American Magazine: November 2016

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The AU bookstore has gone bookless. Starting this fall, all course materials—including textbooks— are only available online at ShopAmericanU.com. Students can purchase new, used, or digital textbooks, or rent books for a semester, saving up to 80 percent. Books are delivered to the campus store in the Mary Graydon Center for pick-up. AU is among the first universities to move from a brick-and-mortar model to an entirely e-storefront. “We believe this is the future of the campus store,” says Charles Smith, director of Auxiliary Services. “And AU is one of the universities leading the charge.” The store’s upper level remains packed with spirit wear and school supplies, while the lower level—once home to textbooks—will be used for the new University Club and student event space. Students will save up to $1,000 on transit this year with the new University Pass (U-Pass), a first-of-its-kind collaboration between AU and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA). For a flat fee of $130 per semester—or about $1 per day— undergrads, grad students, and law students can enjoy unlimited rides on Metrorail and Metrobus through May 2017. Students voted to adopt the U-Pass in spring 2016. AU is the only area school to partner with WMATA for the pilot program. More than 200 colleges and universities in Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles have teamed up with 20 transit systems nationwide to offer their students similar programs. “We structured the program similar to other models across the country,” says Tracey Foster, WMATA director of customer service, sales, and fare media. “We hope students will use Metro to take advantage of all that the city has to offer.” SENATORIAL SELFIES On the heels of a heated Congressional hearing with Wells Fargo executives in late September, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) visited AU to discuss pressures on the middle class. A former professor, Warren challenged students to join movements for change and reach out to their representatives. She didn’t leave until every student who wanted a picture with her got one. RISING FROM THE RANKS AU landed at No. 74 on U.S. News and World Report’s 2017 list of top national universities, released in September. AU has jumped 25 spots, from No. 99, in the past 13 years. The Washington College of Law checked in at No. 78 among US law schools. 6 AMERICAN MAGAZINE NOVEMBER 2016
news FIRST LADIES PHOTO: ALEX WONG/GETTY IMAGES AIRLIE HOUSE PHOTO: WOLFRAM BURNER Since Martha Washington first knit socks for Revolutionary War soldiers, America’s first ladies have always supported military troops and their families. First Lady Michelle Obama and former First Lady Laura Bush discussed their work on behalf of US service members, veterans, and their families during a September conference at the National Archives, cosponsored by AU. “America’s First Ladies: In Service to Our Nation,” part of AU’s Legacies of America’s First Ladies Initiative, was moderated by ABC News journalist Bob Woodruff, who suffered a serious head injury 10 years ago while embedded with troops in Iraq. “I love shining a spotlight on first ladies and their work. They have been engaged in very meaningful things and had to balance a public life with a private life,” says conference chair Anita McBride, executive in residence at the School of Public Affairs. “The panel [showed] the continuity and the thread that binds all of them together. They feel the responsibility and the challenge to do right by the men and women who serve.” Obama reflected on the “sobering experience” of visiting wounded patients at military hospitals. “That’s something that a commander in chief thinks about before they pop off about going to war, because when you’ve spent time on a base and you know these men and women and you know their families you don’t just talk about war like there are no implications.” The historic Airlie Center— a meeting and conference destination in Warrenton, Virginia, dubbed “an island of thought” by LIFE magazine— has been gifted to AU by the Airlie board of directors. Nestled 50 miles west of DC, the 300-acre property includes the Airlie house and a village of guest rooms and meeting facilities. For more than 50 years, global leaders, heads of state, diplomats, Bush, whose time at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue spanned the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, said the troops were always on her mind. “You worry in the White House when you know that there are troops in harm’s way, and you think about them every single night,” she said. “And there, where you’re in the lap of luxury, really—beautiful house where your sheets are changed every single day—you think when you get in bed about our troops laying out on the ground somewhere.” and activists have convened at Airlie for conferences and programs dedicated to social progress, education, public health, and environmental research. The facility hosted the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s first annual conference in 1962 and was the place where, in 1969, Senator Gaylord Nelson made public his concept of Earth Day. In recent years, Airlie has focused on becoming a destination for personal travel. “The university is honored to have been selected for this wonderful gift,” President Neil Kerwin says. “It is our intent to carry on the very impressive and important legacy of Airlie, while leveraging this marvelous facility for American University’s academic initiatives.” NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH KEEPING IT CLASSY More than half of black and Latino residents in the DC area’s most diverse neighborhoods fear that they or their loved ones will be arrested or questioned by the police, according to a new study by SPA’s Metropolitan Policy Center. The first-of-its-kind survey of 1,200 households “provides a detailed snapshot of the social realities and inequalities that exist within the region,” says center director Derek Hyra. AU is No. 16 on classy.org’s list of most innovative social entrepreneurship programs. Classy, an online fundraising platform for social impact organizations, praised Kogod’s certificate in entrepreneurship and SIS’s master’s in social enterprise. AU is the top DC school on the list. FOLLOW US @AU_AMERICANMAG 7
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