wrong. I saw firsthand how<br />
powerful data-driven stories could be.<br />
The next year I set off for the University<br />
of Missouri and the National Institute for<br />
Computer–Assisted Reporting.<br />
I’m still amazed at the power reporters<br />
have to force leaders and the public to<br />
confront the failings of government to<br />
protect the most vulnerable. It’s the most<br />
rewarding job there is. I suspected it then,<br />
but I know it now.<br />
Bill Gentile<br />
journalist in residence<br />
and director, Backpack<br />
Journalism Project<br />
I worked as a photographer for Newsweek<br />
for quite a few years. When the Persian Gulf<br />
War started, they sent me to the region on two<br />
occasions for about two months apiece. At<br />
the time of the U.S. invasion, I was in<br />
a pool with the 101st<br />
Airborne Division,<br />
whose mission at the<br />
onset of the war was<br />
to fly into Iraq and cut<br />
off Saddam Hussein’s<br />
troops, who would<br />
flee from Kuwait back<br />
into Iraq.<br />
I was part of the first wave of helicopters<br />
that flew into Iraq from Saudi Arabia.<br />
These guys had to fly about 100 feet off<br />
the ground at 100 miles an hour so that they<br />
wouldn’t be detected. On the morning of<br />
the invasion, I and a few other journalists<br />
were spread out among the helicopters,<br />
which were sitting like giant insects with<br />
their blades drooping down. I was standing<br />
out on the tarmac with <strong>American</strong> forces, the<br />
sun coming up, and one of the commanders<br />
was listening to BBC on a small radio. It<br />
was an intense scene—some of the soldiers<br />
were openly praying, making the sign of<br />
the cross. No one knew what to expect.<br />
In a thick British accent, the BBC<br />
announcer said, “And the onslaught has<br />
begun.” They had word that the first ground<br />
troops had moved in.<br />
“And the onslaught has begun.” I’ll never<br />
forget it—it still sends chills up my neck.<br />
It occurred to me at that time, what an<br />
extraordinary opportunity it was for me to<br />
witness and participate in these historic<br />
events. To me that’s one of the most powerful<br />
draws of journalism.<br />
Brigitta Blair<br />
CAS/BA ’16<br />
Journey is unlike any video game I have<br />
ever played. I discovered it through Flower,<br />
a video game in which you pick up flower<br />
petals by controlling the wind. Flower was<br />
shown at the Smithsonian’s The Art of<br />
Video Games exhibit in 2012 and instantly<br />
caught my eye. After doing some research,<br />
I discovered Journey was made by the same<br />
company as Flower, and within the next few<br />
days, I bought a PS3 to play for myself.<br />
The objective of Journey is to get to a<br />
mountain far in the distance without any<br />
knowledge of why you need to get there.<br />
Your character, a genderless cloaked creature<br />
with black pointy legs and a scarf, appears to<br />
be the only creature of its kind in what starts<br />
out as a desert. After exploring for a while,<br />
you eventually encounter another character<br />
who looks just like you. This character isn’t<br />
just another character in the game, though—<br />
it’s an anonymous player. Your experience<br />
in this world is affected by how you interact<br />
with this other player. Working together can<br />
lead you to new areas and regenerate health,
while turning your back can leave you more<br />
vulnerable to enemy attacks.<br />
Journey was the first<br />
video game that showed<br />
me how gameplay<br />
didn’t have to involve<br />
violence and the first game that<br />
moved me without the use of written text.<br />
Instead, Journey uses visuals, sounds, and<br />
interactions. This was the game that sparked<br />
my interest in games that tell stories. So many<br />
game designers rely heavily on written text<br />
above other methods to communicate their<br />
message. Although it’s by no means a bad thing,<br />
it’s not the only way to get an idea across. Body<br />
language, images, color, size, style—they all tell<br />
stories in their own way.<br />
Rachel Boehm<br />
SOC/MA ’11,<br />
communications<br />
manager, Consumer<br />
Specialty Products<br />
Association<br />
In 2008 I stumbled across a magazine article<br />
on dying languages. One of the languages<br />
listed, Wendish, is connected with Serbin,<br />
Texas, an unincorporated town not too far<br />
from Austin, where I am from and where I<br />
was living at the time.<br />
I love languages and<br />
words; I’ve been a<br />
storyteller my entire<br />
life. I also love history and culture, so<br />
I was amazed that I had never heard of the<br />
Texas Wends or their efforts to preserve<br />
their language and culture.<br />
The word “Serbin” means Wendish<br />
land, and the town was founded in 1855 by<br />
a group of about 500 Wends who fled their<br />
native Lusatia to escape Germanification<br />
and religious persecution. Their settlement<br />
flourished for a time, but eventually the<br />
Texas Wends were absorbed into the German<br />
Texan culture.<br />
At the time I interviewed volunteers of<br />
the Texas Wendish Heritage Society, few if<br />
any descendants remained who could speak<br />
the Wendish language, though recordings<br />
allow people to hear it. Traditions, however,<br />
remain alive. I learned that certain egg<br />
noodles, Easter egg decorating techniques,<br />
and other traditions can be traced back to the<br />
Wends.<br />
When I was able to place an article in<br />
the Hill Country Sun telling the story of<br />
the Texas Wends and the heritage society’s<br />
efforts to spread awareness, I, and they, were<br />
thrilled.<br />
I’ve told many stories over the years, but<br />
few have evolved as organically and touched<br />
me as personally as the story of this hidden<br />
gem in my own backyard.<br />
Lillian Skye Noble<br />
SOC/BA ’16<br />
My first year on staff with tb two, a newspaper<br />
for high school students published by the<br />
Tampa Bay Times, I was attending an annual<br />
music festival called Next Big Thing. While<br />
I was there representing the paper and<br />
inviting attendees to stop by our booth, I also<br />
walked around, listening to music and visiting<br />
different vendors.<br />
There was a booth near ours called<br />
To Write Love on Her Arms, which is a<br />
nonprofit that helps people struggling with<br />
depression. Inside the tent was a wall where<br />
people anonymously jotted down their fears<br />
and dreams. Some of the fears included<br />
codependent relationships, and some of the<br />
dreams were graduating high school, loving<br />
your body, inspiring others. As I was reading<br />
them, I realized that everything on that wall<br />
had a story behind it.<br />
I decided to talk to one of the girls who had<br />
just finished posting on the wall. I explained<br />
that I wrote for the local paper, and she opened<br />
up about her life. Her name was Sydney, and<br />
her greatest fear was<br />
relapsing into what she<br />
used to be—someone<br />
without hope. She had thoughts<br />
of suicide. She had a tattoo on her wrist of<br />
the word “love,” to remind her that she was<br />
loved and she should love herself. It also was<br />
a reminder for her to stay strong, even when<br />
her life gets difficult. Her greatest dream was<br />
to tell her life story to keep other people alive.<br />
Sydney was my first impromptu interview.<br />
I didn’t know her, I hadn’t meticulously<br />
mapped out my questions. I only knew that I<br />
wanted to learn more about her. Talking to her<br />
showed me that there are so many amazing<br />
stories unfolding around us every day.<br />
Dan Merica<br />
SOC/MA ’11,<br />
CNN associate producer<br />
While I was a student at AU, I covered a<br />
story at D.C. Central Kitchen, a nonprofit<br />
that, among other things, trains former<br />
inmates and homeless people to get their<br />
food handler’s license. I went to cover the<br />
program but quickly realized an abundance<br />
of other stories in the kitchen. One such<br />
story was Dawain Arrington, a kitchen<br />
manager and graduate of the program who<br />
had served time in jail for murder.<br />
I was fascinated by his story. He’s a tall,<br />
good-looking guy, who was 38 years old at<br />
the time. He had a presence in the room<br />
and a good relationship with all the people<br />
there. So I came back and spent the day<br />
with him. He took me to a crime-ridden<br />
neighborhood called Eastgate in D.C.,<br />
where he grew up. He showed<br />
me the place where he<br />
sold drugs for the first<br />
time and where he was<br />
arrested when he was<br />
14. He then told me what landed him<br />
in jail. Standing at the scene of the crime,<br />
Arrington told me about how he was at the<br />
parking lot where a young man was killed.<br />
He was charged with the murder.<br />
He got out at the age of 32 on a technicality,<br />
and at that moment he turned his life<br />
around. He struggled, at first, with life on<br />
the outside. And then he found D.C. Central<br />
Kitchen. I could tell it meant a lot to him to<br />
tell his story, and it was very moving for me.<br />
It showed me that stories aren’t just about<br />
people who are powerful or people you know<br />
by name. Some amazing stories are about<br />
people you’ve never heard of, and Arrington<br />
was a perfect example.<br />
FOR MORE SOC STORIES, VISIT OUR BLOG, SIDEBAR,<br />
AT AMERICANMAG.BLOGS.AMERICAN.EDU.<br />
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 27
A N ABECEDARY OF<br />
HONORS CAPSTONES<br />
BY ADRIENNE FRANK<br />
FOR THE MORE THAN 200 GRADUATING SENIORS WHO COMPLETED HONORS CAPSTONES THIS YEAR, THE PROJECT MARKS AN END AND A BEGINNING: THE<br />
CULMINATION OF FOUR YEARS OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDIES AND A LAUNCHING PAD FOR THE FUTURE. WHETHER IT’S A 50-PAGE MISSIVE (SOMETIMES WRITTEN<br />
IN A FOREIGN LANGUAGE), A FILM, PHOTOGRAPHS, OR A PLAY, THE CAPSTONE ENCAPSULATES STUDENTS’ INTELLECTUAL CURIOSITY—AND CREATIVITY.<br />
AL-QAEDA The<br />
Boston Marathon<br />
bombings were the<br />
impetus for Kevin<br />
Iannone’s research on<br />
the rise of homegrown<br />
terrorists. The international studies<br />
scholar, who minored in Arabic, explored<br />
how al-Qaeda uses the Internet to attract,<br />
radicalize, and train lone wolfs like the<br />
Tsarnaev brothers and Fort Hood shooter<br />
Major Nidal Hasan.<br />
International studies major<br />
Nicole Atallah examined<br />
the official narratives<br />
of Vietnam, Indonesia,<br />
and the Philippines to<br />
determine if their historical<br />
memory colors presentday<br />
relations with Japan.<br />
Atallah’s research question<br />
blossomed during her<br />
study abroad experience at<br />
Ritsumeikan University in<br />
Kyoto, Japan.<br />
GRAPHIC DESIGN<br />
Public health meets graphic<br />
design in Ada Thomas’s<br />
capstone, which explored<br />
how visual communication<br />
can promote nutrition and<br />
food access in low-income<br />
neighborhoods across D.C.<br />
The graphic design major<br />
used maps and graphs to<br />
convey the scope of the<br />
problem and created a<br />
cohesive brand identity<br />
for the nonprofit Fruit and<br />
Veggie Alliance.<br />
BIRTH RATES As the<br />
daughter of Mexican immigrants,<br />
Nallely Mejia is intrigued by the<br />
intersection of immigration and health.<br />
A sociology and international studies double<br />
major, she analyzed the fertility patterns<br />
of Hispanic women in the United States<br />
and their implications for the country’s<br />
racial composition.<br />
Is Chinglish—English influenced by the<br />
Chinese language, often ungrammatical or<br />
nonsensical—a perversion of the English<br />
language or legitimate dialect? International<br />
studies and Chinese double major Alexandra<br />
Vanier argued the latter in her capstone,<br />
written entirely in Mandarin.<br />
DEGENERATE<br />
ART<br />
Sparked by a stint at the<br />
U.S. Holocaust Memorial<br />
Museum, art history major<br />
Madeline Ullrich delved into<br />
the life of female German<br />
painter Käthe Kollwitz,<br />
deemed a degenerate artist<br />
by Adolf Hitler only to have<br />
her work eventually used<br />
as Nazi propaganda.<br />
INTERSTELLAR EXTINCTION<br />
Under the guidance of astrophysicist<br />
U. J. Sofia, Dhanesh Krishnarao explored<br />
the prominence of sulfur—one of the<br />
most copious elements in the universe—<br />
in interstellar dust and its impact on<br />
extinction. The math and physics major’s<br />
research utilized spectroscopic data from<br />
the Hubble Space Telescope.<br />
E. COLI<br />
A bio wonk<br />
fascinated<br />
by molecular genetics, Sneh<br />
Hanspal worked with biology<br />
professor David Carlini<br />
and his research team to<br />
explore the evolutionary<br />
effect of codon bias on<br />
Escherichia coli, harmful<br />
strains of which can cause<br />
food poisoning.<br />
SPA’s Zoé Orfanos—<br />
who volunteers as<br />
a poetry teacher<br />
at the Montgomery<br />
County Correction<br />
Facility—penned<br />
An Elegy for Old<br />
Terrors, verse about<br />
the penal system.<br />
The collection was<br />
published by advisor<br />
Robert Johnson’s<br />
press, BleakHouse<br />
Publishing.<br />
FEMALE<br />
OFFENDERS<br />
Public health<br />
major Emily<br />
Brincka—who interned at<br />
a women’s halfway house<br />
in northeast D.C.—used<br />
her research on the<br />
disproportionate effect<br />
of the War on Drugs on<br />
female offenders to create<br />
educational materials<br />
about HIV, women’s health,<br />
and nutrition.<br />
KILLER<br />
APPS<br />
Ironically,<br />
killer apps<br />
can save<br />
lives.<br />
Originally<br />
defined<br />
as a valuable computer<br />
program, “killer app” now<br />
refers to six key tools<br />
that have led to Western<br />
economic prosperity over<br />
the last several centuries.<br />
Business administration<br />
major Nick Linsmayer<br />
explored how two killer<br />
apps—utilitarian giving and<br />
leapfrog technologies—<br />
help nonprofits combat<br />
global poverty.<br />
LIVE SOUND Jamie Darken looked beyond academic<br />
journals for his capstone, experimenting with different live<br />
sound settings at a punk show, open mic night, and open DJ<br />
night. The music major worked with an advisor from AU’s<br />
top-rated audio tech program.<br />
28 AMERICAN MAGAZINE AUGUST <strong>2014</strong>
MUSLIM GRANADA<br />
Written entirely in Spanish,<br />
Emma Maher Horvath’s<br />
capstone drew on<br />
architecture and narrative<br />
accounts to chronicle<br />
14 centuries of Muslim<br />
Granada’s history. Horvath<br />
graduated with dual<br />
degrees in anthropology<br />
and Spanish and Latin<br />
<strong>American</strong> studies.<br />
REALITY TV<br />
Sociology student Nicole<br />
Piquant trained her eye on<br />
Love and Hip Hop: Atlanta to<br />
determine how the “Black<br />
Barbies” featured on the<br />
reality show shaped black,<br />
college-educated women’s<br />
perceptions of friendship<br />
and beauty. Her conclusion:<br />
a great body trumps talent<br />
or a pretty face. Women also<br />
felt pressured to put more<br />
effort into their looks.<br />
Computer science major<br />
Michael Egan used WebGL,<br />
or Web Graphics Library—<br />
rather than traditional,<br />
proprietary software—to<br />
create a graphical<br />
simulation of the Northern<br />
Lights that’s compatible<br />
with any JavaScript API<br />
web browser.<br />
NUDES Playing with dramatic studio<br />
lighting and using a large-format camera,<br />
Rebecca Zisser explored the similarities and<br />
differences between the male and female<br />
form. The journalism and graphic design<br />
major’s capstone features eight nudes.<br />
SCHOOLS UNDER SIEGE<br />
History views the crack epidemic in D.C. as a<br />
problem that lingered on street corners—<br />
but what of the playgrounds? History major<br />
Kathryn Gillon combed through newspaper<br />
clippings, school board minutes, and oral<br />
histories to understand how youngsters were<br />
both involved in and affected by the crack<br />
epidemic of the late ’80s and early ’90s.<br />
XXXI SUMMER OLYMPICS<br />
The World Health Organization deemed<br />
Dengue Fever the most important vectorborne,<br />
viral disease in the world—and<br />
named Brazil a hotbed for the disease.<br />
Public health major Alexandra France<br />
detailed risks related to the XXXI Summer<br />
Olympics, to be held in Rio de Janeiro<br />
in 2016. Her research spawned AU’s first<br />
Global Health Case Competition.<br />
OYSTERS In<br />
Harbor Heroes, SOC<br />
documentarians Jaclyn<br />
Yeary and Taryn Stansbury<br />
detailed how, in the wake<br />
of 2012’s Hurricane Sandy,<br />
New Yorkers are looking to<br />
oysters to create a natural<br />
wave barrier against future<br />
storms and restore the<br />
health of the harbor waters.<br />
The storm pummelled the<br />
Big Apple with 25-foot<br />
waves and caused $50<br />
billion in damage.<br />
PR FLOPS Public<br />
communications grad Emily<br />
Hawk analyzed three poor<br />
presidential communication<br />
plans, including Herbert<br />
Hoover’s unsuccessful<br />
reelection bid in 1932, and<br />
offered lessons learned<br />
for future commanders in<br />
chief. Also under Hawk’s<br />
microscope: FDR and<br />
Jimmy Carter.<br />
THEATRE Anna Kark’s capstone, PIG, is<br />
a modern comedy based on Moliere’s classic<br />
farce, The Misanthrope. The international<br />
relations major and former member of the<br />
Rude Mechanicals, AU’s Shakespeare theatre<br />
group, staged a reading of her play and even<br />
designed costumes.<br />
YOGA Aspiring<br />
magazine editor<br />
Emma Gray, who<br />
recalled waiting<br />
by the mailbox<br />
in anticipation of<br />
the latest issue<br />
of <strong>American</strong><br />
Girl as a child, created her own 44-page<br />
publication, Gates Ajar <strong>Magazine</strong>, which<br />
focuses on issues of spirituality. The<br />
journalism and religious studies major’s<br />
inaugural cover story: the ancient tradition<br />
of yoga.<br />
QUESTIONS PONDERED<br />
What’s in a hyphen? Julian Chehirian’s<br />
capstone, “Intersubjectivity, not Inter-<br />
Subjectivity,” explored origins of human<br />
intersubjective experience through the<br />
lens of Western psycho-developmental<br />
discourse. A <strong>2014</strong>–2015 Fulbright Scholar,<br />
Chehirian is studying the social history of<br />
Bulgarian psychiatry.<br />
UNLIKELY<br />
UNIONS Mollie<br />
Wagoner’s internship<br />
with the BlueGreen<br />
Alliance inspired her<br />
capstone about the<br />
ways in which environmental groups and<br />
labor unions can team up on sustainability<br />
issues. She offered two case studies: the<br />
Timber Wars, which represent a failure<br />
to work together, and the 1999 Battle in<br />
Seattle, which demonstrates cooperation.<br />
VOTER MOBILIZATION<br />
Poli sci major Emma Lydon took<br />
the fall 2012 semester off to<br />
support California Democrat<br />
Ami Bera’s congressional run.<br />
The experience inspired her<br />
capstone about how campaigns<br />
use academic research on voter<br />
mobilization to get out the vote.<br />
ZETA FUNCTION<br />
Andreas Wiede offered a<br />
computational analysis<br />
of the Riemann Zeta<br />
Function, first introduced<br />
by Leonhard Euler in the<br />
eighteenth century to solve<br />
his equation in the real<br />
plane when evaluated at<br />
even natural numbers.<br />
The applied mathematics<br />
major’s capstone only<br />
gets more complicated<br />
from there.<br />
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 29
THE EVERGLADES SPANS TWO MILLION SQUARE ACRES IN FLORIDA. IT’S HOME TO MORE THAN<br />
900 TYPES OF FISH AND CRUSTACEANS, 830 VARIETIES OF PLANTS, 250 SPECIES OF BIRDS,<br />
65 DIFFERENT REPTILES AND AMPHIBIANS, 40 SPECIES OF MAMMALS, AND A WHOLE LOT<br />
OF INSECTS. ONE MAN LEADS THE ORGANIZATION THAT’S ITS BEST HOPE FOR SURVIVAL.<br />
WILL ERIC EIKENBERG, SPA/BA ‘98, SUCCEED?<br />
PHOTO BY AARON ANSAROV<br />
30 AMERICAN MAGAZINE AUGUST <strong>2014</strong>
BY MIKE UNGER<br />
In the Everglades, where water seemingly<br />
engulfs everything and everyone in a<br />
mucky, haunting landscape the size of New<br />
Jersey and Connecticut, Eric Eikenberg<br />
sees a thirsty ecosystem. On this breezy<br />
and surprisingly pleasant-for-Florida mid-May<br />
day, the CEO of the Everglades Foundation sits<br />
atop an airboat’s three tiers of benches pointing<br />
out signs that the largest subtropical wetlands<br />
in North America is critically wounded—and<br />
slowly being revived.<br />
“In January or even February this is<br />
about three feet of water,” he says as the boat<br />
floats in six inches of muddy water known as<br />
slough. “When the water flowed naturally, you<br />
would have enough here during this part of<br />
the dry season. You have eight million people<br />
who rely on this ecosystem for drinking<br />
water. But if we don’t engineer this correctly,<br />
you’re going to lose habitat for this national<br />
treasure. It’s a complex balancing act, both<br />
scientifically and politically.”<br />
Eikenberg, SPA/BA ’98, has been a lead<br />
player in this delicate dance since being<br />
tapped in 2012 to head the country’s most<br />
prominent Everglades advocacy organization.<br />
A former political operative and lobbyist, he<br />
now fights for reptiles with the same fervor he<br />
once did for Republicans.<br />
He takes off his Nikes and white socks,<br />
rolls up his khakis, and hops off the boat onto<br />
one of the thousands of tiny islands in this<br />
50-mile-wide, 125-mile-long slowly flowing<br />
river. “This is what my kids think I do all day,”<br />
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 31
jokes Eikenberg, who spends most of his time<br />
wearing a suit and working on dry land.<br />
Standing on a swath of soggy soil the size<br />
of a pitching mound, he’s surrounded by saw<br />
grass that reaches above his knees.<br />
“If there were high levels of phosphorous,<br />
fertilizers, or pollutants in this water, it would<br />
change the entire dynamic of what we’re<br />
seeing right here,” Eikenberg, 38, says. “All<br />
this saw grass would turn into cattails. Cattails<br />
are the tombstone of the Everglades, because<br />
they thrive off phosphorous. When we see<br />
too many cattails we know there’s too much<br />
pollution in the water. These saw grasses<br />
demonstrate a healthy part of the system.<br />
When we see this, you know the restoration<br />
efforts are succeeding.”<br />
Environmental rehabilitation is not<br />
a field for those inclined toward instant<br />
gratification. Progress in the Everglades has<br />
been marked for years by tiny victories that<br />
pale in comparison to bureaucratic delays and<br />
inaction. It’s a one-step-forward, two-stepsback<br />
process, the pace of which can seem as<br />
sluggish as the flow of the river itself.<br />
Complicating matters is the reality that<br />
restoring the Everglades, the largest and most<br />
expensive environmental project in history,<br />
is about much more than just the<br />
environment. Like the plants and<br />
animals here (some of which don’t<br />
live anywhere else on Earth), human<br />
beings have an insatiable appetite<br />
for the Everglades’ chief resource—<br />
water.<br />
“Water is the new oil,” Eikenberg<br />
says. “The minute you lose control of<br />
it, you’re finished.”<br />
Not long after Florida<br />
achieved statehood in<br />
1845, its newly minted<br />
legislature concluded that<br />
the Everglades needed<br />
to be drained. Politicians haven’t<br />
stopped fiddling with it since. Over<br />
the next century, a series of dikes<br />
and canals built to enable agricultural and<br />
residential development artificially altered its<br />
natural flow, which runs southwesterly from<br />
“WATER<br />
IS THE<br />
NEW<br />
OIL.THE<br />
MINUTE YOU<br />
LOSE CONTROL<br />
OF IT, YOU’RE<br />
FINISHED.”<br />
its headwaters at Shingle Creek in Orlando,<br />
through Lake Okeechobee, into Florida Bay.<br />
After a massive hurricane—the secondmost<br />
deadly in <strong>American</strong> history—<br />
killed more than 2,500 people in<br />
1928, President Herbert Hoover<br />
ordered construction of a floodprotection<br />
dike in Lake Okeechobee.<br />
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers<br />
then connected canals that enabled<br />
it to empty water from the lake both<br />
west into the Gulf of Mexico and east<br />
into the Atlantic Ocean.<br />
Perhaps no year has been as<br />
important to the Everglades as<br />
1947, when Everglades National<br />
Park formally opened and Congress<br />
formed the Central and Southern<br />
Florida Flood Control Project, which<br />
built 1,400 miles of canals, levees,<br />
and water control devices. That same<br />
year Marjory Stoneman Douglas, an<br />
activist and writer, published The Everglades:<br />
River of Grass. The book remains highly<br />
influential and is credited with popularizing<br />
32 AMERICAN MAGAZINE AUGUST <strong>2014</strong>
PHOTO BY JESSICA HODDER<br />
the term “river of grass,” which had been used<br />
by Native <strong>American</strong>s indigenous to the area<br />
for years. (Much of the Everglades is still in<br />
Miccosukee and Seminole Indian territory.)<br />
Douglas, who died in 1998 at the age<br />
of 108, is a folk hero to many<br />
environmentalists, and parks,<br />
statues, and schools are dedicated<br />
in her honor. It was from Marjory<br />
Stoneman Douglas High in Broward<br />
County that Eric Eikenberg<br />
graduated in 1994.<br />
“You could see the Everglades<br />
in the outfield,” says Eikenberg, a<br />
baseball player who moved to south<br />
Florida from his native Long Island<br />
after ninth grade.<br />
But Eikenberg, intrigued by a<br />
school assignment to follow the 1992<br />
Bush-Clinton presidential election,<br />
found politics more fascinating than<br />
environmentalism. So he headed to<br />
AU for college, where he immersed<br />
himself in the Washington culture by<br />
interning each semester in a variety<br />
of roles.<br />
In the office of House majority<br />
leader Dick Armey he studied the<br />
Contract with America. He worked at the<br />
Heritage Foundation think tank and at a<br />
lobbying firm. As an intern in Rep. Ileana<br />
Ros-Lehtinen’s office he was taught how to<br />
make Cuban coffee. Prior to his junior year,<br />
he served as a page at the 1996 Republican<br />
Convention in San Diego. It was a thorough,<br />
only-in-D.C. education that cemented his<br />
interest in politics. When Eikenberg’s friend,<br />
future U.S. senator George LeMieux, asked<br />
him to run his campaign for the Florida<br />
statehouse immediately after graduation, he<br />
jumped at the chance.<br />
“That previous December I did the twoweek<br />
[School of Public Affairs’s] Campaign<br />
Management Institute, and we were assigned<br />
Jim Bunning, who was a member of the House<br />
running for Senate,” Eikenberg says. “All those<br />
consultants, all those experts came in during<br />
a condensed, intense period of time to explain<br />
the nuts and bolts of campaigning. Being able<br />
to carry that out six months later in an actual<br />
state legislature race was exciting.”<br />
LeMieux came up short, but Eikenberg’s<br />
behind-the-scenes political career was off<br />
and running. Because five college internships<br />
weren’t enough, he spent his summers in<br />
the Fort Lauderdale office of Rep. Clay<br />
“THE<br />
POLICIES OF<br />
PRESERVING<br />
THIS<br />
ECOSYSTEM<br />
ARE ALL<br />
VERY MUCH<br />
INTER-<br />
TWINED<br />
IN THE<br />
POLITICS.”<br />
Shaw. When the receptionist took a leave of<br />
absence, he was hired, and after a later stint in<br />
Tallahassee with the state Republican Party,<br />
he ran Shaw’s 2000 re-election campaign.<br />
It was a razor-close race, one slightly<br />
overshadowed by another election being<br />
contested that year in Florida.<br />
After a two-week recount (hanging<br />
chads and all), Shaw won by 539<br />
votes. At the age of 26, Eikenberg<br />
moved back to Washington, where<br />
he served as Shaw’s chief of staff<br />
until the 13-term congressman was<br />
voted out of office in 2006. Next it<br />
was back to Tallahassee to serve in<br />
the administration of then-governor<br />
Charlie Crist, for whom he was<br />
chief of staff from 2008 to 2009. He<br />
was working as a lobbyist when the<br />
Everglades Foundation called in 2012.<br />
“You may ask, why the Everglades?”<br />
he asks from behind his desk. His<br />
office is on the sixth floor of the former<br />
Burger King corporate headquarters,<br />
which overlooks picturesque<br />
Biscayne Bay south of Miami. Two<br />
pairs of binoculars, for bird watching,<br />
rest on a window sill. “The policies of<br />
preserving this ecosystem are all very much<br />
intertwined in the politics. Clay Shaw was<br />
the author of the House’s comprehensive<br />
Everglades restoration plan that Bill Clinton<br />
signed in 2000. In a weird way I’ve [always]<br />
been around this Everglades issue.”<br />
Formed 20 years ago by hedge fund<br />
billionaire Paul Tudor Jones and the late<br />
developer George Barley, the private<br />
nonprofit Everglades Foundation is not<br />
a typical environmental group. Its board<br />
members, who include singer Jimmy Buffett<br />
and golfing icon Jack Nicklaus, hail from<br />
throughout the country and harbor views<br />
across the political spectrum. The foundation<br />
raises nearly $7 million annually, employs<br />
five scientists (including hydrologists,<br />
wetlands ecologists, and environmental<br />
engineers), lobbies politicians on behalf<br />
of the ecosystem, and aims to increase<br />
education and awareness about the issues<br />
surrounding it.<br />
“Eric impressed us from the first moment<br />
we met,” Jones said when Eikenberg was<br />
hired. “He has a deep understanding of what<br />
it takes to achieve success both in Washington<br />
and Tallahassee and he has the leadership<br />
skills that will help the foundation continue to<br />
be at the forefront of Everglades restoration.”<br />
In the summer of 2013, nasty blue-green<br />
toxic algae began bubbling to the surface<br />
in several central Florida waterways. This<br />
picture is not the postcard that masses of<br />
chapped-lipped northerners have in mind<br />
when they migrate south for a brief vacation<br />
or a permanent one from winter.<br />
“Who wants to buy a million-dollar<br />
home with smelly, toxic algae in the water?”<br />
Eikenberg asks rhetorically.<br />
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 33
The impact of Everglades restoration<br />
on the state’s economy is never far from his<br />
mind. In 2010 the foundation commissioned<br />
a study by Mather Economics that reported<br />
the project would create nearly half a million<br />
jobs and generate four dollars for every<br />
dollar it invested over a 50-year period. The<br />
biggest benefit would be in real estate, the<br />
study showed, where property values would<br />
jump 35 percent due to increased quality<br />
of drinking and recreational water. Cutting<br />
down on water purification methods, like<br />
desalination facilities, would result in a 28<br />
percent economic gain. Tourism, boating,<br />
fishing, and hunting are other industries<br />
that would benefit from a clean Everglades,<br />
both the report and Eikenberg say. That’s<br />
not inconsequential considering that Florida<br />
should pass New York as the country’s third<br />
most populous state late this year or next,<br />
according to the U.S. Census Bureau.<br />
Thanks to decades of manmade<br />
engineering, each day 1.7 billion gallons of<br />
water are dumped in the gulf and the ocean.<br />
Worse, that water is largely polluted, which<br />
harms fish and reefs in the estuaries. Runoff<br />
from increasing residential and commercial<br />
development and fertilizers from agriculture<br />
south of Lake Okeechobee (much of it from<br />
sugar farming) creates harmful nutrients in<br />
the water, which destroy mats of composite<br />
algae called periphyton.<br />
“It looks like a bunch of oatmeal on top<br />
of the water,” says Eikenberg, pointing to<br />
the brown slop. “It’s made up of all kinds of<br />
organisms that birds and fish feed off of. The<br />
fish are food for the birds, the birds are food<br />
for the alligators. Periphyton is gone when<br />
you have high nutrients.”<br />
Florida spends billions of dollars each<br />
year to clean the water in natural wetlands,<br />
in large part because its average citizen uses<br />
180 gallons of water per day, according to<br />
the foundation.<br />
There are a lot of swimming pools to fill<br />
in the Sunshine State.<br />
“It’s water quantity and water quality,”<br />
Eikenberg says of the twin goals of<br />
restoration. “Instead of wasting billions of<br />
gallons by putting it out to sea, we want to<br />
direct more clean water to the central part<br />
of the Everglades.”<br />
That’s why the foundation has strongly<br />
supported projects like raising a stretch of<br />
the Tamiami Trail, a road that runs straight<br />
through the Everglades and now acts as a<br />
dam. By doing so, water will again flow south,<br />
instead of being diverted by a canal to the east.<br />
The first mile recently was completed—25<br />
years after it was authorized, but not funded.<br />
Earlier this year Florida governor Rick Scott<br />
committed $90 million in state funds toward<br />
completing the next 5.5 miles. He praises the<br />
foundation’s advocacy.<br />
“The Everglades Foundation and<br />
Eric Eikenberg play a large role in<br />
protecting Florida’s natural treasures<br />
and ensuring the necessary steps are<br />
taken to be good stewards of Florida’s<br />
environment,” Governor Scott says.<br />
“The health of the Everglades<br />
is critical to our communities . . .<br />
plays a major role in attracting<br />
tourists to our state, and is essential<br />
to continuing our efforts to create<br />
more jobs and opportunities for<br />
Florida families. That’s why this<br />
year we worked to invest more than<br />
$250 million towards Everglades<br />
restoration. I look forward to<br />
continuing to work with Eric<br />
to ensure that Florida’s natural<br />
treasures are protected.”<br />
Still, setbacks are numerous.<br />
In April, the Army Corps<br />
of Engineers delayed a key<br />
decision on the Central<br />
Everglades Planning<br />
Project, an important step in the<br />
restoration plan that would send<br />
Lake Okeechobee water south into<br />
the central Everglades. The project,<br />
which requires Congressional<br />
authorization, is critical because it<br />
provides the necessary infrastructure<br />
to move water south, thus reducing<br />
the harmful discharges of polluted<br />
water east and west.<br />
The delay left Eikenberg as testy<br />
as a hungry gator.<br />
“This means Congress will be<br />
unable to act on [the plan] for years,”<br />
he told the media. “Once again, the<br />
Corps is bogged down in its own<br />
bureaucracy, stumbling past important<br />
deadlines, showing an unwillingness to be<br />
creative, and determined to follow a trail of<br />
red tape that leads to public frustration.”<br />
After a career spent in the political arena<br />
(and perhaps a future in it—Eikenberg, who<br />
has four children from ages seven to three,<br />
“IT’S<br />
WATER<br />
QUANTITY<br />
AND<br />
WATER<br />
QUALITY.<br />
INSTEAD OF<br />
WASTING<br />
BILLIONS OF<br />
GALLONS BY<br />
PUTTING IT<br />
OUT TO SEA,<br />
WE WANT<br />
TO DIRECT<br />
MORE CLEAN<br />
WATER TO<br />
THE CENTRAL<br />
PART OF THE<br />
EVERGLADES.”<br />
says he’d like to run for office one day), he’s<br />
used to navigating in the political muck. But<br />
his patience is not perpetual.<br />
“Everglades restoration and protection<br />
is a nonpartisan issue,” he says. “This is<br />
not a regional issue, it’s not even a state issue.<br />
It’s not the Florida Everglades. I avoid that<br />
term as much as I can. This is America’s<br />
Everglades. It’s a natural treasure<br />
in the same breath as the Grand<br />
Canyon, Yosemite National Park,<br />
Mount Rushmore.<br />
“Quite frankly the general public<br />
doesn’t even know why this is<br />
important. If it was a mountain<br />
range, people would be in awe<br />
because you’d see it, but it’s a<br />
mosquito-ridden, alligator-infested<br />
[ecosystem]. But it is the lifeblood<br />
of south Florida.”<br />
In 2013, Everglades National<br />
Park drew just more than one<br />
million visitors, ranking it 19th<br />
among the 59 national parks. (Great<br />
Smoky Mountains was tops with<br />
9.3 million.) Those who do go are<br />
treated to a landscape breathtaking<br />
in its vastness, made even more<br />
remarkable considering that the<br />
Everglades is now just half its<br />
original four million acres.<br />
Over the deafening blare of<br />
the airboat’s propeller, Eikenberg<br />
points out a soaring snail kite, one<br />
of 67 threatened or endangered<br />
animals in the Everglades. A large<br />
alligator, its eyes and snout poking<br />
above the water, glides gracefully<br />
through the slough. This is the only<br />
place in the world where gators and<br />
crocodiles coexist.<br />
“That’s what this is all about,<br />
making sure we hold as much water<br />
as we can in the core part of the<br />
system so we avoid impacting the<br />
ecology and preserve the water<br />
supply for eight million people,”<br />
he says.<br />
Back at the dock the puffy white clouds<br />
are quickly replaced by ominous gray ones.<br />
Seconds later the sky opens and rain<br />
begins to pour. There’s no escaping<br />
the water—it’s everywhere.<br />
34 AMERICAN MAGAZINE AUGUST <strong>2014</strong>
Forget flowers. More than 3,500 students gave<br />
their moms the best Mother’s Day gift of all,<br />
collecting their diplomas and joining the ranks<br />
of AU alumni. Traditionally held on the second<br />
weekend in May, the 128th commencement<br />
events kicked off on Saturday, May 10, in Bender<br />
Arena and continued on Sunday, May 18, with<br />
the Washington College of Law ceremony.<br />
PHOTO BY HILARY SCHWAB<br />
AMERICAN.EDU/ALUMNI 35
1960s<br />
Robert Angle, Kogod/BS ’65,<br />
and Hu Di, SIS/MS ’11, met at<br />
a volunteer service program<br />
in Beard’s Fork, Virginia, and<br />
discovered their AU connection<br />
over dinner. They were pleased<br />
to find that two alumni separated<br />
by half a century shared the same<br />
passion for volunteerism and<br />
global citizenship.<br />
-1964-<br />
TIME<br />
CAPSULES<br />
TOP TUNE:<br />
“I Want to Hold Your Hand,” the Beatles<br />
TOP-GROSSING FLICK<br />
Goldfinger<br />
IN THE NEWS<br />
Activist Nelson Mandela is sentenced<br />
to life imprisonment in South Africa;<br />
three civil rights workers are murdered<br />
in Mississippi; The Beatles appear<br />
on The Ed Sullivan Show<br />
FROM THE AU ARCHIVES<br />
Students are outraged when Cleaves<br />
Cafeteria hikes prices for milk,<br />
apples, hard-boiled eggs, and<br />
other snack favorites to 15 cents.<br />
The stomach ache-inducing beef<br />
goulash also draws ire.<br />
AT THE HELM<br />
Barry Yeskel was 1964–1965<br />
Student Association president;<br />
he’s now a real estate broker in<br />
New York and New Jersey.<br />
“Sharon Stone, Jennifer Aniston,<br />
Courteney Cox, and many more donated<br />
more than 300 handbags, making this<br />
our most successful year ever.”<br />
—Janet Janjigian, SOC/MA ’73, on the 11th annual Lupus L.A.<br />
Hollywood Bag Ladies Lunch, which raised more than $400,000<br />
for patient advocacy programs and research<br />
Esther Greenfield, CAS/BA ’65,<br />
authored the forthcoming Tough<br />
Men in Hard Places, a collection<br />
of rare black-and-white photos<br />
from the Western Colorado Power<br />
Company that chronicles the story<br />
of the men who brought electricity<br />
to rural areas of the state.<br />
Published by West Winds Press/<br />
Graphic Arts Books, the book is<br />
due on shelves September 2.<br />
1970s<br />
Maria Tadd, CAS/BA ’70,<br />
wrote Happiness Is<br />
Growing Old at<br />
Home, a resource<br />
for seniors and<br />
those with aging<br />
loved ones. The<br />
book has been<br />
endorsed by<br />
gerontologists<br />
Christiane<br />
Northrup, Larry<br />
Dossey, and Norman<br />
Shealy. agingathome.info<br />
UPDATE<br />
YOUR EMAIL<br />
ADDRESS AT<br />
ALUMNIASSOCIATION.<br />
AMERICAN.EDU/<br />
UPDATEEMAIL.<br />
Dennis Lucey, Kogod/MBA ’72,<br />
cochaired the <strong>American</strong>-Ireland<br />
National Gala on March 13,<br />
honoring Vice President Joseph<br />
Biden. The event raised more<br />
than $1 million for peace and<br />
reconciliation, arts and culture,<br />
education, and community<br />
development programs in Ireland.<br />
Michael Mercer, CAS/BA ’72,<br />
is author of Hire the Best and<br />
Avoid the Rest, now in its 13th<br />
edition. Companies across North<br />
America assess job applicants<br />
using Mercer’s three preemployment<br />
tests.<br />
James Winkler,<br />
SOC/BA ’72, is<br />
editor of Creating<br />
the Future, a<br />
collection of<br />
University of<br />
Toledo (UT)<br />
president Lloyd<br />
Jacobs’ writings<br />
and addresses.<br />
Jacobs was a driving<br />
force behind the 2006 merger<br />
of UT and Medical University of<br />
-1974-<br />
TIME<br />
CAPSULES<br />
TOP-GROSSING FLICK<br />
The Towering Inferno<br />
IN THE NEWS<br />
Richard Nixon becomes the first<br />
<strong>American</strong> president to resign; People<br />
magazine debuts with Mia Farrow on<br />
the cover; Patty Hearst is kidnapped by<br />
the Symbionese Liberation Army<br />
FROM THE AU ARCHIVES<br />
AU installs parking meters behind the<br />
Letts-Anderson complex. Students<br />
complain that they now must shell out<br />
a dime per hour to park—on top of<br />
$20 for an annual permit.<br />
AT THE HELM<br />
Rick Baker was 1974–1975 Student<br />
Confederation president; he’s now senior<br />
vice president of Regions Bank<br />
in Memphis, Tennessee.<br />
Ohio, a freestanding academic<br />
health science center. Winkler<br />
is also one of four editors of<br />
A Community of Scholars:<br />
Recollections of the Early Years of<br />
the Medical College of Ohio, which<br />
was published in 2011.<br />
Noah Hanft, SPA/BA ’73,<br />
was appointed president and<br />
CEO of the International<br />
Institute for Conflict Prevention<br />
and Resolution.<br />
Janet Janjigian, SOC/MA ’73,<br />
and Danielle Gelber, SIS/MA ’82,<br />
hosted the Lupus L.A. Hollywood<br />
Bag Ladies Lunch on November<br />
15, 2013. The annual event, which<br />
36 AMERICAN MAGAZINE AUGUST <strong>2014</strong>
class notes<br />
features an auction of celebrity<br />
handbags, raises awareness and<br />
money for lupus research.<br />
John Schalestock, CAS/BA ’74,<br />
was a finalist in the 2013 William<br />
Faulkner-William Wisdom<br />
Creative Writing Competition.<br />
Dark Swans and Painted Faces: A<br />
Tale of the Vietnam War is about<br />
a Marine Force Recon team’s<br />
secret assassination mission.<br />
tatepublishing.com/bookstore<br />
David Nolan, SPA/MPA ’75,<br />
coauthored Quest for Freedom:<br />
The Scots-Irish Presbyterian<br />
Rebellions for Political and<br />
Religious Freedom.<br />
Chuck Wheeler, SPA/BA ’79, was<br />
elected treasurer of the McHenry<br />
County Republican Party Central<br />
Committee in Illinois.<br />
1980s<br />
Kimberly Willson-St. Clair,<br />
CAS/MA ’80, and three other<br />
librarians won the Association of<br />
College and Research Libraries’<br />
<strong>2014</strong> Instruction Section<br />
Innovation Award for their work<br />
on the software Library DIY.<br />
Glen Bolger, SPA/BS ’85,<br />
reunited with other alumni<br />
to commemorate the 30th<br />
anniversary of the AU-Leeds<br />
exchange program with<br />
the University of Leeds. In<br />
attendance were Stephen<br />
Daoust, SPA/BA ’85, Josefina<br />
DeVarona O’Sullivan, SPA/<br />
BS ’85, and Mary Hoffman<br />
Holtschneider, SPA/BS ’85,<br />
SPA/MPA ’86.<br />
Dawn Du Verney, SPA/BA ’85,<br />
was appointed cochair of the<br />
<strong>American</strong> Bar Association<br />
Section of Litigation’s Criminal<br />
Litigation Committee.<br />
-1989-<br />
TIME<br />
CAPSULES<br />
TOP TUNE<br />
“Look Away,” Chicago<br />
TOP-GROSSING FLICK<br />
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade<br />
IN THE NEWS<br />
Islamic militants put a price on Salman<br />
Rushdie’s head after the publication<br />
of Satanic Verses; the Berlin Wall falls;<br />
ruptured tanker Exxon Valdez sends<br />
11 million gallons of crude oil gushing<br />
into Alaska’s Prince William Sound<br />
FROM THE AU ARCHIVES<br />
Fifteen members of AU for Choice<br />
stage a rush-hour rally outside<br />
Domino’s Pizza in Dupont Circle to protest<br />
the company’s contributions to Operation<br />
Rescue, an antiabortion group.<br />
AT THE HELM<br />
Jim Akers was 1989–1990<br />
Student Confederation president;<br />
he’s now the vice president and<br />
global head of indirect procurement<br />
at Teva Pharmaceuticals in<br />
New York City.<br />
Guy Enderle, Kogod/BSBA ’85,<br />
gathered with eight AU alumni<br />
for a five-day trip down the Grand<br />
Canyon over Labor Day 2013. The<br />
group included alumni from the<br />
classes of ’85, ’86, and ’87.<br />
Benjamin McCarty, SIS/BA ’86,<br />
and his legal support team<br />
received the U.S. Department<br />
of Homeland Security Office of<br />
General Counsel Excellence<br />
Award for legal assistance in<br />
the response to Hurricane Sandy.<br />
McCarty is an attorney with<br />
the U.S. Coast Guard First<br />
District in Boston.<br />
Mark Bergel, CAS/MS ’87, CAS/<br />
PhD ’96, founder of A Wider<br />
Circle, a D.C. nonprofit that helps<br />
impoverished families furnish<br />
their homes, was named a <strong>2014</strong><br />
CNN Hero.<br />
1990s<br />
Mehrzad Boroujerdi, SIS/PhD<br />
’90, associate professor of<br />
political science at the<br />
Maxwell School<br />
of Syracuse<br />
University, is<br />
among four<br />
recipients of<br />
the O’Hanley<br />
Scholars Award.<br />
She will receive<br />
three years’ worth<br />
of supplemental<br />
financial support for<br />
teaching and research.<br />
Michael Lally, SIS/BA ’90, a<br />
career senior foreign service<br />
officer, was promoted to minister<br />
counselor in the U.S. Department<br />
of Commerce’s Global Markets<br />
Division. He and his family are<br />
currently assigned to the U.S.<br />
Embassy in Ankara, Turkey. In<br />
summer <strong>2014</strong>, he will be the<br />
department’s executive deputy<br />
assistant secretary for Europe, the<br />
Middle East, and Africa, based in<br />
KNOW<br />
ABOUT UPCOMING<br />
EVENTS. VISIT<br />
AMERICAN.EDU/<br />
ALUMNI/EVENTS.<br />
Washington, D.C. michael.lally@<br />
trade.gov<br />
Jose Negron Fernandez,<br />
Kogod/BSBA ’92, was appointed<br />
secretary of the Department of<br />
Corrections and Rehabilitation of<br />
Puerto Rico in January.<br />
Devorah Rosenzweig, CAS/BA<br />
’93, and her husband Monte<br />
Rosenzweig had their<br />
10th child. She<br />
divides her time<br />
between raising<br />
her children,<br />
working parttime<br />
with her<br />
husband in his<br />
insurance office<br />
on Long Island, and<br />
volunteering at one of<br />
her kids’ schools.<br />
Emilie Cortes, Kogod/BSBA<br />
’96, has received lots of press for<br />
her new endeavor, Call of the<br />
Wild Adventures for women. In<br />
January, Cortes and Call of the<br />
Wild were featured in the Bend,<br />
Oregon, TV show myWindow. In<br />
February, she was interviewed<br />
for a new online course at<br />
Stanford University. In March,<br />
Cortes was nominated as a<br />
local MUSE for the <strong>2014</strong> MUSE<br />
Conference in Bend.<br />
“Our goal is to end poverty, to go out of<br />
business. We owe it to people who are<br />
born into poverty to make this the social<br />
movement that ending slavery was.”<br />
—Mark Bergel, CAS/MS ’87, CAS/PhD ’96, founder of A Wider<br />
Circle, who vowed never to sleep on a bed again (opting for the couch<br />
or floor instead) until every poor person in the country has one too<br />
AMERICAN.EDU/ALUMNI 37
Giving is a personal<br />
endorsement of<br />
the university and<br />
the experiences<br />
alumni have here,<br />
and it helps solidify<br />
AU’s prominence.<br />
GIVING TO ONE’S ALMA MATER does more than demonstrate<br />
gratitude, an ongoing connection to the institution, and a<br />
commitment to the educational values of the university.<br />
It’s also a sign of community.<br />
Toby McChesney, SPA/BA ’02, generously gave $25,000 in the<br />
hope of challenging his fellow alumni to join him in making a gift<br />
by the end of the academic year. When we were approaching our<br />
goal of 1,000 donors, alumnus Rajiv “RJ” Narang, SPA/BA ’02,<br />
stepped up and gave a gift of $5,000 to extend the challenge for<br />
an additional 500 donors. We reached 1,575 donors in all. Alumni<br />
answered the call. They met and surpassed both goals.<br />
In fact, during the fiscal year, thousands of donors gave more<br />
than $1.9 million to our annual funds, providing financial aid for<br />
students and money that provides the lifeblood for much of AU.<br />
This says a lot about AU community and AU pride. Giving is<br />
a personal endorsement of the university and the experiences<br />
alumni have here, and it helps solidify AU’s prominence. But<br />
giving is just one demonstration of AU pride.<br />
Another indicator is the personal time alumni offer to the AU<br />
community. Just last year, there were more than 13,000 contacts<br />
between alumni and students, and more than 1,200 alumni<br />
volunteers involved in the life of the university.<br />
Nearly 1,000 people participated in activities tied to the men’s<br />
basketball team’s appearance in the NCAA Tournament. Alumni<br />
also rallied around the women’s basketball team, which received<br />
an at-large bid to a postseason tournament for the first time ever.<br />
And the women’s volleyball team not only went to the NCAA<br />
Tournament but also beat Georgia and Duke to make it to the<br />
Sweet 16, its best showing ever.<br />
As we prepare to welcome an unprecedented number of<br />
freshmen this fall, now is the time for alumni to demonstrate to<br />
those new students their commitment to AU. That will instill<br />
in these freshmen—and those in future classes behind them—<br />
a similar lifelong commitment to the university.<br />
We work hard to nurture that kind of engagement, and<br />
I know that we’ll continue to do that very well. Alumni are a<br />
critical part of our success. Giving is something we can do<br />
together—as a community—to demonstrate our strength, and<br />
further strengthen, <strong>American</strong> University.<br />
Sincerely,<br />
Thomas J. Minar, PhD<br />
Vice President of Development and Alumni Relations<br />
38 AMERICAN MAGAZINE AUGUST <strong>2014</strong>
giving<br />
MEANINGFUL INTERACTIONS<br />
BETWEEN STUDENTS AND<br />
ALUMNI inspire learning and foster<br />
lasting relationships. The Alumni<br />
Association hosts a variety of events<br />
that bring students and alumni together.<br />
Students benefit from the advice and<br />
guidance of experienced, professional<br />
alumni, who continue to be a vital part<br />
of the AU community.<br />
AU WILL WELCOME A<br />
FRESHMAN CLASS this fall<br />
that’s just as strong and talented as<br />
prior crops of students. Early decision<br />
applicants, those who declared AU as<br />
their first choice, numbered 950—the<br />
largest in AU history. Early decision<br />
applicants will constitute more than<br />
one-third of the Class of 2018.<br />
TOBY MCCHESNEY, SPA/BA ‘02,<br />
ISSUED A CHALLENGE and<br />
nearly 1,600 people stepped up, making a<br />
gift to AU during the last two weeks before<br />
commencement. This demonstration by<br />
alumni of their commitment to the university<br />
set a great example for the Class of <strong>2014</strong>.<br />
FROM REUNION PLANNING<br />
AND RECRUITING TO<br />
CHAPTER PROGRAMMING<br />
and more, alumni volunteers are the<br />
lifeblood of the university. Whether<br />
you’re an active chapter leader, a student<br />
mentor, or a school-based volunteer,<br />
there’s a plethora of ways to give back.<br />
Visit american.edu/alumni/volunteer.<br />
ALUMNI CELEBRATED<br />
EAGLE PRIDE IN DROVES<br />
this year. The men’s basketball team’s<br />
appearance in the <strong>2014</strong> NCAA Tournament<br />
sparked spirited watch parties around the<br />
world. Alumni also cheered the women’s<br />
basketball squad on to its first-ever<br />
postseason tournament. And the women’s<br />
volleyball team made it all the way to the<br />
Sweet 16—its best showing ever.<br />
WHETHER YOU’RE STROLLING<br />
THE QUAD or attending an athletics<br />
event, art exhibit, or alumni gathering, you’re<br />
always welcome back on campus. Enjoy free<br />
parking on campus after 5 p.m. on weekdays<br />
and all day on weekends, as well as a free<br />
shuttle from the Tenleytown Metro station<br />
every day. Also, join the record number<br />
of alumni who return to AU every fall to<br />
celebrate All-<strong>American</strong> Weekend.<br />
ILLUSTRATIONS BY BRUCE MORSER<br />
AMERICAN.EDU/ALUMNI 39
class notes<br />
Courtney Curatolo, SPA/BA ’99,<br />
was appointed director of public<br />
affairs and education at Planned<br />
Parenthood of Collier County.<br />
Curatolo is responsible for<br />
building community support for<br />
the organization through public<br />
affairs, advocacy, education,<br />
community outreach, and<br />
volunteer engagement.<br />
Evan Glass, SOC/BA ’99, was<br />
a candidate for the Montgomery<br />
County Council in Maryland’s<br />
Democratic primary on<br />
June 24, <strong>2014</strong>.<br />
David Rosen, SPA/BA ’99,<br />
joined Bleacher Report in San<br />
Francisco as senior director<br />
of marketing.<br />
2000s<br />
Katherine Belinski, SIS/BA<br />
’01, was elected partner at the<br />
law firm of Nossaman LLP in<br />
Washington, D.C.<br />
Sarah Moss, SOC/BA ’01, is<br />
creator of the <strong>2014</strong> State of the<br />
Union bingo card, featured on the<br />
Washington Post’s Monkey Cage<br />
blog. She lives in Denver and<br />
manages community, legislative,<br />
and communications outreach<br />
for the Denver Fire Department.<br />
Tara Castillo, SIS/BA ’02,<br />
WCL/JD ’07, moderated a<br />
panel, “Key Policy and<br />
Operational Challenges to<br />
Outstanding RMBS,” at the<br />
annual <strong>American</strong> Securitization<br />
Forum Conference in Las Vegas<br />
on January 28, <strong>2014</strong>.<br />
-2004-<br />
TIME<br />
CAPSULES<br />
TOP TUNE<br />
“Yeah!,” Usher featuring<br />
Lil Jon and Ludacris<br />
TOP-GROSSING FLICK<br />
Shrek 2<br />
IN THE NEWS<br />
Tsunami kills more than 200,000 in<br />
Asia; Massachusetts becomes the<br />
first state to legalize gay marriage;<br />
graphic images of Iraqi prisoners at<br />
Abu Ghraib prison go public<br />
FROM THE AU ARCHIVES<br />
The Eagle spotlights students residing<br />
in the “unluckiest rooms” on campus,<br />
including Anderson’s “Satan room.”<br />
“My roommates and I are from<br />
religious families,” says Deanna Niles.<br />
“We thought it would be funny to have<br />
mail sent to room 666.”<br />
AT THE HELM<br />
Nick Terzulli was 2004–2005 Student<br />
Confederation president; he’s now the<br />
director of business development<br />
at the Nassau County Industrial<br />
Development Agency.<br />
Sharon Foster, SOC/MA ’02,<br />
published her first e-book, Live<br />
Lightly: A Summer of Poetry,<br />
in April. The poetry in this<br />
collection is grouped into seven<br />
sections: change, inspiration,<br />
love lost, love found, the streets,<br />
humanity, and beauty.<br />
Michael Lamm, SIS/BA ’02,<br />
celebrated the first anniversary of<br />
his company, Corporate Advisory<br />
Solutions LLC, on May 1. The<br />
merchant bank, headquartered<br />
in Philadelphia, focuses on<br />
outsourced business services.<br />
L. Trenton Marsh, Kogod/BSBA<br />
’02, won first place in New<br />
York University’s<br />
eighth annual<br />
MLK Oratorical<br />
Contest on<br />
February<br />
3. Marsh’s<br />
original speech<br />
was titled “The<br />
Courage to<br />
Dream.” A PhD<br />
candidate studying<br />
social-psychology and<br />
urban education, Marsh is on an<br />
educational leave of absence from<br />
IBM Corporation, where he is a<br />
managing business consultant.<br />
Pamela Martin, SOC/BA ’03,<br />
and Joseph Popiolkowski, SPA/<br />
BA ’05, welcomed their first<br />
child, Evelyn, in November.<br />
Kerri Anderson-Czerkas, SOC/<br />
BA ’04, joined Keres Consulting<br />
Inc., a Native <strong>American</strong>–owned<br />
firm, to assist with the Native<br />
<strong>American</strong> Lands Environmental<br />
Mitigation Program.<br />
Mark Overman, SIS/MA ’05,<br />
and AU adjunct professor Sherry<br />
Mueller published the second<br />
edition of Working World: Careers<br />
in International Education,<br />
Exchange, and Development.<br />
Forrest Dunbar, SIS/BA, ’06, is<br />
running for congress in Alaska’s<br />
at-large congressional district.<br />
Nicole Zangara, CAS/BA ’06,<br />
author of Surviving Female<br />
KEEP<br />
YOUR FRIENDS IN<br />
THE LOOP. SEND<br />
YOUR UPDATES TO<br />
CLASSNOTES@<br />
AMERICAN.EDU.<br />
Friendships, the Good, the<br />
Bad, and the Ugly, was<br />
quoted on WebMD.com and<br />
allparenting.com.<br />
Caitlin McCann, SIS/BA ’07,<br />
and several AU alumni<br />
living in Buenos Aires<br />
volunteered with<br />
an organization<br />
called TECHO to<br />
build a house for<br />
a needy family.<br />
They raised the<br />
money to pay for<br />
the house, tools,<br />
and transportation<br />
and spent a weekend in a<br />
shantytown along with other<br />
volunteers.<br />
Kimberly Meyer, SIS/BA ’08,<br />
has been promoted to executive<br />
assistant at Avison Young<br />
in Boston.<br />
“Letting go—<br />
especially of a<br />
longtime friend—<br />
can be difficult.<br />
But it will leave<br />
more room in<br />
your life for people<br />
who are supportive<br />
and caring.”<br />
—Nicole Zangara, CAS/BA ’06,<br />
on the ebbs and flows of female<br />
friendships<br />
CONNECT<br />
alumniassociation.<br />
american.edu<br />
FOLLOW<br />
Twitter.com/<br />
<strong>American</strong>UAlum<br />
LIKE<br />
Facebook.com/<br />
<strong>American</strong>UAlum<br />
VIEW<br />
Flickr.com/photos/<br />
<strong>American</strong>UAlum<br />
40 AMERICAN MAGAZINE AUGUST <strong>2014</strong>
teamwork<br />
SOMMER LOVE<br />
Joni Palew Sommer, CAS/BA ’67 + Gerry Sommer, CAS/BA ’66<br />
They met on the steps of Mary Graydon Center on MAY 15, 1964, to arrange a carpool to a dance. She was being courted by his<br />
Zeta Beta Tau brother, and he had a date of his own. BUT SPARKS FLEW. “For some reason, I said, ‘Would you like to dance?’<br />
And we’ve been dancing ever since,” Gerry says. Two days after their first spin around the dance floor, Gerry called Joni on the<br />
McDowell Hall lobby’s shared phone to ask for a date. The smitten twosome enjoyed evenings at the Marshall Hall amusement park<br />
on the Potomac River and dinners at the Charcoal Hearth on Wisconsin Avenue. They threw pennies in the fountain at the newly<br />
opened Dulles International Airport. “IT WAS A DESTINATION DATE,” Gerry says. When Gerry took evening classes at<br />
AU’s downtown campus, he used a CB radio to get in touch with Joni, and the two would grab a late-night bite at Hot Shoppes.<br />
HE POPPED THE QUESTION on Joni’s 21st birthday. “He gave me four boxes,” she recalls. “I kept opening the boxes, and at<br />
the very end, there was an engagement ring.” The Sommers settled in the Washington area, where he worked as a labor attorney for<br />
more than 40 years and she as an elementary school teacher in Montgomery County, Maryland. MARRIED FOR 47 YEARS,<br />
they have two daughters and four grandchildren. AND THEY’RE STILL DANCING.<br />
AMERICAN.EDU/ALUMNI 41
class notes<br />
-2009-<br />
TIME<br />
CAPSULES<br />
TOP TUNE<br />
“Boom Boom Pow,” The Black Eyed Peas<br />
TOP-GROSSING FLICK<br />
Avatar<br />
IN THE NEWS<br />
Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger lands a<br />
U.S. Airways plane in the Hudson River<br />
after striking a flock of geese; Michael<br />
Jackson dies at age 50; Air France flight<br />
447 disappears off the coast of Brazil<br />
with 228 on board<br />
FROM THE AU ARCHIVES<br />
Lines snake around the Student<br />
Health Center as more than 2,000 AU<br />
community members wait for the H1N1—<br />
or swine flu—vaccination.<br />
AT THE HELM<br />
Andrew MacCracken was 2009–2010<br />
Student Confederation president;<br />
he’s now executive director of the<br />
National Campus Leadership Council<br />
in Washington, D.C..<br />
Emily Willard, SIS/BA ’08, SIS/<br />
MA ’09, was named a Rotary Peace<br />
Fellow. She is one of the youngest<br />
ever selected for the program.<br />
Michaela McGill, SOC/BA ’09,<br />
and Andrew Beideman, SIS/BA<br />
’09, were married on December<br />
31, 2013, in Omaha, Nebraska.<br />
Many AU alumni attended the<br />
wedding. The wedding party<br />
included Elizabeth Prevou,<br />
CAS/BA ’09; Benjamin Kern,<br />
SIS/BA ’08; Griffin Greenberg,<br />
SPA/BA ’08; Michael Kerman,<br />
SPA/BA ’09, WCL/JD ’12; and<br />
Ritesh Patel, Kogod/BSBA ’09.<br />
Jesika (Pufnock) Steuerwalt,<br />
SPA/BA ’09, married Benjamin<br />
Steuerwalt on July 19, 2013, on<br />
the lawn of Wagner Vineyards in<br />
the Finger Lakes region of New<br />
York. The wedding party included<br />
<strong>American</strong> University field hockey<br />
alumna Katie Turner, Kogod/<br />
BSBA ’09. Several AU alumni<br />
were in attendance.<br />
2010s<br />
Melissa Gang, SIS/MA ’10, and<br />
Sara Cady, SIS/MA ’12, each<br />
had a paper published in the<br />
winter 2013-<strong>2014</strong> issue of Peace<br />
and Conflict Review, a journal<br />
published by the University of<br />
Peace in Costa Rica.<br />
Andrew Clark, SIS/MA ’11, has<br />
been published on EcoMENA.org,<br />
a highly influential knowledge<br />
bank on sustainability in the<br />
Middle East and North Africa.<br />
Will Hubbard, SIS/BA ’11,<br />
accepted a position with the<br />
Student Veterans of America<br />
national organization as the vice<br />
president of external affairs.<br />
Aaron Sutch, SIS/MA, ’11,<br />
coauthored a paper outlining the<br />
potential economic and energy<br />
benefits of a solar industry in<br />
West Virginia.<br />
“Thailand’s ruling military junta has a<br />
midnight to 4 a.m. curfew. It hasn’t had<br />
a big impact on my life, but it’s been<br />
problematic for people who want to<br />
watch the World Cup.”<br />
—Emily Willard, SIS/BA ’08, SIS/MA ’09, one of 20 Rotary<br />
Peace Fellows, on adjusting to life in Bangkok<br />
Elliot Bell-Krasner, SPA/MPP ’12,<br />
was unanimously approved by<br />
the Alexandria City Council for<br />
his first civic office. Bell-Krasner<br />
is now a member-at-large for the<br />
Historic Alexandria Resources<br />
Commission.<br />
Tangela D. Richardson, SOC/<br />
MA ’13, was awarded a Social<br />
Security Administration<br />
Commissioner’s Citation for her<br />
work involving African <strong>American</strong><br />
national outreach.<br />
To update your address<br />
EMAIL<br />
alumupdate@american.edu<br />
VISIT<br />
american.edu/alumni/connected<br />
WRITE<br />
Office of Alumni Relations<br />
<strong>American</strong> University<br />
4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW<br />
Washington, DC 20016-8002<br />
Five plaid-clad, pickax-packing<br />
coeds pitch in to build a new stone<br />
walk on campus during AU’s Arbor<br />
Day celebration, April 14, 1937. They<br />
are, from left: Ella Harllee, Margaret<br />
Snavely, Margaret Warthen, Florence<br />
Yeager, and Ruth Hudson. Green<br />
thumbs gathered every year for<br />
AU’s Arbor Day festivities from 1933<br />
to 1945; students got the day off<br />
from classes to help build bridges,<br />
fireplaces, and walkways.<br />
S. Barton Gephart,<br />
CAS/BA ’50, WCL/JD ’66,<br />
November 30, 2013,<br />
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania<br />
Margaret Graham<br />
Kranking, CAS/BA ’52,<br />
November 26, 2013, Chevy<br />
Chase, Maryland<br />
William Jones,<br />
CAS/BA ’64, March 12, <strong>2014</strong>,<br />
Virginia Beach, Virginia<br />
Kenneth Cook,<br />
CAS/PhD ’67, October 28,<br />
2013, Arlington, Virginia<br />
Frank Spillman,<br />
SIS/BA ’67, March 18, <strong>2014</strong>,<br />
San Francisco, California<br />
Shawn Kuykendall,<br />
SOC/BA ’05, March 12, <strong>2014</strong>,<br />
Washington, D.C.<br />
42 AMERICAN MAGAZINE AUGUST <strong>2014</strong>
memories<br />
Excerpts from the Eagle archives at theeagleonline.com<br />
REMEMBER<br />
when David Bromberg<br />
headlined orientation<br />
weekend ’74?<br />
Share your memories:<br />
email magazine@<br />
american.edu.<br />
KURT COBAIN PHOTO: FRANK MICELOTTA/HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES<br />
1968<br />
Though some griped that<br />
the Student Union Board<br />
shelled out $10,000 to lure<br />
the Godfather of Soul to<br />
AU (papa got a brand-new<br />
bag), James Brown’s May 11 show at the<br />
Leonard Center was the highlight of<br />
spring weekend for 3,500 sweaty, cramped<br />
concertgoers (the baseball field, which<br />
would’ve allowed more elbow room, was<br />
rained out). After the show, Mayor Walter<br />
Washington presented Brown with the<br />
key to the city as thanks for helping to<br />
“cool down” riots in D.C. after the April<br />
assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.<br />
1974<br />
Bruce Springsteen and his<br />
E Street Band treated 1,200<br />
lucky concertgoers to four<br />
hours of tunes, November<br />
16 in the Leonard Gym. The<br />
marathon show was one of the earliest<br />
stops on the Jersey-based band’s yearslong,<br />
multicontinent, seven-leg, Born to<br />
Run tour. The setlist included “Jungleland”<br />
and “She’s the One,” songs that would<br />
appear the following year on the Boss’s<br />
third album, Born to Run (considered by<br />
many to be his mainstream breakthrough).<br />
Tickets were free to students, included in<br />
their $27 activity fee.<br />
1986<br />
Slam dancing, fistfights,<br />
and flying beer cans: the<br />
crowd at the Ramones’<br />
October 24 show in the<br />
Tavern was anything but<br />
sedated. During its hour long set, the<br />
New York punk band—which toured<br />
virtually nonstop for 22 years—treated<br />
1,000 rowdy fans (250 over capacity for<br />
the Tavern, which contributed to the<br />
chaos) to such hits as “Rock and Roll<br />
High School” and “I Wanna Be Sedated.”<br />
“I flipped out when I saw [frontman] Joey<br />
Ramone,” junior Melissa Rubenstein told<br />
the Eagle. “He is so hot.”<br />
1993<br />
The announcement came<br />
moments before Nirvana<br />
took the stage at Bender<br />
Arena, November 13: “Please<br />
do not throw shoes on<br />
stage or Kurt will walk away.” (Cobain was<br />
clocked in the nose by a shoe earlier that<br />
year.) The Seattle trio served up the hits,<br />
including “Come As You Are” and grunge<br />
anthem “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” before<br />
a crowd of 1,000 flannel-clad fans. The<br />
show was something to tell the grandkids<br />
about: it was Cobain’s last Washington<br />
concert, as he committed suicide just five<br />
months later.<br />
Pearl Jam, the Allman Brothers, Bob Dylan, the Roots, Joan Jett, Moby—what band rocked your world?<br />
Email your favorite concert memory or a photo of your ticket stub to magazine@american.edu.<br />
AMERICAN.EDU/ALUMNI 43
NESTLED ALONG<br />
THE COLORADO<br />
RIVER, SMACK<br />
DAB IN THE<br />
CENTER OF THE<br />
LONE STAR STATE,<br />
Austin is an incubator of small,<br />
independent businesses; an<br />
emerging hub for pharmaceutical<br />
and biotechnology firms; and<br />
the live music capital of the<br />
world. The birthplace of<br />
Whole Foods, Dell, and South<br />
by Southwest, the city features<br />
a diverse mix of professors<br />
and students, musicians and<br />
artists, tech wonks and bluecollar<br />
workers.<br />
Texas’s eclectic capital city is<br />
also home to 317 AU alumni, who<br />
are among the nearly 900,000<br />
Austinites keeping it weird.<br />
What besides a charming<br />
Texas twang and a relaxed, urban<br />
sophistication do these Austin<br />
Eagles share? The insider’s<br />
knowledge of Washington, D.C.,<br />
gained while studying at AU.<br />
Get to know some of our Texas<br />
transplants here.<br />
JAYSON RAPAPORT, KOGOD/BSBA ’97<br />
COFOUNDER, BIRDS BARBERSHOP<br />
“Our goal is to un-salon the salon,” says<br />
Jayson Rapaport. He’s talking about Birds<br />
Barbershop, his and business partner<br />
Michael Portman’s Austin-based chain of six<br />
modern-yet-nostalgic hair cutteries that are<br />
redefining the neighborhood barbershop.<br />
The laid-back locale of South Lamar,<br />
where honky-tonks and taxidermy shops rub<br />
shoulders with hip eateries and boutiques,<br />
saw the opening of the first Birds in 2006.<br />
The approachable, low-key SoLa vibe was<br />
a mirror for the Birds brand, with spaces<br />
varying in design from one site to the next<br />
but consistently focused on being an allinclusive<br />
place to get an honest, dependable<br />
cut. “It’s a twenty-first-century shop; we<br />
welcome everyone and want them to feel<br />
comfortable.”<br />
Clients won’t forget they’re in Austin,<br />
though. The city’s ubiquitous alternative<br />
vibe sets the stage for the Birds experience.<br />
Services include a Shiner beer and<br />
meticulously curated music. Vintage arcade<br />
games and murals by hometown artists<br />
adorn each waiting area.<br />
“Austin is a small town, but an important<br />
town,” Rapaport says. “The neighborhoods<br />
have strong identities. They give the local<br />
guy the first opportunity.” Birds continues to<br />
turn heads in the city that bucks convention,<br />
and new ventures for the Texas natives<br />
include a product line, Verb, and a seventh<br />
location in the works.<br />
OUT OF BOUNDS COMEDY FESTIVAL<br />
Dave Buckman, CAS/BA ’94, producer. The Second City<br />
alum has produced the laugh fest since 2010. By day, the<br />
actor and funny man works as membership relations<br />
manager with the Austin Chamber of Commerce.<br />
GORGEOUS MILLIE<br />
Laura Jacks, Kogod/BSBA ’92, cofounder.<br />
The mediator, former judge, and mother of<br />
two boys created the teacher-led playgroup to<br />
give moms a place to sip lattes and chat while<br />
their youngsters enjoy educational activities.<br />
THE CONTEMPORARY AUSTIN<br />
Maggie McGrath, SOC/BA ’09, art school<br />
registration coordinator. The Art School at Laguna<br />
Gloria, which offers classes in painting, drawing,<br />
wheel throwing, mosaics, photography, glass, metal,<br />
and more, just celebrated its 50th anniversary.<br />
44 AMERICAN MAGAZINE AUGUST <strong>2014</strong>
where we are<br />
Richard Tagle<br />
CAS/BA ’94, CAS/MA ’96<br />
CEO, ANDY RODDICK FOUNDATION<br />
Working for one of the world’s most famous tennis<br />
players sounds like a grand slam gig. Turns out it’s even<br />
more rewarding when that athlete is working just as<br />
hard as you to improve the lives of thousands of children.<br />
Since becoming CEO of the Andy Roddick Foundation<br />
in July 2013, Richard Tagle has helped shepherd the<br />
organization’s grants, programs, and partnerships.<br />
Founded by the 2003 U.S. Open champion nearly 15 years<br />
ago, the organization—which supports after-school and<br />
summer programs for students across Austin—has raised<br />
about $12 million since its inception. It focuses on<br />
out-of-school time, the hours when students are at risk<br />
of losing academic skills, being a victim of violent crime,<br />
gaining weight by not being physically active, and<br />
engaging in risky behaviors.<br />
“The foundation’s mission is to create opportunities<br />
for young people to succeed and thrive,” says Tagle.<br />
In 2012 alone, the foundation provided 165,579 hours<br />
of care, tutoring, sports camps, and education; 7,700<br />
school uniforms; and 4,292 meals and snacks. Next year,<br />
it will open the Sports and Learning Center to give<br />
youngsters a safe space to learn and play.<br />
Born and raised in the Philippines, Tagle came to the<br />
United States when he was 16. In Washington he served<br />
as CEO of Higher Achievement, an academic program<br />
for middle school kids designed to get them on a college<br />
track. He loved the job, but after a total of 27 years in<br />
Washington, he was ready for a change.<br />
“Austin is exciting, dynamic, and growing,” he says.<br />
“It’s trying to be a social entrepreneurship capital in<br />
additional to being the live music capital of the world.”<br />
With about 6,000 nonprofits in the area—and at least as<br />
many musicians—it’s coming up aces.<br />
PHOTOS BY ALISON NARRO<br />
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS<br />
MeLisa Creamer, CAS/BA ’06, doctoral candidate,<br />
School of Public Health. A Michael and Susan Dell Health<br />
Scholar, she worked on the 2012 surgeon general’s report<br />
on preventing tobacco use among youth.<br />
OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR<br />
Hailey Woldt, SIS alumna, research analyst. The former<br />
2008–2009 Ibn Khaldun research fellow works on the Texas<br />
Emerging Technology Fund, created in 2005 by Governor<br />
Rick Perry to foster innovation and development.<br />
TEXAS DEMOCRATIC PARTY<br />
Ada Ortega, SOC/BA ’12, regional press<br />
secretary and Latino media coordinator.<br />
The broadcast journalism major manages<br />
¡Pa’delante Tejas!, an online campaign aimed at<br />
Hispanic voters—a group key to turning Texas blue.<br />
AMERICAN.EDU/ALUMNI 45
vision + planning = legacy<br />
WAMU 88.5 is as vital to<br />
Virginia “Ginny” McArthur’s<br />
day as her morning cup of<br />
coffee. A noted Washington<br />
trusts and estates attorney,<br />
she tunes into AU’s public<br />
radio station—D.C.’s leading<br />
NPR affiliate—to keep abreast<br />
of current events.<br />
McArthur settled in D.C.<br />
after serving as a Peace Corps<br />
volunteer in Ethiopia from<br />
1964 to 1966. In 1992, she<br />
founded an estate planning<br />
practice as a solo practitioner;<br />
McArthur Franklin PLLC has<br />
since grown to four attorneys.<br />
A longtime member of<br />
WAMU, McArthur leverages<br />
her expertise for the station’s<br />
benefit as a member of WAMU’s<br />
development advisory council,<br />
on which she’s served as vice<br />
chair since 2010. “It’s been a<br />
great way to get to know other<br />
supporters who are passionate<br />
about WAMU and to better<br />
understand the inner workings<br />
of the station,” she says.<br />
When working with clients,<br />
McArthur stresses the<br />
importance of preparing for<br />
the future and providing for<br />
the people and organizations<br />
that matter most. In 2012, she<br />
established the Virginia A.<br />
McArthur Endowed Fund<br />
at WAMU to support the<br />
station’s operations, and she<br />
has named WAMU among the<br />
beneficiaries of her estate.<br />
“WAMU is such a vital part of<br />
my day-to-day life,” McArthur<br />
says. “How could I not<br />
support its future?”<br />
Attorney, public radio lover, and<br />
longtime supporter of WAMU 88.5<br />
For information about how your<br />
vision and charitable estate<br />
planning can create a legacy at<br />
<strong>American</strong> University, contact<br />
Kara Barnes, director of planned<br />
giving, at 202-885-5914 or<br />
kbarnes@american.edu, or visit<br />
american.edu/plannedgiving.<br />
46 AMERICAN MAGAZINE AUGUST <strong>2014</strong>
top picks<br />
1<br />
6<br />
Patalsky’s tips for styling<br />
plate pics:<br />
1. TOUCH OF TEAL<br />
Everyone should have a signature color—<br />
mine’s aqua or light teal. It’s my favorite<br />
color; I use it for plates, napkins, wood<br />
boards, and glasses.<br />
2. MIND THE SCALE<br />
Regular-sized flatware can overpower a<br />
shot. I always use salad forks and dainty<br />
appetizer spoons and forks when need be.<br />
Vegan blogger Kathy Patalsky,<br />
CAS/BS ’05, started Happy.<br />
Healthy. Life. in 2007 with a<br />
philosophy as simple as the<br />
ingredients in her first recipe for<br />
green tea: “Good food was<br />
meant to be shared.”<br />
Seven years later, the health<br />
promotion major has traded her<br />
point-and-shoot camera for a<br />
professional Canon, and her site,<br />
lunchboxbunch.com, attracts as<br />
many as 1.8 million unique<br />
visitors per month. A<br />
second, recipe-swapping site,<br />
findingvegan.com, has gotten<br />
300,000 “likes” on Facebook.<br />
The fit foodie, who calls sunny<br />
SoCal home, whips up all her<br />
recipes from scratch<br />
(pumpkin pistachio kale fried rice<br />
with maple tofu cubes, anyone?)<br />
and shoots her own mouthwatering<br />
photos. “Some girls buy<br />
shoes, I buy berries,” says Patalsky.<br />
Though her repertoire ranges<br />
from pastries to pasta, Patalsky<br />
has a special place in her healthy<br />
heart for smoothies. Last year she<br />
released 365 Vegan Smoothies; a<br />
second cookbook, Happy, Healthy<br />
Vegan Kitchen, is in the works.<br />
3. SET THE SCENE<br />
Don’t just photograph food, photograph<br />
a scene. If you’re snapping a picture of a<br />
doughnut, add a coffee mug, a fruit salad,<br />
or the corner of the Sunday paper.<br />
4. GO NATURAL<br />
I never use a flash for food photos.<br />
Manipulating natural sunlight is a skill<br />
learned through practice, practice,<br />
practice. The light is always changing;<br />
you have to learn to adapt.<br />
5. THE CRAVE-IT TEST<br />
You haven’t done your job unless the food<br />
looks delicious. Unusual shots like a cookie<br />
torn in half with melting chocolate chips<br />
will leave your audience craving more.<br />
6. PORTION CONTROL<br />
Less is more when it comes to serving<br />
sizes in photos. If you want to feature a<br />
larger serving, add a second dish instead<br />
of piling on more food.<br />
7. SIMPLE IS BETTER<br />
Use patterns sparingly. Busy napkins, place<br />
mats, and dishes distract from your subject<br />
matter: the food.<br />
8. GO PRO<br />
If you’re serious about food photography,<br />
save up for a professional SLR camera and<br />
a few different lenses. I use a 6D Canon<br />
body with a 100 mm macro lens and a<br />
50 mm 1.2 fixed lens.<br />
9. WHITE OUT<br />
White is a food photographer’s best friend.<br />
White studio walls, curtains, tabletops,<br />
reflection boards, and plates allow colorful<br />
food to pop.<br />
10. TASTE THE RAINBOW<br />
Embrace colorful foods. Using a few bright,<br />
complementary colors will make your<br />
photos sing.<br />
2<br />
3<br />
4<br />
5<br />
7<br />
8<br />
9<br />
10<br />
AMERICAN.EDU/ALUMNI 47
must haves<br />
3<br />
4<br />
7<br />
9<br />
10<br />
2<br />
5<br />
1<br />
11<br />
6<br />
8<br />
*Mountaineer and PhD candidate, <strong>American</strong> Politics and Public Policy, School of Public Affairs<br />
1. Alaska is one of the coldest places<br />
to climb; when I was in Denali in May<br />
2013, it was 20 degrees in the sun<br />
during the day, but it got down to -40<br />
at night. Down is the best insulator.<br />
2. Good boots, gloves, and a parka keep<br />
you alive. My Scarpa Phantom 6000<br />
double boots are waterproof and warm.<br />
3. In mountaineering, an “alpine start”<br />
means you begin climbing well before<br />
dawn, when ice and rocks are more<br />
stable. My Black Diamond Storm<br />
headlamp is essential at night.<br />
4. My Petzl Elios helmet protects me<br />
from falls, rocks, and icefall. I’ve never<br />
been hit by rock or ice, but I often see<br />
it as I climb.<br />
5. Black Diamond Sabretooth crampons<br />
attach to my boots and help me keep<br />
my footing.<br />
6. My Petzl Summit ice ax is my<br />
connection to the mountain—and<br />
what I use to catch myself if I fall.<br />
7. Climbing can burn as many as<br />
5,000–8,000 calories a day. You can<br />
lose your appetite at high altitudes, so<br />
you should carry high-calorie food you<br />
want to eat. Dried fruit and chocolatecovered<br />
almonds are my favorites. You<br />
melt snow for drinking water or treat<br />
water with chemicals or filters.<br />
8. There’s lots of sun at high altitudes, so<br />
you have to protect your skin and eyes.<br />
9. Your rope connects you to your<br />
partner or climbing team. My dynamic,<br />
nylon Mammut Glacier Line is 8.3 mm<br />
thick and 40 m long, and it can stretch<br />
to absorb the impact if I fall.<br />
10. My Black Diamond 55L climbing pack<br />
is durable and lightweight. When I<br />
went to Alaska, I had 60 to 70 pounds<br />
of gear, food, and fuel split between a<br />
pack and a sled towed behind me. The<br />
goal is to be prepared—but to carry as<br />
little as possible.<br />
11. I used to carry a guide book, camera,<br />
journal, and GPS—now I can do it all on<br />
my iPhone (very compact solar panels<br />
keep it charged). But you never want to<br />
depend on something that might break,<br />
so I still carry a compass and map.<br />
48 AMERICAN MAGAZINE AUGUST <strong>2014</strong><br />
Photographed at Sugarloaf Mountain, Dickerson, Maryland
THIS YEAR WE WILL CELEBRATE<br />
THE CLASSES OF 1964, 2004, AND 2009 AS WELL AS THE<br />
SECOND ANNUAL MULTICULTURAL ALUMNI REUNION.<br />
Enjoy a weekend of<br />
fun with friends, old and new.<br />
#AllAUWeekend
NON-PROFIT ORG<br />
US POSTAGE PAID<br />
BURLINGTON, VT 05401<br />
WASHINGTON, DC 20016-8002<br />
PERMIT NO. 604<br />
Address Service Requested<br />
For information regarding the<br />
accreditation and state licensing of<br />
<strong>American</strong> University, please visit<br />
american.edu/academics.<br />
THE BACKGROUND<br />
Public health problems span the history of human civilization: Water pollution<br />
spawned the spread of communicable diseases among early civilizations. The Romans<br />
wrestled with waste disposal. Fourteenth-century Europeans contended with a plague<br />
propagated by rodent-borne fleas. Centuries later the issues have changed (from<br />
smallpox to sugary soda), but the demand for innovative solutions is greater than ever.<br />
Public health is one of the hottest disciplines in higher ed: the Association of Schools<br />
of Public Health estimates that 250,000 new health workers will be needed by 2020.<br />
Causes, cures, and disease prevention extend beyond biological complexity to<br />
dozens of disciplines, including one of professor Blake Bennett’s areas of study: the<br />
built environment. Assistant director of AU’s Public Health Scholars, an intensive,<br />
three-year bachelor’s program that will graduate its first cohort in 2015, Bennett teaches<br />
Urbanization and Public Health, a course that explores urban design, environmental<br />
science, and public health to understand how neighborhood walkability and mixed-use<br />
development affect residents’ quality of life.<br />
THE CHALLENGE<br />
To reduce obesity and air pollution, Healthville, USA, wants to promote walking, biking,<br />
and mass transportation among its citizenry. Drawing on concepts of urban design, land<br />
use, and housing density, offer suggestions to get residents out of their cars and onto<br />
bikes and buses. (Hint: think about sidewalks and green space, the cost and availability<br />
of parking, and traffic patterns.)<br />
Go fact to fact<br />
WITH AU’S PEOPLE IN THE KNOW AT<br />
AMERICANWONKS.COM/QUIZZES.<br />
THE DETAILS Submit suggestions to magazine@american.edu by September 15<br />
to be entered to win a six-month subscription to Politics and Prose Bookstore’s<br />
Book-a-Month Gift Program.<br />
Congratulations to George Siehl, CAS/MS ’62, who aced last issue’s final exam.