American Magazine, July 2015

AN ARTIST IN RESIDENCE
IN ANNAPOLIS
p. 18
KOGOD INCUBATOR
PAYS BIG DIVIDENDS
p. 24
SERIOUS BUSINESS
AT THE SMITHSONIAN
p. 30
UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE AUGUST 2015
FOOTWHERE
From sandals to sneakers:
Where are your shoes taking you?
p. 12

An AU insider’s
perspective on next page

Few Washingtonians have a more AWE-INSPIRING
VIEW from their office window than Daniel Feeman.
As a security specialist at Arlington National Cemetery—
the final resting place for more than 400,000 active-duty
service members, veterans, and their families—Feeman
coordinates special events, crafts emergency preparedness
recommendations, and manages physical security for the
624-acre cemetery, DC’S THIRD MOST POPULAR
TOURIST DESTINATION.
“The attention to detail here is incredible,” Feeman says
of the cemetery’s rolling, green hills, and majestic, centuryold
trees. “Visitors get a true sense of the COST OF THE
FREEDOMS we enjoy every single day.”
Private William Henry Christman of Pennsylvania was
the FIRST SOLDIER BURIED AT ARLINGTON
in May 1864; more than 150 years later, the cemetery still
conducts 30 to 40 ceremonies each week, along with
national observances for Memorial Day and Veterans Day.
Feeman, a former US Marine who worked as a dog handler,
trainer, and kennel master at the White House Military Office
with Marine Helicopter Squadron One until 2010, says it’s
an honor to work within the CEMETERY’S HALLOWED
GROUNDS. “I get to affect the visitor experience for
5 million people each year. There’s nothing better.”
Daniel Feeman
SPA/BA ’12
COVER: SHOES ILLUSTRATED BY WHITNEY SHERMAN
PREVIOUS PAGE: USDA PHOTO BY LANCE CHEUNG
18
A colorful journey
to the Maryland
governor’s mansion
22
Digitizing America’s
harmonious history
24
Kogod incubator gives
startups a leg up
30
Commercialism,
consumerism,
capitalism at the
Smithsonian

AMERICAN
American University magazine
Vol. 66, No. 1
MANAGING EDITOR
Adrienne Frank, SPA/MS ’08
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Amy Burroughs
STAFF WRITER
Mike Unger
WRITERS
Amy Burroughs
Katlin Chadwick
Adrienne Frank
ART DIRECTOR
Maria Jackson
DESIGNERS
Jel Montoya-Reed
Rena Münster
PHOTOGRAPHER
Jeffrey Watts
CLASS NOTES
Traci Crockett
VICE PRESIDENT,
COMMUNICATIONS
Teresa Flannery
ASSISTANT VICE PRESIDENT,
CREATIVE SERVICES
Kevin Grasty
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR,
CONTENT STRATEGY
Laura Garner
American is published three
times a year by American
University. With a circulation
of 120,000, American is sent
to alumni and other members
of the university community.
Copyright©2015.
An equal opportunity, affirmative
action university. UP16-001
For information regarding the
accreditation and state licensing
of American University, please
visit american.edu/academics.
Destination DC
The first 16 years of my life were entirely spent west of
the Rocky Mountains. It wasn’t until March 1995—
spring break of my junior year of high school—that I
ventured to the other coast for a weeklong journalism
conference in Washington, DC.
I had dreamt of moving to Southern California after
college and covering Kings hockey for the Los Angeles
Times. (My obsession with a sport played on ice, despite
never having experienced anything colder than 50
degrees in my native Phoenix, was ironic.) But, when
I got to DC, I forgot all about pucks and palm trees.
It was the peak of cherry blossom season, and I had
never seen anything more beautiful than the pink trees
that lined the grounds of the US Capitol (though the tulips
were a close second). As a product of the suburbs, I was
also mesmerized by the hustle and bustle of the city.
The week included a lecture by Helen Thomas at
the National Press Club, a visit to the Supreme Court, a
performance by the Capitol Steps, a twilight tour of the
monuments, a fender-bender with a taxi cab (talk
about a quintessential “city experience”), and lots of
writing exercises about—what else?—politics. When I
boarded my plane back to the desert, I had a new goal:
move to Washington.
Nine years later, my husband and I packed up the
U-Haul and headed east to my beloved DC. And though
Metro delays and Washington real estate prices have
taken a bit of the sheen off city living, I’m still enamored
of this place that stole my heart 20 years ago.
This issue of American magazine took us to some great
DC destinations: the Library of Congress, the Crime
Museum, Arlington National Cemetery, Nationals
Park, the Capitol Riverfront, and the National Museum
of American History (twice). It’s a little valentine to
this vibrant city of mine—and yours. A reminder of how
much there is to see, do, learn, and love in Washington.
A few weeks ago, I was driving down 14th Street
with my three-year-old son. I’m fond of this particular
route, as you hit Constitution Avenue and—boom!—
there’s the Washington Monument on the right, the
Capitol on the left, and the National Mall all around. It’s
the stuff of postcards. “Most people go their whole lives
without seeing this,” I said to Owen. “Enjoy it.”
1 POV
4 4400 Mass Ave
Ideas, people, perspectives
16 Metrocentered
34 Your American
Connect, engage, reminisce
Adrienne Frank
Managing Editor
Send story ideas to afrank@american.edu.
Correction: In the March issue, we stated that alumni have
access to the Pronunciator database. However, alumni may
only use Pronunciator at Bender Library. For details, visit
american.edu/library/services/alumni.cfm.

syllabus
JUSTICE, LAW, AND
CRIMINOLOGY 496
Prison: Is Orange the New Black?
More than 200,000 women are
incarcerated in the United States.
For better or for worse, the public’s
leading portrait of this growing
population comes from the account
of a privileged Caucasian woman
serving a short-term prison sentence.
Piper Kerman’s 2011 memoir,
Orange Is the New Black, and the
Netflix series of the same name
serve as the jumping-off point for
Robert Johnson’s popular School of
Public Affairs course. Which of the
accounts—series or book—is more
accurate? What are their strengths
and limitations? How are issues of
drugs, privacy, motherhood, and
mental health addressed?
“I think the series is truer to the
actual environment than the memoir—
the climate, the tensions, the
atmospherics,” Johnson says. “But
that’s all to be debated in the class.”
Next course
HEALTH PROMOTION 323
Issues in Women’s Health
Students in Aimee Richardson’s
course, which explores cancers,
menopause, and infertility, develop
a personal health plan based on
family history and lifestyle.
WOMEN’S, GENDER, AND
SEXUALITY STUDIES 696
Female Masculinity
Professor William Leap uses Judith
Halberstam’s theory that “masculinity
is not owned by men” to create
explanations for female masculinity
that emphasize women’s agency.
4 AMERICAN MAGAZINE JULY 2015

expert
3 MINUTES ON . . . Legalized Marijuana
Skyler McKinley
SPA-SOC/BA ’14
Deputy director, Colorado Governor’s
Office of Marijuana Coordination
Legalization started
in 2012. It allows for the
services. Because
percent excise tax on marijuana
in Colorado with a
medical
marijuana amendment
to our constitution in 2000.
The court later ruled that
caregivers could service more
than five patients, opening the
door for street-level medical
marijuana dispensaries
similar to what you see now in
California.
We had
20,000
patients when the US
Department of Justice announced
in October 2009 that the
enforcement of federal laws
around marijuana
wasn’t going to be a
priority in states
with medical marijuana systems.
That started what we call in
Colorado “the green
rush.” By July 2010, we had
100,000 patients.
The voters passed
Amendment 64, our
possession, cultivation,
and use of marijuana for
recreational purposes by anyone
over 21.
Adults are allowed to
possess up to an
ounce, although
nonresidents can
purchase no more than
a quarter ounce in a
single transaction. We’ve issued
16,000 licenses for folks working
in the industry, 2,200 marijuana
business licenses, and 16 licenses
for laboratories that test marijuana
potency and contamination.
Our No. 1 public
safety problem is the
banking
challenge, which stems
from the fact that marijuana is
still illegal under
federal law. A Colorado
marijuana grower or a dispensary
is functionally identical to any
other business—but, because of
federal money-laundering laws, it
there are massive
sums of cash in some
of these businesses, the fear is that
we’re moments away from a
robbery or a
shooting. We haven’t seen
this yet, but creating progressive
public policy involves anticipating
what could happen.
We’re the first folks in the world
to try this, and we’re only a year
and a half in, so there’s a lot we
don’t know about how this will
impact public health
and public safety.
We’re working to create an
infrastructure that allows us to
collect this data.
Proponents of marijuana
legalization will say, “Do this for
the tax revenue,” but
we’ve learned that you
don’t legalize
marijuana to make
money. There’s a 2.9 percent
regular sales tax and special 10
percent sales tax on recreational
flower that’s imposed when it’s
transferred from where it was
grown to wherever it’s going to be
sold or manufactured
into an edible product.
Since recreational
sales began, we’ve brought in
$79 million in tax
revenue (through February). But
marijuana revenues are not
building roads or going to our
general fund beyond what’s
mandated by the constitution.
They’re going to hire school
nurses to talk to kids
about marijuana, to
train law enforcement to recognize
drugged drivers, to public
education campaigns on safe,
responsible use.
Marijuana should pay its
own way. You don’t legalize
because it will solve your state’s
fiscal challenges. You do it
because you think it might be an
enlightened
alternative
recreational marijuana provision,
can’t access traditional banking
marijuana. There’s also a 15
to the war on drugs.
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 5

Former first lady Laura Bush,
cofounder of the National Book
Festival, was honored as AU’s
2015 Wonk of the Year on April
8 in Bender Arena. A ravenous
reader and former public school
librarian, Bush is the third
recipient of the award; previous
winners include former president
Bill Clinton and CNN journalist
Anderson Cooper.
“For me, reading was not a
hobby I selected as first lady,”
said Bush, creator of the Ready
to Read, Ready to Learn initiative.
“It is one of the guiding passions
of my life. I know that if every
child is educated, our country
and our world will be more
stable and more prosperous.”
Today, as chair of the
Women’s Initiative at the
George W. Bush Institute
in Dallas, Bush is focused
on empowering women in
Afghanistan, Africa, and the
Middle East. During her
heartfelt remarks, the new
grandmother also talked about
her famous family.
Her father-in-law, former
president George H. W. Bush,
celebrated his 90th birthday
skydiving, while mother-in-law
Barbara still walks her dogs on
the beach every day during the
summer. They “are both happy
and in good spirits. George and
I believe that they’re showing
us the way to age with grace.”
The event was moderated
by SPA executive in residence
Anita McBride, who served as
Bush’s chief of staff from 2005
to 2009.
The Washington College of Law (WCL) will launch the country’s first
Spanish LL.M. taught in a hybrid format. The new program, LL.M.
en Derechos Humanos y Derecho Humanitario—aimed at native
speakers who would otherwise lack access to an American legal
education—welcomes its first cohort in spring 2016.
The program follows the same online and residential hybrid
curriculum as WCL’s recently launched LL.M. in International
Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, taught in English. Students
will take online courses during the spring and fall semesters and
spend part of the summer living and learning in DC.
“Training lawyers and human rights activists with a multilingual
approach is a much-needed undertaking to ensure that human
rights victims and governments are represented, at the domestic
and international level, by members of their communities who have
received specialized training,” says Professor Robert Goldman,
academic director of the new LL.M.
A CROWNING ACHIEVEMENT
LEADERS OF THE PAC-MAN
Haely Jardas, SOC-CAS/BA ’13, was crowned Miss District of Columbia 2015 in June. The
broadcast journalism and performing arts double major will compete in the Miss
America pageant September 13. Her platform, Mental Health Matters, is inspired by
her struggle with generalized anxiety disorder.
Not bad for the new kid on the block. AU’s game design master’s
program ranks 21st worldwide, according to Princeton Review. The
program, a partnership between SOC and CAS, was established in
2014. It’s the only DC offering to make the top 25.
6 AMERICAN MAGAZINE JULY 2015

news
Thanks to the generousity of
Susan Carmel Lehrman, AU is
quickly establishing itself as
the epicenter for the study of
Russian culture.
In March, Lehrman, an
international philanthropist and
businesswoman, established
the Carmel Institute of Russian
Culture and History in AU’s
College of Arts and Sciences.
Lehrman’s gifts will endow the
former Initiative for Russian
Culture (IRC) in perpetuity
and expand its already robust
academic and cultural
programming and study abroad
opportunities.
“The Carmel Institute dovetails
with the university’s educational
mission, while capitalizing on
many of the wonderful cultural,
global, intellectual, and social
opportunities that abound in
Washington, DC,” says AU
President Neil Kerwin. “This
opportunity will provide
transformative experiences for
AU students and students at our
consortium schools, faculty, and
others throughout the world.”
Since its inception in 2011,
about 15,000 people have
attended IRC film screenings,
panel discussions, and events.
According to institute director
Anton Fedyashin, 50 students
have studied in Russia and 20
more are spending the summer of
2015 in the world’s largest nation.
On April 7, Barry Josephson, SPA/BA ’78, gave School of Communication students
a sneak peek of the second season of TURN: Washington’s Spies, before it premiered
on AMC. The Revolutionary War drama, based on Alexander Rose’s book of the
same name, chronicles the real-life Culper Ring, organized by General George
Washington in 1778.
Josephson serves as executive producer of the show, which shoots in Richmond,
Virginia. He said one of the biggest challenges of shooting a period piece is finding
“places where things don’t exist. Often in film and TV, you’re trying to add things—
we’re always trying to take things away.”
Josephson was joined by a trio of actors, including Jamie Bell (Abraham
Woodhull), for a Q&A session. British-born Bell says the show has been an
education. “In England, we gloss over that whole period in school,” he laughed.
Jack Cassell’s AU roots run deep.
Son of beloved AU coach,
athletic director, and vice
president Stafford “Pop” Cassell,
CAS/BA ’36, he grew up on
campus. And now, as the new chair
of the Board of Trustees, Cassell,
SOC/BA ’77, is continuing the
family tradition of service to AU.
Cassell, president of Cassell
Global Investments, has served
on the board since 2003, a role he
speaks of with pride and gratitude.
“Being named an AU trustee was
one of the great honors of my life,”
says the Jupiter, Florida, resident,
who’s never missed a meeting
during his 12-year tenure.
Cassell, the former president
and CEO of Visual Aids
Electronics in Germantown,
Maryland, replaces Jeff Sine,
SIS/BA ’76, who served two
terms as board chair.
In 2013, AU’s gleaming, new
Cassell Residence Hall was named
in honor of the Cassell family in
recognition of its gifts to AU.
CULTIVATING CIVIL SERVANTS
AU ranks No. 1 for Presidential Management Fellowship finalists,
with 43—a 26 percent jump from last year, when AU checked in at
No. 2 on the list. WCL is tops among law schools for the second straight
year, with 10 finalists. The PMF program grooms grad students for
careers in the federal government.
URGE TO SERVE
AU is No. 2 among medium-sized colleges for Peace Corps volunteers,
with 41—up one spot from last year. Nearly 1,000 AU grads have served in
more than 100 countries around the globe since President John F. Kennedy
established the corps in 1961.
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 7

on campus
OVER THE LAST 60 YEARS,
AU’s business school has changed
names and traded spaces (McKinley
to Hamilton to Battelle to the
former Myers/Hutchins building,
perched off Massachusetts Avenue).
But its mission—to provide the
finest training possible for the
next generation of accountants,
analysts, marketers, managers,
and entrepreneurs—has been
unwavering.
The Kogod School of Business
(so named in 1999) celebrates
its diamond anniversary this year.
Washington’s oldest accredited
business school, Kogod is home to
more than 1,000 students and 75 fulltime
faculty, and was this year named
the 18th best college at which to earn
an undergraduate business degree
by Fortune magazine.
In celebration of the big 6–0, Kogod
unveiled a pair of exhibits in the
school’s terrace that trace the history
of AU’s B-school and the history of
business in DC. Created in partnership
with the Historical Society of
Washington, DC, the collection of
photographs, newspaper clippings,
and archival nuggets establishes the
city as a center for commerce and
industry—and Kogod as a pioneering
force for business education.
Business capital
In the late 1700s, George Washington
envisioned the nation’s new capital
as a full-fledged city of industry—not
just government. Though it was free
from the control of a single state,
the city on the Potomac still needed
funding from the states, which proved
problematic. Thus, during its infancy,
Washington was dominated by the
growing US government—though
commerce, culture, and industry
eventually began to blossom.
Long before Marriott, AOL, Fannie
Mae, and others became household
names, DC was home to flour mills,
paper manufacturers, power plants,
and brick plants (a booming business,
more than 100 strong in 1900).
Newspapers and breweries were also
big business in the late nineteenth
century—we’ll leave it to you to infer
any connection between the two.
Kogod’s exhibit chronicles the birth
of a variety of industries—media,
manufacturing, hospitality, health
care, banking, biotech—and features
fun firsts (the debut of Jim Henson’s
Muppets on WRC-TV Channel 4 in 1955
and the opening of DC’s inaugural
Giant supermarket on Georgia Avenue
in 1936). There’s also a bit of titillating
trivia about DC’s earliest bootleggers,
speakeasies, and gambling rings.
MILLER-GILLETTE WASHINGTON SEEN PHOTO COLLECTION, THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON, DC
8 AMERICAN MAGAZINE JULY 2015

mastery
ILLUSTRATION BY PETER HOEY
1975
Joined his father,
Mohamed, in Alexandria,
Virginia. Began learning
English in summer school
before sixth grade.
1977
Had a chance encounter
with two Alexandria police
officers. “THERE WAS
A CAR ACCIDENT,
AND I WAS A NOSY
KID, SO I STARTED
TALKING TO
THEM. THEY WERE
GRACIOUS AND
EXPLAINED WHAT
WAS HAPPENING. I
THOUGHT, THAT’S
SOMETHING I’D BE
INTERESTED IN.”
1965
Born in Rome, Italy.
Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers: The Story of
Success offers a formula for success—being born
at the right place and time and investing at least
10,000 hours in pursuit of your goal. Hassan Aden,
SPA/MPA ’09, knew from a young age that he
wanted to be a police officer. But this son of an
Italian mother and Somali father couldn’t have
foreseen a career that has taken him from walking
the beat in Alexandria, Virginia, to the chief’s office
in Greenville, North Carolina, to the International
Association of Chiefs of Police, where he’s director
of research and programs.
1989
Was on the scene when
APD officer Charles Hill
was shot and killed during
a hostage situation. He
keeps a program from
Hill’s memorial service
and an etching of his name
from the National Law
Enforcement Memorial
Wall on display in his office.
“THAT BROUGHT
ON A WHOLE
DIFFERENT SET
OF REALIZATIONS
ABOUT POLICING
AND THE WORLD
WE LIVE IN.”
1988
Worked undercover in
the narcotics division
in the midst of the
crack epidemic.
1987
Joined the Alexandria
Police Department (APD),
where he worked alongside
those two officers.
1992
Became a
narcotics
detective.
1995
Volunteered to become
APD’s first-ever school
resource officer. “IT
WAS THE MOST
INTIMIDATING JOB
I’VE EVER HAD, BUT
WE CHANGED THE
WAY THE COMMUNITY
VIEWED THE POLICE.
WE WERE GOOD
AMBASSADORS.”
2000
Promoted to sergeant.
“IT WAS AN
OPPORTUNITY TO
IMPACT YOUNG
OFFICERS AND SET
EXPECTATIONS
FOR HOW PEOPLE
BEHAVE AND
POLICE.”
2001
Responded to
the Pentagon on
September 11. “THE
POLICE RADIO
WENT CRAZY.
I SAW SMOKE
AND QUICKLY
REALIZED WHAT
WAS HAPPENING.”
2010
Inducted into George
Mason University’s
Center for Evidence-
Based Crime Policy’s
Policing Hall of Fame.
2009
Promoted to deputy chief.
Helped bring crime rates
to a 43-year low.
Graduated from AU’s Key
Executive Leadership
program’s 36th cohort.
2008
Became district
commander for the
west end of the city.
2007
Invited to join the new
APD chief’s transition
team. Built a computerbased
system that holds
police accountable for
responses to crime.
2006
Promoted to captain.
Assigned to the
US Department of
Justice’s National
Institute of Justice as
a practitioner expert
in communications
and interoperability.
2002
Handpicked by
the chief of police
to join internal
affairs—the police
who police the
police.
2012
Hired as chief of police
in Greenville, North
Carolina. “THE YEAR
BEFORE, THEY
HAD 18 HOMICIDES
IN A CITY OF
100,000. THERE WAS
LOTS OF GANG
ACTIVITY AND IT
WAS RACIALLY
DIVIDED. BUT I VERY
QUICKLY FELL IN
LOVE WITH THE CITY.”
2013
Worked with the community
to develop a first-of-its-kind
strategic plan to improve
relationships between
civilians and the police.
2014
Selected by the Justice
Department to join its
Collaborative Reform
Initiative for the St. Louis
County Police Department.
Traveled to St. Louis
to train officers on
community engagement.
2015
Joined the International
Association of Chiefs of
Police, where he oversees
the organization’s research
arm. Partners with
academics and provides
research products for
22,000 members from
more than 100 countries.
“I LOVED BEING
POLICE CHIEF,
BUT THIS IS
MORE IMPORTANT
RIGHT NOW.”
DOWNLOAD the American
magazine app to hear more of
Aden’s story in his own words.
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 9

play
empty, humid gyms. The result?
He made 27 of 64 (37 percent)
last season, after which Brennan
awarded him a scholarship. Don’t
expect it to change his offseason
routine or quell his desire.
“He made it
difficult for me
to not play him.”
— Eagles coach Mike Brennan
For basketball players looking to
elevate their game, the offseason is
just a rumor.
Summer is when inches can
be added to vertical jumps, when
shots can be hoisted until wrists
throb, when one extra set of chest
presses or squats at sunset on a
June day can pay dividends at the
end of a game in March.
No one knows this better than
Charlie Jones, who has used
summertime to develop himself
from a scrawny Division III
prospect into a bona fide Division
I contributor.
Jones’s transformation began
after his sophomore year at Mount
Saint Joseph High School in
Baltimore. After a season in which
he played sparingly on the junior
varsity team, he began working
with a well-known local trainer.
“I train athletes from middle
school to the NFL,” says Kyle
Jakobe, who owns Sweat
Performance in Timonium,
Maryland. “We’ve had Super Bowl
champions, we’ve had Olympic
gold medalists train at the gym.
He’s the hardest worker we’ve
ever had.”
Despite growing taller and
stronger throughout high school,
Jones’s only D-I scholarship offer
was rescinded. Undeterred, he
decided to walk on at AU, where
his effort in practice made it
impossible for Eagles coach Mike
Brennan to ignore him.
“You correct something in
his game or you tell him to work
on something and he does it
immediately, at an intensity level
and rate at which he gets better,”
Brennan says. “He made it difficult
for me to not play him. When he
got his opportunity in games, he
did what he does in practice—he
made an impact.”
As a freshman, Jones hit just
six of 19 (31 percent) three-point
attempts. That summer he put up
countless shots with Jakobe in
“I really never viewed a
scholarship as defining me as
a player, and it doesn’t validate
me as a player now,” says Jones,
who spent much of this summer
working out with Jakobe in San
Diego. They lifted weights for up
to 80 minutes four times a week,
and fired up at least 500 shots
almost every day. Jakobe even
incorporated speed and agility
drills on the beach to break up
the monotony.
“The summer is definitely
a time when guys can separate
themselves from teammates, and
teams can separate themselves
from other teams,” Jones says.
“Games and championships are
won during this time. Obviously
you have to perform when the
season comes, but you have to
develop yourself individually
before you can improve as a unit.”
Hours upon hours pumping
iron and shooting baskets in stuffy
gyms hardly sounds like the ideal
way to spend a summer at the
beach. But Charlie Jones isn’t on
vacation—he’s working.
PHOTOS BY LAUREN RADACK
STEEPLECHASE(N) HISTORY
STAT SHEET STUFFER
Josh Ellis broke a school record that had held for 42 years when he posted a time
of 8:58:68 in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the Swarthmore College Final Qualifier
in May. He ended his season by finishing 27th in the same event at the NCAA East
Preliminary Outdoor Track and Field meet in Jacksonville, Florida.
Junior lacrosse midfielder Terese Buechli did a little bit of everything this
season. The All-Patriot League second-team selection finished tied for second
on the team in total goals and was fifth in total points, while defensively she
led AU with 13 caused turnovers. She also won 22 draw controls and picked
up 21 ground balls.
10 AMERICAN MAGAZINE JULY 2015

news
Andrew Lih
Lih at the Wikimania conference
in Taipei, Taiwan
Native name (simplified Chinese: 郦 安 治 ;
traditional Chinese: 酈 安 治 ;
pinyin: LìÂnzhì)
Residence Washington, District of
Columbia, United States
Nationality American
Alma mater Columbia University
Occupation Scientist and professor
at American University
Known for studying various open
technology cultures,
such as Wikipedia
and wikimedia
Website
andrewlih.com
Who is Andrew Lih?
Let’s consult the first site people check when they need information
on just about anything.
Andrew Lih (simplified Chinese: 郦 安 治 ; traditional Chinese: 酈 安 治 ;
pinyin: LìÂzhì)[1][2] is a Chinese American new media researcher,
consultant and writer, as well as an authority on both Wikipedia
and Internet censorship in the People’s Republic of China.[3][4]
[5][6][7] He is currently an associate professor of journalism at
American University in Washington, DC.[8]
Creating a Wikipedia center
Lih published one of the first academic papers about the site, and in
2009, he wrote The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies
Created the World’s Greatest Encyclopedia, In 2003, CNN visited
his classroom for the first televised story about Wikipedia to appear
in the English-language press. Now, he’s adding a new page to his
Wiki-career.
Backed in part by a Knight Prototype Fund grant from the James S.
and John L. Knight Foundation, Lih is creating Wikipedia’s first
visitor and discovery center at the National Archives and Records
Administration in Washington.
“As Wikipedia enters its 15th year, its reputation has gone from
nothing to the world’s most respected online resource,” he says.
“The idea of this project is to have a standing facility where museum
curators, cultural professionals, and librarians can actually walk into
a research center, learn about Wikipedia, and then act on it.”
The center, which will be free and open to the public, will have a
small, museum-like exhibit with five or 10 information panels about
Wikipedia. It also will include work stations on which people can
browse, read, or edit the site.
Despite the fact that Wikipedia has more than 31 million articles and
attracts 500 million unique visitors per month, only about 11,000
people edit its content more than 100 times a month. About 1,000
people have administrative privileges over the English pages. Lih is
one of them.
“If you want to learn about Wikipedia, you have to surf through a
dozen pages on the Wikipedia site, which can get really confusing,”
he says. “It’s not user-friendly. You really have to be determined to
find out what’s going on. On the other hand, something designed as
a public exhibit is much more geared toward explaining Wikipedia’s
dynamics—and that’s our goal.”
A policy debate on how best to combat sexual
assault on college campuses is playing out
around the country. The US Department of
Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has
informed more than 100 schools of pending
inquiries into whether civil rights protected
under Title IX may have been violated. AU is
among the schools notified of a complaint
and pending inquiry.
Title IX of the Education Amendments of
1972 protects individuals from discrimination
based on sex in education programs or
activities that receive federal financial
assistance. Once a tool to address gender
equity in athletics, Title IX is now being
used to press for greater accountability for
prevention and response to sexual assault.
In its notification to AU that it had received
a complaint, OCR noted that the inquiry in no
way implies it has made a determination with
regard to its merits.
“We’ve had a longtime commitment
to educating the campus community and
providing resources and training on issues
of interpersonal and sexual violence,” says
Dean of Students Rob Hradsky, AU’s Title IX
coordinator. “Each year we take a critical look
at the work we’re doing to make sure we are
employing best practices in preventing and
responding to interpersonal violence.”
AU has a working group of faculty, staff,
and students dedicated to the issue of sexual
assault. In the last year, AU created the Office
for Advocacy Services for Interpersonal and
Sexual Violence (OASIS) in the Wellness Center
and hired an additional victim advocate.
“I can say confidently that we already were
ahead of the curve in terms of complying with
the law,” Hradsky says. “We’re now taking extra
steps to make sure we’re going above and
beyond to create a safe campus community.”
Hradsky notified the university community
that AU intends to use the inquiry to learn how
it can augment these programs to enhance
safety, responsiveness, and compliance.
For more information, visit american.edu/
ocl/titleix.
A BYTE OUT OF THE RANKINGS
AU is No. 44 on Computerworld’s “Best Places to Work
in IT”—and No. 4 for career development. The magazine
praises OIT for challenging itself with new initiatives
and its focus on training, networking, and mentoring.
AU is one of only two universities to make the list.
MASTERS OF (SOCIAL) SCIENCE
CAS is a top six school nationwide for the study of social
sciences, according to USA Today. Praising the school’s
broad, interdisciplinary curriculum, the newspaper said CAS
grads are “prepared to enter any social science field with
an open mind and knowledge of differing perspectives.”
THE GIVING TREE
AU has earned 2014 Tree Campus USA
recognition. Launched in 2008 by the Arbor
Day Foundation and Toyota, the program honors
colleges and universities that promote healthy trees
and engage students in the spirit of conservation.
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 11

YUUKI KPA ’18 NATSUKI KATO
JASMINE CERON ’17
“back home to Japan after visiting
“back home to St. Paul”
my brother at Washington Semester”
HAWAZEN ALKHILAIWI ’16 GABRIELLE WAST ’16
“to study at the library”
ISABELLA MEZZATESTA ’18
“to volunteer with
preschoolers in Anacostia”
CLAWED
“the Eagle’s Nest”
CELIA KING ’18
ANDY LALWANI ’18
“back to campus as a summer
orientation leader”
FOOTWHERE
CAROLINE ROSE ’18
AUSTIN BROWN ’16
“to study abroad in China”
ANDREA MALAMISURA, STAFF TIANLI HUANG ’18
ADAM TREECE ’15
“Miami”
“to backpack across Europe for
three months after graduation”
KATHERINE CORWIN ’17
KARINA STRONCIU ’15
“King’s College in London for
my master’s”
KATHERINE WAHL ’17
“Yale Law School—the No. 1 constitutional
law program in the country”
SAMUEL FISHER ’16
LESLIE REID ’15
“back to the Middle East,
where I studied abroad”
NIALL MARTIN ’17
“on a casual stroll”
12 AMERICAN MAGAZINE JULY 2015

SEAN REYNOLDS ’18
“Israel”
JUDITH MABONE ’18
“to be Secretary of State”
PATRICK BRADLEY, STAFF
“to the AU pool”
KATHLEEN LOVITO ’18
“to a place where I can inspire others to
live their happiest and healthiest lives”
ASHE GIRARD ’14
ALEX BOVINO ’18
“on a summer vacation
to the Mediterranean”
EDWARD SCHIANO ’18
“to study for my final”
JOHN TUTTLE ’17
AFRYEA NOPHLIN ’15
“to New Orleans to work for
Teach for America”
GABRIEL BROWN ’18
“my size 15s are taking me
to a championship”
FROM WINGTIPS AND WEDGES TO SANDALS AND SNEAKERS, WE ASKED PASSERSBY
IN MARY GRAYDON CENTER: WHERE ARE YOUR SHOES TAKING YOU? BY ADRIENNE FRANK
TOM RAFARACI ’18
“roadtripping to the
Grand Canyon”
BRENDAN FAY ’16
“to my internship at the
Air and Space Museum”
SUZY CLAEYS ’18
CLAIRE OSBORN ’18
“to finish my sculpture for
art class at the Katzen”
ERIN COOPER ’18
DYLAN WILLIAMS ’17
“to a career as an
orthopedic surgeon”
MEREDITH SEIBERLICH ’18
“to the orthopedist”
ISABELLE SMELKINSON ’17
“to a callback at
Threepenny Opera”
MARIA JACKSON AND ADRIENNE FRANK, STAFF
“to create a magazine”
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 13

wonk
Q. Why is equitable, close-to-home access to the outdoors
important for children?
A. More than 80 percent of Americans live in urban areas, with limited
access to the natural world. Most children don’t live within walking
distance of a park or playground, and this lack of close-to-home access to
outdoor spaces is contributing to the obesity epidemic. In the last 20 years,
childhood obesity has doubled and adolescent obesity has tripled.
I grew up in the suburbs and I didn’t have a particularly outdoorsy
family. My parents weren’t into camping. But they gave me the freedom to
roam. Most people my age and older recall playing outdoors as a standard
part of growing up. Today, kids are in front of screens more than 7 hours
a day—outside of school time. When you add that up, it’s nearly 53 hours a
week, which is more than a full-time job.
Research indicates that kids who have parks nearby are more likely to be
physically fit, and they’re also likelier to be happier. Time in nature reduces
stress and anxiety, and outdoor learning has been shown to improve
academic performance.
There’s also something humbling, and harder to measure, about being
outdoors. Children think they are the center of the world. As they grow
up, they start to realize that they’re not. Nature helps you understand that
there’s an entire world out there beyond your family, your friends, your
school, and your video games. I think that’s really freeing for kids.
Recently, President Obama launched the Every Kid in
a Park initiative, which allows fourth graders and their
families to visit national parks and public lands for free.
Some people wonder, why just fourth graders? I think
they’re trying to measure impact. By focusing on fourth
grade, the administration will be able to reach kids at a time when
they still have one teacher, making it easier to plan field trips.
If the initiative is successful over the next 10 years, today’s fourth
graders will have graduated from high school and millions of kids in
America will have had this experience. It will create an important rite
of passage for all children.
“Less than 50 percent of American kids
live within walking distance of a park
or a recreation center. That’s a problem
for their health, and it’s a problem for
the future of conservation.”
JACKIE OSTFELD
SIS/MA ’06
Director, Sierra Club’s Nearby Nature Initiative
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 15

Christina Friedberg, SOC/BA ’09
Manager, sponsorship activation,
Washington Nationals
Karyn LeBlanc,
CAS/BA ’13
Worked with
District Department
of Transportation
on parking plan
for the stadium
Robin Taylor,
SIS/MA ’08
Attends 15–20
Nationals games
each season
Daryl Jackson,
Kogod/MBA ’98
Board member, Capitol
Riverfront Business
Improvement District

Meagan Carney,
Kogod/BSBA ’12
Lives nearby,
watches Jumbotron
from her living room
Alli Schultz, CAS/BA, SIS/BA ’12
Lives in neighboring Capitol Hill, attends
several games a month
Greg Matlesky,
SPA/BA ’12
Lives on Capitol Hill,
a short bike ride
from Nationals Park
Jordan D’Eri, SOC/BA ’13
Head coach, AU crew team, which
practices at the nearby Anacostia
Community Boathouse
An urban playground. A laboratory for learning. A professional hub.
A vibrant collection of neighborhoods—and neighbors. Washington’s
got it all. And for our alumni, students, and faculty, Metro is their
ticket to ride, connect, and explore AU’s backyard.
Which Metro stop is the center of your world? Share your story: magazine@american.edu.
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 17

The
Art
of
Being
First
Lady
By Mike Unger
THE NEWEST PAINTINGS IN
THE MARYLAND GOVERNOR’S
MANSION ARE AS INTRIGUING
AND ELEGANT AS ITS LATEST
RESIDENT—YUMI HOGAN,
CAS/MA ’10, THE ARTIST
WHO PAINTED THEM.
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 19

Regal portraits of Queen Henrietta Maria and
Frederick Douglass hang high in the Entrance Hall
in Government House, the official residence of Maryland’s
governor and his family. They’re the kind of stately works
one would expect to find in the formal, public portion
of the 125-year-old Georgian-style brick estate, which
sits behind an iron fence among meticulously manicured
shrubs, impossibly green grass, and beds of colorful
flowers on State Circle in the heart of historic Annapolis.
Pass through a few more elegant public spaces into the
private lower family room, where the leather couch and
flat-screen TV offer refuge from the harsh glare of political
life, and the art that adorns the walls is very different. A
landscape depicting trees whose trunks cross seamlessly
contains deep blues, grays, and rich browns. Pieces ranging
from Asian-inspired ink drawings to Western abstract and
expressionist paintings are displayed throughout the home,
adding a personal touch to the mansion, whose current
inhabitants are perhaps its unlikeliest.
The artist of these contemporary works, Yumi Hogan,
CAS/MFA ’10, is from Naju, a South Korean town about
175 miles south of Seoul and a world away—literally and
figuratively—from the most opulent public dwelling
in Maryland.
Six months after her husband Larry’s stunning upset
victory made him just the second Republican in the past
four decades to win the state’s highest elected office—and
her the first Korean-born wife of a governor in the United
States—Hogan is sitting in a wooden armchair in the
formal living room, still trying to wrap her head around
how it happened.
“It’s like a museum,” the first lady says of her new home,
which also houses paintings from the Peabody Art Collection
by such masters as Alice Worthington Ball, Charles Willson
Peale, and Francis Guy. She’s stylishly dressed in white
wedges, a red pencil skirt, and a ruffled white blouse. Her
black hair is perfectly coiffed. “Still, it’s not like my house.
You never know your future, how it will change.”
That reality leveled the first family in June, when
the governor was diagnosed with cancer—an advanced,
aggressive form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The
disease is the latest challenge for Hogan, whose path has
meandered more than the creek outside her previous
home, in Edgewater, Maryland, where her husband, a
real estate developer who never before held public office,
built her a third-floor art studio with plenty of windows.
The youngest of eight children, Hogan grew up far from
all this, on a chicken farm in Jeonnam Province. An artistic
soul from birth, as a little girl she would walk through the
woods near the farm and take note of the angles and color
of the trees. When coloring with her friends, she told them
that they should make the sky bluer.
“Ever since I was young, that was my dream: ‘I’m going
to be a teacher and artist,’” she says.
Pursuit of that goal brought Hogan and her first
husband to America when she was just 18 (19 in Korean,
An artistic soul
from birth, as
a little girl she
would walk
through the woods
near the farm
and take note of
the angles and
color of the trees.
because when a baby is born there she is already 1). They
landed in Texas, where they had three daughters, but the
marriage eventually ended. After a stint in California, a
friend told her about the stellar public schools in Howard
County, Maryland.
A single mother who was determined to provide her
children with the best educational opportunities, she
moved her modern family cross-country, where she
found a job as a cashier and earned an associate’s degree
in art once her daughters were teenagers.
“I can’t remember ever wanting anything,” her
middle daughter, Jaymi Sterling, told Baltimore
magazine. “Looking back, I don’t know how she did it.”
Hogan was showing her work at an art show in 2001
when a man strolled in and handed her a business card.
“I was more interested in the artist than the art,” the
governor likes to say. Yumi didn’t call Larry for months,
but once they began dating, both were smitten. They
married in 2004, after which he encouraged her to attend
art school. She chose the Maryland Institute College of
Art (MICA), in Baltimore, where she teaches today.
“She was a very good student, extremely conscientious
and very serious about her work,” says Robert Merrill,
a professor in the humanistic studies department. “She
fell into the role as a kind of mentor and helper to a lot
of younger Korean students.”
At this time Hogan’s work was primarily abstract,
and she was interested mostly in Western styles and
materials. But as she earned her degree in painting and
then headed to graduate school at AU, her focus began
to shift.
“Her work became more personal, more connected
to her background,” says Luis Silva, director of AU’s
graduate program in studio art. “By the time she
left, I could see much more of her heritage. She was
using Asian techniques, but at the same time she had
a bit of Western influence. It’s really a melding of her
two worlds.”
“I was always really impressed with her openness,”
says AU art professor Tim Doud, who taught Hogan
in his contemporary theory and criticism course. “As a
graduate student, she was open to criticism and hearing
other people’s ideas.”
For her MFA thesis show, she exhibited primarily
works of sumi ink on Korean hanji paper, a method
she teaches today at MICA.
“Teachers are all different, but I think her style
is perfect because she is able to help develop the
independence and creativity of students, but also impose
a certain amount of external discipline,” Merrill says.
“She’s extremely caring about people as individuals.
She likes to get to know people, think about how they
experience learning, and then do what she can to foster
and develop that. She’s got a good balance of being strict
and pushing students, but also understanding their
individual needs and pace of learning.”
20 AMERICAN MAGAZINE JULY 2015

“I was more
interested in the
artist than the
art,” the governor
likes to say.
Hogan’s artistic productivity slowed as her husband’s
political career unexpectedly accelerated. Before meeting
her, he’d made two unsuccessful bids for Congress,
and she thought of him as a “simple real estate guy.”
When he first broached the idea of running for governor,
she was supportive, if not overly enthusiastic.
“It’s the same thing in every country, every county,”
she says. “Politicians, they don’t hear from people. I tell
my husband, if you run for governor, you have to hear
from the people.”
As she became accustomed to life on the campaign
trail—and began to realize that he just might win—she
eased more comfortably into her role as a political
spouse. She’s identified two issues she’d like to highlight
as first lady, although she’s not yet quite sure how she’ll
go about promoting them.
“I’m not a politician,” she says. “Before I was first lady,
I was an artist. I want to help the art community. I was a
single mom. I know how hard it is to survive. I can share
my story.”
After doing so, Hogan leads her guests through the
kitchen, up the back stairs, and through a bedroom.
“When I was a little girl, six or seven, I saw my mom
and my grandmother make silk,” she says as she points
to one of her paintings. The fluidity of the fabric reminds
her of water and the wind. “That inspires me—nature.”
Our destination is her new art studio. Before she had
the drapes removed, the walls painted yellow, and her
easel, brushes, and canvases brought in, it was a playroom
for former governor Martin O’Malley’s son. Bright
sunshine streams through three windows, illuminating
one of her black and white abstract landscapes that hangs
in a frame above the fireplace. Her AU graduation photo
sits on a bookshelf in the corner, alongside volumes such
as History of Art and Art Today.
“When I moved here to Maryland, I found it’s like
Korea,” she says, speaking as usual from an artist’s
point of view. “We have four seasons; they’re about
the same size.”
Now, the two lands share something—someone—
else remarkable in common.
DOWNLOAD the American magazine app
to see more of Yumi Hogan’s artwork.

BY BRAD SCRIBER, CAS/BA ’97
The Rigadoon Royal doesn’t register in our collective, cultural conscious, but the eighteenthcentury
dance is a part of American Memory. The Library of Congress’s Susan Manus (herself
an accomplished violinist) helped create a digital record of America’s harmonious history—
including steps to master choreographer Mr. Isaac’s ballroom dance. Go ahead: Google it.
he Internet is forever, or so they
say. But Susan Manus, CAS/
MA ’85, will tell you that online
artifacts actually have a startling
habit of disappearing. As part of the
digital preservation effort at the Library of
Congress, she understands the importance
of archiving the huge cache of digital
history that can disappear in the time it
takes a browser to refresh.
“People think that once you put
something online, it’s permanent, but that’s
not the case,” Manus explains. “Digital
items are actually known to be very fragile.”
A book’s pages can crumble and even
catch fire, as the holdings of the Library
of Congress did in 1814 at the hands of the
British. But hundreds of years later, a book
from Thomas Jefferson’s collection, which
replaced a burnt volume, still reads the
same way.
Computer software and hardware, on
the other hand, become obsolete much
more quickly. If Jefferson had drafted
the Declaration of Independence in
WordPerfect, for example, it would be a
challenge to pull up the original even a
couple of decades later.
Tasked with helping more people
manage the impermanence of our
electronic world, Manus builds networks
of digital preservationists and cultivates
resources for maintaining everything from
the institutional memories of government
agencies to the family memories of digitalage
citizens.
Manus’s involvement goes back to
the very early days of the library’s digital
preservation efforts, which took off at the
turn of the millennium. “There was this
realization that these things needed to be
preserved just as much as paper items did,”
she says.
One of the first categories of digital
creations the library set out to capture were
the temporary websites that pop up during
an election and then disappear when the
votes are in. Thanks to these efforts, the
unfolding drama of the 2000 election as
it played out on campaign sites and in
online news coverage is now part of the
permanent collection. Library staff have
also archived international elections, Papal
transitions, and reactions to the September
11 terrorist attacks.
Saving the record of tumultuous
moments is important work, but it wasn’t
what initially brought Manus to the library.
Her first role was a temp job in the music
division, where she preserved much more
harmonious history.
It was a logical entry point for Manus,
a lifelong musician who earned her
master’s in arts management at AU and
has a bachelor’s in music from Penn State.
She has played violin with the Fairfax
Symphony Orchestra for 30 years and has
toured with choirs across Europe, with
more than one stop in the quintessential
musical city of Vienna.
As an apprentice archivist at the library,
she started out doing the exacting work of
22 AMERICAN MAGAZINE JULY 2015

one of the library’s most rare and valuable
instruments, an eighteenth-century violin
made by Giuseppe Guarneri.
“Guarneri was the generation just
slightly after Stradivari, and his instruments
are held in the same high regard,” Manus
says. “Some people think it’s the best
instrument in the world. I think Isaac Stern
wanted that particular instrument, the one
I got to play on.”
The volumes overflowed with
odd-sized foldouts and wispy
notations describing the
elaborate footwork of each
obscure dance. Manus scanned
pages and pages of fine line
markings that resemble the
footprints of a nervous squirrel.
cataloging, coding, and digitizing detailed
descriptions of the music division’s oneof-a-kind
collections, including the letters
and life histories of significant composers.
This essential work allows researchers to
quickly see what the library has tucked
away in its stacks of acid-free boxes.
Manus then joined a massive effort
called the American Memory collection,
which set out to create a comprehensive
digital record of American history and
creativity. This project converted huge
quantities of letters, books, sheet music,
video and audio recordings, maps, and
other items into digital assets that could
be shared online. In less than a decade, the
project digitized more than 5 million items.
Manus had the chance to showcase her
musical talents in a truly special way while
working with a series of dance manuals that
explain bygone dances like the Rigadoon
Royal, the Louvre, and the Bretagne.
It was a challenge just to scan these
volumes, which overflowed with odd-sized
foldouts and wispy notations describing
the elaborate footwork of each obscure
dance. Working with the preservation lab,
she scanned pages and pages of fine line
markings that resemble the footprints of
a nervous squirrel.
But rather than stop with those texts,
the American Memory team decided
to bring some of the dances to life,
taping live demonstrations to make the
movements accessible to those who
couldn’t understand these esoteric notation
systems. For most of these videos, Manus
provided the accompaniment, playing
Another memory laced with change and
music stands out in Manus’s career. Before
joining the library, she was a public affairs
specialist with the US Marine Band when it
hosted a Cold War exchange with a Soviet
military band.
After a performance at the Kennedy
Center, the visiting musicians toasted their
hosts over vodka. “It was the most poetic
thing I’ve ever heard in my life that these
people who had very limited English were
just so happy to be here,” Manus says.
“Their toasts—they brought tears to our
eyes because of how heartfelt they were
and how appreciative they were to be able
to perform and play their music here in the
States.” They didn’t know it at the time, but
within months the Soviet Union would be
no more.
These are the kind of only-in-Washington
experiences that Manus didn’t expect when
she signed on for an initial four-month stint
at the library. Twenty years later she is still
here, helping us all capture history as it
flickers across our screens.
DOWNLOAD the American magazine
app to see dance programs from the
American Memory project.
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 23

24 AMERICAN MAGAZINE JULY 2015

AU'S NEW
ENTREPRENEURSHIP INCUBATOR
IS A HUB OF INNOVATION. FUELED BY
PASSION, PERSISTENCE, AND A LITTLE
GUMPTION, STUDENTS ARE LEARNING
HANDS-ON, REAL-WORLD
BUSINESS.
Unfused: November
Nick Eng has a million puzzle pieces flashing
through his mind. He has good reason to be
restless. Indiana University (IU) has hired
Eng’s startup to deliver a community service
learning project for 100 students in its Kelley
School of Business. For Eng, Kogod/BSBA ’15,
his cofounder Laura Iaffaldano, Kogod/BSBA
’15, and the rest of the team, the stakes have
never been higher.
Eng and Iaffaldano are seniors in the
Kogod School of Business, but they are also
the executive director/president and director
of operations, respectively, of Unfused, the
nonprofit they founded as freshmen with
Board Member Brian DiZio, Kogod/BSBA
’15, CAS/BS ’15. For three years, they have
painstakingly grown a novel idea—What if
college students could tutor low-income kids
via Google Hangouts?—into a
“The business
education they’re
getting is phenomenal.
They’re negotiating
contracts, they’re
signing contracts,
they’re negotiating
how much they’re
going to pay somebody,
they’re writing up
agreements.”
full-fledged enterprise.
In the beginning, the
students had one intro-tobusiness
class under their
belts. They have since learned
how to write web code, create
partnerships, obtain 501(c)3
status, and everything else
it takes to build a nonprofit
from scratch. After two pilots
(one rocky, one successful),
IU represents their biggest
opportunity yet.
“All the chips are down,”
Eng says. “Everything we’ve
invested so far comes to fruition this semester.”
Sitting in Kogod’s new entrepreneurship
incubator two days before Thanksgiving, Eng
has an open laptop, a buzzing cell phone, and
the energy of someone with too much to do
and too little time. Like many startups, Unfused
bears a certain resemblance to Whack-a-Mole:
solve one problem, another pops up.
–Tommy White, Kogod/MBA ’95
The challenge, Iaffaldano
explains, is getting three
elements in place at the
same time: partnerships
with universities whose
students volunteer to tutor
kids; agreements with public
schools and community centers
where kids need tutoring; and
the all-important technology, which
brings those groups together in virtual
homework sessions. If any piece falters, the
system falls apart.
Unfused has the tutors: 100 freshmen in
IU’s new community service learning class,
in which students will tutor four hours a
week. It has agreements with Horton’s Kids,
a community center in DC’s Ward 8, and
the New York Boys and Girls Club. Unfused
has run successful pilots with both centers
before, and the club is anticipating a computer
upgrade. And it has the technology, which the
team will spend the next two months prepping
for the January roll out.
Hammering on the website, in fact, is why
Eng came to the incubator today with his web
developer, Aaron Harris, SIS/MA ’16.
“We’re going to try and break it every way
we can,” Eng says. “And then try and fix it.”
More is at stake than delivering a successful
program to a major partner. There’s also
money. Unfused runs a lean operation—Eng
describes it as “bootstrapped
to the max”—and growth is
expensive.
The team estimates the ideal
product would cost $250,000,
mostly for web development.
But the organization needs to
prove itself on a bigger scale
to convince investors. Tommy
White, Kogod/MBA ’95, who
codirects the incubator with
Bill Bellows—both are seasoned
entrepreneurs and Kogod
executives in residence—
agreed the Indiana deal could
potentially open a golden door.
“This will be the real test of, ‘Do they have
something viable or not?’” White says. “If
so, they’re going to be out to raise a lot more
money than what they’re doing now.”
Also on Eng’s mind is his team. Nearly
20 AU students have put their faith in the
founders’ vision, volunteering evenings,
weekends, and holidays—for no pay—for the
last couple of years. A strong social purpose
drives Unfused, but it runs like a business, with
work hours, weekly meetings, an organized
hierarchy that includes directors, VPs,
associates, and interns.
“My biggest stress point now is that we’ve
built this amazing organization, with these
amazing people—so many people have bought
into this idea,” Eng says. “At the end of the
day, it’s my fault if anything goes wrong, so
I’m doing everything I can to make sure we do
this right.”
Today Eng is hoping that, for once, all
the puzzle pieces align. For now, it is time to
work on the website. To break it, fix it, break
it again.
“You’ll get to watch us either succeed, or
crash and burn,” he says, before turning back
to his laptop. The day’s work is just beginning.
New Start for Startups
AU’s incubator is housed on the third floor
of the Mary Graydon Center, with red IKEA
chairs and wall-sized whiteboards that make
the two-room space modern and functional.
In the summer of 2016, the incubator will
move to the Don Myers Technology and
Innovation Building, now under construction
on the East Campus.
With 10 student-led ventures, the
incubator houses for-profits and nonprofits,
early-stage concepts, and companies in beta
tests. Businesses vary widely, from Storganize,
an online storage unit solution by Philip
Olive, Kogod/MS ’15, and Brendan Doherty,
to Upace, an online/mobile platform from
Rachel Koretsky, Kogod/BA ’14, that leverages
data analytics to enhance campus fitness
facility usage.
“Entrepreneurship is a great way to explore
what you’re passionate about,” says Professor
Stevan Holmberg, the catalyst behind the
incubator. “It’s a unique process where you
can step back and say, ‘What could be? How
can we envision something different?’”
For students with an eye on
entrepreneurial careers, startups may be a
better fit than traditional internships. But no
matter where students land, professors say
they will reap dividends from hands-on, realworld
experience.
“The business education they’re getting
is phenomenal,” White says. “They’re
negotiating contracts, they’re signing
contracts, they’re negotiating how much
26 AMERICAN MAGAZINE JULY 2015

they’re going to pay somebody, they’re writing
up agreements.”
Better workspace is another benefit of the
incubator. Before, Unfused was cramming a
dozen students into apartment living rooms
and crashing the wi-fi because so many
people were working. “Productivity has gone
through the roof since we moved into this
space,” Eng says.
Equally important, students now have
access to White and Bellows, who coach
the ventures and facilitate connections
with mentors, collaborators, and investors.
Recognizing that many students needed help
with computer programming, for instance,
the professors reached out to the Department
of Computer Science.
“The incubator is a hub that unifies the
community of AU entrepreneurs,” Bellows
says. “Before the incubator, there were plenty
of student businesses being developed at AU.
They evolved from the sheer passion of the
founders, but usually the founders operated
without knowing who else was trying to build a
company and they functioned through trial and
error. The incubator is changing that.”
Unfused: February
Talk to the Unfused founders, and it’s easy to
forget they’re college students. When they
mention an all-nighter, they’re referring to
the time the team worked until 6 a.m. to meet
a deadline. They talk about pitch meetings,
pipelines, burn rates, and scalable operations.
One year, Eng and DiZio managed to spend
Spring Break at the beach, but they worked for
most of the trip.
“It’s definitely tough and it takes a toll
on people,” Eng says. “I couldn’t do a lot of
things other people would do. I couldn’t go
abroad, I couldn’t join Greek life because
if I had taken on any more responsibility, I
wouldn’t have been able to do my fiduciary
duty to my business.”
They also talk about failure, which seems
to be the lot of the determined entrepreneur:
try, try again. Iaffaldano believes the team’s
persistence was key to overcoming so many
hurdles: “We learned how to adapt in the
moment and say, ‘It’s not working. Why is it
not working? What can we do?’ That’s made
the difference between stopping and sulking
and . . . saying, ‘We’re going to try it again.’”
That’s exactly what Unfused has been
doing since the IU partnership launched in
Mobile app that enables women
to track, evaluate, and share
favorite nail polish colors
Aviva Kamler, Kogod/BSBA ’15
FIRST VENTURE: I always tried
to find a way to make money, whether
it was a lemonade stand or making
splatter-paint T-shirts and selling
them to my friends.
KEY TO SUCCESS: I am extremely
motivated. I hold myself to the same
standards as my interns and brand
ambassadors.
FUNDING: I have raised $71,500
and am looking for more seed capital.
BEST ADVICE: Stay organized,
humble, diligent, and true to yourself.
DESIRED IMPACT: Help women
understand what chemicals are in
their products in an easy, efficient,
elegant way
Analytics software for school
disciplinary issues
Joey Nutinsky, CAS/BS ’17,
Mike Geddes, SIS/BA ’15, Jack Ruppel,
Andrew Lowery, SIS/BA ’16
FIRST VENTURE: Nutinsky had a
computer repair business in high school.
KEY TO SUCCESS: Perspective.
It’s so easy to get caught up in a
meaningless detail or, worse, to
overlook something important.
ROLE MODEL: Elon Musk. The best
entrepreneurs are the ones that
create waves, and his waves are bigger
than most.
BUSINESS VALUES:: Teamwork. We
all have strengths that we utilize in
every operation, and that’s how we can
move so quickly.
Full-service storage
unit solution with online
inventory tracking and
door-to-door delivery
Philip Olive, Kogod/MS ’15,
and Brendan Doherty
FIRST VENTURE: In eighth grade,
we would buy a bunch of soda, juice, and
candy, and resell it to our classmates.
KEY TO SUCCESS: Empathy.
Being an entrepreneur is all about
understanding customer problems.
BEST ADVICE: You have to be “all
in” when you find the right venture to
pursue. A business partner who isn’t
fully committed can sink your idea
faster than anything else.
IDEA GENERATION: Good ideas are a
dime a dozen. The key is execution, which
comes back to being “all in” and picking
the right team..
Online platform connecting
buyers and sellers
Ben Hill, Kogod/BSBA ’16
Robert Mullen, Kogod/BSBA ’16
Frances Burkam, SOC/BA ’16
FIRST ENTREPRENEURIAL
VENTURE: Hill started a successful
T-shirt printing company in high school
called The Shirt Guys.
KEY TO SUCCESS: Tenacity. No
matter what happens, you can’t give up.
ROLE MODEL: Mark Cuban
BEST ADVICE: Always continue
developing your skills. A versatile
team is a successful team.
BEST BUSINESS BOOK:
Startupland by Mikkel Svane
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 27

Virtual reality meetings
and lectures
Jason Ganz, Kogod/BA ’14
Matthias McCoy-Thompson, SIS/BA ’14
Collin Korandovich, CAS/BS ’15
Josh Mahan, CAS/BA ’14
BEST AND WORST MOMENTS:
Worst: Our demo wasn’t working right
before an important meeting. Best: We fixed
it with one minute to spare and pulled off
a successful pitch to a potential client.
KEY TO SUCCESS: Our drive. We might
not have the pedigree or expertise of longtime
founders, but we will not give up.
FUNDING: Entirely bootstrapped. Most
of our founders are in school or have day
jobs. This has taught us to operate in a
truly lean fashion.
WHY ENTREPRENEURSHIP: It is
by far the best way for a small group of
people to have a large impact on the world.
Online/mobile platform that
leverages data analytics
to enhance campus fitness
facility usage
Rachel Koretsky, Kogod/BA ’14
KEY TO SUCCESS: Persistence
ROLE MODEL: Kip Tindell, The
Container Store founder and CEO
BEST ADVICE: You’re going to
receive the answer “no” a lot in
business, but always remember it is
the few times you hear the word “yes”
that truly matter, so don’t let the
“no” get you down.
BUSINESS VALUES: Boldness,
passion, trust, and work-life balance
Media production company
connecting runners to professional
athletes and coaches
Ian Lutz, Kogod/BS ’14
QUICK PITCH: Inspire people to run faster
BEST AND WORST MOMENTS:
Best: Every week when a podcast or blog
is released and I can take a breather!
Worst: Working really hard to get zero
views on the web page.
BEST ADVICE: Failure is an important
element of success.
IDEA GENERATION: Often I am racing
home or trying to keep a list together to
remember my ideas. I have started running
with a tape recorder.
BEST BUSINESS BOOK: inGenius: A
Crash Course on Creativity by Tina Seelig
Educational nonprofit providing life
skills and arts education to at-risk
women and LGBT+ youth in DC
Sarah Jack Voelker, Kogod/BS ’16
FIRST ENTREPRENEURIAL
VENTURE: I started a charity in high
school to raise money for humanitarian
relief in Darfur.
BUSINESS VALUES: Treat people right
at every level of a business, allow people
to express themselves, and listen to them
when they do.
DESIRED IMPACT: I want a world where
all people have the opportunity to build
safe, healthy, and happy lives.
WHY ENTREPRENEURSHIP:
Entrepreneurship is like art: you
create something from nothing to make
the world better.
January—and did not go as planned. By mid-
February, Eng was describing the past four
weeks as “a lot of huge wins and some decentsized
setbacks.”
One advantage of a startup is that a glitch,
even a big one, doesn’t necessarily mean
Game Over. Savvy entrepreneurs can turn a
failure into a pivot: moving the business in a
new direction based on new information or
changing circumstances.
The first setback happened at the New
York Boys and Girls Club, which didn’t get its
new computers. That meant 130 kids couldn’t
receive tutoring. Next, Horton’s Kids fell
through: spotty Internet at the community
center thwarted tutoring sessions, and a spate
of violence in Ward 8 in mid-January led the
center to close for a few weeks.
“The puzzle is three pieces—technology,
tutors, and students—and at each point in the
development of this company, we’ve had a
problem with one of them,” Iaffaldano says.
“For the first time, we started this semester
with two pieces in, the tutors and the web
part, and now we missed the student part.”
The tutoring sessions that happened went
well, but with far more IU tutors than kids,
the roll out was rocky. After a few weeks, IU
pulled the plug on the program until all of its
students could participate.
“It’s one of the single most upsetting things
I’ve experienced at Unfused, the fact that we
weren’t able to deliver as promised,” Eng says.
Meanwhile, the team scrambled to salvage
the partnership: refunding IU’s fees, securing
an agreement to try again next year. Like
most of the organization’s ups and downs, the
experience delivered valuable lessons.
“Some things are out of your control,”
Iaffaldano says, sitting in the incubator with
Eng. “I can’t control Horton’s Kids’ Internet
and I can’t control when they get their
computers at the Boys and Girls Club.”
“But we can control getting more partners,
so that if one goes down, we’ve got other
ones,” Eng replies. “Scale reduces problems.”
According to Holmberg, trial-and-error
is at the heart of building a new enterprise:
“Entrepreneurs learn very quickly that failure
is not necessarily a totally bad thing, but it can
be an incredible learning opportunity.”
Rahaman Kilpatrick, a youth manager
at Horton’s Kids, says that after a new teen
center is built this summer, he hopes to
work with Unfused again. During Horton’s
first pilot with the startup, tutors helped
28 AMERICAN MAGAZINE JULY 2015

approximately 15 Horton’s teenagers with
math, a tough subject for many.
“They really filled a gap for us,” Kilpatrick
says. “We didn’t know how we were going to
get these kids to start taking math seriously.”
The technology itself was a novelty at
first—many kids at the center don’t have
computer access at home, and they aren’t
on FaceTime or Skype. But quickly, what
intrigued them was the idea of chatting online
with college students. That mentorship is an
unexpected outcome of the tutoring, but may
be its most significant benefit.
“A lot of our kids drop out in the eighth
and ninth grade,” Kilpatrick says. “It was like,
“Wow, that’s your dorm room? Tell me about
college.’ It gave them some hope to want to do
more than just graduate high school.”
Cultivating Innovation
The incubator is just part of a broad push to
grow entrepreneurship at AU.
In 2012, Kogod launched the Sustainable
Entrepreneurship and Innovation Initiative,
which interim dean Erran Carmel calls “one
of the most important and successful things
we’ve done in Kogod in recent years.” The
initiative includes the incubator, a 17-member
advisory council, and a venture fund that has
raised approximately $233,000 from Kogod
and donors. Startups accepted to the incubator
(roughly 40 percent of applicants) receive
$1,500 in seed capital.
Advisory council member Mark Bucher,
Kogod/BS ’90, BGR: The Burger Joint founder
and Medium Rare cofounder, helped fund the
renovation and furnishing of the incubator
space. He believes the faculty is one of its
strongest components.
“It takes one professor to believe in a kid for
the kid’s spark to get lit, and I think the three
of those guys—Stevan, Tommy, and Bill—have
reached so many students this year,” Bucher
says. “They’re making magic. These students
are having a better undergraduate experience
and doing great things.”
Debra Moser and her husband, Mitchell
Berliner, Kogod/BS ’70, cofounders of Central
Farm Markets, also serve on the council. Moser
predicts students with incubator experience
will be miles ahead of their peers.
“These students are going to think
differently,” Moser says. “They’re really
going to look at problem solving in a very
unique way.”
In 2012, Kogod partnered with the School
of Communication to debut a master’s in media
entrepreneurship. Two years later, it launched
an entrepreneurship minor for all AU students.
In all, more than 300 AU students took
entrepreneurship classes in 2014–2015.
“It’s very exciting because you think
about anybody at SIS, any student at SOC,
any student in arts management—ultimately,
they’re all entrepreneurs,” Holmberg says.
“If I want to do economic development in
Africa . . . if I want to be a
documentary journalist, I’m
an entrepreneur.”
Kogod hosted its first
Global Entrepreneurship
Week last November,
drawing 435 attendees
and 35 submissions to a
“What’s the Big Idea Pitch
Competition.” AU’s Board of
Trustees in May approved
a new modular master’s—
customizable curricula
that students can adapt to
individual goals—that will
include an entrepreneurship track. Within
five years, a soft target established by Carmel,
every Kogod student will have some type of
startup experience.
All these initiatives are driven by the
conviction that no matter what careers
students pursue, an entrepreneurial mindset
will pay off.
“The incubator teaches our students how
to design products that customers want to
buy,” Bellows says. “That learning is highly
valuable and transferrable.”
The incubator’s new home will house an
Incubator Design Lab, an instructional lab
with whiteboards and videoconferencing,
conference rooms, faculty offices, and, of
course, a refreshment center with a refrigerator
and coffeepot for those all-nighters.
“it takes one
professor to believe
in a kid for the kid’s
spark to get lit, and
I think the three of
those guys—Stevan,
Tommy, and Bill—have
reached so many
students this year.
They’re making magic.”
–Mark Bucher, Kogod/BS ’90
Unfused: May
Some of entrepreneurship’s richest lessons
have little to do with business itself. Eng
and Iaffaldano, asked what they gained from
spending their undergraduate years on a
startup, talked about leadership, management
skills, and learning to work smarter, not harder.
After the IU deal stumbled, Unfused got
busy lining up new partnerships to make sure
that wouldn’t happen again. They finalized
The Kogod School of
Business is interested
an agreement with
in hearing from alumni
Montgomery County entrepreneurs. To add
your entrepreneurial
Public Schools and,
affiliation to our
in March, launched a alum database, email
pilot program at Seneca startup@american.edu
Valley High School, with
11 AU and IU tutors
helping 30 students.
Meanwhile, they have secured interest
from the School District of Philadelphia and
Drexel University, and plan to reconfigure
their website for their newest
pivot: creating an in-house
video platform to replace the
Google Hangouts.
Ultimately, belief in their
mission is what pushed the team
forward for four years, despite
the false starts, lack of money,
lack of knowledge, and—until
the incubator came along—lack
of support.
“I know that my time at
two in the morning is wellspent,
because it might help
someone have a better life or
get a better grade or feel like someone cares
about them,” Iaffaldano says. “You can’t
quantify those things, but sometimes those
have the biggest impact.”
By early May, Eng and Iaffaldano were
getting ready for their next big transition:
graduation. He’ll stay in DC to work in
commercial real estate banking at Capital One,
and she took a consulting job with EY in New
York. (Iaffaldano credits her startup experience
with helping her sail through job interviews.)
Both will stay involved in Unfused, but for the
past several months, they’ve been grooming
new leaders: Myles Mora, Kogod/BSBA ’17, the
new executive director, and Jordan Hansen,
Kogod/BS ’17, director of development.
Mission aside, building a business has been
an adventure. Eng once compared the upsand-downs
to being strapped to a rocket going
to the moon, or being stuck on the Titanic—or
both at the same time.
“I have asked myself, was this the best thing
to do for me as a person?” Eng says. “There’s
always that part of you that says, ‘I should have
had a normal college experience,’ but I wouldn’t
have traded it for anything. It made me who I
am now, and I’m happy with where I am.”
DOWNLOAD the American magazine
app for interviews with Bucher and Moser.
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 29

This long gallery of iconic advertising lines the
outside of the exhibition hall. Pepsi, Nike, MTV,
and the California Milk Processor Board
(Got Milk?) are among the featured brands.
“Advertising started in the eighteenth century in
newspapers and evolved into the visual language
we have today,” Franz says.
BY MIKE UNGER AND ADRIENNE FRANK
Commercialism. Consumerism. Capitalism. All
have played key roles in American life since the
earliest days of America itself. For better or for
worse, the story of the country’s ascent from
renegade republic to global power cannot be fully
told without delving into its economic history. Yet,
the nation’s premier museum system has never
attempted to explain it in-depth to the public.
Until now.
On July 1, the National Museum of American
History opened American Enterprise, an 8,000-
square-foot permanent exhibit that “chronicles
the tumultuous interaction of capitalism and
democracy that resulted in the continual remaking
of American business—and American life.”
AU history professor Kathleen Franz is one of
three curators who worked under Project Director
David Allison for more than four years. She was
responsible for the section of the exhibit related
to the history of advertising and consumer culture
after World War II.
“We place the consumer at the center of the
story and look at advertising as the essential
bridge between products and people,” she says.
“Advertising is a creative and innovative force in
business that creates desire for products and a space
in our lives for those products. It’s an integral part
of not just business culture, but American culture.”
Housed in the gleaming, newly renovated Mars
Hall of American Business in the west wing of
the museum, the exhibit begins in the Merchant
Era, from 1770 to the 1850s, and continues
through the Global Era into the present day. It
takes an unvarnished look at the good (the rise of
computers), the bad (snake oil salesmen), and the
ugly (the slave trade) of American business history.
“There was a moment when there was no ad
industry, and businesses tried to talk directly to
consumers,” Franz says. “When businesses began
to get bigger in the nineteenth century, they
figured out that it wasn’t working. So they hired
this very specialized group of people to do that
and it changed everything.”
From this shift were born the likes of Mr.
Peanut, Tony the Tiger, and Buster Brown, iconic
characters who not only amused us but enticed us
to buy things as well. Aided by several of her AU
grad students, Franz worked tirelessly, selecting
pieces from the Smithsonian’s permanent
collection and acquiring objects from around
the country for the exhibit. She even scored an
original cast-iron Mr. Peanut from Planters.
Franz treated American to a sneak peek of
the exhibit before it opened to the public. As the
photographs and Franz’s explanations on the
following pages reveal, American Enterprise brings
seemingly mundane business topics—accounting
and regulation, for example—to life, and is sure
to pay off for the millions of people who will invest
their time (but no money) exploring it.
An interactive media wall greets visitors outside the
gallery space. It’s one of 34 interactive displays
throughout the exhibit. “This gives people a flavor
of the themes of the American Enterprise exhibition:
innovation, opportunity, competition, and the
common good. It allows them to connect with the
material culture of business.”
MTV POSTER, 1990, COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE EXHIBITION
30 AMERICAN MAGAZINE JULY 2015

TOBACCONIST’S SHOP FIGURE, 1870–1910; PHILCO RADIO, 1930S; MR. PEANUT; NIPPER; NEW YORKER “467–821,” BY TED KEY, CIRCA 1960; AND COOKIE MONSTER SWEATER, 1970S–1980S,
COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE EXHIBITION; FRANZ IMAGE BY HILARY SCHWAB
“As with slavery,
I’m glad we touched
on uncomfortable
but historically
important topics,
such as racial and
ethnic stereotypes.
As a historian, I felt
it was important
to say that in the
late nineteenth
century, advertising
participated, along
with minstrelsy,
in creating racial stereotypes that cast most
white people as consumers and people of color
as servants—whether they’re handing you your
cigars or your pancakes. These stereotypes, such
as the cigar shop figure, had a profound impact
on commercial life, including some people in the
democracy of goods and excluding others.”
“Patent medicine producers were among the first
innovators of advertising, but their products and
pitches were unregulated. All of this unregulated
advertising resulted in distrust among consumers
and, eventually, the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906,
truth in advertising laws, and greater regulations.”
From the late 1920s until the dawn of the
television era, broadcasters reached consumers
through their ears, not their eyes. “From the
beginning of commercial radio, the radio program was
the ad. One sponsor, one ad. This approach shaped the
beginnings of commercial television as well.” Many
of the advertisements are from the John R. Hickman
Collection at the American University Archives.
One of the innovations
of advertisers was to
make business friendlier
for consumers. This led to
the creation of spokescharacters
like Mr. Peanut
and Nipper, the RCA dog.
“ONE OF THE CHALLENGES OF CURATING THE
CONSUMER ERA, THE PERIOD AFTER 1945, IS
THAT IT’S IN THE REALM OF RECENT MEMORY
AND CAN EVOKE NOSTALGIA. I WANTED TO
REMIND PEOPLE THAT IT WAS ALSO THE ERA
OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, THE WAR
ON POVERTY, THE POOR PEOPLE’S CAMPAIGN,
AND A TIME WHEN PEOPLE WERE FIGHTING
FOR GREATER ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY.”
-KATHLEEN FRANZ
Alfred S. Bloomingdale was the grandson of the
department store scion and an early developer
of the credit card. He collected cartoons from the
New Yorker about credit cards and donated them to
the National Collections at the National Museum of
American History. “The cartoons are a nice way
to show how American consumers grappled with
this new form of credit in the 1950s and 1960s.”
In the 1950s, parents and children’s advocates
debated whether commercial broadcasting
was bad for kids. This led to the creation of the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting in 1967 and
the Public Broadcasting System two years later.
Among its most beloved programs is Sesame
Street, which became a commercial success as
well. The nonprofit company behind the kids’
show licensed images of its characters, like
Cookie Monster, in the 1970s to fund production.
J. C. Penney was among the first retailers to
sell Sesame Street-licensed clothing.
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 31

“This is a DuMont colonial revival TV from 1947. Alan B. Du Mont was widely acknowledged as one of the fathers
of television. He also produced some of the fanciest TVs on the market—in fact, they were known
as the Cadillac of television sets. TV broadcasting became a very big business in the 1950s, when many
newcomers applied for broadcasting licenses. KCOR-TV was the first Spanish-language television station in
the continental US. Owned by a Latino, the San Antonio, Texas, station got its license in 1954.”
“Howdy Doody sold
everything. He was
the ultimate salesman
and was referred
to as the ‘Salesman
on Strings.’”
After World War II, many
women remained in the
workforce, where they
often were employed as
office workers. This
spawned a new consumer
market for everything
from frozen food to
business attire. By
1960, nearly 30
percent of married
women worked, a
number that continued
to climb as middle-class
families discovered
that they needed two
incomes in order to
maintain the consumer
lifestyle.
“IBM was one of the most durable
companies of the twentieth century
because it reinvented itself and its
products. Early on, there was an
internal debate at the company
about whether it should make
computers. It entered the market
slightly behind other companies,
but by 1960 was the leader in
computing. This model, the IBM
System/360, once was on view at
American University’s Computing
History Museum and was given to
the Smithsonian by Dr. Tim Bergin.”
This Hotpoint Combination Refrigerator-Freezer
was available in a rainbow of colors. “We used
it as a touchstone for the idea of abundance and
new forms of food in the 1960s. AU history graduate
students worked with me to figure out what would
be in a refrigerator in 1960—products like Velveeta
cheese and Donald Duck orange juice.”
“We use Tupperware to tell several stories about
innovation—innovation in new kinds of plastic and
innovations in marketing through home selling.”
Tupperware parties were just that—festive
gatherings with food, games, and product
demonstrations. Standardized tools like postcards
made buying and selling fun.
“IT WAS A PRIVILEGE TO WORK WITH
THE CREATIVE TEAM OF CURATORS ON
AMERICAN ENTERPRISE,” FRANZ SAYS.
“I LEARNED A LOT ABOUT THE PROCESS
OF COLLECTING OBJECTS THAT TELL
GREAT HUMAN STORIES OF INNOVATION,
OPPORTUNITY, COMPETITION, AND THE
COMMON GOOD.”
DUMONT “REVERE” ENTERTAINMENT CENTER, 1947; HOWDY DOODY, CLAIRE MCCARDELL SUIT, 1949–1950S; IBM INTRODUCED THE SYSTEM/360, A MAINFRAME COMPUTER IN 1964;
HOTPOINT COMBINATION REFRIGERATOR-FREEZER PRODUCT LITERATURE, 1959–1961; POSTCARD FOR TUPPERWARE HOME PARTY, 1957, COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE EXHIBITION
32 AMERICAN MAGAZINE JULY 2015

AMERICAN ENTERPRISE TRACES NEARLY 250 YEARS OF BUSINESS HISTORY
THROUGH MORE THAN 600 OBJECTS, IMAGES, AND VIDEOS. FROM ALEXANDER
GRAHAM BELL’S 1876 TELEPHONE TO A 2009 BLACKBERRY SMART PHONE, HERE’S
THE BUZZ ON THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY’S NEWEST EXHIBIT.
MERCHANT ERA, 1770s–1850s
GLOBAL ERA, 1980s–2010s
WANN DEEJAY “HOPPY ADAMS BROADCASTING FROM A STOREFRONT WINDOW, ANNAPOLIS, MD, 1953; COLONEL SANDERS WEATHERVANE, 1950S–1960S,
COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE EXHIBITION
Founded in 1948, WANN Radio served the African
American market in Annapolis, Maryland. “The
groundbreaking station’s story is about connecting
not just musicians but also businesses to a new,
recognized market. Before the 1940s and 1950s,
most businesses didn’t recognize African Americans
as having enough money to be worth advertising to.
Radio stations like this one, and magazines such as
Ebony, changed that.”
Harland David Sanders is better known to the world
as Colonel Sanders. In the 1950s and 1960s,
weather vanes in the image of the Kentucky Fried
Chicken founder symbolized the reach of the
franchise to all points of the compass.
The United States was born in the Merchant Era,
a time of market revolution. The old colonial
mercantile system, in which raw products were
shipped abroad and finished goods were imported,
gave rise to physical and social marketplaces,
where people could buy or trade goods from
around the globe. Artisans, peddlers, farmers,
and merchants flourished.
One of the most lucrative businesses of the
Merchant Era was the most appalling. “Slavery
was one of the biggest businesses in the United
States in the nineteenth century,” Franz says.
“We show the business behind buying and selling
people: insurance documents, tax documents,
transportation costs.” Slavery ranked among the
largest and most capital-intensive enterprises in
the United States until it was abolished in 1865.
CORPORATE ERA, 1860s–1930s
The Corporate Era saw widespread economic
growth, innovation, and entrepreneurship, as
America’s founding values—individualism and
egalitarianism—gave way to individual consumption
and the Industrial Revolution. By the 1920s, half of
all Americans had fled farms for factories and
offices in cities like New York, Detroit, and Chicago.
Thomas Edison, inventor of the electric lightbulb,
was among the icons of the Corporate Era.
With nearly 1,100 patents to his name, Edison built
a full-scale power station in his adopted hometown
of New York City (the location near Wall Street
allowed him to wow and woo investors). But not all
of his inventions were a hit. Edison’s talking dolls—
his “little monsters”—were expensive and didn’t
work well, and he got stuck with a warehouse full
of them. “It’s his biggest failure in some ways. The
exhibition shows that even people who ultimately
succeeded had failures.”
CONSUMER ERA, 1940s–1970s
Following World War II, production boomed and
consumption became the engine driving the
nation’s economy. Diminished global competition,
high rates of union membership, Cold War
spending, and expanded consumer credit fueled
prosperity, opportunity, and the rise of the middle
class. But by the 1970s, the economic engine
began to slow.
The nation’s recent history saw a spike in global
production and trade. More workers became
involved in a wide range of services, and
consumers and producers alike had to adapt
to rapid change driven by computers; robust,
complex data; and smart devices. The decline in
manufacturing and the rise of the retail, service,
and financial sectors created opportunity for
some and eliminated safeguards for others.
Artifacts include one of Google’s first servers
from the Menlo Park, California, garage where
Larry Page and Sergey Brin launched their now
$367 billion tech firm, and Nobel Prize-winning
economist Milton Friedman’s briefcase.
THE EXCHANGE
The Wallace H. Coulter Exchange is a hands-on
learning center, where museumgoers are invited
to exchange, compete, barter, broker, market, and
innovate. Visitors can try their hand at running a
cat food business or a modern-day farm.
The learning center also features a state-ofthe-art,
oak-and-brass booth from the New York
Stock Exchange. Trading booth No. 13 was
installed in 1929, just before Black Tuesday—the
most devastating stock market crash in US history
that plunged the country into the decade-long
Great Depression. The booth now features a video
monitor with infographics produced by the History
Channel to help visitors understand the workings
of the stock market.
BIOGRAPHY WALL
People are at the heart of American business.
American Enterprise is framed by a wall dedicated
to innovators such as Eli Whitney, Estée Lauder,
and Steve Jobs. “We want visitors to see people
taking risks, succeeding, and failing,” Franz says.
The biography wall includes a new, interactive
take on Christian Schussele’s Men of Progress. The
1862 painting, which hangs in the National Portrait
Gallery, features the most distinguished inventors
of the nineteenth century, including Samuel Colt,
Samuel F. B. Morse, and Charles Goodyear. Visitors
can select an inventor—Elias Howe, creator of the
sewing machine, or Joseph Henry, the man behind
electromagnetic design—and learn how their
innovations continue to impact our daily lives.
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 33

With a flip of the tassel, 2,900 students joined the ranks of AU alumni during
the 129th commencement ceremonies. Traditionally held on the second
weekend in May, the events kicked off on Saturday, May 9, in Bender Arena and
concluded on Sunday, May 17, with the Washington College of Law ceremony.

PHOTO BY HILARY SCHWAB
1960s
Jon Holstine, SIS/MA ’64,
published an e-book, Recent
Outer Mongolian International
Relations: A Time Capsule,
based on his master’s thesis
chronicling Mongolian foreign
affairs through 1962.
Steve Mehlman, CAS/BA ’64,
was appointed to the Riverside
-1965-
TIME
CAPSULES
TOP TUNE
“Wooly Bully,” Sam the Sham and the
Pharaohs
TOP-GROSSING FLICK
The Sound of Music
IN THE NEWS
First US combat troops arrive in Vietnam;
Malcolm X is shot to death at a rally in
Harlem; Martin Luther King Jr. is among
2,600 people arrested in Selma, Alabama,
during demonstrations against voter
registration rules
FROM THE AU ARCHIVES
George Lincoln Rockwell, leader of the
American Nazi Party, attends a screening
of the pro-Nazi film, Triumph of the Will,
on campus as 300 protestors gather
outside. The Virginia gubernatorial
candidate is led to a police car that’s
pelted with pebbles, a reaction that Dean
Van Way calls “entirely favorable.”
AT THE HELM
Gary Walker was 1965–1966
Student Association president.
County, California, Advisory
Council on Aging. He was
also elected as a California
Democratic Party District
Delegate.
William Anderson, CAS/BA
’69, a retired colonel with the
US Marines, participated in
the Memorial Day festivities at
the WWI American Military
Cemetery in Belleau, France,
the site of the Marines’ Battle of
Belleau Wood in June 1918. While
there, he led battlefield tours.
1970s
James Winkler, SOC/BA ’72,
of Perrysburg, Ohio, wrote
the University of Toledo’s
successful 84-page
application to
receive the
Carnegie
Foundation
for the
Advancement
of Teaching’s
2015 Community
Engagement
Classification.
Toledo was among 240
US colleges and universities to
receive the designation, which is
good for 10 years.
Richard Dorfman, CAS/BA ’74,
was elected to a four-year term
on the Sarasota County, Florida,
Charter Review Board. The
CRB reviews and recommends
amendments to the Sarasota
County Charter, the county’s
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I could not have predicted that my acrossthe-hall
neighbors—who endured a lot
of loud disco music from my room—would
be among my most cherished friends.”
—Royelen Lee Boykie, SPA/BS ’80, on her Letts Hall floor mates, with
whom she reunites every year for “amazing parties” across the country,
from San Francisco to South Beach
governing document. Dorfman
is also a member of the Sarasota
County Sports Commission.
Kathryn Thurber, SIS/BA ’74,
is the author of Paris Thibideau
and the World of Lost Things,
the story of a boy, a dream, and
a gift for making something out
of nothing in inner-city
Minneapolis.
Helen White,
CAS/BA ’74, met
Kathy Lanier,
chief of police for
Washington, DC,
at the American
News Women’s
Club on February 25.
She retired from the US
Department of State as project
manager in 1998.
Willie Jolley, CAS/BA ’78, was
named one of Toastmasters
International’s five “outstanding
speakers in the world.”
Gary Kremer, CAS/PhD ’78,
published Race and Meaning:
The African American Experience
in Missouri. It explores racial
history and the rich African
American heritage of the border
state of Missouri from the mid-
1970s to the present.
Susan Wild, SPA/BA ’78, was
appointed solicitor of Allentown,
Pennsylvania. She is the first
female to hold this position and
was unanimously confirmed by
the Allentown City Council at its
2015 organizational meeting.
1980s
Royelen Lee Boykie, SPA/
BS ’80, gets together each year
with a group of friends from
her time on the international
floor of Letts Hall in 1976. The
group travels from around the
world to reminisce and celebrate
their friendship. The group
includes Elizabeth Boyle, SIS/
BA ’79, Naomi Chakwin, CAS/
BA ’80, Ken Crow, SIS/BA ’79,
Tim Hassett, SIS/BA ’80, Terry
Holthause, CAS/BA ’78, Brad
Minnick, SPA/BA ’78, Tom
Olson, SIS/BA ’80, and Alice
Thompson, SIS/BA ’79.
AMERICAN.EDU/ALUMNI 35

-1980-
TIME
CAPSULES
TOP TUNE
“Call Me,” Blondie
TOP-GROSSING FLICK
The Empire Strikes Back
IN THE NEWS
The Beatles’ John Lennon is shot dead in
New York City; Ted Turner creates CNN,
the first all-news television network;
Voyager I reaches Saturn; six US embassy
aides escape from Iran
FROM THE AU ARCHIVES
Rev. R. Bruce Poynter, vice president of
Student Life, refuses to sign the general
assembly’s supplemental allocations
because of a clause giving the Student
Union Board cinema $1,000 to screen at
least one X-rated film.
AT THE HELM
Steve Greenberg was 1980–1981
Student Confederation president.
The Grammy award-winning
producer is the founder and CEO of
S-Curve Records in New York City.
Erik Falk, SPA/BA ’81, exhibited
his photography in the lobby
of the US District Courthouse
for the Western District of
Pennsylvania from December
2014 to February 2015.
James Daniel, CAS/BS ’82, wrote
the book Holy Roller Disco.
Colin Uckert, SPA/BA ’83, has
been promoted to managing
associate general counsel at
Freddie Mac in McLean, Virginia.
Deborah Norris, CAS/MA
’84, CAS/PhD ’88, founded the
Mindfulness Center, a nonprofit
wellness center in Bethesda,
Maryland.
Katherine Childs-Rogers, CAS/
BA ’85, joined Peerless Rockville
in November 2014 as a collections
manager.
Dave Reiss, SOC/MA ’86, earned
his stripes at Towson University.
Associate Professor Reiss is a
member of the US Coast Guard
Auxiliary, working locally as the
Codorus Valley Flotilla 19-06
public affairs officer. He was
promoted to the USCG Auxiliary
National Training Directorate as
a program assistant.
Gail Weiss-Chehab, Kogod/
BSBA ’87, published The Tunnel
in spring 2015. The Tunnel, a story
of politics, war, hope, love, and
sacrifice set in the Middle
East, won second place
in the Roanoke
Review’s annual
fiction contest
and was a finalist
for the Arthur
Edelstein Prize.
Cheryl Lombard,
SPA/BA ’88, was
named co-chair of
Arizona Governor-Elect
Doug Ducey’s Transition
Subcommittee on State Lands.
Joseph Nader, SIS/BA ’88,
Kogod/MBA ’90, has been
named chair of the investment
committee of the Miami
Children’s Hospital for 2015.
1990s
Craig Gruber, CAS/BA ’90, and
Jennifer Surwilo, SIS/BA ’91,
met at Guantanamo Bay Naval
Base when Gruber, who is a
lieutenant in the US Navy Reserve,
was activated to the base and
Surwilo, an NCIS special agent,
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I still haven’t flown to the moon or
discovered prehistoric bones. But
I have evolved into a writer, a marvel
in itself.”
—Gail Weiss-Chehab, Kogod/BSBA ’87, on how her
childhood ambitions to be an archeologist or the first lady
on the moon gave way to a career as an author
floated in aboard the USS
America (LHA 6) for a port call.
Michael Lally, SIS/BA ’90,
is executive deputy assistant
secretary of commerce for
Europe, the Middle East, and
Africa and is responsible for
American business
development and
policy advocacy
to support US
competitiveness
abroad.
Adam Konowe,
SOC/MA ’91,
has been elected
as a fellow to the
United Kingdom’s
Royal Aeronautical
Society. He continues to serve as
vice president of client strategy
for TMP Government and as an
adjunct professor in the School of
Communication.
Victor Prince, SIS/BA ’91, has
written Lead Inside the Box: How
Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams
to Exceptional Results. The book
will be published in July.
Mimi Magyar, SPA/BA ’92, was
named development director
for the National Park Trust,
an organization that connects
children with nature and assists
the National Park Service with
acquisition and restoration
projects.
José Negrón-Fernández,
Kogod/BSBA ’92, returned to
private practice, where he will
be litigating civil cases, handling
appellate matters, and acting as
an arbitrator and mediator.
Charles Baldwin, WCL/JD
’93, WCL/MA ’95, was among
21 Brooks Pierce attorneys
recognized in the 2015 edition of
-1990-
TIME
CAPSULES
TOP TUNE
“Hold On,” Wilson Phillips
TOP-GROSSING FLICK
Ghost
IN THE NEWS
President George H. W. Bush signs the Clean
Air Act; Iraqi troops invade Kuwait; South
Africa frees Nelson Mandela after 27 years
in prison; The Simpsons debuts on Fox
FROM THE AU ARCHIVES
Nine students bake 170 dozen Christmas
cookies in the Tavern kitchen to send
to a Marine battalion in Saudi Arabia. “I
thought how much I’d hate it if I didn’t have
Christmas cookies at home,” said freshman
Siobhan Murphy. “I want them to know
everyone appreciates what they’re doing.”
AT THE HELM
Matt Ward was 1990–1991 Student
Confederation president. He’s now CEO of
Sustainable Strategies DC, a government
affairs and strategic consulting firm.
36 AMERICAN MAGAZINE JULY 2015

Business North Carolina’s “Legal
Elite.” He was named to the
“Legal Elite” Hall of Fame.
Matthew Devries, SPA/BA ’93,
has been hired as an attorney
for Burr & Forman LLP in the
Nashville office.
Tiffany Baldwin, SIS/BA
’94, opened her own law firm,
Compass Immigration
Law, which focuses
on employmentbased
immigration
matters.
Adena
Tuckman, CAS/
BA ’94, married
Steven Sherin on
October 26, 2014, in
Bucks County, Pennsylvania.
Scott Goodstein, SPA/BA ’95,
SPA/MPA ’99, and Charles
Keegan Goudiss, SPA/BA ’02,
were listed in Campaigns and
Elections magazine’s “50 Most
Influential” for 2014. Their
progressive digital company,
Revolution Messaging, has been
winning industry awards for the
past five years.
Emilie Cortes, Kogod/BSBA ’96,
served as a judge for the Bend,
Oregon, Chamber of Commerce’s
inaugural Women of the Year
Awards, renewing the Adopt-a-
Park project at Smith Rock for
another year. She also received
a four-page spread in the March
issue of the chamber’s journal.
Ethan Rosenzweig, SPA/BA
’96, is the dean of admission
and financial aid at Emory
University. He was a winner of
AU’s Presidential Award and the
Stafford H. Cassell Award.
Vanessa Allen Sutherland,
WCL/JD ’96, Kogod/MBA ’97,
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was nominated by President
Obama to serve as chairperson
of the US Chemical Safety and
Hazard Investigation Board.
Marc Bender, SPA/BA ’97,
returned to DC to visit American
University with his family.
Highlights of his trip included a
visit to Bender Arena.
Nicole Enright, SIS/
MA ’97, was named
vice president of
corporate human
resources by
Avent, Inc.
Loren Hudziak,
CAS/BA ’96,
CAS/MS ’97, has
been elected to the
Associates Board of
Directors for the Wolf Trap
Foundation for the Performing
Arts.
Pam Parry, SOC/MA ’97,
became an associate professor
of communication at Eastern
Kentucky University. She also
published a book, Eisenhower:
The Public Relations President,
and signed a publishing deal
with Lexington Books to coedit
a book series on women in
American political history.
Laura Lott, Kogod/BS ’98, was
chosen by the American Alliance
of Museums as its next president
and chief executive officer.
T. Baxter Martin, CAS/BA ’98,
became a landscape manager for
Solage Calistoga in Calistoga,
California, in July 2014.
Jennifer Scherz, SOC-SPA/
BA ’98, and Daniel Lifshey were
married on November 16, 2014,
in New Rochelle, New York.
AU alumni in attendance were
Elizabeth Klug Allocca, SPA/
BA ’99, and Michele Wolfenstein
Q. IS IT TRUE THAT AU USED TO HAVE A
FOOTBALL TEAM?
A. It is! AU competed
on the gridiron for
16 seasons—not all
of them glorious. A
member of the Mason-
Dixon Conference (the
defunct NCAA Division II
conference that included
Johns Hopkins, Catholic,
and Gallaudet) from
1926 to 1941, the Eagles
chalked up a record of
24 wins, 65 losses, and
6 ties. In fall 1969, the
Student Confederation
and the University Senate
approved club football,
and Board of Trustees
member John Reeves donated $30,000 to cover half the expenses
for three years. Club football ran through 1976 and was featured
prominently in homecoming during the 1970s.
EMAIL QUESTIONS for AU history wonk Susan McElrath to
magazine@american.edu.
Aptman, Kogod/BS ’97. The
couple resides in New York City
with their dog, Molly.
Cecilia Vega, SOC/BA ’99,
became an anchor of World News
Tonight for ABC News.
2000s
Seth Darmstadter, SPA/BA ’00,
was honored as a “40 under 40”
attorney in Chicago.
Evelyn Kelly, CAS/BS ’01, has
been chosen to participate
in Leadership Maryland, a
professional program dedicated
to building a stronger Maryland
by educating, cultivating, and
connecting the state’s brightest
leaders.
Ken Biberaj, SPA/BA ’02,
was appointed as chairman
of the board of directors for
the Manhattan Chamber of
Commerce.
Karen Dunak, CAS/BA ’02,
published her first book, As Long
As We Both Shall Love: The White
Wedding in Postwar America.
AMERICAN.EDU/ALUMNI 37

ANDREA AGATHOKLIS
MURINO, SPA/BA ’98, partner
and co-chair of Goodwin Procter’s
Antitrust Practice, is president of
the American University Alumni
Association and the university’s
Alumni Board. “It’s an honor to
work with such a dedicated group
of volunteers and AU ambassadors
who work tirelessly to engage other
alumni in the life of the university.”
I OWE SO MUCH OF WHO I AM IN MANY IMPORTANT WAYS TO AU. I look back not
just on the academic learning that happened here, but also on the personal relationships I
developed while I was a student.
I experienced other cultures, met different people, and came to understand new ways of
thinking. I learned not to take myself too seriously. I learned about my strengths and, just as
importantly, about my weaknesses. I don’t think that could have happened just anywhere.
AU was a specially calibrated laboratory that enabled me to grow into the person I am today.
Now that I’m in a position to give back, I’m thrilled to donate my time, energy, and resources
to try to make what was a wonderful institution for me even more wonderful for others.
As president of the Alumni Board, my role is twofold. First, there’s an obligation to
make sure I know what’s going on within the university, to understand the academic and
extracurricular priorities.
But the most important job is to be an ambassador for the university beyond campus.
That means making sure that my fellow alumni are informed about all the great stuff that’s
going on at AU.
Under any metric, AU is a school that’s on the rise. It’s fantastic that our admissions rate
for the Class of 2019 was only 35 percent—down from 46 percent last year. You can look
at the diverse work of the faculty and know that we are expanding beyond what were our
core strengths.
Our administration is incredibly strong, and the vision for the university has never been
stronger. This year, under the leadership of former vice president Tom Minar, 8,695 alumni
made gifts to AU. Along with parents, faculty, staff, students, and friends, alumni gave
$2,065,673 to the annual funds alone—exceeding our goal by more than $100,000.
There are many ways alumni can give: volunteer, attend an event with current students,
go to a summer sendoff event in your city. Whatever you can do to spread the message of AU
and share your time and experiences with future generations helps strengthen our legacy.
This is important work that we do together. Thanks to all of you who give back to AU in
so many ways.
38 AMERICAN MAGAZINE JULY 2015

giving
ENGAGING ALUMNI IN THE LIFE OF THE UNIVERSITY—AND
WELCOMING NEW STUDENTS AND THEIR PARENTS INTO OUR
CAMPUS COMMUNITY—IS CRITICAL TO AU’S CONTINUED
ASCENT. THANKS TO ALL OF YOU WHO GIVE BACK TO AU IN
SO MANY WAYS.
THIS YEAR, 8,695 ALUMNI
MADE GIFTS TO AU. Along
with parents, faculty, staff, students,
and friends, alumni gave $2,065,673
to the annual funds. Annual gifts
may be designated for a specific
purpose—a particular school or college,
department, or campus program, for
example—and provide critical support
for AU’s most urgent needs.
PARENTS AND ALUMNI HOST
MORE THAN 20 EVENTS each
year to welcome incoming students to
the AU community. In the Big Apple alone,
New Yorkers host three annual events to
encourage students and parents to mix and
mingle before the academic year begins.
THE CLASS OF 2019’S ACADEMIC
PROFILE is the strongest in AU history,
with admitted students boasting an average
GPA of 3.77. AU has become increasingly more
selective: applications for fall 2015 admission
jumped 10.7 percent to 16,734, while the admit
rate dropped from 46 percent to 35 percent.
WITH WASHINGTON, DC, AS
THEIR CLASSROOM, AU students
seize internship opportunities with the
federal government, embassies, cultural
organizations, think tanks, and other
DC institutions. Eighty-nine percent
of the Class of 2013 held at least one
internship—some of which were the
result of alumni connections.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY BRUCE MORSER
AMERICAN.EDU/ALUMNI 39

class notes
It was my first big booking in LA. My
father told me to take my girlfriend
out to a nice meal—on his tab.”
—Noah Baron, SOC/BA ’09, on how he celebrated landing
a supporting role in the Coen Brothers film Hail, Caesar!
Tara Foster, SOC/BA ’02,
attended the Space-X5 rocket
launch. The two-day event took
place at the Kennedy Space Center
in Florida on December 15–16.
Kari Klaus, SIS/BA ’02, launched
a company, Viva Green Homes,
which markets sustainable homes.
Kimberly Labenberg, SIS/
MA ’02, and her husband,
Christopher, are pleased
to announce the birth of
their daughter, Lindsey Erin
Labenberg, on March 24, 2008.
She joins big sisters Brook
Alexandra and Taylor Nicole.
Corinne LaPlaca, SOC/BA ’02,
married Daniel LaPlaca on
October 18, 2014, on Long Beach
Island, New Jersey.
Elaine Mensah, SPA/BA ’02,
launched a Kickstarter campaign
to fund the Fashion Source.
Nicholas Cambata, Kogod/BS
’03, founded his own company,
8112 Studios. Cambata is a
filmmaker and travels around the
world for assignments.
Christine Miller, SPA/BA ’03,
has been named a stockholder of
the firm Reid and Riege, P.C.
Percival Pineda, CAS/MA ’03,
started a new job as a senior
economist at CUNA.
-2005-
TIME
CAPSULES
TOP TUNE
“We Belong Together,” Mariah Carey
TOP-GROSSING FLICK
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
IN THE NEWS
Hurricane Katrina hits the Gulf coast,
killing more than 1,000 people; cancer
replaces heart disease as the No. 1 cause
of death for people ages 85 and under;
the Terry Schiavo case becomes the
focus of fierce debate in Congress
FROM THE AU ARCHIVES
Students without cell phones gripe as
AU pulls the plug on land lines in the
residence halls.
AT THE HELM
Kyle Taylor was 2005–2006 Student
Government president. Today, he’s
chief of staff and campaigns director
at Simon Hughes MP in London.
Louis Jim, SPA/BA ’04, SPA/
MPA ’05, joined the New York
State Office of the Attorney
General as an assistant attorney
general in the litigation bureau.
Aaron Hake, SPA/BA ’05, has
been appointed city treasurer of
Corona, California.
Andrea Walker, Kogod/MBA ’06,
launched a startup, SimplyGenie.
com, an online service that
creates designer birthday parties
in a box for children.
Nicole Zangara, CAS/BA
’06, wrote “The Inquisition of
Singledom at Holiday Parties,”
published by the Huffington Post.
Lara Hogan, CAS/BA ’07,
published her first book,
Designing for Performance:
Weighing Aesthetics and Speed.
Brett Meril, SOC/BA ’07, is a
television editor on the weekday
talk show, The Real, seen in 191
television markets across the
country.
Artemis Antippas, SOC/BA ’08,
is a New Orleans-based artist who
was featured in the AU Museum’s
“Locally Sourced” exhibit.
Marie Stratton, CAS/BS ’08,
started a small business,
Kinderhook Snacks, in Baltimore
that recently expanded to the
DC area.
Noah Baron, SOC/BA ’09, has
been booked in a supporting role
in the latest Coen Brothers film,
Hail, Caesar!, starring George
Clooney, Scarlett Johannson, Josh
Brolin, and Channing Tatum.
Jeremy Feinberg, Kogod/MBA
’09, is a principal at the firm
Taksey Neff Feinberg, LLC, in
Rockville, Maryland.
Ohemaa Nyanin, SIS/BA ’09,
SPA/MS ’11, was named USA
Basketball Women’s National
Team assistant director.
-2010-
TIME
CAPSULES
2010s
TOP TUNE:
“Tik Tok,” Ke$ha
TOP-GROSSING FLICK
Toy Story 3
IN THE NEWS
A 7.0-magnitude earthquake devastates
Port-au-Prince, Haiti; 33 Chilean miners
are rescued after being trapped for
68 days; President Barack Obama signs
the Affordable Care Act into law
FROM THE AU ARCHIVES
Six drag queens, including AU student
“Athena Ducockis,” strut their stuff on
the catwalk to raise money for the
Whitman-Walker Clinic.
Alysa Mowitz Mehalick, SPA/
MA ’11, married Andrew
Mehalick in her hometown of Des
Moines, Iowa, on May 3, 2014.
Mehalick is a management and
budget analyst at Public Financial
Management in Philadelphia,
where she assists with publicsector
labor arbitrations.
IN MEMORIAM
Marjorie Morris Phillips,
CAS/BA ’49, November 29, 2014,
Olney, Maryland
Sajjad Ahrabi, CAS/BA ’81,
CAS/MS ’91, December 12, 2012,
Silver Spring, Maryland
Josette Balthazar,
Kogod/BSBA ’07, September 28, 2014,
Washington, DC
CONNECT
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40 AMERICAN MAGAZINE JULY 2015

teamwork
POWER PLAYERS
Asher Raphael, SPA/BA ’02 + Corey Schiller, CAS/BA ’03
PHOTO BY AMANDA STEVENSON LUPKE
When Schiller visited AU on a recruiting trip, he was hosted by Raphael—and the two have been VIRTUALLY INSEPARABLE
ever since. Today, the former Eagles soccer players are majority owners and co-CEOs of Power Home Remodeling Group, a rapidly
growing company headquartered in Chester, Pennsylvania. There’s no way this pair—Schiller was a history major, Raphael earned a
political science degree—COULD HAVE FORESEEN A FUTURE IN THE BUSINESS WORLD. “I was set on law school,”
Raphael, 35, says. “My brother had just started with a small remodeling company based in Philadelphia. Corey and I were best friends,
so I reached out to him. WE HAD NO IDEA THAT THIS WAS GOING TO BE LONG-TERM. We were killing time for a
year until we went back to school.” They started at what was then Power Windows and Siding, which had fewer than 50 employees and
about $8 million in revenue, as entry-level sales reps. As they rose through the ranks, it became clear that THEY HAD A VISION
for the company and the skills to execute it. In 2006, Schiller was named chief marketing officer, and three years later Raphael became
chief strategy officer. In 2011, they became part owners, and two years later THEY TOOK OVER A MAJORITY STAKE.
“Practically, it works great,” Schiller, 33, says. “We’ll have disagreements, but the most important things—what our values are and the
mission that we’re on—aren’t in question.” With 1,400 employees in 10 offices around the country, Power will FLIRT WITH $400
MILLION IN REVENUE this year and has “a clear path to $1 billion,” Raphael says. “We started doing the right things, not because
someone asked us to or we were required to, but because we wanted to make this company great.” THEY’VE SUCCEEDED.
AMERICAN.EDU/ALUMNI 41

feedback
In the March issue of American,
we asked alums how they stood up
for social justice and they flooded
our inbox. Here, alumni share their
memories of the 1970 Kent State
protest and more.
I was at Ward Circle the day of the protest,
sometimes holding a large sign made
from a sheet reading “Honk for peace.”
Lots of honking, but one guy yelled,
“I hope you die.”
At one point there was a strange
incident. Someone brought a bag of
marshmallows and when the police arrived,
students began throwing them at the
police. The police began throwing them
back and it was kind of funny to see all
these white objects flying through the
air. It was kind of peaceful.
However, it was not too much longer
until tear gas was everywhere and
everyone was out of the street and into the
center of the [quad], coughing and gasping
for breath. People with water were pouring
it over others who were badly gassed.
It was strange to be in class just a bit
later, all wet and recovering from the gas.
–Michael Lee, CAS/PhD ’84, Eugene, Oregon
In 1970 I was living in AU Park and was
a junior in high school. I was walking
up Massachusetts Avenue with my best
friend, only to run into the Ward Circle
demonstration. Washington was awash
with protest in those days. The draft was
breathing down everyone’s necks. My
friend and I wanted desperately to join the
demonstration, but when the smell of tear
gas got heavier as we got closer to the
Massachusetts Avenue campus entrance,
we realized we were not yet equipped to be
participants at age 16 or 17.
I went on to participate in many antiwar
demonstrations. I participated in prochoice
demonstrations in New York City in the late
1970s. In Washington, DC, I protested the
Iraq War numerous times and crossed the
line at Fort Benning, Georgia, to protest the
School of the Americas. I was an election
observer in Chiapas, Mexico, in 2000
and most recently was part of the first
Ferguson evening protest in downtown DC.
I supported Occupy.
My engagement with protest and social
concerns has long been a part of who I
am and it is a part of the artwork I make
(michelecolburnart.artspan.com).
–Michele Colburn, CAS/MFA ’12,
Washington, DC
Memories about the 1970 Ward Circle
protests:
Supposedly, one of the reasons Ward
Circle was chosen was that then-defense
secretary Melvin Laird drove that way on
his daily commute.
The protests took place over a period
of days. The Civil Disturbance Unit was
not amused. Students were beaten
with oversized clubs and at one point,
officers set up mortar-like devices on
Massachusetts Avenue, lobbing tear
gas canisters onto the quad.
Many drivers on Massachusetts and
Nebraska Avenues were glad to take
the literature we were handing out. I
remember two drivers stopped at the light
across from the Massachusetts Avenue
entrance. One driver was pissed off at the
demonstrators. However, he drew the ire
of the adjacent driver who had served in
Korea and thought we, the students, were
doing the right thing, saying his service in
Korea was similarly pointless.
–Gary Gurner, CAS/BA ’73, Santa Monica,
California
Yes—I did stand up for social justice after
receiving my master’s in the administration
of justice in 1975. I worked as a police
officer/supervisor for 13 years and then as
a federal security manager for 31 years.
I also taught the then-Immigration and
Naturalization Service citizenship test to
immigrants for two semesters in 2002.
I’m pretty sure that isn’t what you were
looking for—but that’s tough. Wasting time
furthering the lie that Michael Brown died
with his “Hands up, don’t shoot” while the
hardworking citizens of Ferguson lost their
businesses to rioters and thieves was truly
worthless, a poor use of an education, and
the worst type of “social justice.” Lying
on the sidewalk or disrupting traffic are
mindless and useless tactics.
–Edward Templeman, SPA/MS ’75,
Alexandria, Virginia
I attended AU from 1962–1966 and worked
in the Registrar’s Office every summer
so I could stay in DC year-round. I
participated in more social justice rallies
and demonstrations than I could ever
count and became involved in the civil
rights movement. The incredible folk
music scene in DC kept us active and
involved and was an integral part of
the movement. Undoubtedly, the most
memorable event was participating in
the March on Washington. AU provided
a wonderful education for a political
science major, but the experience of
living in DC at that time and for the
two years after graduation made that
education far more meaningful. I use
what I learned there every day in my job
as the president of the largest local
union in Houston, Texas.
–P. Gayle Hamilton Fallon, SPA/BA ’66,
Houston, Texas
Our March issue touched on a
variety of issues with which student
vets grapple. We heard from several
alumni who shared stories of life after
the military. Download the American
magazine app for more letters.
I read Adrienne Frank’s letter in the March
edition of American with interest. I followed
a similar path in 1968 when I returned home
from military service overseas. In addition
to the GI Bill, there was another federal
opportunity from the Law Enforcement
Assistance Program (LEAP), which provided
funds for police officers to gain a college
degree. AU had taken advantage of the
funding. I joined the Metropolitan Police
Department in March of that year (the
riots broke out in April) and became the first
member of my immediate family to graduate
from college. Later, I obtained an MBA from
Averett University’s off-campus program
and taught at the college level after
retiring from the Alexandria, Virginia,
police department in 1997.
The advantages of a good education
cannot be overstated. Congratulations to
your husband for his hard work (I know
how difficult it is to work, raise a family,
and go to school) and thank you for
sharing his story.
–Ken Howard, SPA/BS ’77, Dumfries, Virginia
I read Mike Unger’s article (“A New
Mission”) with great interest. When I was
earning my master’s at SIS (1986–1988),
I knew of no other vets there. In fact, the
only other vet I knew on the entire campus
had served in the Israel Defense Forces.
There was no campus vets group.
As a Vietnam-era vet, I had earned my
bachelor’s at the University of Oregon,
which had a very active vets group,
so coming to AU, where awareness of
veterans’ issues ranged from dim to
nonexistent, was a bit of a letdown, to
say the least.
Of course, some people were helpful. I
remember talking a few times with thendean
Louis Goodman, who was sensitive to
the issues, but given the dearth of vets on
campus, there wasn’t much he could do.
One slight quibble: Unger wrote that
PTSD wasn’t in the mainstream lexicon
when Vietnam vets returned. Perhaps that
was because combat trauma has been
called many things over the centuries—
1,000-yard stare, shell shock, soldier’s
heart. Before PTSD, it was called Delayed
Stress Response Syndrome. (See Robert
Jay Lifton’s classic book, Home from the
War: Vietnam Veterans—Neither Victims Nor
Executioners.)
I am glad there is a vets group, but I
hope it does more than conduct yoga and
meditation classes at the fitness center.
Iraq and Afghanistan vets will have their
own unique issues to deal with, just as the
veterans of each past war had, and they
merit something more than the ritualistic
and meaningless “Thank you for your
service” and someone who helps process
paperwork for the Veterans Administration.
–David Isenberg, SIS/MA ’88, Arlington,
Virginia
42 AMERICAN MAGAZINE JULY 2015

memories
1925
After the football team’s disappointing inaugural
season—out of 20 players, “there were but five who
had ever had a football in their hands, so the outlook
was indeed dark,” opined the Eagle—AU turned its
attention to recruiting a winning basketball squad.
“Men who can spare the time are urged to present
themselves for practice, no matter what their opinion
of their own abilities may be.” The team lost its first
game to Georgetown, 40–23, on January 22, 1926.
1928
Despite the focus on men’s basketball, it was a group
of women who brought home AU’s first trophy,
defeating George Washington University in a freethrow
contest sponsored by the Washington Post.
AU women made 43 of 50 baskets, to GW’s 36. “The
fact that [the trophy] was won by the girls shows
what a gigantic progress in co-ed athletics is occurring
at American University,” wrote the Eagle.
1949
Two new sports—21 (long and short basketball shots)
and foul shooting (free-throw shots)—were added to
the intramural roster, which included touch football,
horseshoe pitching, bowling, table tennis, badminton,
and water polo. According to the Eagle, the offerings,
aimed at amateur athletes, “combine healthful exercise
with a lot of fun, including all the thrills, chills, cheers,
and tears of intercollegiate competition.”
1953
Aquiana, AU’s synchronized swimming group, made a
splash on network TV, performing the finale number in
Fiesta de la Aqua, a half-hour celebration of collegiate
water ballet. A three-man production crew filmed a
dozen of the troupe’s 40 members for eight grueling
hours in the AU swimming pool. The bathing beauties
performed “Granada,” the “festive Latin American
tempo” of which reflected the show’s south-of-theborder
theme.
DID YOU
bowl, box, shoot,
or score for AU?
Email magazine@
american.edu.
1967
The varsity bowling team struck the .500 mark, ending
its inaugural season with a 3–3 record after soundly
defeating Northern Virginia Community College. The
squad, which competed at Eagle Lanes in Leonard Gym,
reflected bowling’s growing popularity on US college
campuses—and in lanes across the country. Though
the Eagle speculated the sport would be added to the
roster at the 1972 Olympics, bowling has yet to debut
at the summer games.
AMERICAN.EDU/ALUMNI 43

FROM THE FOOT OF
THE APPALACHIANS,
ATLANTA MANS ITS
POST AS A CITY OF
INTERSECTIONS. Highrise
commerce districts meet leafy,
rolling hills. Traditional southern
culture backdrops a multicultural,
cosmopolitan vibe. And since it
straddles the Continental Divide,
half of the city’s rainwater flows to
the Atlantic and the other half to
the Gulf.
The town of Atlanta
(originally Atlantica-Pacifica)
was incorporated in 1847. First
settled to link two railroad lines,
the city went on to serve as a
supply distribution hub during
the Civil War. Today, it’s still a
city of comings and goings. With
the world’s busiest airport, this
alpha city is the transit gateway
to the southeastern United States.
Birthplace of Usher, Ludacris,
and some would argue hip-hop
itself, Atlanta is also home to the
world’s largest drive-in restaurant,
the ’96 Olympics, and Coca-Cola.
What besides a love of the Braves,
sweet tea, and The Walking Dead
do Atlanta locals share? The
insider’s knowledge of DC, gained
while studying at AU. Get to
know some of our 1,200 ATL
transplants here.
LORI GEORGE BILLINGSLEY, SOC/MA ’91
VICE PRESIDENT OF COMMUNITY RELATIONS, COCA-COLA NORTH AMERICA
“I’d like to buy the world a Coke and keep
it company.”
Everyone (of a certain age) knows the
words to the classic Coke commercial
that’s among the most famous in television
advertising history. But only a select few
are responsible for helping the iconic
global brand give back.
As vice president of community
relations for the North American division
of the soda behemoth, it’s Lori George
Billingsley’s job to lead the company’s
community giving and engagement in the
United States and Canada.
When she and her husband moved to
Atlanta from Columbus, Ohio, to escape
harsh winters, Billingsley knew there was
only one company she wanted to work for.
“Coke is the premier company in terms
of doing really innovative things not only
in the multicultural space, but dynamic PR
campaigns around the brand,” she says. “I
put a stake in the ground and said, ‘If we
move to Atlanta, I’m going to work for Coke.’”
She has been since 2002, when she
joined Coke as director of regional
communications. Since then, she’s held
a number of roles.
Of all the company’s charitable
endeavors (which last year totaled $126.4
million), the Coca-Cola First Generation
Scholarship Program is her favorite.
“Right now in the United States, there are
more than 2,000 students who are attending
college with support from Coca-Cola,” says
Billingsley, who enjoys a complimentary
Coca-Cola product daily from one of the
refreshment centers in her office building.
“I really do believe that higher education is a
key to having a bright future. Being enabled
through higher education unlocks the door
of opportunity.”
ATLANTA JOURNAL-
CONSTITUTION
Ana Santos, SOC/BA ’14,
mobile content producer. This Frederick
Douglass Distinguished Scholar and former AP
global news intern advises the city’s daily newspaper
on the best ways to engage its mobile audience.
GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY
Toby McChesney, SPA/BA ’02, assistant
dean of graduate recruiting. From Georgia
State’s downtown location, McChesney
advises 1,400 master’s students in
21 programs across four campuses.
GEORGIA GWINNET COLLEGE
Linda Mancillas, SPA/MA ’09, SPA/
PhD ’10, political science professor. With
interests in women’s studies and US and
Latina politics, the former AU lecturer is now
molding young minds at this public college.
44 AMERICAN MAGAZINE JULY 2015

where we are
Samuel Olens
SIS/BA ’78, SIS/MA ’80
GEORGIA ATTORNEY GENERAL
PHOTOS BY BRYAN MELTZ
Georgia’s attorney general didn’t so much embark on
a political career as he was drafted into one.
“If you’re a banker, a CPA, a small business owner,
or a lawyer and you show up to an annual homeowners
meeting, they call you a board member,” Samuel
Olens says. “It was through my association with the
homeowners board and subsequent activities in the
community that I decided to run for local government.”
Since being elected a commissioner in Cobb County
(outside Atlanta), he’s upgraded offices. Last year he
won his second, four-year term as the state’s top lawyer.
“We are the day-to-day advisors for the governor
and all executive agencies,” he says. “State attorneys
general are really the only lawyers or law firms that
deal with every area of the law.”
Olens worked to rewrite Georgia’s sunshine law “to
make government more accessible to the public.” He’s
also made cracking down on sex trafficking a priority
and reached out to high school students about the
dangers of prescription drug abuse.
On July 1, his office, which includes more than 150
attorneys, assumed oversight of the Governor’s Office
of Consumer Protection. Reforming that agency will be
a big focus of his second term. Will there be a third, or
perhaps a run for another job?
“My job is to work every day to be the best attorney
general I can be and to handle those questions at a later
date,” he says.
It’s a lawyerly answer that nevertheless reveals the
reality that this once-reluctant politician has come to
love public service.
“It gives you both a legal position as well as the bully
pulpit to improve other people’s lives, and that’s why
we’re here.”
CARTER CENTER
Laura Castelli, SIS/MA ’12, educational program
assistant. This nonprofit/advocacy guru gives youth
a global experience. The center, founded by Jimmy
and Rosalynn Carter, has sent more than 2,600
interns to study peace and health worldwide.
CNN
Noah Gray, SOC/BA ’14, producer. A self-proclaimed
“eager backpack journalist,” Gray started young, founding
a nonprofit at age 15. Today he creates news packages,
documentaries, and public service announcements for
CNN and other outlets.
GEORGIA STATE CAPITOL
Curt Thompson, SIS/BA ’90, senator and lawyer.
A Georgia native, this District 5 senator holds
monthly forums to spur candid community
conversation—and even learned
Spanish to better reach citizens.
AMERICAN.EDU/ALUMNI 45

vision + planning = legacy
TED RINGELHEIM, CAS/BA ’68
Ted Ringelheim is perhaps busier in retirement than he was during his working days, and the former Alexandria Public Schools
employee’s own alma mater remains an important part of his social calendar.
After attending an AU men’s basketball game in 2001 at the invitation of the alumni association, Ringelheim, a sports nut and a
history buff, has become one of the Athletics Department’s biggest cheerleaders. He’s a regular in the stands at basketball games and
volleyball matches, and hits the field himself as a second baseman with the Northern Virginia Senior Softball league. An avid bowler
and Washington Nationals’ season ticket holder, Ringelheim—a former social studies teacher and guidance counselor—also exercises
his mind, auditing AU history courses with Professor Peter Kuznick.
In appreciation of those who shaped his AU experience, as both a student and an alumnus, Ringelheim established the Ted
Ringelheim Life Skills Fund to give student-athletes training in financial literacy and social etiquette. “I wanted to extend a big thank
you to AU during my lifetime and now have the pleasure of seeing AU student-athletes mature through the life skills program,”
Ringelheim says. He also made provisions in his estate plans to enhance the Life Skills Fund and to create an endowed scholarship for
AU students pursuing a degree in history.
American University is grateful for Ringelheim’s foresight, enthusiasm, and lifelong commitment to students. Scores of AU Eagles
will benefit from his generosity—on the field, in the classroom, and beyond.
FOR INFORMATION ON HOW YOUR VISION CAN CREATE A LEGACY at American University through a sound charitable estate plan,
contact Kara Barnes, director of planned giving, at (202) 885-5914 or kbarnes@american.edu, or visit american.edu/plannedgiving.
46 AMERICAN MAGAZINE JULY 2015

top picks
David Pattison isn’t a
vacationer—he’s a
traveler. A former lawyer
and lobbyist for the insurance
industry, Pattison, SIS/BA
’59, WCL/JD ’61, SPA/MA
’65, has visited roughly 100
countries, many since his
wanderlust turned into a postretirement
career as a travel
writer and photographer.
For the past seven years, his
stories and pictures have run
in his hometown newspaper,
the Marco Island Sun Times.
Last year, the Florida Press
Association awarded him a firstplace
prize for his photo
series on Morocco.
Pattison, 77, began his travels
when he lived and worked in
Washington. When Congress
recessed each August, he and
his late wife, Jackie, would fly
to Frankfurt or Luxembourg,
then fan out around Europe.
Jackie passed away three years
ago, but Pattison continues to
travel. Next on his list is a
return to Italy and the
Swiss Alps.
“Traveling is part of my
blood,” he says. “It’s ingrained in
me. I’m just fascinated—
almost addicted—to seeing
the world and every aspect of it.”
Pattison’s favorite
destinations:
1. MONGOLIA
Genghis Khan’s descendants live in isolated,
remote tents alongside yaks and camels
in the cold, forbidding Gobi Desert and
high plains. Their lives have remained
unchanged for centuries.
2. SOUTHEAST ASIA (VIETNAM,
CAMBODIA, AND THAILAND)
Anyone who lived through the Vietnam War
will marvel at the changes here. Visitors
will observe Buddhist culture, motorbike
mayhem, the rice paddy economy, and
progressive development.
3. AMAZON RIVER BASIN
A journey to the Amazonian backwaters,
where dugout canoes are still the mode
of transportation, reveals a culture
unchanged for centuries.
4. GALAPAGOS ISLANDS
Darwin formed his evolutionary theory,
in part, after a visit to these islands. Even
today one can see the amazing animals
and birds that helped him form his opinion.
5. CHINA
China edges out Russia as one of our
adversaries most deserving of an extended
visit. China has the Great Wall, Forbidden City,
Tiananmen Square, and the most unusual
underground city of terra-cotta warriors at
Xian. It’s a land of mystery and intrigue.
6. MOROCCO
No country I have visited exceeded my
expectations more than Morocco. Its local
markets are more elaborate and colorful
than any I have seen in the world. Its
sunsets and sunrises on the Sahara Desert
are beyond imagination.
7. AFRICAN SAFARI (SOUTH AFRICA,
ZIMBABWE, AND BOTSWANA)
The living zoo of Africa and the legacy
of Nelson Mandela combine to create a
remarkable experience. Victoria Falls
adds to this drama.
8. SICILY
No country in Europe is more beautiful
(forgive me, France), and no part of Italy
is more unique and interesting than Sicily.
It has more ancient temples and theaters
than one finds in Greece or Rome.
9. ANTARCTICA
Traveling in the realm of the South
Pole with its extreme cold and huge
icebergs is a unique challenge. Looking
at the glaciers causes one to imagine
observing the Rocky Mountains emerge
from the ocean.
10. EASTER ISLAND
The most remote place on earth is a
magical, marvelous island made famous
by the Kon-Tiki expedition. Its mysterious
Moai statues have fascinated historians
and explorers for years. It’s the most
awesome place I’ve ever seen.
1
5
7
3
10
9
2
8
6
PHOTO BY MARK M. ODELL
DOWNLOAD the
American magazine
app to view Pattison’s
photographs of his travels.
4
AMERICAN.EDU/ALUMNI 47

must haves
12
5
7
2 3
6
11
1
8
4
9
10
*SOC/BA ’09, Manager, SiriusXM Sports Newsroom
1. I like fun pens, so people always bring
them back from spring training for
me. I get a lot of my information from
press releases.
2. I went with two of my coworkers to
Hershey Park. I hate roller coasters,
as you can tell from this photo.
3. I used to be a mascot, so I love
the Washington Nationals’ racing
presidents. The first time Teddy won
was on my birthday.
4. I’m obsessed with Chicago Cubs
manager Joe Maddon. He used to be
on every Friday, and I always edited
the interview. The Rays sent MLB
Network Radio a Joe gnome, and
they gave it to me.
5. When I was a senior, I interned in the
music department. When I finished,
SiriusXM had an opening for a parttime
board operator for baseball playby-play
in Spanish. I spoke Spanish,
I loved baseball, so I thought, “This
is perfect.”
6. I studied abroad in Madrid and I love
to travel. My boyfriend and I just got
back from Italy.
7. I was the mascot for the Newport Gulls
for five summers. At the top of the
eighth inning, I’d stand in the outfield
and kids would run from the third base
line to tag me while the PA blasted
“Surfin’ Bird.”
8. I have a closet full of holiday
decorations. It’s pretty gray in here,
so we need a little color.
9. They pay me to watch sports—which
I would do anyway.
10. I do an on-air feature on The Pulse
called “And You Thought Your Monday
Was Bad.” Basically I report a tragically
funny news story. It’s a fun way to
remind people that life isn’t so bad,
even when you’re driving to work on
Monday morning.
11. I love Derek Jeter. I was born and raised
a Yankees fan, and he was the first
player that I idolized. I don’t think I’d be
working in sports if it wasn’t for him.
12. I just got rid of my car and started
walking to work from my apartment in
Capitol Hill. It takes about 40 minutes,
but time flies by when I’m listening to
a good podcast.
48 AMERICAN MAGAZINE JULY 2015

THIS YEAR WE WILL CELEBRATE CLASSES OF 1965, 2005, 2010
AS WELL AS THE ANNUAL MULTICULTURAL ALUMNI REUNION.
Enjoy a weekend of
fun with friends, old and new.
#AllAUWeekend

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American University, please visit
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DECONSTRUCTED
LOBSTER IS THE MOST SUCCULENT, SOUGHT-AFTER SEAFOOD IN AMERICA.
Whether we’re delicately devouring one with a tiny fork at a fine-dining establishment,
cracking one on a picnic table in Maine, ordering a McLobster roll at McDonald’s (they
do exist), or dunking a piece of tail meat into melted butter at, well, a Red Lobster, it’s
clear that if you like food that once swam in the ocean, you love lobster.
No one knows this more than Mark Grobman, CAS/BA ’77, the wholesale purchasing
manager for New York-based Lobster Place. He buys about 15,000 pounds of lobster in an
average week—and has eaten his fair share as well. We asked the former Maine resident
to help us debut our new back-cover feature by deconstructing this craved crustacean.
Get your (lobster) tails in gear and enter to win a lobster roll kit for
four from Lobster Place. Email answer to magazine@american.edu
or tweet us at @au_americanmag by August 15.
In 2013 US lobster landings (the total weight of the catch) tipped the scales
at 149,762,251 pounds—worth a whopping $461,818,967. But there’s more to
lobsters than girth and worth. Which one of the following statements about
lobsters is not true?
A. Offshore lobsters migrate during the spring anywhere from 50 to 190 miles.
B. Scientists believe some American lobsters may live to be 100 years old.
C. Females can produce from 5,000 to more than 100,000 eggs, depending
on their size.
D. Lobsters molt only once over a period of five to eight years before they
reach the minimum legal size to be harvested.