American Magazine: November 2015

PENSIONS, PRIVACY,
PAPER MAPS, AND MORE
p. 18
A DISASTER, PLANE
AND SIMPLE
p. 24
1985 SOCCER MATCH
WAS A GAME CHANGER
p. 32
UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2015
The painful past and peaceful
rebirth of Hiroshima
p. 26

An AU insider’s
perspective on next page

These aren’t your ordinary beach balls. They’re smaller,
translucent, and antimicrobial. And they also make for a
DELIGHTFULLY SQUISHY LANDING. Cannonball!
This summer, more than 182,000 visitors flocked to
the shores of the NATIONAL BUILDING MUSEUM’S
BEACH, a pit filled with 1 million balls (three tractor
trailers’ worth). The exhibit spanned 10,000 square feet of
the great hall and was the most popular of the museum’s
Summer Block Party installations (previous offerings
included a giant maze and miniature golf).
BEACHGOERS DIDN’T HAVE TO SLATHER
ON SUNSCREEN or even take off their shoes to enjoy
the 3-1/2-foot-deep ball pit—though some forgot to empty
their pockets. Almost 100 cell phones, 50 Fitbits, 31 Metro
cards, $433.24, and even a few engagement rings were
found on the “ocean floor.”
Playtime—fun for fun’s sake—is generally the purview
of youngsters, says Susan Breitkopf, director of corporate,
foundation, and association relations. “So when adults
are given that chance, THEY COME IN WITH THIS
UNBOUNDED JOY. There’s no purpose, no reason to
play in the ball pit. You just do it because it’s fun.”
Susan Breitkopf
CAS/MA ’99
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for 12 questions with Susan Breitkopf.
COVER: YUTA ONODA PREVIOUS PAGE: PHOTO BY EMILY CLACK
18
What’s lost when societal
staples disappear?
22
The Class of
2019 has never
known a world
without . . .
24 26
Plane crash survivor
broken and battered
but not beaten
The painful past
and peaceful rebirth
of Hiroshima

AMERICAN
American University magazine
Vol. 66, No. 2
MANAGING EDITOR
Adrienne Frank, SPA/MS ’08
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Amy Burroughs
STAFF WRITER
Mike Unger
WRITERS
Amy Burroughs
Katlin Chadwick
Adrienne Frank
Gregg Sangillo
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. UP16-002
For information regarding the
accreditation and state licensing
of American University, please
visit american.edu/academics.
Signed, sealed, delivered
When I was a little girl, my grandmother and I sent
handwritten letters back and forth—even though we lived
a mere 20 miles apart. I relished receiving her letters in
the mail, whether her words were scrawled on a postcard
from Ireland, a funny greeting card, or a piece of notebook
paper. Often, she tucked a cartoon she had clipped from
the Arizona Republic (“The Family Circus” was a
favorite), a page of stickers, or a little mad money into the
envelope. Every letter was signed “Love, Grandma Davis,”
even though she was my only living grandparent.
When she moved from her longtime home in
Phoenix—an address I can still recite—to an assisted
living facility, she gave me a stack of my old letters, some
of which were more than 30 years old. I mostly wrote
about school, my baby brother, and soccer practice, but
sometimes I got a little more introspective. In one letter
from the late ’80s, I told her that I thought about how
someday she would die, and that thought made me very
sad. I still remember her reply: “Yes, I will die someday—
that’s part of life. But you will be OK.”
Today, more than 2,000 miles separate my grandma
and me, and our letters are less frequent. Old age and
Parkinson’s have given her penmanship a distinctive,
downward slant. Misspelled words are scratched out and
the long missives of 20 years ago have been replaced by
single sentences. These letters feel fragile and precious,
especially the ones addressed to my three-year-old son,
Owen Patrick Davis—so named for his great-grandma.
In this issue of American, we explore objects and
ideas—handwritten letters among them—that are teetering
on extinction. Writer Amy Burroughs asks what will be
lost if a dozen customs and conventions, such as pensions,
paper maps, privacy, and proper grammar, disappear.
I can’t speak to biodiversity or civility, but I most
certainly know what will be lost if handwritten letters
disappear. In spite of her shaky hand, my grandmother’s
writing is still familiar. I would recognize the ornate,
sweeping “D” in “Davis” anywhere. It is my childhood,
it is home, it is love. It’s reassurance that I will be OK.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I owe my grandma a letter.
32 1 POV
AU once was the
center of the soccer
universe
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.
Clarification: The article "Diamond Anniversary" in the July
issue of American stated that the Kogod School of Business
was named in 1999. The school was named the Kogod College
of Business Administration 1979 and acquired its current
name in 1999.

traditions
LET’S CLEAR UP A
FEW THINGS ABOUT
CLAWED, AU’s beloved, fuzzy,
flightless eagle mascot.
First of all, Clawed isn’t a he.
He’s a them.
“We usually have three to
five people who are part of
the mascot team,” says Rachel
Southall, coordinator of the AU
Spirit Program. “The common
thread is that they have school
spirit, and they want to get
involved in athletic events. Of
course, I have seen people who
just really like being in the suit
and giving high fives.”
It’s not easy being blue (and
red and white). Although Clawed’s
head is made of foam built
around a baseball helmet with
removable padding and only
weighs about four pounds, the
entire outfit weighs closer to 20.
This makes those who don the
suit, well, quite sweaty and stinky.
“It’s so hot in that suit,” says
Teddy McCullough, BA/SPA ’15,
who nonetheless loved his tenure
as a Clawed. “Sometimes people
would pester you and pull your
tail, but those things come with
the job.”
Glory, however, does not.
Adhering to strict(ish) mascot
tradition, Team Clawed members
must remain anonymous.
“When people see Clawed—
even adults—they get so excited,
even though they know that
there’s a person in the suit,”
Southall says. “It’s a mystical
thing. You want to believe that
there’s a real Clawed, alive and
flapping his wings.”
The national bird, so named in 1782,
was a natural choice for American
University’s mascot. (Though, if
colonial scuttlebutt is to be believed,
Benjamin Franklin lobbied for the
“more respectable” turkey over
the eagle, “a bird of bad moral
character.”) Here’s a brief history of
AU’s favorite fowl—a fine-feathered
(and morally upstanding) fellow.
In 1927, the Eagle advocated
for a fine-feathered mascot,
praising the eagle’s “strength,
endurance, and keen vision.”
The newspaper suggested a live
eagle “could be secured through
the Washington Zoo or some
adventurous student could
capture a wild eagle,” which
could “live quite happily in a
cage down in the woods.” The
university never secured a bird
(live or stuffed, which was the
Eagle’s backup plan), but by
1928, the newspaper began
referring to AU’s sports teams
as the Eagles.
In 1996, Eagle columnist James
Messina proposed replacing
AU’s eagle with a species with
which students were more
familiar: a squirrel. The crux
of Messina’s argument hinged
on the popularity of a 1960s
cartoon series starring a
dimwitted moose, a flying
squirrel, and a pair of Russian
spies. “Who doesn’t love that
cartoon icon, Rocky?” he
wrote. “Plus, squirrels are
so cute.” (Unfortunately
for Messina, Mary Baldwin
College—home of Gladys
the fighting squirrel—had
already cornered the market
on adorable rodents.)
3 1
The number of eagle
mascots in DC:
Washington Capitals’
Slapshot, Washington
Nationals’ Screech,
and, of course, our
friend Clawed
2 74
The number of real Number of fouryear
colleges with
eagles in DC—the
lovebirds, which an eagle mascot
mate for life, nested
at the US National
Arboretum in spring
2015, marking the
first time in 70 years
that eagles have
played house in the
District
The eagle’s ranking
among all college
mascots (tigers,
bulldogs, and
panthers round
out the top four)
A group of students hatched
a birdbrained idea in 1965,
lobbying the Student Association
to adopt the turkey buzzard
as AU’s new mascot. Although
acquiring a live eagle (an
endangered species in the
’60s) was impossible, the group
argued that turkey buzzards,
“unloved and unheralded birds,”
are “protected by no one.” The
proposal wasn’t totally off the
mark: In 1776, Benjamin Franklin
advocated for the turkey, “a
much more respectable bird
and a true native of America,”
as the national bird of the newly
formed United States.
4 AMERICAN MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2015

expert
3 MINUTES ON . . . The Federal Reserve
Eric Pajonk
CAS/BA ’09
Media relations director
Federal Reserve Bank of New York
The Federal Reserve is the
central bank
of the United States.
It’s composed of a
central, independent
governmental agency called
the Board of Governors in
Washington, DC, and a dozen
regional Federal Reserve
Banks in cities throughout
the nation.
President Woodrow Wilson
established it in 1913 when he
signed the Federal
Reserve Act into
law. Prior to that, the US
economy was plagued by
frequent episodes of financial
turmoil, bank failures, and
credit scarcity,
most notably the
Panic of
1907. In
response, the Fed, as it’s come
to be known, was created to
provide the nation with a safer,
more flexible, and more stable
monetary and financial system.
The entire Federal
Reserve System has
about 20,000 employees. They
are a wide range of professionals,
from economists, markets
experts, and bank examiners to
staff that handle
cash processing
and even gold
vault custodians.
Janet Yellen is the chair of the
Federal Reserve Board.
The Fed has four general
responsibilities. First, we
conduct the nation’s monetary
policy by influencing money and
credit conditions in
the economy in
pursuit of full
employment and stable prices.
Second, we supervise
banks and other financial
institutions. Third, we
maintain the
stability of the financial
system and contain systemic
risk that may arise in financial
markets. And finally,
we provide certain
financial services to
the US government, US financial
institutions, and foreign official
institutions. We play a major role
in operating and overseeing the
nation’s payments systems.
Lots of people know the Fed
simply as the institution that sets
interest rates. Monetary
policy actually is set
by the Federal
Open Market
Committee (FOMC),
which is composed of the
members of the Fed’s Board of
Governors and the presidents of
five Federal Reserve Banks,
including the Federal Reserve
Bank of New York. The FOMC
formulates
monetary policy
by setting a target for the federal
funds rate, the interest rate that
banks charge one another for
short-term loans.
As stipulated by law,
the aim of monetary
policy is “to promote
effectively the goals of maximum
employment, stable prices, and
moderate long-term interest
rates.” One way the Fed
accomplishes this is by
changing its target for the federal
funds rate. Such changes affect
other short-term and long-term
interest rates,
including those on Treasury
securities, corporate bonds,
mortgages, and other loans. In
turn, changes in these variables
will affect households’
and businesses’
spending decisions, thereby
affecting growth in aggregate
demand and the economy.
The FOMC holds eight
regularly scheduled
meetings per year,
which garner
a lot of attention
from investors and the media.
At these, the committee reviews
economic and financial
conditions, determines the
appropriate stance of monetary
policy, and assesses the risks
to its long-run goals of
price stability and
sustainable
economic growth.
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 5

AU’s Alternative Breaks program has been recognized as one of the
best of its kind in the country. Now, Shoshanna Sumka, AU’s former
assistant director of global learning and leadership, has coauthored a
guide for alt break students and staff. Working Side by Side: Creating
Alternative Breaks as Catalysts for Global Learning, Student Leadership,
and Social Change offers advice, outlines effective program components
and practices, and presents the underlying community engagement
and global learning theory.
Sumka and her coauthors highlight best practices and social
justice theories while spotlighting AU as a model program where
students engage with issues such as prison justice, women’s equality,
indigenous people’s rights, and community organizing.
Alt Breaks are student-led service-learning immersion programs that
promote leadership, equality, ethical volunteering, and social justice
by cultivating a society of active citizens with the tools, resources, and
experience to be effective leaders and allies within their local and global
communities. Direct engagement occurs in locations across the world;
students have learned from community leaders in places ranging from
India and Guatemala to San Francisco and Baltimore.
Fifty-two years after former
president John F. Kennedy
delivered “A Strategy of Peace”
at Reeves Field, announcing
the development of a nuclear
test ban treaty and averting
global disaster, another president
made a plea for peace on the
AU campus.
On August 5 at the School of
International Service, President
Barack Obama outlined the Joint
Comprehensive Plan of Action—
a diplomatic agreement aiming
to prevent the Islamic Republic
of Iran from acquiring a nuclear
weapon.
“Congressional rejection
of this deal leaves any US
administration that is absolutely
committed to preventing Iran
from getting a nuclear weapon
with one option—another war
in the Middle East,” Obama
said. “I say this not to be
provocative, I am stating a fact.
Without this deal, Iran will be
in a position, however tough
our rhetoric may be, to steadily
advance its capabilities.”
The timing of the president’s
speech was significant: August
5 marked the 52nd anniversary
of the Limited Nuclear Test
Ban Treaty, an agreement
foreshadowed by “A Strategy of
Peace.” Obama’s remarks also
came one day before the 70th
anniversary of the bombing of
Hiroshima, Japan (see story on
page 26).
“John F. Kennedy cautioned
here more than 50 years ago at
this university that the pursuit of
peace is not as dramatic as the
pursuit of war,” Obama said in his
closing remarks. “But it is so very
important. It is surely the pursuit
of peace that is most needed in
this world so full of strife.”
LEGAL EAGLES
The American University Law Review is No. 13 on ExpressO’s list of the
top 100 law reviews. ExpressO, an online submission delivery service for
legal scholars, also named WCL’s Journal of Gender, Social Policy, and the
Law and Business Law Review to its “key disciplines” lists, checking in at
No. 9 and No. 4, respectively.
PEACE OF MIND
A new SPA program will help students explore research interests related
to peace and political violence. The Peace and Violence Research Lab,
under the direction of terrorism scholar Joseph Young, will pair four
undergrads and four grad students with faculty mentors and give them
up to $3,000 to conduct their research.
6 AMERICAN MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2015

news
PHOTO BY GARRRETH BIRD
A decade after the state-of-the-art Katzen Arts Center opened
its doors—bringing visual and performing arts together in one
stunning, 130,000-square-foot space—the AU community gathered
to celebrate the center and its benefactors, the late Cyrus Katzen
and his wife, Myrtle.
In keeping with the Katzen center’s interdisciplinary spirit, the
September 26 gala took a creative approach to showcasing the arts
at AU. Attendees strolled through performance spaces, enjoying
presentations by the AU Chamber Singers, faculty, and MFA students.
College of Arts and Sciences dean Peter Starr closed the evening
by presenting Myrtle Katzen with the College Dean’s Award.
“We are grateful to the entire Katzen family; to our many donors,
large and small; and to our arts faculty, students, and staff for an
extraordinary first 10 years in the Katzen Arts Center,” Starr said.
“We look forward to celebrating an even more extraordinary decade
with each and every one of you in 2025.”
“Underground astronauts” Marina Elliott and Becca Peixotto (right) work
inside the cave where fossils of H. naledi, a new species of human relative,
were discovered. The find was announced by the University of the
Witwatersrand, the National Geographic Society, and the South African
National Research Foundation and published in the journal eLife.
Becca Peixotto, CAS/MA ’13,
met Homo naledi in a small,
underground cave in Maropeng,
South Africa, two years ago.
Not that she recognized him—
or her. The fossil fragments
that the anthropology doctoral
candidate helped excavate
weren’t publicly identified until
September as those of a new
species of human relative.
Part of the National
Geographic Society’s Rising
Star Expedition, a team of six
female scientists, Peixotto was
chosen for the expedition in
part because her petite frame
enabled her to squeeze into
a narrow chute leading to
the cave. The team extracted
1,500 bones and teeth from
a site 40 kilometers north of
Johannesburg.
The discovery was heralded
around the world and is expected
to change the way scientists
think about human origins.
“We had a lot of spectacular
moments,” Peixotto told the
Washington Post. “A fragment
of a skull from the center of
the chamber took days to
excavate, and the removal was
complicated by overlying fossils.
Late one evening, it was finally
free from the soil and packaged
in a box big enough to hold the
fragment and small enough to fit
[through the narrow cracks of
the cave]. Then it was all hands
on deck. . . . We formed a bucket
brigade to pass the skull box
up the chute . . . there was huge
cheering as it reached the light
of day.”
SOC IN THE HEADLINES
SOC is the 10th best journalism school in the country, according to USA
Today and College Factual. Their September report calls AU’s DC location
“the optimal area for students interested in news and politics.” This
is just the latest good news for AU: LinkedIn recently named SOC the
fourth best grad school in the country for media professionals.
THE GLOBAL CLASSROOM
The Department of Environmental Science and AU Abroad have teamed up to
give budding conservationists the learning opportunity of a lifetime. Students
in a new spring course, Environmental Issues in East Africa, will spend up to
a semester in Nairobi, investigating conservation challenges such as invasive
species, poaching, and deforestation.
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 7

syllabus
SOCIOLOGY 335
Sociology of Birth and Death
How’s this for homework? To help
her students truly understand what
it means to plan for the end of life,
Professor Andrea Malkin Brenner
requires them to sit down with an
older family member and fill out a
Five Wishes form—a legal document
that lets adults plan how they want
to be cared for in case they become
seriously ill.
Toward the end of the semester—
Brenner covers death first so the
College of Arts and Sciences course
doesn’t end on a down note—
students wear backpacks filled
with 25 to 30 pounds of flour or
rice over their stomachs to simulate
the physical toll of pregnancy.
“We look at how society
controls and constrains the arrival
and departure from the world,”
Brenner says.
Life cycle
Brenner’s AU course covers
everything from the morality of
euthanasia to the popularity of
elective Caesarian sections in the
United States to disenfranchised
grief, which Brenner says can be
experienced by people who incur a
loss that is not or cannot be openly
acknowledged, publicly mourned,
or socially supported. Examples
include the death of a same-sex
partner where the marriage has
not been socially accepted, the loss
of an ex-spouse, or even someone
mourning a pet that’s passed away.
With field trips to a funeral home
and a hospital birthing ward, her
students leave class prepared for
virtually anything. Brenner says the
course usually has a waiting list;
some subjects never get old.
ILLUSTRATION BY TRACI DABERKO
8 AMERICAN MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2015

mastery
ILLUSTRATION BY PETER HOEY
1975
Graduated from AU with
a degree in art history.
While at AU, learned
Marjorie Merriweather
Post had willed Hillwood
Estate—home to an
extensive collection
of Russian decorative
arts—to the Smithsonian.
Landed a volunteer
position cataloging
the collection.
1976
Offered a position as
assistant to Smithsonian
Keeper of the Castle
James Goode. One month
later, caught a glimpse of
Queen Elizabeth II when
she visited the Castle.
1973
Inspired by a love of
Russian literature, made
her first visit to Russia—
a trek she would make
more than 30 times.
Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers: The Story of
Success offers a formula for success—being born
in the right place and time and investing at least
10,000 hours in pursuit of your goal. Amy
Ballard, CAS/BA ’75, who will celebrate 40
years at the Smithsonian Institution next year,
has certainly surpassed that milestone. As senior
historic preservation specialist, Ballard works to
protect the Smithsonian’s diverse buildings. In
addition to preserving the past, she also helps to
shape the future, contributing to plans for new
buildings such as the National Museum of the
American Indian and the National Museum of
African American History and Culture.
1978
Added “owl caretaker” to her
résumé when Dillon Ripley,
ornithologist and former
Smithsonian secretary,
revived nineteenth-century
tradition of housing barn
owls in Castle’s northwest
tower. Twice a week, donned
National Zoo jumpsuit and
helmet, climbed five-story
ladder, and fed owls a sack of
dead rats. “THROUGHOUT
MY CAREER, THIS
OWL STORY HAS
ALWAYS FOLLOWED
ME, NO MATTER WHAT
OTHER THINGS I DO.”
1985
Named historic preservation
specialist. Relished
opportunity to work with
museum directors and
maintenance workers,
architects and engineers,
curators and construction
crews. “WHEN I GO
TO A MUSEUM, IT
ISN’T REALLY TO
LOOK AT THE ART.
I HAVE TO LOOK AT
FLOORS AND SMOKE
DETECTORS AND
LIGHT FIXTURES.”
1987
After department reorganized
into Office of Architectural
History and Historic
Preservation, took graduate
courses in architectural
history and historic
preservation at George
Washington University.
1999
Attended intensive course
at State Hermitage Museum
in Saint Petersburg, Russia,
studying its architecture
and collections.
2004
National Museum of the
American Indian opened.
“THAT WAS ONE OF
THE BEST PROJECTS
I’VE WORKED ON.
IT WAS NEAT TO BE
IN VISION SESSIONS
WITH NATIVE
AMERICANS AND
MEET MEDICINE MEN.”
2003
With National Museum of
African American History and
Culture officially established,
became part of the multiyear
planning effort.
Received the 300th Anniversary
of Saint Petersburg Medal for
her work advising DC’s Russian
Embassy and Russian Cultural
Centre on exhibits. Honored
at the embassy, where former
ambassador Yuri Ushakov
pinned on the medal.
2002
Created a single-case exhibit,
“Madam on the Mall,” featuring
porcelain, champagne corks,
and other relics from a
nineteenth-century brothel
unearthed during construction
of the National Museum of
the American Indian. “IT
WAS WASHINGTON’S
MOST EXPENSIVE AND
EXCLUSIVE BROTHEL.”
Attended England’s Attingham
Trust Royal Collection Studies
Programme.
2001
Attended England’s
Attingham Trust Study
Programme for in-depth
studies on historic
buildings.
2009
Won a Likhachev
Foundation Fellowship,
spending two weeks in
Saint Petersburg to work
on projects related to
historic preservation and
Russian music.
Coauthored A Guide to
Smithsonian Architecture.
2010
Promoted to senior historic
preservation specialist.
“THERE AREN’T
MANY OF US WHO
HAVE BEEN AT THE
SMITHSONIAN AS
LONG AS I HAVE, SO
I’M OFTEN ASKED FOR
ADVICE. I’M ALWAYS
HAPPY TO HELP.”
2011
Created online St. Petersburg
Music Guide to help visitors
to that city experience
the breadth of its musical
offerings.
2012
On a South American cruise,
met the consul general
for Vladivostok, Russia,
who invited her to that
city to speak to museum
professionals. A few months
later, she made the first of
many such trips.
2014
Joined the Board of Trustees
of the Hillwood Estate,
Museum, and Gardens,
coming full circle to her
very first museum job.
DOWNLOAD the American
magazine app to hear more of
Ballard’s story in her own words.
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 9

play
David Terao stands just five feet
five, and at age 22, he’s unlikely to
hit another growth spurt. Yet he
still dreams of one day reaching
six feet.
That’s the size of the photo of
Josh Glenn, AU’s 2007 national
champion wrestler, which now
looms large over the wrestling
room in Jacobs Fitness Center.
As part of the facility’s rebranding,
annual team pictures line three
walls, and large display boards
list the Eagles’ All-Americans,
conference champions, and
high academic achievers. The
room’s new look provides current
student-athletes, including Terao,
CAS/BS ’16, and his younger
brother Josh, CAS/BS ’18, with
something to look up to, literally
and figuratively.
“It gives alumni a place to
come back to and feel like they’re
part of a team,” says Coach
Teague Moore, who’s entering
his fifth season. “For the guys on
the team, it gives them a great
roadmap of where they should
be aiming. Everyone should want
to have a big six-foot photo of
themselves in the room.”
“They have
the ability to
be national
champions. It
comes down
to how much
work they
want to put in.”
—Coach Teague Moore
Few wrestlers have ever taken
a more circuitous path to AU
than the Teraos, who grew up
in Honolulu, Hawaii. After David
(pictured in blue) proved a little
too chippy for soccer (“I was
always getting in fights, for
some reason,” he says), his
parents started him in judo. He
began wrestling in high school,
and his brother—begrudgingly—
followed suit.
“I really didn’t want to wrestle
because I thought it was lame—
I didn’t like the singlets at all,”
Josh, 19, says. “But I started
liking it because I could use my
judo throws.”
Their diverse backgrounds
(David also knows some Brazilian
jujitsu) have proved invaluable at
the collegiate level.
“One thing I noticed quickly
with David was he was really
comfortable in positions where
most wrestlers don’t ever want
to be, which is standing upright,
pulling their opponent into
them,” Moore says. “His ability
to use that to his advantage and
get big throws or just take his
opponents out of their comfort
zones is special.”
David won a school-record
39 matches last season and
qualified for the NCAAs. This
year, his sights are set squarely on
becoming a national champion.
Josh, who wrestles at eight
pounds heavier, will follow up
his solid freshman season (he
placed sixth in the conference) by
redshirting while he rehabilitates
a shoulder injury.
“It’s been really fun watching
these guys grow,” Moore says.
“Their background is just different,
and youth wrestling is not as big
in Hawaii as it is in the continental
United States, but they have
embraced that challenge. They
have the ability to be national
champions. It comes down to how
much work they want to put in.”
David’s resigned to the fact
that at least physically, his
growing days are mostly over.
But his goals remain lofty.
“Conference champion,
academic All-American, and
national champion,” he says when
asked about them. “I’d love to
have a six-foot picture of me on
the wall.”
GIANT KILLERS
TROPHY COLLECTOR
AU’s men’s soccer team clearly isn’t intimidated by ranked opponents. On
October 13 the Eagles beat a nationally ranked team for the third time in
2015, taking down No. 19 Virginia, 1–0. Previous ranked Eagles victims were
then-No. 17 Hofstra and No. 18 Loyola Marymount.
Hey, Jess Davis—leave a few awards for everyone else! The senior midfielder had a
week to remember in late September. After scoring three goals (including two game
winners) in the field hockey team’s wins over Holy Cross and Temple, she was named
both the Corvias Patriot League Offensive Player of the Week and the GEICO AU
Student-Athlete of the Week.
10 AMERICAN MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2015

news
PHOTO BY JAHI CHIKWENDIU/THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES
More than half of America’s
11 million undocumented
immigrants are women and
children. When they’re the victims
of sexual assault, trafficking, or
domestic abuse, they sometimes
seek help from one of 6,000
organizations across the country
that provide services to this often
overlooked population.
The National Immigrant
Women’s Advocacy Project
(NIWAP) at AU’s Washington
College of Law provides
information, technical assistance,
and training for the social
workers, judges, attorneys, victim
advocates, and police officers
involved in these cases every day.
“If you are a legal services
agency or a social worker in a
shelter somewhere in this country,
and an immigrant client comes
to you and you’re trying to figure
out what legal remedies, benefits,
and services they qualify for, your
ability to immediately access
legally accurate information is
really important, because many
people assume immigrant victims
qualify for a lot less than the range
of assistance that is in fact legally
available,” says Professor Leslye
Orloff, NIWAP’s director.
She brought the center, which
includes an information hotline
staffed by law students, to AU in
2012. The center also conducts
and publishes research and
advocates for public policies to
protect the rights of vulnerable
immigrant women and children.
It’s making a difference. In
2014, the center submitted a
report to the US Department
of Homeland Security (DHS)
documenting delays of up to two
years from filing to receipt of
work authorization in battered
immigrant and sexual assault
survivors’ immigration cases.
During this wait, Orloff says, 40
to 60 percent of victims continued
to live with their abusers and
suffered ongoing abuse. Within
two months of center staff meeting
with DHS, 152 new adjudicators
were hired to process backlogged
cases, lowering the wait time
for legal work authorization to
between seven months and a year.
NIWAP also worked with
Legal Services Corporation,
an independent nonprofit
established by Congress in 1974,
to issue new regulations that
significantly enhanced access to
legal services by implementing
a 2005 statute that created a
new path to representation for
immigrant crime victims and
their children.
“We’re a country of immigrants
and we’re in the middle of a real
cultural shift,” Orloff says. “Today,
27 percent of the population are
either foreign-born or have one
or more foreign-born parents. It’s
exciting working with students
who understand the needs of
vulnerable populations and that
the diversity of this country is our
strength and a real benefit going
forward.”
Yadira Gonzalez plays with her son Eddy Gomez, 3, in their Alexandria, Virginia, apartment.
Hundreds of Hispanic immigrant women in the DC area—many of them undocumented—
are physically abused by their partners every year. WCL’s National Immigrant Women’s
Advocacy Project helps people like Gonzalez identify legal remedies, benefits, and services.
Just 35 percent of students who sought
to join AU’s Class of 2019 were admitted.
That’s an all-time low rate, a fact that—
in concert with a corresponding increase
in the percentage who accept an offer
of admission—has AU administrators
scrambling to adjust for the newfound
demand to attend.
“That indicates that AU’s a school
that’s more desirable—more people want
to be here,” says Assistant Vice Provost
of Undergraduate Admissions Greg
Grauman, SOC-SPA/BA ’99. “It speaks
positively to the perception that parents
and students have about AU.”
The university was able to lower
the admit rate 11 points from last year
even while admitting about 1,100 fewer
students. While justifiably proud of that,
Grauman is perhaps even more proud of
the class’s 32 percent yield rate. That’s a
10 percent jump from two years ago.
“Not only did we admit fewer students,
but a greater percentage of those we
accepted chose to come to AU,” he says.
“That might be even more important.”
AU’s admit rate is now at a level close
to the national average. Taken as a whole,
the numbers indicate that AU is seeing
more demand, yet also becoming more
selective. The Class of 2019 has an average
high school GPA of 3.76 and an average
SAT score of 1,270—both comparable
to last year. Yet AU saw an increase in
applications, which Grauman credits to the
university’s improving recruitment tactics.
“We are getting much more skilled at
being able to articulate who we are as an
institution to prospective students, which
I think is reflected in the quality of the
applicants coming to us,” he says. “We’ve
got a good pool to choose from in terms
of academic quality, certainly, but we also
have more students who really want to be
here and are likely to flourish here. People
have always wanted to come to DC, but
now I think it’s, ‘I want to be at AU.’”
ENSURING CYBER CRIME DOESN’T PAY
The new Kogod Cybersecurity Governance Center is open for business. The center will
help corporate boards and C-level executives develop and implement strategies to
mitigate cybercrime—what Executive Director William DeLone calls “one of the great
corporate governance challenges of our time.” According to a study commissioned by
IBM, the average cost of a data breach is now $3.8 million—up from $3.5 million in 2014.
ROLLING UP THEIR SLEEVES
Nearly 500 members of the Class of 2019 logged more than 10,000 volunteer
hours during the 26th annual Freshman Service Experience in late August.
Joshua Kerobo was among the freshmen who fanned out to 50 locations
across the city. “I’ve seen the monuments, I’ve toured DC, but helping the
community that [I’ll] be living in for four years—that’s impactful.”
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 11

THE POST
INSPIRED BY POST-ITS, DC ARTIST JOSEPH WHITE LOSES PAINTINGS TO
Three years ago, Joseph White, one of the giants
of the Washington art scene, sat in a hospital
bed, staring at a rainbow of Post-it notes.
The 77-year-old White, whose work hangs in the
National Gallery of Art, Hirshhorn Museum, and San
Francisco Museum of Art, is known for his luminous oil
and watercolor paintings, some of which span canvases
10 feet long. But on this March day, he would work
small—very small.
A series of health problems had confined him to
Sibley Memorial Hospital for months, unable to paint in
his Adams Morgan studio. But if he squinted, the square
Post-its resembled miniature canvases. White took out a
pencil and began to draw.
In his skillful hands, elegantly rendered abstract
line drawings soon emerged from the stack of office
supplies. The tiny Post-it drawings became the impetus
behind Joseph White: Paintings and Watercolors,
1963–2008, a retrospective on exhibit through December
13 at the American University Museum.
The tall, genial White is known primarily as a
representational painter, yet his spare, balanced
compositions nudge his work into abstraction. In fact,
he started out as an abstract painter in San Francisco
and New York in the 1960s, exhibiting his colorful,
almost psychedelic paintings in solo shows and two
Whitney Biennials.
In 1976, the native Californian switched coasts and
settled in DC—a city then known for its abstract artists.
But he soon reversed course and concentrated on
realist paintings of landscapes, bustling street corners,
and architectural forms, in part because he found them
more challenging. His paintings of building facades,
swinging doors, and seascapes employ a sophisticated
tonal color gradation that gives his work a signature
look, along with a clarity and precision of forms that
hint at his abstractionist roots.
After White was released from the hospital, Jack
Rasmussen, director and curator of the AU Museum,
stopped by the sprawling, two-story studio the artist
shares with longtime partner Renee Butler. Rasmussen,
an AU alumnus several times over, was intrigued—and
tickled—by the colorful works of art. He invited White
to create a collection of 30-inch-by-30-inch paintings
based on the Post-it notes, and scheduled a show for
fall 2015.
Using oil paint and canvas to create the effect of
graphite pencil on a colored notepad, White spent a
year prepping the show. By October 2013, 40 paintings
lined the floor of his northwest Washington studio.
And then everything—decades’ worth of archived
works, pieces in progress, the newly completed Post-it
paintings—went up in flames.
On April 19, 2015, White and Butler stepped onto
their deck to see flames shooting from a neighbor’s
ALSO ON EXHIBIT AT THE AU MUSEUM THROUGH DECEMBER 13
THE WORLD IS A
NARROW BRIDGE
Using colored pencils,
Beverly Ress draws objects
collected by science and
medical museums, then
manipulates the paper on
which they’re drawn: a
contemporary form of
memento mori.
ART AND DESIGN:
TWO DESIGNERS
AND THEIR ART
Michael Graham, who
became enamored with
classical art while studying
in Rome, and Marc Pekala,
a Baltimorean drawn to
pop music poster art, come
together for a showcase.
SUSANNE KESSLER:
JERUSALEM
Tracing the lines of a map of
Jerusalem again and again
with pencil or wire allows
the German-born Kessler
to feel closer to the city of
mankind—a place where
three monotheistic religions
come together.
TITUS KAPHAR: THE
VESPER PROJECT
This massive sculptural
installation, Kaphar’s most
ambitious to date, weaves
the Kalamazoo, Michiganborn
artist’s own work—and
family history—into the walls
of a nineteenth-century
American house.
MICHELINE
KLAGSBRUN:
FREE FALL FLOW
DC-based artist Klagsbrun’s
latest work, created by an
interplay of lines, color, and
texture, ranges from ink and
pencil drawings on vellum to
large canvases and threedimensional
wall hangings.
FRANCIS CAPE
AND HARMONY
HAMMOND: ANGLE
OF REPOSE
The collaboration between
sculptor Cape and painter
Hammond reflects the
precariousness—financial,
political, social, and
emotional—of our lives.
12 AMERICAN MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2015

MASTER
FIRE, BUT RISES FROM THE ASHES IN AU MUSEUM BY ALISON POWERS
apartment. The couple grabbed their cat, Kiki, and ran
outside as fire engines converged on the street. White
and Butler watched helplessly as firefighters snaked
hoses up the building, dousing the flames with water.
Even from the sidewalk, they could see that the roof
over White’s storeroom, where he stored 40 years’ worth
of canvases—paintings that have been celebrated by
critics and showcased throughout the country, including
one that hung in the White House—was burning.
Firefighters hauled charred paintings downstairs,
but to no avail. More than 40 of his paintings were
damaged beyond repair. Half of the Post-it paintings
that White had just finished were decimated.
The ruined canvases were stacked on the balcony
in a sodden heap. Next to them stood what looked like
a tall black statue—White’s charred wooden
easel, mute testimony to the thousands
of hours he had spent perfecting
his craft.
For White, the loss of so much of his life’s work
was bad enough, but he now had a more immediate
problem. Instead of a white-glove installation at the AU
Museum, his paintings were headed to the local dump.
“I just want it all gone,” White said, before they were
hauled away.
For museum director Rasmussen, working with an
artist on an upcoming exhibition “is a collaboration
to show them at their best.” In White’s case, the fire
prompted a reevaluation of the show. “We seized on an
opportunity to enlighten people about Joe’s work and
his importance. So it made sense to do a retrospective
of his representational work,” Rasmussen says.
Luckily, not all of White’s paintings were destroyed.
After the fire, Rasmussen visited the studio and,
beneath charred beams, they selected 32 paintings
that demonstrate the breadth of White’s work,
including a striking western landscape that hung
in George H. W. Bush’s office when he was vice
president. They are now on exhibit at the AU
Museum: an acknowledgement of what was lost
as much as a statement of survival.
“My job as an artist is to enhance the life I
depict with mystery and beauty,” says White. “I’m
just happy to have enough paintings in one space
to reflect that journey.”

tribute
OVER THE COURSE OF THE PAST
HALF CENTURY, Julian Bond’s voice
was among America’s most respected
and influential on civil rights.
An original leader of the
Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee, cofounder of the
Southern Poverty Law Center,
former chairman of the NAACP,
and a distinguished scholar in
residence at AU, Bond died in
August at the age of 75.
“Justice and equality was the
mission that spanned his life,”
President Obama said in a statement.
A charismatic man whose intellect
and charm helped catapult him to
leadership positions early in life, Bond
was elected to the Georgia House of
Representatives in 1965 at the age of
25. According to the New York Times,
he and seven other African Americans
were refused seats by white members,
touching off a national drama that
didn’t end until the US Supreme Court
ordered the assembly to relent.
After a 20-year career in the
legislature, he ran for Congress
in 1986, losing a bitter race to US
Rep. John Lewis (D–GA). But the
defeat didn’t diminish his national
profile. A friend to presidents and
common folks alike, his appeal was
universal. He routinely appeared on
news shows and programs such as
the Colbert Report and even hosted
Saturday Night Live in 1977.
Eyes on the prize
Eventually, Bond followed his father
into the world of academia.
“Julian Bond was a gifted teacher
and mentor and a giant in the civil
rights movement,” AU president Neil
Kerwin said. “He provided a bridge to
the civil rights struggles from the
1960s and the challenges that still
remain for equality and justice. Our
students benefited from his
firsthand knowledge of activism
in the face of adversity and
winning against tough odds.”
Deon Jones, SPA/BA ’14, was
one such student. In a written
tribute, he recalled his first day
in Bond’s Oral History of the Civil
Rights Movement course.
“His presence commanded
something, and it was as if he
brought everything he knew
with him.”
He also reminisced about
Bond’s deep, silky-smooth voice.
“If there were two men who
could read the phone book to
you, it should be Julian Bond and
James Earl Jones.”
Silent now, that voice never will
be forgotten.
PHOTO BY THE WASHINGTON POST/GETTY IMAGES
14 AMERICAN MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2015

wonk
We are often advised to “live an authentic life.” Sarah McBride
knows what those words really mean—and the deep personal
price we pay for not doing so. In 2012, McBride was 21 years old,
president of the AU student body, and poised to reveal her true
self to the campus community. In the last days of her presidency,
McBride came out as transgender in a Facebook post and Eagle
op-ed. The AU community’s reaction was overwhelming positive.
Hundreds of young transgender individuals wrote to thank
McBride for her courage. As a senior, she worked tirelessly for the
successful passage of the Gender Identity Nondiscrimination
Act in Delaware, her home state. Today, McBride continues
the work she began at AU, advocating for LGBT
individuals to enjoy the same rights and
privileges afforded to the rest of society.
Q. Why is authenticity in the way we live our
lives so important for individuals and for society?
A. Living authentically isn’t an act of courage as much
as an act of survival. For some, the fear of coming out is so
great, they can continue to live an inauthentic life. But at a
certain point, the pain becomes too much to bear. For me, having
one more day pass by where I wasn’t living my true self seemed like
such a wasted opportunity, such a wasted life.
The Internet has been great for the LGBT community. I know
many older transgender people who say, “I didn’t know there was
a single person like me until I was 40.” I can’t imagine growing up
in my teenage years without access to that information. Even
though I wasn’t 100 percent ready to accept who I was, I knew. I
would look in my mirror and say, “I’m transgender” or “I’m a girl,”
and feel immense shame. When I came out and there was such
a positive response from the AU community, that was the first
moment I truly felt proud of who I am. It gave me a lot of strength
and a lot of courage to move forward.
It’s understandable for parents of transgender kids to have
a sense of loss. This person is going to look different and sound
different. But it’s the same person, the same child.
My father said to me that he was not losing a son, but gaining
a daughter. That was one of the most profound moments in my
transition. It was a major relief when it was clear that both my
parents saw me as who I am. To have your child living an authentic
life, being his or her true self, that’s something to be celebrated.
SARAH MCBRIDE,
SPA/BA ’13
Campaign and
communications manager
for LGBT team, Center for
American Progress
“We can celebrate
the speed at which
LGBT equality has
progressed, but
we also have to
acknowledge that it
wasn’t fast enough,
because too many
people didn’t get to
experience it. We
can never be too
impatient.”
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 15

Senate Alexander, WCL/JD ’15
Program director, Wonders Child Care Center
Emma Pitt, SOC/BA ’14
Designer, Bethesda Magazine

Austin Byrd, CAS/BA ’11
Assistant technical director,
Round House Theatre
Cameron Topper, Kogod/MS ’13
Senior tax manager, Clark Construction Group
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

3.
2.
4.
1.
7.
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Most phone booths and drive-in theaters
have gone the way of the dinosaurs.
The objects and ideas profiled here may
be
teetering on
extinction, but it’s not
too late to save them. The potential loss of
these customs and conventions prompts
complex questions—ones worth considering
before these are gone for good.
By Amy Burroughs
fig. 1
In a world in which we most often communicate
by typing, does cursive really matter?
Cursive
Handwriting
Between email and word processors, many of us rarely write
by hand anymore, save for signing credit card receipts. Even
that may be on the decline, as more establishments present
us with an iPad on which to swipe a signature with a finger.
In many states, the combined effects of keyboarding
and standardized tests have led schools to drop cursive
from their curricula (some, like Arkansas, are beginning to
add it back). But the debate over handwriting continues.
In a world in which we most often communicate by typing,
does cursive really matter?
Some educators say yes: children who learn
handwriting learn to read more quickly, and they improve
language proficiency and critical thinking. According
to neuroscientists, handwriting stimulates cognitive
development in a way typing does not. A 2014 Psychological
Science study found that students who take notes on
laptops perform worse in answering conceptual questions.
Writing in longhand requires students to assimilate
information in their own words, whereas typists typically
record a speaker verbatim.
Detractors argue that cursive is simply outmoded
in modern business and educational environments.
Others say the real loss is not cursive, but writing—the
intellectual exercise of composition—regardless of whether
it happens with strokes of a pen or strikes of a keyboard.
One of cursive’s most enthusiastic supporters is Linda
Shrewsbury, a Harvard alum and educator who created
an efficient handwriting instruction method. She and her
daughter (Time profiled the duo in June) raised money
on Kickstarter to produce their workbook, CursiveLogic.
Shrewsbury recently gave a talk at the National Archives,
cosponsored by Fahrney’s Pens, on “Saving Cursive: New
Tools in the Fight for Handwriting.”
Fahrney’s, pen supplier to such language luminaries
as Washington Post columnist George F. Will, also hosts an
annual handwriting contest. It’s held January 23 to mark
National Handwriting Day—the birthday, appropriately, of
John Hancock.
fig. 2
Are there downsides to our habit of
asking Google everything?
Independent
Thought
Instantaneous access to almost anything we want to
know is a luxury. It may also be a step on the slippery
slope to mental laziness. Consider the immense variety of
questions we can pose to Google (and for which, usually,
we’ll receive a satisfactory answer). From the perspective
of human endeavors, not having to figure everything
out for ourselves is clearly an advantage. But is there a
downside to putting our brains on autopilot?
We don’t yet know what the Internet is really doing to our
cognitive processes. But there is a strong consensus that
even if we aren’t sure what’s happening, something is. Maybe
the Internet isn’t literally destroying our attention spans, as
some fear. But it is hardly reassuring that we choose not to
pay attention, because the Internet has taught us there is
always something more, better, different.
That’s the theory of University of Virginia psychologist
Daniel Willingham in his January 2015 New York Times
op-ed “Smartphones Don’t Make Us Dumb.” He does,
however, caution that excessive screen time directs our
attention outward, at the expense of inner reflection and
creativity.
Idle daydreaming is just one casualty of our constant
preoccupation. The ready availability of answers
also means we rarely spend time in states of wonder,
discovery, and curiosity. The Internet has even squashed
our sense of serendipity. Why take a chance on a new
restaurant when you can scour reviews and base your
decision on the experiences of 20 diners before you?
When future historians study our era, they will
undoubtedly remark upon the many innovations that
emerged from our exceptional connectivity. Let us hope
they do not also point to these years as the ones in which
we lost our ability to ponder, speculate, and explore.
fig. 3
Grammar is essentially a collection of rules
by which we agree to communicate.
Proper
Grammar
We can safely add “proper grammar” to the blame-it-onthe-smartphone
pile, along with face-to-face interactions
and withering attention spans. The more we rely on texts,
emails, and social media to communicate, the more we
favor speed and efficiency. In an age of multitasking,
taking time for proper grammar seems tedious, if not
downright uptight. After all, who cares?
Turns out, some people do. Back in 2002, one Guardian
writer decried texting as “penmanship for illiterates.”
More than a decade later, grammar purists still feel their
skin crawl with every “ur” instead of “your.” Although
research is inconclusive, one study suggests kids’ use
of abbreviated messages worsens their performance on
grammar tests.
Tech CEO Kyle Wiens published a Harvard Business
Review column titled “I Won’t Hire People Who Use Poor
Grammar. Here’s Why.” In business, he argues, good
grammar establishes credibility, demonstrates attention
to detail, and provides a reasonable indicator of how one
might approach other tasks. “If it takes someone more
than 20 years to notice how to properly use ‘it’s,’ then
that’s not a learning curve I’m comfortable with. So, even
in this hyper-competitive market, I will pass on a great
programmer who cannot write.”
Grammar is essentially a collection of rules by which
we agree to communicate. Naomi Baron, a professor in
AU’s Department of World Languages and Cultures, studies
linguistics, in which rules focus on patterns rather than
“correctness.” Patterns depend on consistency, and that’s
what began to erode in the 1990s.
“People were becoming inconsistent in their own
speech and writing. Sometimes it would be ‘between you
and me’ and other times ‘between you and I,’” Baron says.
“When I asked about this kind of fickle usage, the response
was the equivalent of ‘Whatever!’ The issue with grammar
today isn’t ignoring prescriptive rules. It’s that consistency
itself has little cachet.”
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 19

fig. 4
New technologies influence our notions
of what’s rude—and what isn’t.
Civility
There’s no shortage of speculation that civility is passé.
Social observers’ hand-wringing about the loss of good
manners is fueled by our deepening attachment to
portable technologies. We seem to reserve our best
attention for our virtual interactions, with scarcely a
nod or a smile for the human being in front of us.
Americans are keenly aware of this shift, but we
disagree on what constitutes rudeness in the new
landscape. According to a recent Pew Research Center
survey, 62 percent of adults frown on using phones in a
restaurant, but 38 percent think it’s fine. While 75 percent
approve of phone use on public transportation, one
quarter wish commuters would put their phones away.
And 5 percent of adults see nothing wrong with using
phones in a quiet theater.
Technology may have spurred the most sweeping
changes to our notions of polite behavior, but examples
abound of etiquette gone awry with nary a cell in sight.
On any given day, we are likely to encounter customers
demanding exquisitely customized caffeinated beverages
with no word of thanks to the barista and drivers who run
red lights and fly through pedestrian walkways. Most
such behaviors come down to self-absorption, betraying
our belief that we really are the most important person
in the room.
It’s no accident that “civility” shares an etymological
root with “civilization.” After all, these agreed-upon rules
of mutual courtesy are what keep human endeavors running
smoothly. In times of stress and strain—say, a jam-packed
Metro car in Monday morning rush hour—social niceties can
make all the difference.
fig. 5
Biodiversity, or variety of living organisms, is
crucial to our well-being.
Biodiversity
Thirty years ago, Harvard biologist E. O. Wilson observed
that the worst disaster humans could face would not be
energy depletion, economic crisis, or even totalitarian
government. The most far-reaching disaster, one that
would take millions of years to repair, would be the loss
of biodiversity.
“This is the folly that our descendants are least likely
to forgive us,” Wilson predicted.
Biodiversity is the variety of living organisms on the
planet, and protecting it is crucial to our well-being.
The fragile interrelationship of species means that a
loss of one has ramifications for many. Consider insects
pollinating flowers, earthworms sustaining healthy
soil, wetlands inhibiting floods. Disruptions to healthy
ecosystems impact the spread of disease, the production
of food, and global economies.
“All of life on earth is connected,” says Kiho Kim,
a marine ecologist and chair of AU’s Department of
Environmental Science. “When a species is lost, the
integrity of our planet and the vast riches on which
we depend are diminished. We also lose our personal
connection to nature and the wonder and awe that the
diversity of life inspires.”
According to the World Wildlife Fund’s Living Planet
Index, the number of vertebrate species populations—
mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish—fell
52 percent between 1970 and 2010 due to exploitation,
climate change, and habitat loss and degradation.
Although threats to species such as elephants, tigers,
and gorillas attract media coverage, some of the biggest
losses often go unseen: marine turtles, certain seabirds,
and numerous shark species. The International Union for
Conservation of Nature reports steep drops in species
as diverse as bison and butterflies, coral reefs and
mangrove trees.
The combined effects of humans’ day-to-day
consumption determine whether we help or hinder
environmental equilibrium. The World Wildlife Fund offers
recommendations for individual action.
fig. 6
The once-critical road atlas has
taken a back seat.
Paper Maps
Reliance on GPS navigation, which we often trust blindly
in unfamiliar areas, is bound to occasionally steer us awry.
In 2012, a driver following the “turn right” instruction drove
into an Alaskan harbor. A Belgian woman drove 900 miles
out of her way thanks to a GPS error. (When she reached
Croatia two days later, she decided she might need to
double-check her route.)
When GPS works, it’s great. When it doesn’t, you
might feel nostalgic for the low-tech reliability of that
dog-eared, road-weary Rand McNally atlas. Now that our
smartphones give us up-to-date maps anywhere, the
once-critical paper map has taken a back seat.
Does this mean we are losing the time-tested ability
to decipher printed lines and symbols, match them to
our surroundings, and use them to identify the best way
from Point A to Point B? London’s Royal Institute of
Navigation thinks so. It wants schools to start teaching
map-reading skills because, it argues, today’s youngsters
don’t have them.
Eric Gundersen, SIS/BA ’02, SIS/MA ’03, is the CEO of
Mapbox, a mapping platform for developers. He predicts
that in the future, paper maps will be most important
for survival situations and other special cases. But he
says the win/lose question is not so simple. For all their
usefulness, paper maps have a major disadvantage:
they limit us to the vision of the cartographer. Digital
representations of data, on the other hand, have infinite
capacity to represent location details.
“The individual choices people make will dictate
what is lost or gained,” he says. “Blindly follow GPS
directions? Sure, you’re going to lose spatial awareness.
Use a great app that personalizes point-of-interest
choices and displays them in a brilliant and intuitive
interface? Maybe you’re now even more aware of your
surroundings than locals.”
fig. 7
Noise pollution has even infiltrated places
we once visited specifically for quiet.
Silence
If we could travel back to an earlier century, one of the
most stunning differences we’d notice would likely be
the quiet. The days before car alarms, leaf blowers, and
bass-thumping stereos were not only simpler, they were
blissfully quiet by comparison. Noise pollution—often
in the form of cell phone chatter—has even infiltrated
places we once visited specifically for quiet, such as
nature trails.
Groups like Noise-Free America and the Noise Pollution
Clearinghouse (whose slogan is “Good neighbors keep
their noise to themselves”) are fighting back. They push
for stronger noise ordinances and call out violators.
Noise pollution isn’t just irritating, it’s harmful. A 2014
study estimated that 104 million Americans were at risk
of noise-induced hearing loss.
In the District, where the mixed-use trend makes
neighbors of residents and businesses, high decibels
have raised the hackles of the DC Nightlife Noise
Coalition. The DC City Council this year considered a
proposal requiring nightclubs to measure and report
noise levels during certain hours.
Deborah Norris, director of AU’s Psychobiology of
Healing Program and founder of Bethesda’s Mindfulness
Center, notes that the opposite of noise pollution is not,
as you’d expect, silence.
“Silence is not actually a natural state of the world
around us. Before all the manmade sounds, the sounds
we experienced were the sounds of nature. If you spend
time truly isolated in nature, you will notice that the
sounds of the birds, crickets, frogs, and other creatures
are nearly constant, and loud!”
Her antidote to the noise and overstimulation that
keep our nerves on edge? Mindfulness, which teaches
that “true silence resides within.”
Alternately, since we can’t time travel, you could
visit the quietest place in the United States, an area in
Washington State’s Olympic National Park that’s been
dubbed “One Square Inch of Silence.”
fig. 8
More workers now rely solely on
401K-type plans.
Pensions
Personal finance has undergone major change in recent
years—dwindling use of cash and checks, huge jumps
in electronic transactions, new threats to financial data
security—but one of the biggest changes is almost
invisible: the loss of employer-funded pensions. It’s a major
shift, according to Kogod School of Business professor
Larry Schrenk.
Private pension plans have been around since at
least 1899. The US Revenue Acts of 1921 and 1926 were
early efforts to facilitate employers’ provision of postretirement
funds, or defined benefit plans, to longtime
20 AMERICAN MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2015

workers. Many employees today, however, have never
known this type of benefit.
“Under defined benefit plans, your employer faced all the
risk: if their investments did not cover your benefits, it was
their problem. If you lived longer than expected, it was their
problem,” Schrenk says. “Under defined contribution plans,
you now face those risks, and many people are not ready to
deal with them effectively.”
According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute,
more workers now rely solely on 401K-type plans. Even
unions are having a hard time fighting the trend. Boeing
last year eliminated pensions for 30,000 employees in its
Washington state facility—what one columnist called “yet
another nail . . . in the coffin of the defined-benefit pension
in America.”
According to Schrenk, “The loss of pensions will
be a momentous change in the way people live after
retirement.” That change could entail working longer
than planned or scaling back lifestyle to protect whatever
retirement savings workers manage to accumulate.
fig. 9
While Europe recognizes the “right to be
forgotten,” Americans remain divided.
Privacy
It used to be that if you did something foolish, whether
from youthful indiscretion or a lapse in judgment,
you might be censured by your community, but the
transgression would eventually fade away. It would not
become 24-hour fodder for anyone with an Internet
connection, and it would not haunt you for years, anytime
someone typed your name in a search engine.
In 2014, the European Court of Justice took a major
step toward restoring that right to privacy when it
ruled that people can ask Google to remove personal
information from search results. But while Europe
recognizes the “right to be forgotten,” Americans
remain divided.
This year, Consumer Watchdog asked the Federal
Trade Commission to investigate a similar protection
for US citizens. According to one survey, 52 percent of
Americans would strongly support such a measure,
while 11 percent are opposed.
Privacy is one side of the issue. On the other side are
free speech, censorship, and equal access to information.
The Washington Post opposed Consumer Watchdog’s
proposal, arguing that the government shouldn’t decide
what information is available to whom.
In So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed, Jon Ronson
profiled people whose bad decisions led to widespread
condemnation. One is Justine Sacco, who in 2013 lost her
PR exec job and drew vitriolic attacks after offending
many with her tweet about Africa and AIDS. Ronson
doesn’t defend his subjects, but he does consider what
it’s like to be on the receiving end of that online hate.
Most of us, thankfully, won’t ever inspire outrage with
our tweets and texts. But we all know how disconcerting
it feels to read something about ourselves online that
we didn’t realize was “out there.”
We will undoubtedly continue to wrestle with
questions of what belongs online. Parents concerned
about images of children, people who appear in YouTube
videos without their knowledge, job applicants terrified
that employers will uncover their embarrassing past—all
have a vested interest in finding a solution that is fair,
pragmatic, and wise.
fig. 10
Advocates for unplugging say screen-free
dining develops kids’ social skills.
Dinner without
Distractions
Between working parents and overbooked kids, we might
assume that family dinner has dwindled to downing fast
food in the car on the way to soccer practice. In reality,
Gallup reports, the number of families sharing the evening
meal is holding steady. A December 2013 poll found that 53
percent of families with kids eat dinner at home six or seven
nights per week.
What is changing is whether those dinners have digital
devices on the menu, threatening the interaction that makes
mealtime so valuable. According to a Harris Interactive
survey, 56 percent of Americans feel annoyed by electronic
devices at meals, and 61 percent say tech overuse affects
the family negatively. Just 35 percent, though, have made
any effort to limit these intrusions.
What’s more, Harris’s results don’t capture the more
traditional dinner companion: television. In a Kaiser Family
Foundation survey, 64 percent of children ages 8 to 18 said
the TV is typically on during family meals.
Advocates for unplugging argue that screen-free dining
helps kids practice social skills, learn to form and discuss
opinions, and sustain communication that can encourage
them to share problems and concerns. Other research points
to long-term benefits in children’s relationships, schoolwork,
and future health.
Some researchers propose a chicken-or-egg question:
Do families who share meals have better outcomes because
they eat together, or because they are already functional
enough to gather themselves around the table on a regular
basis? As with most aspects of modern families, there’s no
simple answer.
fig. 11
Letters reveal the day-to-day experiences
of real individuals.
Handwritten
Letters
Recording the details of our lives has become such second
nature, it’s easy to forget that for centuries, historians relied
on source materials that were incredibly limited. In the days
before mass-produced publications, films, and photographs,
written documents were one of the richest sources of
information about the way people lived, loved, learned,
fought, created, and died.
Handwritten letters carry particular value for
historians. Unlike government missives and other official
documents, letters often tell the stories of ordinary men
and women. In their own words, in unguarded candor and
confidence, letters reveal the day-to-day experiences of
real individuals.
Even so, letters from famous people are treasures in their
own right. The National Archives, for example, has a May 13,
1958, letter from Jackie Robinson, the first African American
to play major league baseball, to former president Dwight
D. Eisenhower, exhorting him to support civil rights. Letters
can also shed an ironic light on historic figures: consider the
Archives’ copy of Elvis Presley’s December 21, 1970, letter to
former president Richard Nixon, asking him to credential
Presley as a federal agent so he could help fight the nation’s
drug war.
Jodi Boyle, CAS/MA ’07, is an archivist at the University
at Albany. When she shares letters with visitors to
the university’s Department of Special Collections, she
sees documents that are revealing, riveting, and most
of all human.
“I might select a handwritten plea from a European
refugee during World War II written on every inch of a
piece of paper or the musings and doodles written in
marker from one giant of twentieth-century American
literature to another,” Boyle says. “Handwritten letters help
convey emotions and deeper context, which is often lost in
today’s digital correspondence.”
fig. 12
Our penchant for collecting photos into
albums is fading like a Polaroid.
Photo Albums
One irony of the modern age is that we’re taking more
photos than ever, yet printing them less and less. We
can now put photos on almost anything—coffee mugs,
calendars, even shower curtains—but our penchant for
collecting photos into albums is fading like a Polaroid.
It’s true that we carry virtual albums in our pockets, so
we can enjoy our favorite images anywhere. Still, there is
something special about settling in with an album as we
savor and relive our memories.
Sara Neufeld, SOC/BA ’08, CAS/MAT ’10, is a professional
photographer and visual arts teacher for Anne Arundel
County Public Schools. She treasures her grandparents’
leather albums, which make her feel more connected to
loved ones.
“With all our digital tools and endless cloud storage
space, we are losing these bonding moments, we are
creating images that will never be seen for more than
a few seconds, and most damaging, we are losing
the idea that quality is exponentially more important
than quantity.”
Our shifting attitude toward photography may reflect
a principle of economics: scarcity increases value. Back
when film came on limited-exposure rolls, shutterbugs
had to be choosy about the images they captured. Now,
unlimited digital capacity frees us to shoot as much as
we want.
Although many people still appreciate the concept of
assembling photos in an album, particularly for once-ina-lifetime
memories such as a trip to Paris or a baby’s
first days, the sheer volume of digital images is often
overwhelming. This is one ritual, though, that just might
be worth preserving.
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SOCIAL NETWORKING (SIXDEGREES.COM)
LAWS PREVENTING CIGARETTE SALES TO MINORS
AndrewJohns: Hi there
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LEGAL DIVORCE IN IRELAND
METRO SERVICE TO FRANCONIA-SPRINGFIELD
GEORGE BUSH PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY
DOB 1997
Most college freshmen were born in 1997: a year that saw the passing of Princess Diana, Mother Theresa,
Jimmy Stewart, and John Denver; the closing of Woolworth’s; and the disbanding—albeit temporary—of Soundgarden
and Weezer. But 1997 was also a year of firsts, foundings, breakthroughs, and births (not the least of which:
our 1,795 freshmen). Here, American’s list of things the Class of 2019 has never known a world without . . .
By Adrienne Frank
WAL-MART AND J & J IN DJIA
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ILLUSTRATION BY POP CHART LAB
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CONGO
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CAROLINA HURRICANES
22 AMERICAN MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2015

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L
ook up at the tiny plane streaking through the deep blue, cloudless sky above
Robin Suerig Holleran’s back yard and it’s almost unfathomable that someone
could survive if it plummeted to Earth. But sitting across the table, seemingly calmly
sipping a sweating glass of lemonade, is someone who did. “I’m very conscious
of planes,” says Holleran, BA/SOC ’82, who regularly hears them fly over her
Mendham, New Jersey, home on their way to or from Newark or New York. She
always takes notice. “When we were about to hit, instead of thinking about my
kids or my life . . .” Her voice trails off as she pauses for another drink. Even now,
nearly a decade after the crash, her heartbeat increases and her palms perspire
whenever she recounts it. “I’ve always been an agnostic. As we’re going down I
remember thinking, ‘I guess I get to find out whether there really is a god.’ That’s
when I became calm, almost detached, like an out-of-body experience. Watching
the ground coming up, I wondered, will there be a flash of light or some other
sign before I die?” Thankfully, she’ll have to wait to find out. Every day, more
than 2 million passengers fly in the United States, and whether they’ll admit it
or not, most of them let out a little sigh of relief when the wheels of their plane
hit the runway. Holleran, 54, is a member of a small fraternity of people—lucky
or unlucky, depending on your disposition—whose flights ended not with a
smooth landing, but with a terrifying thud, screech, burst, or bang. In Bracing
for Impact, she and coauthor Lindy Philip share their stories and those of 14
others who, whether through good fortune, fate, or divine intervention, endured
a plane crash and lived to tell about it. “It is interesting how people often
comment that the accident was bad luck,” says Philip, also 54, who went down
in a Cessna 172 in British Columbia in 1995. “I see it differently. I was incredibly
lucky to have survived such an ordeal. It’s weird, but I have more faith in planes
now and feel they are really safe. I realize when it’s your time to go, it’s your
time to go. It was not my time.”
T
wo days after Christmas in 2005, Holleran drove her three children to
visit her sister near Atlanta. Soon after they arrived, her brother-in-law,
Al Van Lengen, offered to take the family up for a quick joyride in his four-seat
Cessna Cardinal. Following a 20-minute flight with the three kids that came
and went without incident, Holleran donned a headset and climbed into the
copilot seat. The daughter of a Dutch mother born in Indonesia and a father
with deep German roots, she had flown frequently throughout her life. At one
point in high school she even considered becoming a pilot, an idea her father,
a former Navy flight surgeon, squashed quickly. Around dusk the weather
was clear and calm as the small plane took off and darted through the air.
Her children waited near the hangar.
“We were about 2,000 feet up, and all of
a sudden the propeller just went ‘clunk,’”
she says. “It’s a very bizarre sensation.
It wouldn’t have surprised me if every
hair on my head had been standing
up straight, like a cartoon character.”
The roar of the engine gave way to
an eerie silence as the plane began to
lose altitude. Holleran wasn’t crying
or screaming—she was frozen with
fear. Unbeknownst to the pilot and
B
roken and battered, but not beaten, Holleran
embarked on a long journey back to health.
She wore a hip-to-neck body brace for six months,
underwent surgery on one of her discs, and ultimately
lost a half inch of height. “It was probably about two
years until I felt like myself,” she says. “My back feels
better now than it ever has, but it doesn’t bend very well.
I feel like I’m superglued back together.” Emotionally,
the accident had a profound effect. When she saw her
kids, whose vantage point fortunately shielded them from
the crash, it was as if she were laying eyes on them for the
first time. Even though no one died in her incident, she
felt a tinge of survivor’s guilt. The week before her plane
went down, a neighbor’s teenage daughter was killed in
a car accident coming home from cheerleading practice.
“It was like I dodged a bullet, and it hit her,” Holleran
says. During her recovery period, she stumbled onto a
Facebook group of plane crash survivors that Philip started
after her own accident. The women felt a kinship, and
eventually developed
a plan to write a book
about some of the
members’ experiences.
The dozens of interviews
they conducted often
were emotionally taxing.
“There was one woman
whose crash killed her
uncle and her cousin,”
Holleran says. “I had to
put [the recording] aside
three times, because what
she went through—I was
breaking out in full-body
sweats. It was that hard.
“They didn’t necessarily
remind me of mine, but
they definitely triggered a
physiological response. It’s
like if someone is telling a
story about a place you’ve
never been—it’s hard to
imagine it. But if you’ve been there, you know what they’re talking
about, so you feel it at the same time.” Bracing for Impact, which
came out in October, is a fascinating but sometimes unsettling
read. The tales of survival include pilots and passengers in private
aircraft and commercial jets, gliders and prop planes. Lisa Rowe
survived a 1999 American Airlines crash in Little Rock, Arkansas,
that left 10 people dead. Her story is enough to make any air traveler
pop a Xanax before the next flight. “The plane broke open like
RACING FOR IMP
Robin Suerig Holleran’s new book details the harrowing and sometimes miraculous tales of plane crash survivors. She knows exactly how they feel—
PHOTOS BY AMANDA STEVENSON LUPKE
“
I
REMEMBER
THINKING,‘I
GUESS I GET
TO FIND OUT
WHETHER
THERE REALLY
IS A GOD.’”
“
I
WAS SO
ELATED FOR
HAVING SURVIVED,
I SAID, ‘SOMEBODY
NEEDS TO BUY
ME A LOTTERY
TICKET.’”

his passenger, a connecting rod in
the engine had snapped, causing
the pistons to malfunction. As she
recalls the horror, Holleran switches
liberally between the first and second
person, almost as if she’s describing
someone else’s nightmare. “It was
two or three minutes before the
plane hit the ground, which doesn’t
sound long, but it’s an eternity. You
glide, but then when it loses speed
and momentum it starts to go down
pretty steeply. It was a terror I’ve never experienced in my entire life.”
Yet Van Lengen, a former firing battery commander in the army,
never panicked, and when he spotted an open field he purposely
maneuvered the plane into an even more severe dive so he wouldn’t
overshoot the makeshift landing strip. “When you’re going down,
it’s not like you feel like you’re going into the earth, it’s
a sensation like the earth is coming up at you. Almost
like it’s on a movie screen,” Holleran says. “As we were
getting closer to hitting, I kind of came to terms with the
fact that I was going to die. I went from being terrorized
to being totally calm.” When the plane slammed into the red
Georgia clay on its belly, it essentially went from traveling 100 miles
per hour to a dead stop in less than 60 feet. A vertebra in Holleran’s
back shattered; some of the bone chips missed her
spine by just millimeters. When emergency medical
technicians arrived, they had trouble starting an
IV because her veins were beginning to
collapse. Van Lengen emerged from the
crumbled plane with just bumps
and bruises, but Holleran was rushed
to the hospital. Oddly, she was anything
but despondent. “I was so elated for having
survived, that even when the EMTs were taking
care of me at the scene, to one of them—and I’m sure
he thought that I had hurt my head—I said, ‘Somebody
needs to buy me a lottery ticket. This is the luckiest day of
my life.’”
an egg,” reads a passage from the book. “In terrible pain, Lisa could
barely move. Her seatmate helped her struggle through the hole
in the roof to move away from the flames that were consuming
the remains of the plane. She had to step over the lifeless body of
a woman pinned down by metal.” These traumas had varying
impacts on those who experienced them. Some, like Philip, now
have an extra drink or two before or during a flight. (Her favorite is a
Caesar, a Canadian equivalent of a Bloody Mary.) Others fell into the
throes of drug and alcohol addiction. Some conquered their fears and
now routinely fly. Others never set foot on an airplane again. An
avid traveler, Holleran now views flying as a necessary evil—a means
to an end. She’s visited six continents, and this Christmas—two days
before the anniversary of her crash—plans to fly to Cuba. “I’m not
comfortable on planes anymore, commercial or otherwise,” she says.
“I’m compulsive about looking at the weather. I’m very conscious
of where the exits are. Yeah, I’m scared, but so what? I don’t believe
in letting things hold you back.” Statistically, flying is among the
safest modes of transportation. In 2012, 440 people died in the United
States as a result of general aviation accidents, compared
to 33,782 on highways, according to the US Department
of Transportation. Perhaps even more surprisingly, the
National Transportation Safety Board reports that over
the past two decades, about 95 percent of people involved
in a commercial plane crash survived. “If you take one flight
a day, you would on average need to fly every day for 55,000 years
before being involved in a fatal crash,” MIT statistics professor Arnold
Barnett told ABC News last year. Remarkably, Holleran isn’t the only
one in her family to have been involved in a plane catastrophe.
Her stepgrandfather died when his Pan Am flight crashed
into the jungles of northern Brazil in 1952, and her
father and brother each walked away from
separate accidents. “So what if
the chances are 1 in 100 million?” she
says, as another airplane rumbles overhead.
“If you’re that one, that’s all that really matters.”
DOWNLOAD the American magazine app for tips
for surviving a plane crash.
ACT
after all, she’s one of them. BY MIKE UNGER
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 25

ILLUSTRATION BY YUTA ONODA

—BY MIKE UNGER—
t exactly fifteen minutes past eight in the
morning, on August 6, 2015, a large bronze
bell tolled 10 times. Its haunting tone echoed
throughout a city that aside from the ever-present
chirping of cicadas, fell dead silent.
The reality of what happened in this place on
this date 70 years ago to the second was stark and
inescapable to the 40,000 people gathered in central
Hiroshima’s Peace Park. While a boy in a white shirt
and a young woman wearing a black dress struck the
bell over the course of a minute on a blistering hot
day, many in the crowd folded their handheld paper
fans and bowed their heads. Some closed their eyes.
Others interlaced their fingers in prayer.
As they do every August 6, Koko Kondo’s
thoughts not only drifted to the past, but also
wandered into the future.
“I think every person who attended this
ceremony is hoping for peace,” she said moments
after it ended. “We don’t want a third, fourth, fifth
bomb. Two is two too many.”
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 27

Kondo, CAS/BA ’69, is a hibakusha, the Japanese word
for atomic bomb survivors. Their numbers are dwindling.
For the first time their average age now tops 80, making
them generations removed from the American, Japanese,
and other Asian college students in the delegation AU
history professor Peter Kuznick leads through Kyoto,
Hiroshima, and Nagasaki every August.
“No one has to say—it’s widely understood that
they’re dying,” says Sho Beppu, co-anchor of Newsroom
Tokyo on NHK, Japan’s public broadcasting network.
He interviewed Kondo and Kuznick on a live television
program on the sixth. “The
anniversary is a big deal every
“WE NOW HAVE NINE NUCLEAR year, but every 10 years it
becomes a larger deal. There
STATES IN THE WORLD. FORTY
are, I think, special meanings
COUNTRIES HAVE THE
for the 70th year. We know
CAPABILITY OF DEVELOPING that on the 80th year, we
will have much less people
NUCLEAR WEAPONS. WE HAVE
who will be able to speak and
THE RISK OF NUCLEAR
explain their experience.”
ANARCHY. IT’S MORE
Christopher Cayer, 32, will
never forget his own. A PhD
IMPORTANT THAN EVER THAT
candidate in history at AU, he
WE FINALLY SUCCEED IN
was a member of Kuznick’s
ABOLISHING NUCLEAR
largest-ever group.
“It was surreal in the sense
WEAPONS.”
that the rigid formality was
–PETER KUZNICK
juxtaposed with that one
moment of silence,” he says.
“Up until 8:15 it seemed like
other ceremonies. Once they struck the bell and gave you
that moment to reflect at the exact time that the bomb
hit, that was a demarcation line for me. I couldn’t get the
image of human suffering out of my mind. I know that can
be a little morbid, but I couldn’t disassociate the impact of
the weapon with the aftereffects of the violence.”
That’s exactly the type of visceral reaction that Kuznick,
director of AU’s Nuclear Studies Institute, hopes all
the people he brings to Japan for an intense 10-day trip
experience. An unabashed opponent of nuclear weapons
and the United States’ decision to use them, Kuznick first
traveled to the country two decades ago. He met Kondo by
chance outside a downtown Hiroshima department store,
and she’s been a member of the peace tour, as Kuznick
calls his annual visit, ever since.
“There’s been a sharp reduction in nuclear arsenals
since we started in 1995,” he says. “However, there are still
16,300 nuclear weapons in the world. The United States
and Russia have nuclear weapons pointed at each other on
hair-trigger alert, which means they’re ready to launch in
10 minutes. We now have nine nuclear states in the world.
Forty countries have the capability of developing nuclear
weapons. We have the risk of nuclear anarchy. It’s more
important than ever that we finally succeed in abolishing
nuclear weapons.”
In the heart of a city that was almost obliterated by
a 9,700-pound uranium bomb that killed an estimated
70,000 people virtually instantaneously (90,000 to 140,000
are believed to have died from radiation poisoning by the
end of 1945), Kuznick’s words have particular resonance.
He’s fond of quoting the physicist I. I. Rabi, who said of
the nuclear age, “Suddenly the day of judgment was the
next day and has been ever since.”
Seventy years ago, right here, where Kondo, Kuznick,
Cayer, and thousands of others come from around the
globe to mark one of mankind’s grimmest anniversaries,
the next day landed on Hiroshima, and a mushroom cloud
sprouted above it.
he first dozen words of this story actually were
written by Pulitzer Prize–winner John Hersey.
They open his seminal book, Hiroshima, which
humanized the victims to a Western audience in a way
they hadn’t been before. In 1999, a panel of reporters and
academics convened by New York University named it the
top work of twentieth-century American journalism.
Hersey’s lead reads: “At exactly fifteen minutes past
eight in the morning, on August 6, 1945, Japanese time,
at the moment when the atomic bomb flashed above
Hiroshima, Miss Toshiko Sasaki, a clerk in the personnel
department of the East Asia Tin Works, had just sat down
at her place in the plant office and was turning her head to
speak to the girl at the next desk.”
Originally filed as a magazine story to which the New
Yorker devoted its entire August 31, 1946, issue, Hiroshima
follows six survivors in the seconds, minutes, hours,
days, and weeks after the bombing. One of them was the
Reverend Kiyoshi Tanimoto, who then was the father of
an eight-month-old daughter.
That daughter was Koko Kondo.
“I always wanted to know how I survived the atomic
bomb, but I couldn’t have asked my parents, because if I
do, they have to recall the memory,” she says. “My mother
said she was unconscious, but then she heard some babies
crying. Then she realized that inside of her arm was a
baby—that was me.”
Tanimoto, who earned a theology degree from Emory
University in Atlanta, harbored no hatred toward America,
which he visited often before and after the war. His
daughter, however, was another story.
“As a little girl I don’t know anything about war, but I
thought the person who dropped the bomb on Hiroshima,
they’re the bad one, and I’m the good one,” says Kondo, 70,
who packs a huge personality into her tiny body. “Those
pilots and the crew, I think someday I’m gonna grow up
and find those guys and give them a punch or a kick.”
28 AMERICAN MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2015

At the age of 10, she had her shot. On a moment’s
notice Kondo’s mother took her and her siblings to Los
Angeles, where they were whisked to a television studio.
Tanimoto, a Methodist minister who had gained a bit of
notoriety from his role in the book, was to be featured on
the television show This Is Your Life.
Standing in a corner next to the stage was a man young
Koko had never seen before, yet one who had impacted
her life profoundly.
“I asked my mother, ‘Who is that guy?’” she recalls.
“She said, ‘He’s Captain Robert Lewis.’”
Shocked that the copilot of the Enola Gay, the B-29
bomber that dropped the atomic bomb “Little Boy” on
Hiroshima, stood just a few feet away, Koko plotted her
revenge while the show’s host, Ralph Edwards, asked
Lewis how he had felt after releasing the bomb.
“He said, ‘The city of Hiroshima disappeared.’ Then
he said, ‘My god, what have we done?’ I was just looking
at his eyes; the tears just came out,” says Kondo, her
voice cracking 60 years later. “That’s the moment I said,
‘Gee, I don’t know anything about this guy.’ But until this
moment, I thought he’s the bad one, I’m the good one.
While I was on the stage I look inside of my heart. Since
I’m a PK—preacher’s kid—I say, ‘God, please forgive
me. I don’t know anything about this guy, but until this
moment I hated him.’
“Then, I don’t know why I did it, but I walk two or
three steps, because I just wanted to touch his hand. So
I did. He hold my hand very tightly. That’s the moment
I said, ‘God, he’s human being, not the monster, not the
bad guy.’ I’m so thankful that I met him. It taught me
that when war starts, no one’s going to be the winner.
Everybody’s going to hurt. If I hate, I should hate war
itself, not this person.”
The pro-peace message Kondo preached to the trip
participants—most were students from AU and Japan’s
Ritsumeikan and Asia Pacific universities, but they also
included a high school junior from Baltimore, a pastor and
his 15-year-old son from New York, a Washington lawyer,
and a Harlem social studies teacher—percolated through
many of the other lectures delivered by professors and
activists over the course of the week. Thirty-six hours
before the anniversary, the group sat riveted as Setsuko
Thurlow recounted in chilling detail how she narrowly
escaped the bomb’s wrath. Thirteen years old at the time,
she was in an army building being trained to decode
secret messages.
“On that very day, which happened to be Monday, at
eight o’clock we were on the second floor of the wooden
building about one mile away from the hypocenter [the
point directly below the bomb’s mid-air detonation]. The
man in charge of the students was giving a pep talk. He
said, go and show your patriotism to the emperor. At that
moment I saw the blueish-white flash. I do remember the
sensation of looking up in the air because of the strong
blast generated by the explosion, all the buildings are
being flattened. The building I was in was falling, and
together with that, my body was falling. After that I lost
my consciousness.”
When Thurlow awoke, she was immersed in total
darkness and silence.
“I knew I was faced with death, because I couldn’t
move my body. I never panicked, I was very serene. I heard
the faint voices of the girls around me. ‘Mother help me.
God help me.’ I can still hear those voices. Then I heard a
very strong male voice: ‘Don’t give up. Keep pushing, keep
kicking. I’m trying to free you.’ He loosened me. I was able
to crawl out. By the time I came out the [building] was on
fire. That meant about 30 other girls who were with me in
the same room were being burned alive. Two other girls
managed to come up.”
The city into which they emerged appeared postapocalyptic.
Dust and smoke obscured the blazing hot
sun, which according to some estimates is cooler than
the epicenter of the bomb blast. Fires raged everywhere.
People staggered around holding fistfuls of their charred
skin. The eyeballs of those unlucky souls who happened
to be looking to the sky when the bomb detonated melted.
More than 70 percent of the city’s
structures lay in ruin.
“After a while my eyes
“I SAID, ‘GOD, HE’S HUMAN
began to see some moving dark
objects coming,” Thurlow says. BEING, NOT THE MONSTER,
“They simply did not look like NOT THE BAD GUY.’ I’M SO
human beings. The funny thing
THANKFUL THAT I MET HIM.
I noticed was all the long hair
women were wearing, they were IT TAUGHT ME THAT WHEN
rising straight up. They were
WAR STARTS, NO ONE’S
burned, bleeding, and sweating.
GOING TO BE THE WINNER.
Nobody was shouting or yelling.
If they said anything they just
EVERYBODY’S GOING TO
whispered, ‘Please give me water.’ HURT. IF I HATE, I SHOULD
“I felt my job is to tell the
HATE WAR ITSELF, NOT
world what nuclear weapons did,
so that we can be smart enough
THIS PERSON.”
not to let that happen again.”
—KOKO KONDO
Victim is a word that’s often
wielded as a weapon in wartime.
Debate still rages about where
the ultimate responsibility for the horrors of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki rests. Questions abound on both sides. Didn’t
Japan’s unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor start the
conflict? If the use of nuclear weapons wasn’t necessary,
why did the Japanese not surrender until August 15, just
nine days after the bombing of Hiroshima and six after
Nagasaki was attacked?
But knowing that its enemy was severely staggered,
did the United States have to use atomic bombs to end the
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 29

war, or was it seeking to assert its geopolitical and military
dominance to the world?
Interestingly, the Americans and Japanese on the trip
each tended to point more to their own government’s
missteps and failings when wrestling with the victim
versus victimizer question.
“The myth that American students learn throughout
their youth is that the atomic bomb ended the war in the
Pacific,” Kuznick says. His positions—that the United
States was morally wrong to have dropped the bomb, and
that President Harry Truman, who ultimately made the
decision to do it, was a war criminal for using a weapon
that indiscriminately targeted civilians—are laid out
in unapologetic and unambiguous terms in the Untold
History of the United States, a New York Times bestselling
book and 10-part Showtime documentary series he
coauthored with Academy Award–winning filmmaker
Oliver Stone (who joined Kuznick’s peace tour in 2013).
“The reality is that the Americans knew there were two
ways to end the war without the atomic bomb. Number
one, change the surrender terms to let the Japanese
know they could keep the emperor, and number two,
wait for the Soviet invasion in early August and let that
end the war, as American intelligence repeatedly said it
would. The question that
historians debate is why
did the United States drop
READING ABOUT ATOMIC
the bomb if the Japanese
were about to surrender
WEAPONS OR STUDYING THEM IN
anyway and we knew they
A CLASSROOM IN DALLAS OR were about to surrender.
DUBLIN OR DELHI CAN MAKE IT Truman himself refers to
an intercepted July 18 cable
EASY TO FORGET THAT
as ‘the telegram from the
REGARDLESS OF WHO’S
Jap emperor asking for
ULTIMATELY TO BLAME, THEIR peace.’ What we’re arguing
is that the United States
USE HAD DEVASTATING
wanted to drop the bombs,
CONSEQUENCES FOR THE
and that the real target was
HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF not the Japanese, the real
target was the Soviet Union,
MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN IN
which is exactly how the
HIROSHIMA THAT MORNING. Soviet Union interpreted it.”
Yuki Tanaka is a Japanese
professor who’s taught in
Australia for many years
(his accent has to be one of a kind). Author of Hidden
Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II, he argues
that Japan was hardly blameless in inciting America’s
actions. In disturbing detail he described Japanese
wartime atrocities including cannibalism; the slaughter
and starvation of prisoners of war; the rape, enforced
prostitution, and murder of noncombatants; and biological
warfare experiments. Tanaka also once headed a Hiroshima
People’s Tribunal that condemned Truman and other
American leaders as war criminals.
“The Battle of Okinawa finished at the end of June
[1945], and [Japanese Emperor Hirohito] still didn’t want
to surrender,” he told the group. “In my words, he was also
morally responsible for the bombing of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. Because we don’t seriously discuss the crimes
we committed against the Asians, we never discuss the
conduct of US forces. We’ve been doing this vicious circle
for the last 70 years.”
In fact, Japan’s viewpoints on the war are so varied and
complex there’s not even a consensus among its people on
what to call it. What most of us know as World War II also
is referred to by the Japanese as the Fifteen-Year War or
the Asia Pacific War.
Moeka Sakata views these questions through a unique
lens. A Japanese who’s studying at AU, she grew up in the
town of Fukuoka (about a 90-minute flight from Tokyo)
but attended high school in Colorado for a year.
“Japanese people talk about the atomic bomb a lot, but
in the US everything is more about Pearl Harbor,” she says.
“Everyone feels like a victim.”
Reading about atomic weapons or studying them in a
classroom in Dallas or Dublin or Delhi can make it easy to
forget that regardless of who’s ultimately to blame, their
use had devastating consequences for the hundreds of
thousands of men, women, and children in Hiroshima that
morning—many of whom, like victims of war throughout
time, were innocents simply trying to make it through
another day.
n 1945 Hiroshima was a port and industrial city with a
population of about 300,000 civilians, 50,000 troops,
and 55,000 Korean slave laborers. Despite being home
to a major military headquarters, it had been spared
conventional bombing in part to allow for an easier
and more accurate assessment of the atomic bomb’s
capabilities. US officials ultimately chose it over Kokura,
Nagasaki, and Niigata. When “Little Boy” was dropped its
specific target was the Aioi Bridge, but due to a crosswind
it detonated directly over Shima Surgical Clinic in the
middle of town.
“People were eating breakfast, people were going to
work, people were making love,” says Kuznick, who’s
leading his students on a walking tour through downtown
Hiroshima. He’s standing next to a small plaque that
marks the hypocenter on a nondescript side street a few
blocks from the Peace Park.
This is not an inconspicuous group. A documentary
film crew and several members of the Japanese media
trail Kuznick, who’s a minor celebrity here. After he
speaks a Japanese woman recognizes him and asks for a
photo. He obliges.
30 AMERICAN MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2015

In the summer Kuznick helped bring an exhibit of
artifacts collected after the atomic bombings and six large
painted folding screens depicting them to the American
University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center. Masato
Tainaka, a reporter for the Asahi Shimbun newspaper,
traveled to Washington to interview Kuznick about
the exhibit and the atomic bombings themselves. The
resulting story, he says, garnered much interest from the
Japanese public.
“We need to give our readers different points of view,
and Peter was a driving force for me to convey the message,”
Tainaka says.
After the war Hiroshima was reborn as a city dedicated
to peace and the abolition of nuclear weapons. Today it’s a
thoroughly modern metropolis that features state-of-theart
transportation systems; scores of brand-name stores
including Gucci, Cartier, and Chanel; fast-food staples like
McDonald’s and 7-Eleven seemingly everywhere; and a
major Mazda factory (the city’s Carp baseball team plays
in Mazda Zoom-Zoom Stadium). It’s also home to the
Hiroshima Peace Culture Foundation and the Hiroshima
Peace Memorial Museum. During the August 6 ceremony,
its mayor reads a peace declaration.
“As long as nuclear weapons exist, anyone could become
a hibakusha at any time,” Mayor Kazumi Matsui said. “If
that happens, the damage will reach indiscriminately
beyond national borders. People of the world, please listen
carefully to the words of the hibakusha and, profoundly
accepting the spirit of Hiroshima, contemplate the nuclear
problem as your own.”
The Peace Park occupies about 30 acres that once
comprised the city’s busiest downtown commercial and
residential district. Its centerpiece is the former Hiroshima
Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall, the closest building to
the hypocenter that wasn’t flattened. The so-called A-Bomb
Dome, which was severely damaged, is the only structure in
the area that the city didn’t level or repair. A plaque outside
it reads, in part, “As a historical witness that conveys the
tragedy of suffering the first atomic bomb in human history
and as a symbol that vows to faithfully seek the abolition
of nuclear weapons and everlasting world peace.”
This message of forward-looking hope, rather than
backward-looking blame, is typical of language and
attitude throughout Hiroshima. There are few hints
of anti-Americanism (to the ire of some). Even the
inscription on the memorial cenotaph in the center of the
park is a simple phrase generally translated as, “We shall
not repeat the error.”
As the tour continues, Kuznick and Kondo point out
heart-wrenching sites, including a mound where the
unidentified remains of thousands of victims were buried,
jutting like a grassy tombstone. Nearby, a monument is
dedicated to the approximately 20,000 Koreans killed by
the bomb.
But there also are uplifting stops. The Children’s Peace
Monument is a bronze likeness of a girl with outstretched
arms and a folded paper crane rising above her. It’s based
on the true story of Sadako Sasaki, who was two years old
at the bombing and died of leukemia a decade later. She
believed that if she folded 1,000 paper cranes she would
be cured. Built with contributions from more than 3,200
schools in Japan and nine countries, the monument was
unveiled in 1958. To this day, visitors fold cranes and place
them near the statue.
The bell that’s a part of Sadako’s Statue, as it’s known,
was a popular gathering spot on the evening of the
anniversary; in contrast to the morning’s somber tone,
a feeling of optimism and
hope filtered throughout the
park as kids continually rang
it. A group of Japanese girls
held signs offering hugs for
“AS A HISTORICAL WITNESS
peace. Thousands from all
THAT CONVEYS THE TRAGEDY
over the world had returned to
OF SUFFERING THE FIRST
participate in a Tōrō nagashi,
an informal ceremony in which ATOMIC BOMB IN HUMAN
thousands of lanterns carry
HISTORY AND AS A SYMBOL
messages of peace to the spirits
THAT VOWS TO FAITHFULLY
of victims. The mood was festive.
As the line to light and
SEEK THE ABOLITION OF
release the green, red, blue, and NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND
yellow paper lanterns snaked
EVERLASTING WORLD PEACE.”
through the park, Sakata, SIS/
BA ’16, and Reina Shiotari, a
—PLAQUE OUTSIDE
Japanese student from Osaka,
THE A-BOMB DOME IN
contemplated their words.
HIROSHIMA‘S PEACE PARK
“We have to make an effort
to reflect on what each of us—
American and Japanese—did,
and then we’re going to have
to reconcile,” Sakata wrote in Japanese on the lantern.
“Please bring peace and joy to people who died from
the atomic bomb and also the survivors who still suffer
psychologically and physically. Peace to the world.”
Shiotari’s eyes began to water as she recounted what
she had written using the same Sharpie, on the same
lantern, also in Japanese.
“Seventy years ago, on August 6, not only a lot of people
lost their lives, but also their dreams and their hopes
disappeared. I think we have to keep on working to bring
on peace. We also have to study what Japanese people
did to other Asian people. I am going to swear that I keep
[working] for peace.”
When they reached the front of the line they carefully
climbed down to the bank of the Motoyasu River, bowed
their heads and set their lantern afloat toward the A-Bomb
Dome, where it joined hundreds of others illuminating the
night in a brilliant rainbow of light.
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 31

HOME FIELD
THE CROWD WAS SO LARGE, STUDENTS
WERE HANGING FROM THE TREES.
Thirty years ago, on December 7, 1985, the AU
men’s soccer team won a NCAA tournament
semifinal soccer match on a hastily upgraded
Reeves Field in what was almost certainly the
greatest sports triumph in school history.
It was also the day that secured the place of
Peter Mehlert, CAS/MEd ’75, in the annals of
AU athletic history.
Rented bleachers trucked in from
Maryland couldn’t accommodate the recordsetting
crowd. Some 5,300 tickets were sold,
but hundreds more spectators gathered
around the field on the chilly Saturday
afternoon. They gave a deafening cheer when
Fernando Iturbe headed in a goal in the 77th
minute, securing the Eagles’ 1–0 victory over
heavily favored Hartwick College. “I’ve never
heard a sound like that at this university,”
David Aldridge, SOC–CAS/BA ’87, veteran
TNT sports broadcaster and former Eagle
editor, has said of that moment.
When the final whistle blew, the dam
burst, flooding students, faculty, and alumni
onto the field to revel in the rarity of being a
national sports powerhouse. The triumphant
chords of Bruce Springsteen’s “Glory Days”
32 AMERICAN MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2015
rang through the air as the crowd hoisted onto
their shoulders Mehlert, the coach who had
led the team through this remarkable season.
A spontaneous campus-wide celebration
followed. Tickertape made of shredded
newspaper and toilet paper rained down
from dorm windows, students booked
spur-of-the-moment flights to Seattle for
the championship game, and entrepreneurs
mocked up “Battle in Seattle” T-shirts that
they hawked in a special edition of the Eagle.
Mehlert coached AU men’s soccer from
1972 to 1991 and helped create the women’s
team in 1990, leading the inaugural squad
to an impressive 11–3–1 record. A star player
in his own right—Mehlert earned a soccer
scholarship to Boston University, where he
started all four years and was named MVP as
a senior in 1971—he was inducted into AU’s
Stafford H. “Pop” Cassell Hall of Fame in
1998. The Hong Kong native, who moved to
Bethesda, Maryland, as a teenager, retired
from his teaching post in AU’s College of Arts
and Sciences this year.
He’s understandably proud of the magical
’85 season, which earned him NCAA Coach
of the Year honors, but when Mehlert looks
back, he is just as proud of his 1978 and
1979 squads. Those teams, featuring his first
recruits, accomplished several key milestones:
among others, the program’s first NCAA
Division I tournament berth and the school’s
first-ever victory over the University of
Virginia, then coached by Bruce Arena, who
went on to lead the US national team.
Recruiting and relationship building were
key to Mehlert’s success, says Steven Goff,
SOC/BA ’88, who covered sports for the
Eagle during the 1985 season and now reports
on soccer for the Washington Post. “He’s a
personality that people were attracted to,” says
Goff. “Pete was the face of the team and he
built that program up.”
Mehlert sometimes landed a key recruit
with simple courtesies, like being the only
coach to respond to a prospective player’s
letters. Other times it took an in-person visit,
which Mehlert accomplished with marathon
hours and bare-bones resources. To convince
one player to come to AU, he drove his VW
Beetle to Lexington, Massachusetts, and back
without stopping to sleep.
Not every player Mehlert sought came to
AU, but he always put in the effort. “I never
gave up on any of these kids, and as a result I
got these top, top players,” he says.

BY BRAD SCRIBER, CAS/BA ’97
ADVANTAGE
Alumni of the Mehlert years have résumés
stacked with championships, national and
international professional play, and other
successes. And many of them got their start
in youth soccer leagues.
In the four decades since Mehlert first took
the field at AU, youth soccer has exploded in
the United States. Slipping on shin guards and
lacing up cleats has become a rite of passage
for millions of American youngsters—including
Mehlert’s own kids, daughter Keara and sons
Peter and Patrick, Kogod/BA ’14.
The number of high school soccer players
increased tenfold from 80,000 in 1971 to
nearly 800,000 last year, and the boom in
youth leagues has been even greater. The US
Youth Soccer Association had about 100,000
players in 1974, its first year, but now tallies
more than 3 million.
According to Dennis Seese, an AU
research librarian and author of The Rebirth
of Professional Soccer in America, soccer was a
fixture in immigrant communities as far back
as the 1920s. Much of the growth in youth
soccer visibility came from a desire in affluent,
suburban communities to provide athletic,
relatively safe, and structured activities, and
an alternative to tackle football. “It became
a participatory sport for the middle class,”
Seese says, “and we saw the birth of the
soccer mom culture.”
Soccer also got a boost from Title IX.
In 1971, there were a mere 28 schools
nationwide with a girls’ soccer team, but
now one in five high school girls play, and
it’s the third most popular team sport for
girls, behind volleyball and basketball.
Mehlert’s youngest son Patrick, who
scored a game-winning goal for the Eagles
himself when he started at midfielder for
AU, now coaches several youth teams in
Maryland’s Montgomery County, on the
same fields where he once played as a kid.
In addition to improved technical skills,
more connected play, and better passing,
Patrick measures success as a coach with
other metrics: “Are they enjoying it? Are they
coming to practice with smiles on their faces?
Are they leaving with smiles? That’s how I
know I’m doing a good job.”
Mehlert readily acknowledges that his
demanding and hard-driving coaching style
differs from that of his soft-spoken son. “I’m
a little more contentious, more emotional,” he
says. It’s an approach that drove some away—
but one that also got results.
A week after AU’s historic 1985 victory over
Hartwick, the Eagles fell to the UCLA Bruins
in the NCAA championship game in Seattle’s
Kingdome after eight grueling overtimes—the
longest collegiate soccer game in history. (The
marathon match changed the NCAA rules; now,
tournament ties are settled with penalty kicks.)
Despite the heartbreaking loss, Mehlert
and his 1985 squad, whose 19 victories are still
the record for the winningest season, gave the
AU community something to cheer about.
“For the first time ever, AU was in
the national spotlight,” wrote Goff in the
December 16, 1985, issue of the Eagle. “It had
beaten the ‘name’ schools—South Carolina,
Maryland, Old Dominion, Hartwick—and
stretched powerful UCLA to a 166-minute
marathon.
“Whether the Eagles fade cannot be
answered now. But it doesn’t really matter
because this was AU’s year. This was the
year AU made some noise. No matter what
happens, always remember the 1985 AU
soccer Eagles.”
DOWNLOAD the American magazine app to
watch highlights from the AU vs. Hartwick game.
FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 33

Several hundred alumni
and families flocked to AU
for All-American Weekend,
October 16–18. Eagles old
and new kicked off the
weekend aboard the Spirit
of Washington for a twilight
cruise on the Potomac; other
events included arboretum
tours, field hockey and
volleyball games, an evening
with former Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright, and a fall
festival in the Woods-Brown
Ampitheatre—complete with
pumpkin painting.

1950s
Paul Kramer, CAS/BA ’59, WCL/
JD ’61, has been sworn in as
president of the Baltimore City
Bar Association Foundation.
He’s also a director and trustee
of the Maryland Bar Foundation.
Kramer remains active in his
private practice in Baltimore.
1960s
Sherrill Cannon, CAS/BA ’69,
released her seventh children’s
book, Mice & Spiders & Webs . . .
Oh My! The book introduces kids
ages 4–8 to computers. Sherrill’s
other books have garnered 28
awards.
Stewart Grossman, Kogod/
BS ’69, was named partner
with the Boston law firm
Posternak Blankstein & Lund
in its bankruptcy, workout, and
business reorganization practice.
1970s
Steven Oram, Kogod/BS ’71,
received the chair’s award at
the annual meeting of Charles
E. Smith Life Communities in
Rockville, Maryland.
James Brett, SPA/BA ’73, was
reappointed to the President’s
Committee for People with
Intellectual Disabilities by
President Obama. He also
was appointed chairman of
the Governor’s Commission
on Intellectual Disability by
Massachusetts governor Charlie
Baker.
Barbara Duncombe, SIS/BA
’74, is featured in Who’s Who in
Aerospace and Defense for being
on the forefront of defense
contract law.
Robert Sokolove,
SPA/BA ’74,
joined Bank
of America as
a senior vice
president, flood
enterprise, at
the Charlotte,
North Carolina,
headquarters. He lives in
Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
Katherine Elberfeld, SOC/
MA ’75, published a short story
collection, Make Yourselves
at Home. She has worked as a
journalist, writer, and Episcopal
priest and founded the Gabriel
Center for Servant-Leadership in
Marietta, Georgia.
KNOW
ABOUT UPCOMING
EVENTS. VISIT
AMERICAN.EDU/
ALUMNI/EVENTS.
Barry Kluger, SOC/BA ’75, wrote
the Sarah Grace-Farley-Kluger
Act/Parental Bereavement Act,
seeking to add loss of a child to
the current Family Medical Leave
Act. The bill was introduced in
the House and Senate on May 12,
2015.
Douglas Schulz, SPA/
BS ’75, completed
his second book,
Just When You
Thought It Was
Safe.
James Barrens,
CAS/BA ’77,
former executive
director of the
Center for Catholic-
Jewish Studies at Saint
Leo University, released In
Our Time–Nostra Aetate: How
Catholics and Jews Built a New
Relationship.
Karen Malone Wright, SOC/BA
’77, owns thenotmom.com, a blog
for and about women who are
childless by choice or by chance.
All of my books strive to teach
values to children, disguised as
fun stories. Once a teacher, always
a teacher.”
—Sherrill Cannon, CAS/BA ’69, a schoolteacher-turnedchildren’s
author on her books, which stress the importance
of good manners
-1973-
TIME
CAPSULES
TOP TUNE
“Tie a Yellow Ribbon ’Round the Ole Oak
Tree,” Tony Orlando and Dawn
TOP-GROSSING FLICK
The Exorcist
IN THE NEWS
President Richard Nixon accepts
responsibility for Watergate on national
TV; the Supreme Court rules on Roe v.
Wade, legalizing abortion; US combat
troops withdraw from Vietnam
FROM THE AU ARCHIVES
Student and part-time Arlington Yellow
Cab driver Alfred Sklarew delivers
a baby boy on the hood of his cab.
Daniel Quinn, CAS/MA ’77,
published organized labor:
collected poems in 2014.
Tom Ryan, SIS/MA ’78,
published Spies, Scouts, and
Secrets in the Gettysburg
Campaign.
Sean Farrell Moran, CAS/BA ’79,
CAS/MA ’84, CAS/PhD ’89, was
appointed director of the master’s
in liberal studies program at
Oakland University.
Julie Mackall Earthman, CAS/
MA ’79, lives in Blacksburg,
Virginia, with her husband Glen,
professor emeritus, Virginia
Tech. Pocahontas Press recently
published Stumblebumkin, her
collection of folk tale adaptations
set in Appalachia.
AMERICAN.EDU/ALUMNI 35

DEBORAH FIGART, CAS/PHD ’86
+ ELLEN MUTARI, CAS/PHD ’95
Figart and Mutari are, as they say in poker, all in. The research partners—THE STOCKTON
UNIVERSITY ECONOMICS PROFESSORS penned Just One More Hand: Life in the
Casino Economy in February 2015—also share a full house in Ventnor City, New Jersey, a throw of
the dice from Atlantic City. Like the casino workers featured in their book, Figart and Mutari have
struggled to balance work and family. They’ve BEEN TOGETHER FOR 31 YEARS, but
finding faculty employment in the same city was akin to pulling an inside straight. In 1995, Figart
gave up a tenured job at Eastern Michigan University to join Mutari on the East Coast. Today, both
hold tenured positions at Stockton, a public New Jersey university in nearby Galloway. The couple
had to navigate not only a tough job market, but also societal recalcitrance on LGBT rights. “WE
HAVE GONE THROUGH ‘RELATIONSHIP UPGRADES,’” MUTARI JOKES. They
became domestic partners in 2004, later attained civil union status, and are NOW OFFICIALLY
MARRIED. The couple met in Washington, DC, in the 1980s. Figart earned her doctorate in
economics from AU and Mutari followed suit. “She actually fell in love not just with me, but
with the political economy program at AU,” Figart says. SO DO THEY ARGUE ABOUT
ECONOMICS AT THE DINNER TABLE? “There isn’t a firm line between work life and
home, and we work an awful lot,” Mutari says. “But the biggest disagreement that we’ve had in our
household was in 2008 with Barack Obama versus Hillary Clinton.” Either way, THE HOUSE
ALWAYS WINS.
1980s
Bruce Plaxen, WCL/JD ’82, has
been certified as a member of the
Million Dollar Advocates Forum,
a prestigious group of US trial
lawyers.
Barry Schaevitz, CAS/BA
’82, joined Fox Rothschild as a
partner in its New York office.
Gregory Enns, SOC/MA ’83,
is the father of two American
University/Washington College
of Law students. Daughter Lucie
is a third-year student and son
Nick is a first-year student.
Howard Lockie, Kogod/BS ’83, is
featured in Joel and Ethan Coen’s
Hail! Ceasar! He also worked on
a GEICO commercial with US
Golf Association player Johnson
Wagner.
Sara Day, CAS/MA ’85, published
Coded Letters, Concealed Love: The
Larger Lives of Harriet Freedman
and Edward Everett Hale (New
Academia Publishing, 2014).
Mark Imgrund, SOC/BA ’86, is
a Los Angeles–based commercial
and digital content film editor. He
is currently editing a project for
Apple.
Robert Taub, SPA/BS ’86,
SPA/MA ’87, was designated
by President Obama as acting
chairman of the US Postal
Regulatory Commission.
Charles Tolbert, CAS/BA ’87,
has been appointed to the Board
of Trustees of Adelphi University
in New York.
Steven Nesmith, SPA/BA ’88,
joined Reed Smith as counsel
in the financial industry,
financial services regulatory, and
government relations group.
PHOTO BY AMANDA STEVENSON LUPKE
36 AMERICAN MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2015

memoriam
MATTHEW SHLONSKY, SIS/BA ’14
The Life in Their
1991-2015
Years
KEVIN SUTHERLAND, SPA/BA ’13
1991-2015
In every photograph that friends, family, classmates, and colleagues produced after the unspeakably
tragic deaths of Kevin Sutherland and, six weeks later, Matthew Shlonsky, the young men beamed. In
remembering two individuals taken far before their time, people who knew them tended to use the same
words: bright, passionate, conscientious. By all accounts, each was that and much more. We remember
Matt and Kevin below, but in a certain way, their smiles in the photos above tell their stories.
Kevin Sutherland was attracted to politics for what it could
accomplish. As student government secretary at AU, the Connecticut
native advocated for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights.
He interned for US representative Jim Himes and loved his adopted
hometown of Washington.
“Whether it was taking photographs of the Lincoln Memorial
or a get-together with friends, he was so invested in documenting
the beauty of life,” said his friend Sarah McBride, SPA/BA ’13. “He
represented the best of AU—that selfless leadership, that selfless heart.”
On July 4, Sutherland, 24, was
“Kevin’s life work was
stabbed to death during a robbery.
The horrific circumstances of his
to fight prejudice of any
death, however, did not stop his
kind . . . and simply to fight loved ones from remembering the
for a more perfect union.” grace with which he lived.
“Kevin’s life work was to fight
—Douglas Sutherland prejudice of any kind, to fight
poverty, to fight for equality, to fight
for justice, to fight for a better environment, and simply to fight for a
more perfect union,” his father, Douglas Sutherland, said at his funeral.
Sutherland worked as a digital political strategist with the firm New
Blue Interactive. He was an avid photographer, drawn to Washington’s
monuments and stately buildings.
“He was incredibly kind,” AU Student Government president
Sasha Gilthorpe, SPA/BA ’17, said in a statement. “He was utterly and
completely devoted to his friends. He used his intelligence and his
talents to be a champion for what he believed in.”
Matthew Shlonsky grew up in a suburb of Cleveland, where
he was captain of his high school hockey team. At AU, he continued
to fling pucks around the ice, but much of his focus was on Latin
America. Fluent in Spanish,
he spent a semester studying “He was interested in
in Chile and graduated with
everything. He was just a
a bachelor’s in international
studies with a concentration in
voracious reader, a fair,
international business relations equal, impartial participant
and a regional concentration in in every walk of life.”
Latin America.
“Matt was just starting out his —Michael Shlonsky
life as a young man and loved,
loved Washington, loved what he was doing,” his father Michael
Shlonsky told the Washington Post. “He was interested in everything.
He was just a voracious reader, a fair, equal, impartial participant in
every walk of life.”
Shlonsky, 23, was heading to meet friends on August 15 in northwest
Washington, when police say he was the victim of a gunshot intended
for someone else.
His death reverberated from his hometown of Lyndhurst, Ohio,
to Capitol Hill, where he once interned for US representative Rob
Portman, to Deloitte Consulting, where he was a business analyst.
Ben Matek, CAS/BS ’12, went to AU with Shlonsky. In the days
following his friend’s death, the stark reality of the loss still hadn’t set in.
“The moment you met him, he would always embrace you with a
hug,” Matek said. “He was one of the most loving people I know.”
To make a donation to AU in Sutherland's and Shlonsky's names, visit american.edu/memorialfunds.
AMERICAN.EDU/ALUMNI 37

SAN FRANCISCO
IS AN AMERICAN
PATCHWORK. From the
eight hairpin turns of Lombard
Street to the sunbathing sea lions
at Fisherman’s Wharf, the City
by the Bay is an eclectic mix of
cultures, cuisine, and topography.
Where else can you ride a
national historic landmark and
see one of the seven wonders of
the modern world in the same
day? (Cable cars and the Golden
Gate Bridge, respectively.)
After its 1776 founding, San
Fran’s first population surge came
with the 1849 Gold Rush, and the
city’s first big businesses were—
fittingly—banks. Today’s San
Francisco, reborn after a 1906
earthquake that destroyed
three-quarters of the city, is
still a financial capital.
Post–World War II, hippies,
immigrants, and returning
soldiers converged on Fog City,
making it a hub for liberal
activism, music, and creativity.
Tech giants like Google, Apple,
and Twitter have since branded
California’s fourth-most populous
city as the epicenter of innovation.
What besides a love of
sourdough bread and cool
summers do San Franciscans
share? The insider’s knowledge
of DC, gained while studying at
AU. Get to know some of our
1,830 Bay Area transplants here.
BRYAN INNES, CAS/BA ’12
DESIGNER, TWITTER
Bryan Innes missed his senior portfolio
review to interview for a job at Twitter.
It was a gamble that paid off.
“There’s a ton of energy here because
people love what they’re working on,”
he says.
Innes, who was hired by the social
networking site in June 2012, helped
redesign Twitter’s real-time search
experience and created an international
alert system. But his current project is
his favorite by far. As a member of the
syndication team, Innes builds tools and
products for Twitter content published on
other websites.
“It doesn’t always feel like I’m doing big
things, until some external factor reminds
me,” he says. “When I go to a conference
or read an article that’s referencing a tool
we’ve already been working with for the
past few months, I realize we’re truly on
the cutting edge.”
Innes’s enthusiasm for Twitter—
which welcomed its 500 millionth user
in May 2015—extends to his adopted
hometown.
“The nature around the city is insane. I
wasn’t an outdoorsy person when I moved
here, but I’ve become this guy who does all
of these things outside.” From the nearby
Redwoods to snowboarding in Lake Tahoe,
Innes spends his weekends exploring Fog
City and its surroundings.
Other favorite haunts include the
Mission District (not far from Twitter’s
headquarters) and Golden Gate Park.
“It blows me away that I can walk down
any street on any day, and there will be
some sort of festival or activity.”
BE THERE AND BE SQUARE
Ever wondered about the genealogy of Godzilla? Nerd Nite
is for you. “Hundreds of people from the Bay Area meet at a
cool bar to drink, eat, and listen to presentations about everything nerdy:
astrophysics, linguistics, virtual reality,” says self-professed geek Trace
Dominguez, SOC/MA ’10, writer and host at Discovery Communications.
FORGET THE PB&J
Gourmet grub is on the menu at Off the Grid Picnic at the Presidio,
held every Sunday afternoon, spring through late fall. Diners can order
from several dozen food carts and enjoy “a beautiful view of the bay
and the Golden Gate Bridge,” says Sarah Papazoglakis, CAS/MA ’12,
a doctoral candidate at the University of California–Santa Cruz.
38 AMERICAN MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2015

where we are
Grace Chung, SIS/BA ’07
MANAGER OF CORPORATE PROGRAMS, YAHOO
As a woman in San Francisco’s tech industry, Grace
Chung is in good company at Yahoo.
“Having a female CEO isn’t just incredible, it’s
celebrated,” says Chung of Yahoo president and CEO
Marissa Mayer. “We celebrate diversity in a way I’ve
never experienced.”
A year after delivering her son in 2013, Mayer made
headlines when she extended Yahoo’s parental leave
policy to 16 weeks of paid leave for mothers (women
comprise 37 percent of the company’s workforce) and 8
weeks for fathers. Yahoo also gives new parents $500 to
spend on child care, housecleaning, or, of course, diapers.
Chung first visited the City by the Bay as a Washingtonbased
consultant in 2013. “I was mesmerized by all the
innovation. DC felt very comfortable to me. But in San
Francisco, I was challenged to think outside the box.” A
year later, Chung packed up her bags and headed west.
After setting her sights on a small startup, she was
surprised to get a call from the Sunnyvale-based tech
giant in January 2014.
With a background in tech consulting and social
enterprise, Chung was tapped to lead Yahoo’s Tech
for Good social impact initiatives and support special
projects. She and her team find ways for Yahoo to
leverage its people, technology, and products for the
greater good through partnerships with organizations
like Girls Who Code, a nonprofit working to close the
gender gap in the tech industry.
“The partnership focuses on making connections
through Tumblr and Flickr APIs, so that young girls
can learn to code with the products they use already,”
Chung says.
Founded in 2012, Girls Who Code has already
provided instruction in robotics, web design, and app
development to nearly 4,000 girls in 29 states. By 2020,
the organization aims to reach 1 million young women.
PHOTOS BY VANCE JACOBS
WORKING LUNCH
Go hungry and go often to Barbacco—John
Morada’s favorite spot for a casual business lunch.
Morada, CAS/BS ’00, cochair of AU’s San Fran
alumni chapter, recommends the braised chicken
thighs with a side of pan-fried Brussels sprouts.
SAN FRAN SUPER MARKET
The best shopping in the city is at Union Square, according to Liza
Schillo, manager of product sustainability at Levi Strauss & Co. and a
2007 graduate of the SIS International Environment and Development
certificate program. The 2.6-acre plaza is home to hundreds of stores,
from Anthropologie to Zara—and, of course, Levi’s new flagship store.
BREW CREW
Get your caffeine fix at Blue Bottle, which boasts five
San Fran stores. “It’s the best coffee I’ve ever had—
and in a most iconic location,” Lisa Frenkiel, SPA/BA ’08,
major gifts officer at Golden Gate University, says of the
roaster’s Embarcadero shop, nestled off the eastern waterfront.
AMERICAN.EDU/ALUMNI 39

class notes
Timothy Mathes, CAS/BA
’89, recently completed a PhD
in linguistics at New York
University. His dissertation,
Consonant-tone Interaction in the
Khoisan Language Tsua, is based
on his field research in Botswana
on click languages.
1990s
Matt DeVries, SPA/BA ’93, was
named chair of Burr & Forman’s
construction practice. He is a
partner in the firm’s Nashville
office.
Phil Bishirjian, SOC/BA ’94,
earned his MS in information
systems at Virginia
Commonwealth
University in
2014 and works
at Capital One
in Richmond,
Virginia.
Daniel
Pickelner,
SIS/BA ’94, is
director of legal and
risk management for the
Americas at Wood Mackenzie.
UPDATE
YOUR CONTACT
INFORMATION AT
ALUMNIASSOCIATION.
AMERICAN.EDU/
UPDATEINFO.
Natasha Rankin, SPA/BA ’94,
was named chief operating officer
of the American Counseling
Association in Alexandria,
Virginia.
Bill Reihl, SOC/BA ’94, a global
brand marketing expert, was
promoted to partner at Ketchum.
Aaron Brickman, SIS/BA
’95, left the US Department of
Commerce, where he founded
and led SelectUSA. He is now
As a little boy, my dream was to be an astronaut. Being given
an American flag flown in space makes that little boy grin.”
—Thomas Palermo, SPA/BA ’98, assistant US attorney, Department of Justice, on receiving
a flag flown aboard the space shuttle Endeavour
senior vice president at the
Organization for International
Investment.
Matthew Kreutzer, SPA/
BA ’95, was named to the 2015
“Legal Elite” in Nevada Business
Magazine.
Emilie Cortes, Kogod/BA ’96,
won the 2015 Bend Chamber of
Commerce Entrepreneur of the
Year award for her business, Call
of the Wild Adventures.
James Curtis, CAS/BA
’96, was recognized
for 10,000 volunteer
hours at the
Shepherd Center
in Atlanta.
He began
volunteering at
Shepherd through
the service program at
Pace Academy.
Sheri Bancroft, CAS/MFA
’97, was appointed to the board
of directors of the National
Association of Equipment
Leasing Brokers. She was also
named associate editor of Leasing
Logic.
Thomas Palermo, SPA/BA
’98, received an American flag
flown in space aboard the space
shuttle Endeavour in 2001,
from the US Department of
Defense’s Inspector General and
Army Criminal Investigation
Command; an American flag
flown over the US Embassy in
Kabul, Afghanistan, on July
4, 2011; and a plaque from the
National Science Foundation’s
Office of the Inspector General.
2000s
Kerwin Speight, SOC/BA
’02, was promoted to manager
of community affairs at NBC
Washington/WRC-TV.
Brian Levin, SOC/MA ’04,
premiered his film, A Flock of
-2000-
TIME
CAPSULES
TOP TUNE
“Breathe,” Faith Hill
TOP-GROSSING FLICK
Mission: Impossible II
IN THE NEWS
Cuban boy Elián González is reunited
with his father after an international
dispute; “hanging chad” enters the
American lexicon; America Online buys
Time Warner for $165 billion
FROM THE AU ARCHIVES
Two Eagles face off against other DC
students during Wheel of Fortune’s
college week. Sophomore John Campbell
wins $8,870 and a water sports package.
Dudes, at the Los Angeles Film
Festival on June 13, 2015.
Junaid Bashir, SPA/BA ’05,
married Shayan Malik in their
hometown of Sialkot, Pakistan, on
April 11, 2015.
James Douglass, CAS/BA ’05,
represents four generations
of real estate and property
management in Washington, DC.
Molly Talevi, SOC/BA ’05, wrote
a children’s book, Hammy and
Murph’s First Sleepover. She
lives in southern Maine with her
husband and two children.
Jamie Hoag, SIS/MA ’06, WCL/
JD ’07, was named director of
government and community
relations at the College of the
Holy Cross.
Andrea Walker, Kogod/MBA
’06, launched SimpleGenie.com
in January. Products have been
featured on zuilily.com and gilt.
com.
Alina Zhukovskaya, SOC/MA
’06, is a chef and health coach.
Her first food detox, DLrevAMP.
com, was named one of the best
diets for 2015 by Harper’s Bazaar
magazine.
Melinda Wise, SOC/BA ’09, won
an Emmy Award on June 27, 2015,
for Unlocking Invisible Fences,
which explores sex trafficking
in Maryland. She is a financial
advisor at Merrill Lynch.
CONNECT
alumniassociation.
american.edu
FOLLOW
Twitter.com/
AmericanUAlum
LIKE
Facebook.com/
AmericanUAlum
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Flickr.com/photos/
AmericanUAlum
40 AMERICAN MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2015

2010s
Viachaslau Bortnik, SPA/MPA
’10, was appointed as a chair of
the Eurasia Coordination Group
at Amnesty International USA.
Richard Cytowic, CAS/MFA
’11, has a 7,000-word feature in
The American Interest on digital
distractions. It is titled “Your
Brain on Screens.”
Callan Quiram, SIS/BA ’11,
accepted a position as an early
education coordinator with
Denver Public Schools.
Emily Roseman, SOC/BA ’12,
and Ty Tillett, SPA/BA ’12, were
married on June 27, 2015, in New
York City. They met freshman
year at AU during the Washington
Mentorship Program in 2008.
Roseman is a producer with the
Associated Press in DC and Tillett
is a consultant in the Federal
Strategy and Operations Practice
at Deloitte in Arlington, Virginia.
Julia Von Heeringen, CAS/BA
’14, received the Naval Health
Professions Scholarship for her
doctoral studies in psychology.
IN MEMORIAM
Howard Bender, philanthropist,
September 28, 2015, Bethesda, Maryland
Julian Bond, SPA professor,
August 15, 2015, Fort Walton Beach, Florida
Milton Greenberg, former provost,
August 27, 2015, Washington, DC
Matthew Shlonsky, SIS/BA ’14,
August 15, 2015, Washington, DC
Kevin Sutherland, SPA/BA ’13,
July 4, 2015, Washington, DC
Ronald Tonkin, CAS/BA ’63,
May 1, 2015, Somerville, New Jersey
Carl Wagenfuehrer, SPA/BA ’69,
June 7, 2015, Lanham, Maryland
Alvin Warner, Kogod/BS ’61,
June 24, 2015, Columbia, Maryland
CYNTHIA DOUMBIA, SOC/MA ’04 +
KYLE GARBER, CAS/BA ’11
+ SYDNEY RHODES, CAS/MA ’14 +
MAGGIE STOGNER, SOC PROFESSOR
“That belongs in a museum,” Indiana Jones barks from a screen inside the NATIONAL
GEOGRAPHIC BUILDING in downtown DC. “So do you,” a villain in a Panama hat retorts,
clutching the “Cross of Coronado”—a golden artifact concocted for the silver screen. Around
the corner, in an exhibit called INDIANA JONES AND THE ADVENTURE OF
ARCHAEOLOGY, each man gets his wish. Rhodes hopes kids using the activity guide she created
will leave with some knowledge about the BYZANTINE EMPIRE that inspired the design of
the cross. Although a dad at the exhibit might be RELIVING HIS CHILDHOOD FANTASY of
adventuring alongside the fedora-wearing Dr. Jones, “his six-year-old daughter probably isn’t as into
it,” says Rhodes, who was drawn to AU by its public history emphasis. Her guide focuses on the real
artifacts, displayed in black cases, and “Fact or Fiction” pieces, like the cross, marked by red frames.
White cases hold PROPS OF CINEMATIC—NOT SCIENTIFIC—VALUE. In the month
before an exhibit opens, Garber helps the museum staff build tours around what compels them most.
“When a guide seems really interested, the visitor will be interested,” Garber says. Students and
alumni often contribute to projects for Stogner’s company, Blue Bear Films. This was true for videos
created for this exhibit that explain the NAZCA LINES, MAYAN HIEROGLYPHS, AND
OTHER KEY DISCOVERIES. Stogner’s videos ask what modern explorers ask: “Who are these
people? What was their history? Not just, ‘Wow, look at the gold.’” On January 4, 2016, the trove
will be packed into custom-fitted crates WORTHY OF A SPIELBERG SET. Doumbia, who
interned at National Geographic while at AU and now manages the museum’s traveling exhibits, will
coordinate with the exhibition’s creators to get it safely to another museum, right where it belongs.
AMERICAN.EDU/ALUMNI 41

vision + planning = legacy
GEORGE COLLINS, KOGOD/MBA ’70, AND MAUREEN COLLINS
A graduate business degree—earned while working fulltime—
helped rocket George Collins’s career in asset management to
new heights, culminating in a 13-year tenure as chair, president,
and CEO of T. Rowe Price, one of the nation’s largest investment
companies. Under his stewardship, the Baltimore-based firm’s
assets increased from $17 billion to $80 billion and the number
of funds tripled from 23 to 68.
George received his undergraduate degree from Virginia
Military Institute and served as a captain in the US Air Force
before moving with his wife Maureen and their children
to Silver Spring, Maryland, where he enrolled in evening
classes at AU. The business faculty made a lasting impression
on George: “They were experts committed to working and
teaching, who brought companies, strategies, and issues to life
in the classroom.”
An AU trustee from 1986 to 2005, George was elected vice
chair of the board in 1997 (the same year he retired from T. Rowe
Price to sail around the world in an international yachting race)
and chair in 2001. In 2007, the Collinses established the George
and Maureen Collins Chair in Strategy and Consulting, currently
held by Kogod professor Parthiban David, who teaches corporate
governance and strategic management. The couple has also
chosen to provide for AU’s future by naming the university a
charitable beneficiary of George’s retirement account.
George and Maureen split their time between the Miami area
and Guilford, Connecticut. Though yachting and traveling keep
him busy, George still makes time for his alma mater. Earlier this
fall, he spoke as part of Kogod’s Visiting Executive Series, telling
students that “AU is the perfect platform to launch your career in
business.” George’s remarkable résumé is certainly proof of that.
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.
PHOTO BY JO SITTENFELD
42 AMERICAN MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2015

top picks
3
Like any book lover, Amy Stolls,
CAS/MFA ’00, has a well-worn
collection of dog-eared
paperbacks, but some of the
most treasured volumes on her
bookshelf represent a genre best
described as “picture books for
adults.” These hybrids of words,
image, and design—too beautiful
to dog-ear—invite appreciation as
works of true artistry.
Stolls is the author of Palms to
the Ground (2005), winner of the
Parents’ Choice Gold Award, and
The Ninth Wife (2011). A former
journalist, she pursued her MFA
in creative writing to satisfy a
longstanding desire to
study the craft of fiction.
Today, as the literature director
for the National Endowment of
the Arts, Stolls counts herself
lucky to go to work each day to
discuss books, meet authors, and
encourage reading.
“I believe in the power of
art to enlighten us, enrich
our lives, and heal us,” says Stolls
(pictured at Politics and Prose
in DC). “Being the person to
encourage folks to read and help
them discover the joy of new
books, that’s exciting to me.”
STOLLS’S FAVORITE PICTURE
BOOKS FOR ADULTS:
1. RADIOACTIVE–MARIE & PIERRE CURIE:
A TALE OF LOVE AND FALLOUT (2010)
Lauren Redniss’s sumptuous, fascinating
biography in collage has its own unique font
and—as a brilliant reflection of its subject
matter—glows in the dark.
2. THE PRINCIPLES OF UNCERTAINTY
(2009)
A compilation of Maira Kalman’s New York
Times columns, this pictorial monologue
uses text, paintings, and photography to
take us through a year in a life. It’s funny,
poignant, whimsical, contemplative.
3. BUILDING STORIES (2012)
Less a book than a gorgeously designed box
of treasures, this groundbreaking, profound
portrait of intimate lives by Chris Ware, one
of America’s top cartoonists, will make you
rethink the limits of storytelling.
4. MOBY-DICK IN PICTURES: ONE
DRAWING FOR EVERY PAGE (2011)
Matt Kish’s deliciously monstrous book is a
collection of artwork inspired by lines from
Melville’s classic. It’s a fascinating, modern
companion to the novel.
5. WATERLIFE (2012)
Smell this book! Its intoxicating pages are
silk-screened by hand on handmade paper
and hand-numbered to indicate the limited
print run. Created by Rambharos Jha, it is a
true object of art—Mithila art, to be exact.
6. THE CONFERENCE OF THE BIRDS
(2011)
Peter Sis is a brilliant illustrator, author,
and filmmaker born in the former
Czechoslovakia. In this gorgeous adaptation
of a twelfth-century epic Persian poem, even
the paper feels heavenly.
7. THE ARRIVAL (2007)
Shaun Tan is an Australian writer, artist,
and filmmaker. This is a stunning wordless
narrative, a moving immigrant’s story mixed
with a bit of fantasy.
8. BALLAD (2013)
This French import by Blexbolex blends
vintage graphic design with traditional
printing techniques to tell a wholly original
fairytale. Using nontraditional elements
such as repetition and upside-down
pictures, it evolves more than it flows.
1
4
7
9. ANIMALIUM (2014)
This spectacular, oversized book by
Jenny Broom (author) and Katie Scott
(illustrator) is designed as its own natural
history museum. The first chapter is the
“entrance” and the others—galleries of
different species—are “rooms” you want
to keep revisiting.
5
2
8
6
10
10. MIGRANT: THE JOURNEY OF A
MEXICAN WORKER (2014)
This tender, bilingual immigration narrative
by José Manuel Mateo and Javier Martínez
Pedro has a masterful, intricate blackand-white
drawing that unfolds vertically,
accordion-style.
FOLLOW US on Twitter @AU_AmericanMag and tell us your favorite fall read.
Ten lucky tweeters will win a book from Stolls’s list.
9
AMERICAN.EDU/ALUMNI 43

giving
Courtney Surls is a lifelong singer who graduated from Iowa
State with a music degree and worked as a teacher before getting
into development. And in Surls, AU might have found its perfect
pitchwoman. After holding positions at Loyola Marymount
University (where she also earned a master’s in educational
administration), the University of Southern California, and most
recently, the Newseum in Washington, DC, she was tapped to become
AU’s new vice president for development and alumni relations. A few
days before officially beginning her new “dream job,” she sat down
with American to discuss her career and her aspirations for AU.
“WE WANT TO
CONTINUE
TO BUILD A
COMMUNITY OF
PEOPLE WHO
CARE ABOUT
NOT ONLY THIS
UNIVERSITY, BUT
ALSO THE ISSUES
IT ADDRESSES.”
Q. Why did you want to get back into the world of higher ed?
I believe very deeply in the merits of higher education. Not only is it
training the next generation of leaders, peacemakers, and problem
solvers, but universities are engines for innovation, laboratories for
new ways of thinking and working together.
Q. What was it about AU specifically that excited you?
American University students, faculty, and alumni have a very
distinctive mission in a very distinctive city. AU’s commitment to
service-minded leaders, its long history of turning ideas into action,
its continuing push to connect scholarship and real-world issues
at home and abroad make it stand out from its peers.
Q. What are your primary goals?
We want to continue to build a community of people who care about not
only this university, but also the issues it addresses. I believe strongly
that there are people in the community who are going to see the work
that’s being done here and are going to want to invest in it because it’s
making the world a better place.
I also think there’s a tremendous capacity for more leadership
gifts. I really want to do everything we can to expand that, because
those kinds of gifts are transformative. They tend to fuel specific
ideas in specific areas where the university can lead and where an
issue can be advanced.
Q. What excites you about development?
When it comes to gift giving, very rarely is there a single, phenomenal
fund-raiser who brings in a gift on their own. It’s really a team effort in
bringing people together, and that piece is very satisfying for me. You
can’t be in fund-raising and not love the excitement of closing gifts.
44 AMERICAN MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2015

thank you
More than two decades separate Martin Steiner and
Mycal Ford’s tenures at American University’s School of International
Service. But Steiner, SIS/MA ’92, and Ford, a master’s student in global
governance, politics, and security—and the inaugural recipient of the
newly endowed Martin H. Steiner Scholarship—have much in common: a
shared intellectual curiosity, a love of languages, and a spirit of service
that led them around the globe.
The late Steiner (above) was a longtime consular officer who joined
the State Department in 1991, holding posts in Mexico City, Havana, Taipei,
Vienna, Ciudad Juarez, and Washington. He took Mandarin language
training in Taiwan before serving two years in Guangzhou, China.
Ford, who has set his sights on a diplomatic career, taught English in
Taiwan for a year on a Fulbright scholarship. With bachelor’s degrees in
political science and Chinese studies from Pacific Lutheran University, Ford
has published grant-funded research on the social construction of race in
China. His current research—which the Steiner Scholarship will help to
advance—focuses on the relationship between China and North Korea.
“Because of the scholarship, I’ve been able to achieve my goals,
pursue my dreams,” Ford says. “As a first-generation college student,
someone from a lower-middle-class background, this has fundamentally
altered my life. I feel a profound sense of gratitude.”
The Steiner scholarship was established by Martin’s sister, Erika.
“Martin made friends at AU with whom he kept in touch until his passing,
and he felt that his studies at SIS prepared him well for the career
ahead.” American University is grateful for Erika Steiner’s generosity and
for the scholarship that bears Martin’s name—an award that will enable
other SIS students to pursue meaningful, successful careers in the US
Foreign Service. Steiner’s memory, his scholarly achievements, and his
service will live on in Ford—and in all future recipients of the Martin H.
Steiner Scholarship.
FOR INFORMATION ON ESTABLISHING SCHOLARSHIPS AT AU, CONTACT LEE HOLSOPPLE
AT 202-885-3409 OR LEE.HOLSOPPLE@AMERICAN.EDU.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY BRUCE MORSER
AMERICAN.EDU/ALUMNI 45

feedback
Q. WHAT’S THE RECORD
FOR SNOW DAYS AT AU?
A. Most AU students weren’t even
snowflakes in their parents’ eyes when
winter weather caused the university
to close for a record six days in 1979.
“Snowmageddon” in 2010 still holds the
high-water mark for forcing the most
consecutive days—four of them—of
shuttered doors. The only other time
AU closed for that long was in January
1999, when the lights were out for five
consecutive days due to a combination
of cold temperatures, ice storms, and
power outages. Other significant snows
fell in 1942, 1966, 1983, 1987, 2003,
and 1958, when the Eagle reported
snowdrifts up to five feet on campus,
five-degree temperatures, and winds
of 50 miles per hour.
EMAIL QUESTIONS for AU
history wonk Susan McElrath
to magazine@american.edu.
I read Adrienne Frank’s letter in the July
issue of American magazine and was
amazed by the parallels. I too went to DC
in 1995 as a junior (well, almost—summer
between) in high school for a leadership
conference (National Young Leaders
Conference). I also went to the National
Press Club (saw Tony Snow), watched a
performance by the Capitol Steps, and
did the twilight tour. Coincidentally,
I actually stayed in the dorms at AU
during this conference. In January
2001, I returned to DC to intern for my
hometown congressman and was hired
on permanently. My wife (then girlfriend)
and I moved to DC following graduation in
the summer of 2001 and spent five years
living and working in the nation’s capital. I
share [Frank’s] fondness for this great city
and loved the closing about her son and
the view of the Mall. We never tired of that
amazing sight and often marveled about
how lucky we were to live there.
In 2006, we returned to our native
California (in part to be closer to the Los
Angeles Kings—I was there for the 2012
Stanley Cup—clinching Game 6) to start
our family and be closer to our families.
I still work in politics (now local) and was
fortunate to be back in DC three times this
past spring. Last summer, we took our then
almost four-year-old daughter back east
for a wedding and an “age-appropriate”
tour of the city. We smiled often as she
reacted to the larger-than-life memorials
and monuments. Our son is two and we
have a baby girl due in November. I know
we will be back often over the years to take
in the shining city on the hill.
Thank you for sharing your story and
bringing back such fond memories for me.
Dustin Steiner, SPA/MPP ’04
San Diego, California
There is so much to the July issue that is
impressive, fun, and informative that I had
to take pen to paper—obviously, in a
more modern format—to congratulate you.
The optics drew me in (wonderful
pictures and illustrations) and the
articles themselves are geared to a broad
audience, from “History Inc.” to “3 Minutes
On . . . Legalized Marijuana” and “Hard
Time.” I also love the shoes!
If this is a harbinger to the future, I look
forward to the next issue.
Patricia Aiken O’Neill, WCL/JD ’80
Chevy Chase, Maryland
Your article in the July issue of American
magazine requested contributions from
people who have “scored for AU athletics.” I
was a member of the AU varsity swim team
from 1963 to 1966. During my freshman
through junior years, I swam for Coach Bob
Frailey and swam for Coach Joe Rogers
during my senior year. That year, we placed
seventh in the college division of the NCAA
championships. Those earning All-American
status were Ray Crowe, for placing first and
setting a scoring record that still stands
today; Dave Piersall; Bill Suk; Bronly Boyd;
Tim Miller; and myself.
We had a wonderful team and coaches.
I have great memories of those years.
Ben Van Dyk, CAS/BA ’66
Marstons Mills, Massachusetts
Marijuana containing THC is a low- to
high-level hallucinogen depending on
the THC content. In the 1960s, Isbell et
al. proved that THC has idiosyncratic
psychotomimetic effects in normal
human subjects. In the July 2015 issue of
American, Skyler McKinley, SPA-SOC/BA
’14, contends that the “regulated” use of
marijuana constitutes an “enlightened”
policy. Why would thinking individuals put
themselves or others at risk in this way?
Research published in 2014 shows brain
anomalies and brain shrinkage in casual
users. Longitudinal studies show that 1
in 6 young users and 1 in 10 adult users
become addicted. Marijuana use affects the
brain in utero and the developing central
nervous system and brain through the
late twenties, if not into the fifties. There
is no way to magically “regulate away”
the proven harmful mental, psychological,
and physical effects of marijuana use
or exposure to its use. Idiosyncratic
psychotomimetic effects cannot be
“willed” away. (For scientific references,
see GordonDrugAbusePrevention.com.)
The legalization of marijuana is
unconstitutional since it is in violation
of the Federal Controlled Substances
Act. Legalization amounts as well to an
abrogation of international treaties to
which the United States is a signatory.
Litigation currently underway involving the
Colorado law may well stop legalization in
its tracks.
Paula Gordon, SPA/PhD ’76
Washington, DC
46 AMERICAN MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2015

memories
DID YOU
grace the stage or
paint the set?
Email magazine@
american.edu.
1941
Stage Door became the first AU production to break
into the black. The play, which follows several would-be
actresses who live together in a Big Apple boarding house,
generated a net profit of $76.51 (the theatre department
shelled out $14.91 in federal taxes and $60 in royalties).
According to the Eagle, previous fall productions saw an
average loss of $75.
1954
The amphitheatre—home to outdoor Shakespeare
productions that were held every spring since the 1920s—
was dedicated to George Woods and Mary Brown, former
deans of the College of Arts and Sciences. To celebrate the
grassy knoll’s new name, which remains today, student
actors presented scenes from four Shakespearean plays,
including Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet.
1956
AU launched a bachelor’s degree in performance, training
students for careers as stage actors, radio announcers,
and TV producers. After completing required classes
in voice and dictation, public speaking, and beginning
acting, students tailored their coursework to their
preferred medium.
1965
Eagle critic Thomas Shales panned AU’s production of
the Garson Kanin comedy, Born Yesterday, declaring it
“dated, dreary, and disappointing.” Wrote Shales: “Born
Yesterday may be just the thing for the Ladies’ Aid, but it
has as much place in the AU Theatre as a popcorn stand.
There’s just too much talent running around over there
to waste time on trite trifles like this one.” Speaking of
talent, Shales took his to the Washington Post, where
he served as TV critic for nearly four decades, winning
a Pulitzer Prize in 1988.
2004
Professor Caleen Sinnette Jennings set the Bard to
beats in Hip-Hop Much Ado About Nothing, a modern
spin on the Shakespearean comedy—complete with
breakdancing. Rapping in iambic pentameter was
no easy task for the fresh (faced) cast of 22, more
than half of whom made their theatrical debut in the
spring production. “There is not that big a leap from
Shakespeare to the kind of rhymes out there today,”
Jennings told the Eagle. “It is poetry, it is social
commentary, it is youthful, it is energetic.”
AMERICAN.EDU/ALUMNI 47

must haves
8
3
7
11
1
5
10
6
9
12
2
4
*master’s student, audio technology, College of Arts and Sciences
1. Almost everything requires a cable—
they are a real pain for a sound
engineer. I hang them to keep them
from getting tangled.
2. The Arturia KeyLab25 is a compact
keyboard MIDI controller—and one of
my favorite music production tools.
3. I brought five bottles of cologne with
me from Dubai. Terre d’Hermès is a
current favorite.
4. I’m a tea fan: green, black, almost
every kind.
5. Akai Professional APC20 is a MIDI
controller for Ableton Live, a software
to create music. The APC20 is the link
between the human and the computer.
6. I use a mix of technology in the
classroom (the Apple Watch is my new
toy), but pen and paper are still useful
for note taking. I’m 31 years old—I’m
old school.
7. You always want to record in an
acoustic-treated room. The AU studio
has the best mics, but I use my
AKG-c3000 microphone at home to
record samples and guitars.
8. The M-Audio ProFire 610 FireWire audio
interface turns my laptop into a little
recording studio. It allows me to use
my condenser microphone anywhere
I can find electricity.
9. I use my iPad as a wireless, touchscreen
media controller—for either
music production or DJing.
10. I listen to music with my Sony
headphones. As a sound engineer, you
have to accept every kind of genre,
but I’m especially fond of deep house,
tech house, and techno.
11. When I was in my country, Iran, five
years ago, I used Windows because
access to Macs was limited. But
Macs are the industry standard—
they crash less.
12. The Traktor Kontrol Z1 is a compact,
all-in-one controller that works
with Traktor software for DJing. I
worked as a DJ for 10 years; now it’s
just a hobby.
48 AMERICAN MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2015

ALUMNIASSOCIATION.AMERICAN.EDU/AFFINITY
American University boasts 15 affinity groups—networks that celebrate and
support identity, industry, leisure, and student activities and experience.
Alumni affinity communities include:
Black Alumni Alliance
Eagles Nest
faculty and staff alumni
Entertainment and
Media Alumni Alliance
Honors Alumni Network
Latino Alumni Alliance
Legacy Alumni Network
Pride Alumni Alliance
Veterans Network
Women’s Network

NON-PROFIT ORG
US POSTAGE PAID
BURLINGTON, VT 05401
WASHINGTON, DC 20016-8002
Address Service Requested
PERMIT NO. 604
For information regarding the
accreditation and state licensing of
American University, please visit
american.edu/academics.
Market St
Graves St
1 . TAP YOUR APP TO REQUEST A FOUR-DOOR CAR, FANCY
SEDAN, OR BLACK SUV.
2 . REAL-TIME MAP SHOWS VEHICLES—THEY RESEMBLE
ANTS—NAVIGATING THE AREA.
3. ALGORITHM ALERTS CLOSEST DRIVER.
4. DRIVER HAS A MATTER OF SECONDS TO ACCEPT
OR REQUEST IS REROUTED.
5. PICTURE POPS UP OF YOUR ONE-TIME DRIVER AND
HIS OR HER CAR.
6. STARE AT ODDLY RIVETING MAP, TRACKING HOW SOON
DRIVER WILL ARRIVE.
7. IT’S GO TIME.
WHEN A BRAND BECOMES A VERB, you know it’s arrived.
“Should we Uber there?” is quickly replacing “Let’s grab a cab” in America’s
transportation lexicon. As digital marketing program manager of the ride-sharing
app, Alex Priest, Kogod/BSBA ’11, helps ensure that the company keeps its foot
on the gas. Priest is responsible for managing and growing Uber’s social
marketing and email teams on a global level—no small task for a company
with more than 4,000 employees that offers its service in 300-plus cities in 58
countries on six continents.
Like so many revolutionary inventions, the idea at Uber’s core is relatively
simple. Anyone with a nice enough car (standards vary by city) and a clean
record (behind the wheel and otherwise) can become a driver. When someone
wants a ride, the app connects him or her with a nearby driver, and Uber takes
a cut of the fare.
Wall Street is very bullish on that cut. In July—a month after the company’s
one millionth driver-partner Ubered his first customer around Sacramento—the
company was valued at more than $50 billion.
Salle Ave
Pham Rd
8. FARE IS CALCULATED BASED ON DISTANCE AND TIME
(IT’S BROKEN DOWN IN A POST-TRIP EMAIL).
9. VOILA! YOU’RE THERE.
10. DON’T BOTHER REACHING FOR YOUR WALLET—CREDIT
CARD ON FILE IS BILLED. NO TIPPING REQUIRED.
Travis St
Garret Pl
Ryan Ave
Yoo St
Kalanick Rd
Get your brains in gear and enter to win a $50 Visa gift card
to spend wherever Uber goes—which is almost everywhere.
Email answer to magazine@american.edu or tweet us at @AU_AmericanMag
by December 15.
Uber drivers have logged roughly 1.5 billion miles in the last five years.
That’s 266,146 round trips from Washington, DC, to the company’s San
Francisco headquarters. Assuming your driver is a stickler for the 75 mph
speed limit and wants to stop for an hour-long lunch and eight hours of
sleep each day, how many days would it take you to Uber the 2,818 miles
from the Lincoln Memorial to the Golden Gate Bridge?
Thuan Rd