American Magazine: November 2015

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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
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