Pint-sized pop diva
shapes D.C. arts scene
p. 18
knickknacks
that inspire
p. 22
NFL retiree scores
Under Armour gig
p. 32
university magazine November 2013
Six new Americans
share stories
of citizenship
p. 26
An AU insider’s
perspective on next page
Six months into her job as White House press
assistant—the third post she’s held at 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue—Hannah Hankins still has to pinch
herself. “This is why I came to AU: a school with a
Previous page: Official White House Photo
tradition of public service, just miles from the seats of
power,” says the native Minnesotan, one of five AU alumni
in the communications office.
Though the hours are long (14-hour shifts aren’t unusual)
and the work is demanding (army-crawling on the ground
to wrangle photojournalists while President Barack Obama
delivers a speech is also surprisingly common), she thrives
on the 0-to-60 pace.
Hankins, who interned at the White House her
senior year, taking 8:40 p.m. classes to finish her public
communications degree, also relishes being a witness
to history. “There are moments every week when I
think, I can’t believe I’m here to see this.”
18
22
Meet CAS alumna
Alice Denney, doyenne
of D.C. art
26
Professors share
objects that arouse
their intellectual
curiosity
32
Six who decided
permanent residency
wasn’t enough
Ryan Kuehl, Kogod ’07,
goes from locker room
to boardroom
AmericaN
American University magazine
Vol. 64, No. 2
Vice President,
Communications
Teresa Flannery
Assistant Vice President,
creative services
Kevin Grasty
Senior Editor
Adrienne Frank, SPA/MS ’08
Associate Editors
Suzanne Bechamps
Mariel Davis
Ali Kahn
Writers
Mariel Davis
Lee Fleming
Adrienne Frank
Ali Kahn
Mike Unger
Art Director
Maria Jackson
Hannah Hankins,
SOC/BA ’11
work study
Tiffany Wong, SOC/BA ’14
Photographer
Jeffrey Watts
Class Notes
Traci Crockett
American is published three
times a year by American
University. With a circulation
of 118,000, American is sent
to alumni and other members
of the university community.
Copyright©2013.
An equal opportunity,
affirmative action university.
UP 14-002
For information regarding the
accreditation and state licensing
of American University, please
visit american.edu/academics.
1
POV
16Metrocentered
4
4400 Mass Ave
34 Your American
Connect, engage, reminisce
Ideas, people, perspectives
Frankly Speaking
I always knew I wanted to work in magazines.
At the tender age of eight, I “published” my first
magazine, Frankly Speaking. The kelly green cover
featured a hand-drawn T.rex with the headline, “All
about dinosaurs.” I was a one-girl shop, serving as
writer, editor, illustrator, and marketing exec, hawking
subscriptions to my grandma, parents, and friends.
I spent hours at the kitchen table tapping away on my
mom’s old typewriter, penning missives about family
trips to Disneyland, my new baby brother, and Beverly
Cleary’s latest book. I relished the smell of pages hot off
the Xerox machine, collating and stapling each issue
with great care and pride. My Little Ponies and Care
Bears were fine. But this? This was fun.
Years later, it’s still fun. Working on American
magazine is the greatest and most enjoyable creative
challenge I’ve ever known. One of the best parts of the
job (besides the fact that I now leave illustrations to the
professionals) is meeting engaging alumni who invite
us, as writers, editors, designers, and photographers,
and you, the reader, into their world. It’s a thrill and a
privilege to share their stories.
This issue, you’ll meet Dullah Hassan, one of six new
Americans writer Mike Unger profiles in our cover
story. The freshman, who’s currently pursuing U.S.
citizenship, didn’t receive a formal education until he
was 11—seven years after his family fled Taliban-ruled
Afghanistan. Dullah’s story is heart wrenching and
inspiring; he truly represents the best of AU.
We take you inside the White House briefing room,
where alumna Hannah Hankins’s job is the envy of
political wonks across D.C., and to Under Armour’s
sprawling Baltimore campus, where alumnus and
former NFL player Ryan Kuehl shares a sneak peek at
the athletic apparel you’ll be sporting next year. We also
introduce you to nine fascinating professors, who detail
the objects that inspire and guide their research, from
social impact gaming to agricultural biodiversity.
While there are no stories about dinosaurs, I hope
you enjoy reading this issue as much as we’ve enjoyed
creating it.
Adrienne Frank
Senior editor
Send story ideas to afrank@american.edu.
syllabus
GOVERNMENT 326
History of the Conservative
Movement: 1945–Present
What are conservatives—Reagan,
Ryan, Cheney, and Cruz—trying
to conserve?
That’s the question Christopher
Malagisi, SPA/BA ’03, poses to
budding political scientists in his
popular course that examines
the philosophical and political
underpinnings of the conservative
movement, which rose to
prominence after World War II.
“It’s no mystery that most AU
students lean left,” says Malagisi,
president and founder of the Young
Conservatives Coalition. “I like to
play devil’s advocate,” leading to
lively debates around William F.
Buckley, Phyllis Schlafly, Russell
Kirk, and other conservative minds.
“It’s important to understand
all sides of the political argument.”
Next on
the agenda
GOVERNMENT 531
Watergate: A Constitutional Crisis
Longtime White House reporter
Don Fulsom, who penned a 2012
book about Nixon’s presidency,
brings to life a crucial chapter in
history for students born decades
after the scandal rocked D.C.
AMERICAN STUDIES 140
Washington, D.C.: Life Inside
a Monument
This popular course explores
D.C. as a transnational city, the
nation’s capital, and a magnet for
community activists, politicos,
and artists.
4 American Magazine NOVEMBER 2013
expert
3 minutes on . . . The Minimum Wage
David Kautter
Managing director, Kogod Tax Center, and
executive in residence, Department of Accounting
and Taxation, Kogod School of Business
The minimum wage was enacted
A critical question
D.C., has been that
teenagers or spouses, people
in 1938 as part of the Fair Labor
has always been whether by
it has focused on a
who have other earners in the
Standards Act. It
increasing the federal minimum
particular segment
household making well above
was
wage, which must be done by
of employers—like Walmart—as
the minimum wage.
Congress, you raise the cost
opposed to all employers. The key
25 cents.
Congress tried to
When the minimum wage goes
who pays? It can
enact one once before, but it was
of labor,
challenge for cities, in particular,
up,
ruled unconstitutional in the
so that
is that businesses can move out to
either be the owner of the
the suburbs,
business through smaller profits,
can afford less labor. Therefore
where they can
or it can be added to
purpose was
businesses just don’t hire as
keep the same
the cost of the
to prevent
many people, because they can’t,
early ’30s.
Its primary
taking
advantage of employees.
employers from
Over time, other arguments
have been made, including
employers
make enough money at the
higher rate.
The idea of a
living
wage—a higher minimum
customers and pay less in wages.
In the District, I think the
service or the good.
The other issue
weakness in the debate was that
with raising the wage is that
they picked out a piece in the
people earning minimum wage
market, so-called
tend to consume almost
“big box
fairness. Some say
wage instituted by states,
retailers.” If it’s good
it’s not fair for people
counties, or cities—emerged as a
policy, isn’t it good for everybody?
What that’s going to do is create
If you can’t afford a wage of that
more demand in the market. You
magnitude in your city, then
just hope that it doesn’t get so
who work hard
to not get paid at
major issue in the late
’90s. The highest at the moment
least a “reasonable amount” of
is in San Francisco. The issue
money. Another argument is
there is that the minimum wage
redistribution:
active that it
having a living wage policy.
doesn’t have an
50 percent of people earning
essentially, if the employees don’t
most would
get the money, it will go to the
consider a
business owners in the form
living wage,
of higher
and so while it sets
profits.
a floor on what employers can
minimum wage are part of
families that
pay, it’s not enough to live on.
One of the
you’re probably better off not
It’s estimated that only about
is not what
challenges
with the debate in Washington,
every dollar they make.
less
than
$40,000
make
a year. The
adverse impact on
inflation.
It’s a fascinating
issue on which
there are generally not a lot of
crystal clear answers. It comes
down more to philosophy than
hard economics.
other half are
Let’s talk #americanmag 5
AU on the ascent
Road racing, fundraising
AU landed at No. 75—up two spots from last year—on the U.S. News
and World Report’s 2014 list of top national universities, released in
September. In the last decade, AU has leapt 24 spots, from No. 99.
Forget dialing for dollars. AU’s Methodist chaplain Mark Schaefer cycled for
cash, pedaling from D.C. to Chicago to raise $5,000 for fellowship activities and
student service projects. The 800-mile trek took 10 days, including a pair of pit
stops for flat tires.
6 American Magazine NOVEMBER 2013
photo by Jason Flakes/U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon
Harvest Home—a cost-effective,
energy-efficient dwelling
designed by Team Capitol
D.C., comprised of 100 students
and faculty from AU, Catholic
University, and George
Washington University—took
home seventh place at the U.S.
Department of Energy’s Solar
Decathlon, October 3–13 in
Irvine, California.
The biennial competition
challenged 16 collegiate teams
from around the world to design,
build, and operate solarpowered houses. AU handled
communications, filming
construction, blogging, building
a website, and pitching the story
to media. The D.C. team finished
fifth in the communications
competition, one of 10 areas in
which teams were ranked.
Relying on a solar thermal
system, Harvest Home features
a flat plate collector to heat the
hot water supply. The roof is
designed to send rainwater
into a rainwater barrel, which
will be used to irrigate the
landscape. Many of the
construction materials were
salvaged from buildings slated
for demolition, and the flooring
was taken from a nineteenthcentury church. Since the team
will donate the house to the
nonprofit Wounded Warrior
Homes, the structure boasts a
bathroom and bedroom that are
compliant with the Americans
with Disabilities Act.
“Going from rendering to
reality, it’s astonishing what these
kids and faculties have done,” says
SOC faculty advisor Larry Engel.
The Washington College of Law is among the best law schools in the
country, according to BusinessInsider.com. WCL checks in at No. 23
on the list, released last month.
The business and technology website asked 400 American legal
professionals to select 10 law schools that best prepare students for a
legal career. Criteria included diversity and need-based scholarships,
“which are essential for a top-notch legal education,” says Dean
Claudio Grossman.
In other numbers, Hispanic Business named WCL the top law school
in the country for Hispanics. Ranked No. 2 last year, WCL seized the top
spot from the University of Texas at Austin.
“It’s an especially remarkable achievement that WCL is ranked No. 1
for Latino students in the nation, when we are not located in a region
known for its large Latino population—like southern California, Texas,
or South Florida,” says Tony Varona, associate dean for faculty and
academic affairs.
The publication’s 2013 diversity report ranks law schools based on
enrollment; faculty; reputation; retention rate; and ability to recruit,
support, and mentor Hispanic students.
Hispanics make up 15.6 percent of WCL’s student body and 13.5
percent of the full-time faculty.
news
Jeffrey Harris, whose
groundbreaking research on
conflicts of interest between
traders and regulators led to
a major restructuring of the
NASDAQ in the mid-’90s, is the
inaugural Gary D. Cohn Goldman
Sachs Endowed Chair in
Finance. The chair was created
by Cohn, Kogod/BSBA ’82, and
Goldman Sachs, where Cohn
serves as president and COO.
Former chief economist at
the U.S. Commodity Futures
Trading Commission, Harris
focuses his current research
on trading networks and how
market rule changes affect
trading behavior.
“I like to be hands-on when I
teach and involve my students in
as much of my research as I can,”
says Harris. “By pushing their
boundaries, I think students are
better prepared for life beyond
the classroom.”
The endowed chair isn’t
the only headline coming
out of Kogod: the school has
redesigned its full-time MBA.
The new 49-credit program
includes a study abroad
experience and two signature
courses, Business at the
Private and Public Intersection
and Management in the
International Economy. Teams
of students will also work with
a faculty advisor on a consulting
project for a real-world client.
Kogod will welcome its first
cohort in fall 2014.
Two years ago, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia entered
Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The famed cultural institution was teetering
on the brink of ruin, but thanks to the William Penn Foundation, the
orchestra is enjoying a renewal.
The foundation, which funds research that fosters creativity
and enhances civic life, has tapped AU arts management professor
Andrew Taylor to lead a three-year investigation into how three
Philadelphia arts organizations, including the orchestra, can diversify
their audiences and expand their financial capacity. Taylor, who came
to CAS last year from the Bolz Center for Arts Administration at
the Wisconsin School of Business, will work with international arts
consultant Adrian Ellis, former executive director of Jazz at Lincoln
Center, on the $350,000 research project.
“Capitalizing Change in the Performing Arts” will also look at Opera
Philadelphia and the Pennsylvania Ballet.
The job offer came a day after Mike Brown, SOC/BA ’13, collected
his diploma.
As soon as he arrived home in New York, the film and media arts
major raced back to Baltimore, the host city of the Emmy-winning House
of Cards, where he would work as an assistant to casting director and
CAS alumna Kimberly Skyrme. Within a few hours, Brown was rubbing
elbows with Kevin Spacey, Robin Wright, and director David Fincher.
Set in Washington, D.C., but filmed in neighboring Maryland, the
Netflix original series explores power and corruption at the highest
levels of government. Each 13-episode season debuts in its entirety
exclusively on Netflix; season two hits the Web in February.
A budding writer and director, Brown interned in the show’s casting
office as an SOC student. He says working with actors has given him
new insight into the filming process.
“There are so many different actors who walk through our doors.
Sixty people will come in one day, and all 60 will interpret the lines a
little differently,” says Brown, who also works as a lighting and camera
stand-in for several actors.
Though he’s not spilling any secrets about season two—will Spacey’s
conniving (and murderous) Sen. Frank Underwood land the vice
presidency?—Brown says it’s been a thrill working on set.
“What you see on camera almost mirrors what is behind it. It’s
so political and fast and cutthroat.”
Too cool for school
LGBT leader
The Sierra Club named AU the nation’s ninth “coolest school.” The
environmental organization praised AU’s sustainability efforts, including
its commitment to carbon neutrality by 2020, a new campus-wide
composting program, and “a contraption called the Vegawatt,” which
turns cooking oil into electricity.
AU is the first university in the District—and one of only three
dozen in the United States—to offer extended health benefits
to transgender students. The new policy covers up to $500,000
of surgical costs related to transitioning—all without raising
premiums more than a few pennies.
Let’s talk #americanmag 7
mastery
1975 Began
studying piano with
mother Svetlana.
Played “a sad song
about a wounded
Cuban communist”
by ear—the first hint
of her perfect pitch.
Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliers:
The Story of Success offers a formula
for success—being born at the right
place and time and investing at least
10,000 hours in pursuit of your
goal. It’s about being focused and
impassioned and pursing a dream.
Meet one of AU’s outliers: musician
in residence Yuliya Gorenman.
1968 Born in
Odessa, Ukraine, to an
economics professor
father and a musician
mother. Grew up in
Kazakhstan.
1975
Father gave
her a score of Beethoven
piano sonatas to
commemorate her
first recital.
1986–1989 After attending
St. Petersburg Conservatory, the
Berlin Wall fell and “Soviet rule as
I knew it disintegrated.”
1971
Slept on top of
the piano while her sister
and mother played. “I felt
the vibrations through my
entire body.”
1980
Gave first 90-minute
recital. “I was scared to death.
I tell my students, the first
thousand times it’s hard, but it
gets easier.”
1990 Arrived in San Francisco the
night of Super Bowl XXIV with $314 in
hand. Began English classes; recited
“Old MacDonald Had a Farm” alongside
Buddhist monks and Afghan refugees.
1990–1992 Took
lessons—two times more
than she paid for—with
Nathan Schwartz at the San
Francisco Conservatory.
1997
Began teaching at AU
and giving private lessons at her
Silver Spring home.
8 American Magazine NOVEMBER 2013
1990 Won $400 in a
competition and earned
$100 playing show tunes
for a sorority fashion
show at UC–Berkley. “I
was supposed to be a
pedicurist or a nurse—
then I discovered I could
make a living off music.”
2009 Founded
MiClaire Records and
joined the Recording
Academy.
Accepted to the Special
Music School for Gifted Children
in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and began
taking six lessons per week.
1989 Family fled Kazakhstan,
traveling through Slovakia, Austria,
and Italy en route to the U.S. After
hearing her play Bach on the organ,
an Austrian priest gave her the key to
the church to practice. “That saved
me. We had no country, but that piece
of my identity remained.”
1995 Placed fourth, earning her
laureate, at the monthlong Queen
Elisabeth Competition, broadcast
live across Europe. Competed as “a
person without a country.” Weeks
later, became a U.S. citizen.
2007–2011
2001–2003
1993 Enrolled at the
Peabody Conservatory and
worked with Leon Fleisher.
1975
Recorded all
of Beethoven’s piano concerti and
his triple concerto live with the
Bavarian Chamber Orchestra.
“I can count on one hand the
number of times that’s been done.”
Performed all 32 sonatas
at AU’s Katzen Arts
Center. “The last note
ended very quietly—I
didn’t want to share that
moment with anyone.”
2007 Adopted Michael and Claire—born one week
apart—from Guatemala. “Everyone told me my career
was over.” Decided to perform the complete cycle of
Beethoven piano sonatas: “It’s like climbing Everest
backwards in high heels.”
2011–2013
Launched the Gorenman
Piano Project, exploring works by Bach, Chopin,
and others. Performed first concert days after
mother’s death. “I still hear her in every note.”
community
Donald Curtis doesn’t
have a second to
spare. As a master’s student
in SOC’s public communication
program, the full-time operations
and program coordinator for the
Center for Community Engagement
and Service, staff advisor for the
Black Student Association and other
campus clubs, and father of twomonth-old Isaiah with fiancee,
Lisa Coleman, WCL ’11, his calendar
is perpetually double booked.
Yet Curtis, 32, always has time for
one of his kings. The founder of the
Alexandria Kings Basketball
Association, a youth organization
that uses hoops as a tool to enhance
the athletic, academic, and social
awareness of the 8- to 17-year-olds it
serves, Curtis coaches his kids on
the nuances of b-ball and life.
Driving hard
Raised in a single-parent home
in Landover, Maryland, Curtis
struggled in high school before
basketball motivated him to raise
his attendance and grades. After
college, he saw what the sport
did for his brother, for whom the
support of coaches and teammates
provided a path to higher education.
He wants to provide that same
direction for the hundreds of
Northern Virginia youth whom his
nonprofit serves. More than 95
percent of participants enroll in
college, he says.
“Somebody invested a lot of
time and belief in me, and I’ve seen
it work for me and other people,”
he says. “When parents call me and
say, ‘I can’t get through to my son—
can you help me?’ I feel like, wow,
this is where I was meant to be.”
Let’s talk #americanmag 9
play
The legions of
people who walk
through the main
hall into Bender
Arena each year
are welcomed by
the smiling faces
of the best student-athletes and
coaches in American University
history. Sixty-seven plaques hang
on the two walls, immortalizing
the members of the Stafford H.
“Pop” Cassell Hall of Fame.
The hall was established
nearly 45 years ago, and over
time it’s grown to be the most
visible reminder on campus of the
Eagles’ storied athletic past.
“You want to recognize those
people and thank them for their
contributions and the sacrifices
they made to the university,”
says renowned sports journalist
David Aldridge, SOC/BA ’87. “It is
always gratifying when you walk
into Bender and see all the names
on the wall. I recognize many of
them and I know what they went
through to achieve at AU. People
really have to give of themselves
to achieve here. Luckily, we have
people with terrific character and
work ethic who make the best of
their situations.”
Aldridge serves as emcee
of the annual Hall of Fame
induction festivities, next slated
for February 22. The inductees
will be the late James Monkman
’71 (men’s golf ) and Avery John
’99 (men’s soccer).
“All the past Hall of Famers
come back,” says Jack Cassell,
Pop’s son and a member of the
AU Board of Trustees and the
Hall of Fame committee. “It’s
neat to hear the stories about
their time at AU. It’s not always
about what they gave AU; they’re
A Spike in Winning
Movin’ On Up
Senior Juliana Crum racked up backto-back Patriot League Player of the
Week honors while leading the women’s
volleyball team to three-straight
conference victories to start the season.
Megan Gebbia, AU’s new women’s basketball coach,
is used to winning. As an assistant for the past
10 seasons at Marist College, she was a major part
of eight straight, and nine overall, Metro Atlantic
Athletic Conference championship teams.
10 American Magazine NOVEMBER 2013
actually thanking AU for what
it gave them.”
Anyone can nominate a
student-athlete for the hall.
After the Athletics Department
vets candidates, the committee
of 12 votes for two or three
for induction.
“They need to be among the
top athletes of their era,” Cassell
says. “We also judge the integrity
of the athletes. Because the
events are really nice and we have
such a prominent hall here that
athletes walk by every day, people
are aspiring to it now.”
Below are 40 of the 67 plagues on the wall
in Bender. To see all the inductees, go to
aueagles.edu.
“I am extremely excited about getting my first head
coaching position at AU,” she says. “This is an exciting
time to be a part of the AU community, and I look
forward to the challenges that lie ahead.”
news
Good news: student loan debt
at AU is at a five-year low. The
Class of 2012 graduated with
8 percent less debt than the
previous class—and 15 percent
less than the Class of 2009.
Nearly half of the Class of 2012
graduated debt free.
The dip in loan debt is
credited to moderate tuition
increases at or near the rate of
inflation; a financial literacy
campaign (american.edu/
collegeaffordability), which
helps students understand
the long-term impact of loan
choices; and increased financial
aid efforts. Last year, AU
provided $75 million in aid.
In 2010, AU was named
among schools with the highest
loan debt—the result of a small
number of students who took
out high-interest private loans,
skewing the data. AU is now
more judicious about referring
students to private loans, which
don’t require the same scrutiny
as federal loans. Fewer students
are now taking on private loans.
“We have a responsibility to
ensure that students have the
knowledge and tools to navigate
their finances while in school
and beyond,” says Brian Lee
Sang, director of financial aid.
“AU has made positive progress
toward reducing the debt
burden of our graduates.”
“When a
government
wants to
control or
regulate some
aspect of
behavior online,
they can’t do
it directly.
They have to
go through an
information
intermediary,
a private
company.
This raises
questions about
accountability
and the
obligations
that are being
placed on
private entities.”
Internet governance. The phrase
conjures an image of whitehaired men in dark suits sitting
around an oval table in a stuffy,
charmless conference room,
deciding what people can and
cannot access online.
The picture, in this case,
couldn’t be further from the
truth. Google it—no one person,
government, or company runs the
Internet. Better yet, read School of
Communication professor Laura
DeNardis’s new book, The Global
War for Internet Governance.
“There’s a mosaic of control,
a constantly shifting balance of
powers between democratically
elected governments, intergovernmental forces, private
industry, and the public,” says
DeNardis, an expert on the many
entanglements of the web. “When
that balance of power exists, there
can be democratic collaboration
and transparency.”
In her fourth book on the
subject, DeNardis explores the
positives and pitfalls of a rapidly
changing process that increasingly
relies on private companies rather
than nation-states.
“Governance is set through
some government policies but also
through the policies of private
companies like Google, Twitter,
AT&T, and Verizon,” she says.
“When a government wants to
control or regulate some aspect
of behavior online, they can’t do it
directly. They have to go through
an information intermediary,
a private company. This raises
questions about accountability
and the obligations that are being
placed on private entities.”
When users sign up for sites
like Gmail or Facebook, they
must agree to terms that no one,
DeNardis says, actually reads.
“They explain what our privacy
rights are,” she says. “What
information we’re accessing and
who we’re talking to at any given
moment. What are the limits to
this? Should I be able to say, I
don’t want to be tracked?”
The bottom line, DeNardis
says, is that the democratic public
sphere that has always been
critical to culture, individual
identity, and communication no
longer exists merely in the real
world—it’s moved online.
“Conflicts of Internet
governance on a global level
are the spaces where political
and economic power is being
determined in the twentyfirst century.”
Gangland grant
70 years of good ad-vice
The National Institute of Justice has awarded a $671,000 grant to SPA’s
Edward Maguire and the Center for Latin American and Latino Studies to
examine the local and transnational structure of the MS-13 gang. The
two-year project will help law enforcement understand the evolution of the
violent gang, which has a heavy presence in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia.
Smokey the Bear and Rosie the Riveter are just a few of the familiar faces
who appear in SOC professor Wendy Melillo’s new book, How McGruff and
the Crying Indian Changed America: A History of Iconic Ad Council Campaigns.
The book examines the efficacy and impact of more than 400 public service
announcements since 1942.
Let’s talk #americanmag 11
Date: 1619
Date: 1492
Have you heard about the
great American smokeout?
In August, AU became the first tobacco-free campus in
Washington, joining more than 1,100 smoke-free colleges
and universities across the country and nearly 800
where the use of chew, cloves, cigars, and cigarettes has
gone up in, well, smoke.
It’s no shock that AU—long committed to the health
and well-being of students, faculty, and staff—snuffed
out tobacco. What might surprise you is that bans like
AU’s are nothing new.
Date: 1776
-
Date: 1864
12 American Magazine NOVEMBER 2013
cash crop
Nearly four centuries ago in 1632, the Massachusetts
Bay colony banned smoking in public, citing moral,
not health, concerns. (It would be another 150 years
before scientists and physicians began reporting on
the deleterious effects of smoking.) Some cities and
colonies, worried about fire danger and claims that
smoking led to drunkenness, followed. In 1639, Governor
Williem Kieft beat Mayor Michael Bloomberg to the
punch by 364 years, banning smoking across New
Amsterdam, which later became New York.
While some thought smoking a drag, there was
no denying tobacco’s economic importance. Tobacco
was used as a monetary standard—literally a cash
crop—across the colonies. Years later, it bankrolled the
American Revolution (“If you can’t send money, send
tobacco,” General George Washington implored his
countrymen) and the Civil War after that. It served as
Date: 1909
“life insurance” for Lewis and Clark as they explored
the Northwest, and it birthed what is today a $35 billion
per year industry.
Lucy loved cigarettes (the 1950s sitcom was
sponsored by Phillip Morris), and America’s arbiter of
etiquette, Emily Post, politely deferred to smokers,
writing in 1940 that “those who smoke outnumber those
who do not by a hundred to one, [so nonsmokers] must
learn to adapt.” (Post’s numbers were a bit off: only
40 percent of adults smoked.) And those antitobacco
laws? They were overturned by the early 1900s. States
steered clear of the issue until California enacted a ban
in 1995, thus sparking a new wave of legislation. Today,
28 states and D.C. prohibit smoking in enclosed public
spaces, including bars and restaurants.
Like the contradictions of the cigarette—a source
of pleasure and pain, commonplace yet controversial,
a moneymaker and a heartbreaker—America has
always had a love-hate relationship with tobacco.
it’s toasted
The Industrial Revolution gave rise to two industries
that have since become inextricably linked: tobacco
companies that could, for the first time, distribute
their products en mass across the country, and
advertising agencies, charged with marketing tobacco
to national audiences.
In 1895, Thomas Edison’s company produced the first
motion picture commercial: an ad for Admiral cigarettes.
Over the next two decades, Camels and Lucky Strike,
which boasted the slogan “It’s toasted” (just like every
Date: 1913
By adrienne frank
other cigarette), became household names. In 1921, R. J.
Reynolds spent $8 million to launch its new tagline: “I’d
walk a mile for a Camel.”
In 1933, advertisers scored their biggest coup yet.
“After careful consideration of the extent to which
cigarettes were used by physicians in practice,” the
Journal of the American Medical Association published its
first cigarette ad, a practice that continued for 20 years.
The mid-twentieth century saw the birth of the
Marlboro man (a Texas ranch hand named Carl Bradley
who actually smoked Kools) and the “More doctors
smoke Camels” campaign. The Beatles debut on the
Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 featured an ad for Kent
Micronite Filter. It was removed in a 2004 DVD of the
show and replaced with a Pillsbury spot.
Although publications like Good Housekeeping
refused to run cigarette ads, tobacco companies’
advertising budgets ballooned. Today, companies spend
$8.8 billion—or $24 million a day—on marketing.
fashionable poison
Isaac Adler was the first physician to suggest a
strong link between smoking and cancer. The year
was 1901. Over the next century, scientific evidence
inventorying the dangers of smoking mounted.
Strangely enough, consumption of what the New
York Anti-Tobacco Society termed a “fashionable
poison” also grew.
Annual consumption peaked at 640 billion
cigarettes in 1981—the same year the Federal Trade
Commission concluded that warning labels on
cigarettes, instituted in 1965, had little effect on public
knowledge and attitudes about smoking. Lung cancer,
once the rarest of diseases (there were only 140
documented cases in 1889), is today the most common
cancer worldwide, accounting for 1.3 million deaths
annually, according to the American Lung Association.
The last few decades of the twentieth century
marked a sea change: the Defense Department stopped
distributing cigarettes in C-rations; the American
Cancer Society launched the Great American Smokeout;
the Food and Drug Administration approved nicotine
gum as a smoking cessation aid; Congress banned
smoking on all flights; and cigarette taxes skyrocketed.
Even Mr. Potato Head kicked the habit in 1986 when, at
the behest of Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, Hasbro
pulled the pipe from among the spud’s accessories.
According to the American Cancer Society,
consumption stands at 19 percent—down from 42
percent in 1965. (Despite the dip, the United States
continues to be among the world’s leading producers
of tobacco leaves.) More and more Americans are
struggling to quit. About 1.3 million kick the habit each
year, including President Barack Obama, who finally
beat his 30-year addiction in 2011.
Will bans like AU’s, which have enjoyed a
renaissance in the last few decades, help even more
Americans join the ranks of nonsmokers? Of course,
that’s the hope, but as Mark Twain famously quipped:
“Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world.
I know because I’ve done it thousands of times.”
So goes our love-hate relationship with tobacco.
Date: 1946
Date: 1955
Date: 1971
Date: 1965
Let’s talk #americanmag 13
wonk
Q.
Why are we so fascinated by vampires? What do
vampire narratives reveal about us and our society?
A.
This is the question I ask my students at the end
of the class. What we can say is that vampire stories are
prominent in times of great change. This is when people
come up with a vampire. It’s escapist, but it gives them the
chance to deal with their fears.
The vampire is a foil on which we can project all of our
fears as a culture. It’s like a blank space: the vampire is
fictional, so it’s safe to think about our fears in a fictional
fantasy world. In the last 200 years, the vampire served to
negotiate fears of immigration or of women who wanted
the right to vote, so the vampire came in and killed only
strong women. Fears of urbanization, industrialization—
the vampire would stand in for all of these things. Every
generation took the vampire as a signifier for another fear.
And I think this is how it perpetuated itself as a story.
The idea of blood as the carrier of life was an
invention of English-language vampire stories of the early
nineteenth century. Later, the heart was considered the
life force—so we had monsters who ate the heart. Today
zombies eat brains. This is because our culture determines
death according to brain activity, so now the brain is the
carrier of life force. The vampire, of course, is feeding off
the life force. So blood is actually old-fashioned in that
regard—but it has survived in the narratives, because blood
continues to signify other key concepts, such as race,
nationalism, and disease in today’s society.
Katharina Vester
Department of History professor
and director of the American
Studies Program, College of Arts
and Sciences
14 American Magazine NOVEMBER 2013
The vampire
gives us unique
access to the
past, allows us to
look at our fears
as if through
a magnifying
glass and to
understand
something about
a culture in a way
that we cannot
get through
historical
documents.
on campus
Emmy-award winning
newsman Anderson Cooper is AU’s
2013 Wonk of the Year. The CNN
journalist collected the award at a
packed Bender Arena, October 19,
during All-American Weekend.
Lauded for his reporting from
some of the most perilous places
on the planet—Egypt and Syria
among them—Cooper, 46, garnered
widespread praise for his emotional,
hard-hitting coverage of Hurricane
Katrina in 2005, which helped CNN
land a prestigious Peabody Award.
Cooper, whose brother
committed suicide in 1988, says
he empathizes with other people’s
suffering. “I wanted to be around
other people who spoke the
language of loss. I found when
I went to wars, when I went to
places where terrible things were
happening, life felt very real there
and very precious,” says Cooper.
“You can’t stop suffering. You can’t
stop terrible things from happening,
but you can bear witness.”
bottom photo courtesy of CNN
Celebrating
change makers
Honored by the Kennedy Political
Union (KPU), which marks its 45th
anniversary this year, Cooper
is AU’s second Wonk of the Year.
President Bill Clinton collected the
inaugural trophy in 2012.
The university created the
award to recognize a well-known
individual who represents the
embodiment of a wonk: someone
smart, passionate, focused, and
engaged who creates meaningful
change in the world.
Let’s talk #americanmag 15
WORK- Wes Barrett, SOC/MA ’10
White House producer, Fox News Channel,
North Capitol Street, between E Street
and Louisiana Avenue
WORK- Steve Scully,
SOC/BA ’82
Senior executive producer
and political editor, C-SPAN,
North Capitol Street,
between E Street and
Louisiana Avenue
COMMUTE-
Alison Hanold, CAS/MA ’11
Baltimore resident
and development and
communications director,
Critical Exposure., takes
MARC to Union Station
LEARN- Julia Martins, CAS/BA ’16
Intern, Culture at Home/Folger Shakespeare
Theatre, East Capitol Street between
Second and Third Streets
WORK
- Biljana Milenkovic,
SOC/BA ’11
Communications associate, Children’s
Defense Fund, E Street between
New Jersey Avenue and North
Capitol Street
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.
Let’s talk #americanmag 17
By Lee Fleming
S
he had artist Claes Oldenburg
as a temporary tenant in her
basement. She turned a derelict
opera house in downtown
D.C. into a mecca for artists,
curators, and collectors from
around the world. And in the
process, she almost single-handedly created a
contemporary art scene in the nation’s capital.
At 91, Alice Denney, the pint-sized powerhouse
whom many call the doyenne of Washington
art, remains a force to be reckoned with.
Distinguished by signature giant sunglasses
and striking headpieces—from a striped
Cat in the Hat–inspired creation by couture
milliner Philip Treacy to a crocheted beer-can
number—Denney is still scouring galleries,
museum exhibitions, performance spaces, art
fairs, and artists’ studios in search of the new
and the provocative.
“I just liked talking to the artists,” she says
about how and why she got into the art world.
“That got me interested in doing things.”
Denney has never been one to hesitate to
engage people or experiences. Even as a child
in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, she would enlist
available talent to her projects. Gene Kelly was
an 18-year-old counselor at the camp near her
family’s summer cabin when Denney, then 12,
saw him dance. “He was good, so I asked if he’d
like to be in one of my shows”—referring to the
productions she would mount with local kids.
“He said yes, and he came to our house and had
a great time, so he kept coming back.”
While a student at Duke, Denney took
art history courses, which she loved. But her
passion really developed when, as a young
bride, she and friends would visit New York
galleries and hang out at the fabled Cedar
Tavern in Greenwich Village, where Willem
de Kooning, Mark Rothko, Franz Kline, and
other abstract expressionist artists held court.
“It was so exciting hearing them talk about
their ideas,” she says. By the time Denney and
her late husband George moved to Washington
in the 1950s, she was hooked on the New
York movements that were transforming
contemporary art.
Denney’s
experiences
with the AU fine
arts faculty
had a major
impact on her
earliest efforts
George had been recruited to work for
then secretary of state Dean Acheson. That
left Denney with time on her hands to explore
the D.C. art scene. “There really was
nothing,” she says. Culture, as it existed in
Washington, consisted of staid museums
whose collections stopped dead at the
postwar period, a few music societies, and
the mainstream Broadway shows that came
through the old National Theatre. “We may
as well have been in a time capsule,”
says Denney.
She set out to change all that. Along the way,
she developed a reputation for her ability to
recognize talent in emerging artists and her
fearlessness to promote the new, the different,
and the challenging. The late Walter Hopps,
founding director of Houston’s Menil
Collection and former curator of twentiethcentury American art at Washington’s National
Collection of Fine Arts (now the Smithsonian
American Art Museum), and himself no slouch
when it came to discovering new talent, once
called her “the best eye in the business.”
Jack Rasmussen, director of the American
University Museum at the Katzen Arts
Center, counts Denney among his earliest
art world mentors. “She told me, ‘Look
for artists you don’t understand. If art by
definition is something that didn’t exist
before, then if you immediately get something,
it probably isn’t art.’”
Denney’s experiences with the fine arts
faculty at AU had a major impact on her early
efforts. Their work on exhibit at the Corcoran
Biennial and at Franz Bader Bookstore and
Gallery sparked her interest in what was
happening at the university. In 1955 she signed
up for a life drawing course taught by Ben “Joe”
Summerford. “The course put me in touch
with artists like Alma Thomas [noted African
American abstractionist] and especially the AU
faculty, who were really serious and trying new
things,” she says.
It became clear that Washington artists
needed a place devoted to showing their art.
“They wanted a professional gallery. So I said,
why not start one?”
Let’s talk #americanmag 19
A
Alice Denney
on Collecting
“My advice would be to look at a lot of art. If you look at a lot of art in
museums and galleries and studios, and you see what you’ve never quite seen before, pay
attention. When I first saw Barney [Barnett] Newman’s work, I thought, this is nothing.
But there’s something about it that makes you take a second look. I remember seeing
Howard Mehring’s white-on-white painting. I had not seen anything like it, so I invited him
to be part of Jefferson Place [Gallery]. Ken [Kenneth Noland] also was struggling about
where to take his work, so I brought him into Jefferson Place too. I even bought his blue
circle painting with orange for $200—which I eventually sold. Later that same painting
became part of the Andy Williams collection and recently went at auction for $2 million.
But back then, no one would buy Ken’s work or Jasper Johns’s or a lot of people who are
big names today.
“Knowing the artists is really a big part of it. For example, I bought a
little [Robert] Rauschenberg that was sitting in Leo Castelli’s bathtub in the bathroom
of his gallery at 477 East 77th Street, his early gallery before he moved to SoHo.
Who knew we’d all become such good friends? But we did. So always try to meet the
artists. Get a sense of their integrity, their spirit, their seriousness. And go to every
show you can. Do this, then go home, and if there’s something you really remember,
it’s something you should try.
“it’s a good idea
to find artists when they are young, before
they’ve made it, and follow them. If you’re starting out but don’t have a lot of money,
get to know the artists and the dealers who can point you in interesting directions.
Really, it can be a full-time job.”
20 American Magazine NOVEMBER 2013
group of artists ponied
up $100 each to join; for
$200, Denney rented a big,
second-story space at the
corner of Jefferson Place and
Connecticut Avenue NW. In
fall 1957, the Jefferson Place
Gallery opened with a roster that included AU
fine arts faculty—painters Helene McKinsey
Herzbrun, Ben “Joe” Summerford, and
Robert Gates and sculptor William Howard
Calfee—and local painters Mary Orwen, Shelby
Shackelford, and Kenneth Noland.
“We got loads of publicity,” Denney says.
“It was so new, this idea of a gallery that
wasn’t also selling jewelry or books.” The buzz
attracted a young reporter named Tom Wolfe,
who became a regular at Jefferson Place. “He
was bored in D.C.,” Denney remembers. “He
said this was the only place in the city where
there was any excitement.”
Despite the many people who came to look
at the “contemporary stuff” by artists from
Washington, New York, and the West Coast,
few actually bought anything. “I practically
had to beat people up,” she says, “to get them to
pay $125 for a Jasper Johns drawing that today
would go for hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
Denney and her friends were ready for
a cultural sea change. That change came in
November 1960 with the election of John F.
Kennedy as president. “He and Jackie actually
seemed to have some interest in the arts,” says
Denney. The Kennedys imbued the capital
with a new spirit, inspiring Denney and friends
to talk seriously about starting a world-class
institution focused on modern art.
In 1962 the Washington Gallery of Modern
Art, backed by a high-profile board and an
energetic staff, made its debut with a Franz
“He [tom wolfe]
said this was
the only
place in the
city where
there was any
excitement.”
Kline retrospective, the first ever, honoring the
artist who had died the previous spring at the
age of 51. The show and the gallery, which was
located in a spacious, renovated town house
just off Dupont Circle and conveniently down
the street from the Jockey Club, got lots of
press—in all the right places. “It was a great
start,” says Denney, who was then assistant
director. “But the question was, would we be
able to maintain this high level?”
The answer was a resounding yes, the
proof being a major exhibition titled The
Popular Image, which opened in 1963.
In this multivenue showcase for pop art,
Denney brought together a lineup of
impressive but not yet famous artists that
included Jim Dine, Andy Warhol, Tom
Wesselman, Claes Oldenburg, Robert
Rauschenberg, John Cage, Jasper Johns,
George Brecht, and James Rosenquist.
Oldenburg held a happening at a dry
cleaning place on P Street NW. New York’s
experimental Judson Dance Theater—a
collective of dancers, composers, and visual
artists based in the Village—performed at
the America on Wheels roller skating rink in
Adams Morgan, showcasing dance pioneers
Steve Paxton, Carolyn Brown, Yvonne Rainier,
and David Gordon. And Rauschenberg
made history with the premiere of his iconic
performance piece, Pelican, which was created
for that space and in which the artist skated
around with an open parachute on his back,
an homage to the Wright brothers.
“The art press loved us,” Denney
remembers. But the mainstream media,
including Time and Newsweek, ran pages
mocking the new art and the show, calling
Washington’s effort to be hip deluded. On
the other hand, international art impresario
Pontus Hultén, then director of Sweden’s
modern art museum, Moderna Museet, was
so impressed, he told a reporter that it was
“the best and most important assemblage
of pop art that I have ever seen.”
H
aving brought pop art to D.C.,
Denney moved on to the
international stage, serving
as vice commissioner for the
American contingent at the
1964 Venice Biennale. “We
stayed at the old American
consulate,” she says, on the Grand Canal near
collector Peggy Guggenheim’s pink palazzo.
“At first Peggy didn’t think much of me
or what we were doing, but after a few
parties we ended up as friends. We’d
sunbathe on the terrace with all this art
around, and she’d have her dogs running
all over and cocktails constantly coming—
it was something else.”
Despite the art world politics,
Rauschenberg took the overall grand
prize, a first for an American. But to qualify
and meet the judging rules, his work had
to be moved from the ancillary American
gallery to the official American pavilion.
“The only way to do this in the time we
had, basically overnight, was to ferry the
paintings over,” Denney says. Time magazine,
in its coverage of the American win, featured
a picture of Denney resolutely holding a
Rauschenberg painting in a U.S. Navy launch,
motoring down the Grand Canal to the
exhibition grounds.
O
n her return to Washington,
Denney was determined
not to let the momentum
die. She started her own
Private Arts Foundation
(PAF) and, in 1966, put
on the citywide Now
Festival, attracting such emerging talent as
Andy Warhol and the Velvet Underground.
“Just to show you how much people wanted
to be part of it, I put Andy and the Velvet
Underground up in the old Cairo Hotel
over by Dupont Circle,” she says. “The only
payment Andy asked for was four new tires
for the car—to get them all back to New York
when they were done.”
PAF enabled Denney to continue offering
grants to artists and to bring theater and
performance artists to the capital. But
finding space was a challenge. So in 1974,
she founded the Washington Project for
the Arts (WPA) in an old opera house on
G Street NW. It quickly became a mecca for
those, from curators to collectors, who were
hungry for the new. Pegboard covered the
walls (“Much easier to hang things that
way,” Denney insists), but that didn’t deter
the artists, who knew that the WPA could
launch careers.
But by 1979, Denney was restless. It was
time to hand the WPA over to others. For her
almost last hurrah, she decided to bring punk
to a decidedly unpunky Washington. “People
thought we were crazy for doing the Punk
Festival. We had fashion, we had the artist
“the only
payment Andy
[Warhol] asked
for was four
new tires for
the car, to get
them all back to
New York when
they were done.”
known as Peanut Butter, we had all the
people you’re hearing about again today.” She
pauses. “Look, the Metropolitan Museum
had that huge punk-themed opening earlier
this year—and a lot of the artists who were in
our Punk Festival were in theirs!”
After leaving the WPA, Denney continued
to look at everything, everywhere. And she
still took the time to curate: an Ed Kelly
retrospective at Georgetown’s Museum of
Contemporary Art, a compelling exhibit in
which artists interpreted fashion for Gallery
K, and Good Things Come in Small Packages:
The Collection of Elisabeth French at the
American University Museum in 2010.
The latter highlighted Washingtonian
French’s longstanding commitment to
support young, local artists. “People need
to know you can put together a collection
without a lot of money or a lot of space to
put it in,” says Denney.
Two years ago, Denney’s impact on
contemporary art was recognized at the
30th anniversary gala of ArtTable Inc.,
a nonprofit that supports and celebrates
women in the arts. The event, held at the
Museum of Modern Art in New York,
honored a group that included Alanna
Heiss, a major figure in the alternative space
movement who founded P.S. 1 Contemporary
Art Center and the Clocktower Gallery;
artists Miriam Schapiro and Faith Ringgold;
New York Times arts critic Roberta Smith;
and the Guerrilla Girls, an underground
activist artist group.
“What great company,” Denney says.
I still can’t believe I was up there on stage
with them.”
Let’s talk #americanmag 21
Most of us can recall (often with great
fondness) a seemingly ordinary object that
occupied our imagination for a long time.
These gadgets, knickknacks, and treasures
become objects of inspiration, totems of
our travels,
Here, nine faculty members share the
items that guide their research, arouse
their curiosity, and shape their worldview.
wood engravings by chris wormell
Naden Krogan
Biology, CAS
Todd Prono
Finance and Real Estate, Kogod
Jessica Waters
Justice, Law and Society, SPA
As a youngster in Saskatchewan, Naden
Krogan spent summers on the family farm
studying crops. It was there, in Canada’s
prairie province, that the seeds of intellectual
curiosity were planted. “And I haven’t left
the lab since,” he says.
Most developmental biologists study
animals, but Krogan’s research on the
formation of patterns in multicellular
organisms centers on plants. He uses “model
organisms” like Physcomitrella patens—moss,
which shares genetic and physiological
processes with vascular plants—to understand
more complicated models of life.
“One of the most fascinating questions in
biology is how a complex organism, with all
its intricate patterns, develops from a single
cell,” says Krogan, who began working with
Physcomitrella patens as a biology major at the
University of Regina–Saskatchewan. Lessons
learned from the moss, a tuft of which is the
size of a nickel, can help scientists tackle
everything from global hunger to cancer.
“What we learn from this very simple plant
is fundamental to all organisms,” says Krogan,
who keeps petri dishes of the small but mighty
moss in his AU lab. “I continue to be amazed
by its power.”
His current research focuses on another
model organism: Arabidopsis, a small,
flowering plant closely related to broccoli and
mustard—and the first plant to have its entire
genome sequenced. “If we can manipulate the
genes, we can produce more and bigger fruit
that are more easily harvested.
“We can’t bring crops into the lab, but what
we learn in the lab can be applied to crops.”
Long before he made his first pilgrimage
to Arturo Di Modica’s Charging Bull in his
early 20s, Todd Prono was inspired by what
the iconic bronze sculpture symbolizes:
aggressive financial optimism. The 7,100-pound
bull, which stands proud in Bowling Green
Park, just off Wall Street in lower Manhattan,
represents “a raging market, which has the
implication of a future price path and, by
extension, the variability of prices.”
“That intrigues me,” says the quant
wonk, who came to AU this semester from
the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston and the
Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Prono’s fascination with finance began
when he picked up the Wall Street Journal
as a teenager, dabbling in the markets before
heading off to Cornell to study economics.
Today, he’s analyzing something more complex
than the Journal’s stock charts.
The regulator-turned-academic’s research
centers on asset pricing models that are used
by banks, brokerages, and insurance firms to
infer the price of a stock, bond, or derivative.
Prono also works to decipher volatility—the
amount of uncertainty or risk in an asset’s
value—and is developing new models to
estimate volatility, testing their accuracy
through simulated experiments and with
real financial data.
His research informs risk-management
practices at financial firms, which seek to
protect their balance sheets against severe
losses that occur in times of financial distress.
“The simple tradeoff between risk and
return—and how we think about managing it—
is compelling,” he says.
For years, Jessica Waters, SPA/BA ’98, WCL/
JD ’03, was an attorney moonlighting as
an adjunct professor. She logged 80 hours
a week at WilmerHale law firm, where
she specialized in criminal defense and
reproductive rights litigation, and taught one
class a week at the Washington College of
Law. “I loved those three hours,” she says.
“I knew it was time for a change.”
Waters joined SPA in 2008, bringing the
courtroom gusto to her classroom. Law, she
tells her students, is more than process and
theory: “We talk about law in the abstract, but
it’s all about people.”
“When someone comes to a lawyer, they’re
in the worst place of their life. That’s a huge
responsibility.”
A reminder of that awesome responsibility
hangs over her desk: a baby quilt for her now
six-year-old son, Finn, made by the mother of
an Iraq War veteran, whom Waters defended
in a federal murder case. The case dragged
on for years, and Waters became close with
the family. “I was touched that she thought
enough of me to do that.”
As director of SPA’s new Politics, Policy,
and Law Scholars Program—a rigorous
three-year bachelor’s degree, which
welcomed its first cohort of 20 students in
August—she reminds students, many of
whom have their sights set on law school,
that even the most monumental cases
started small.
“Look at Tinker v. Des Moines: three kids
just wanted to protest the Vietnam War, and
that became one of the seminal cases for
student rights in schools.”
Let’s talk #americanmag 23
Andrew Lih
Journalism, SOC
Chapurukha Kusimba
Anthropology, CAS
Lindsay Grace
Film and Media Arts, SOC
For decades there was Britannica—then
came Wikipedia. The original social media,
the e-encyclopedia written by anonymous
volunteers, debuted in 2001. Today, it’s the
fifth-most visited website in the world.
It gripped new media pioneer Andrew Lih,
who became the first professor to use Wikipedia
in the classroom a decade ago. He also penned
the preeminent history of the site: The Wikipedia
Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created
the World’s Greatest Encyclopedia.
But he says the number of contributors
has declined since 2007, as the “low-hanging
fruit” has been plucked. “Wikipedia is the sum
of all human knowledge—there’s a natural
cap. There are 4.3 million (English) articles
about elephants and Exxon. The next 4 million
articles won’t be so easy to write.”
One way to ensure Wikipedia doesn’t go the
way of MySpace is by encouraging contributors
to post video to existing articles. (Currently, only
0.1 percent of entries include video.) With laptop
sales dipping and desktop sales plummeting,
Lih predicts people will do that on phablets:
keyboardless computer-phone hybrids, with
six-inch screens perfect for “clicking, browsing,
tapping, shooting, and snapping.” Phablets are
all the rage in Asia, and Lih says Americans will
soon adopt the technology en masse. “In the
future, people will own just one device.”
Another big opportunity: partnering with
GLAM communities (galleries, libraries,
archives, and museums)—the focus of Lih’s
latest research. “More people learn about items
in a museum’s collection from Wikipedia than
from the museum itself. The Smithsonian just
hired its first Wikipedian in residence.”
Chapurukha Kusimba made a discovery in
his native Kenya this spring that garnered
headlines around the globe: a 600-year-old
Chinese coin minted during the Ming Dynasty.
Unearthed by Kusimba, then curator of African
archaeology and ethnology at Chicago’s Field
Museum of Natural History, on the island of
Manda, the rare coin proves that trade existed
between China and eastern Africa before
European explorers even set sail.
“Trade serves as a way to break down
boundaries that separate communities,”
says AU’s new anthropology chair. Artifacts
like the coin offer insights into everything
from migration to the establishment of
diaspora communities.
As a youngster in Africa—dubbed the
cradle of humankind—Kusimba wanted to be
an anthropologist. “American kids want to be
paleontologists and study dinosaurs,” he says.
“African children want to be anthropologists.”
A former research scientist at the National
Museums of Kenya (where he hopes to
establish a field school for AU students),
Kusimba investigates ancient trade networks,
which frequently takes him to East Africa.
During a 2010 trip, he commissioned an artist
in Ambositra, Madagascar, to carve him an
intricate wood port from a 300-year-old tree,
felled by a Canadian mining company to build
a road. The beautiful piece holds images that
chronicle the island nation’s cultural identity
and tells the story of its 18 ethnic groups.
“The artist is trying to come to terms with
the history of his nation during a time of great
turmoil. But despite these differences, he’s
saying ‘we are one.’ That’s so inspiring to me.”
Most six-year-old boys aspire to be firefighters,
astronauts, pro baseball players—but Lindsay
Grace wasn’t most boys. After using his first
computer at school in 1982, he rushed home
and excitedly declared: “This is what I want
to do.”
Soon after, the Massachusetts native began
designing and developing games on his Laser
128. At the tender age of 10, he released his
first game, Super Mystery House, on a fiveand-a-quarter-inch floppy disc, under the
label Mindtoggle. “I graphed each image on
graph paper and drew each scene in code,”
recalls Grace. The choose-your-own-adventure
game “wasn’t very good,” he admits, “but the
programmer-artist was still in middle school.”
Today, Grace—recruited by AU to shape a
new gaming initiative within SOC and CAS—
is a renowned gaming guru. He founded the
Persuasive Play Lab at Miami University of
Ohio, and his game, Wait, was inducted into
the Game for Change Hall of Fame this year,
as one of the five best games for social impact
in the last 10 years.
He likens social impact gaming to cherryflavored medicine: entertainment with an
informational twist. The goal is “to construct
educational experiences that help people see
things in a new light. It’s about ‘aha’ moments.”
AU’s new social impact gaming graduate
program, slated for a fall 2014 launch, will
train students to not only produce games but
to evaluate them. That, says Grace, is what
makes AU’s offering unusual.
“It’s a lot of fun to make games, but are
they effective? At the moment, no one’s
evaluating them. There’s a huge opportunity.”
24 American Magazine NOVEMBER 2013
Jane Palmer
Public Administration and Policy, SPA
Michael Bader
Sociology, CAS
Garrett Graddy
Global Environmental Politics, SIS
The task: create a family tree, using figurines,
toys, and animals to represent each person.
The 12-year-old Chicago boy—a survivor of
sexual abuse, with whom Jane Palmer worked
for nine months—selected for himself a turtle.
“He felt he had to have a tough exterior, but
he wanted to work on coming out of his shell,”
says Palmer, SPA/PhD ’13. It was then that she
began to understand the needs of survivors
often overlooked by advocates and academics.
Palmer researches the ways in which
survivors of abuse—who, like that boy,
“aren’t normally part of the conversation”—
seek help. While working on her doctorate
in justice, law and society, Palmer held a
National Institute of Justice fellowship,
during which she worked on a study of
violence against American Indian and native
Alaskan women. “The study’s design had to be
respectful of cultural norms,” she explains. “In
some tribal communities, it’s abusive to cut a
woman’s hair, so it was imperativeto include
questions about that tactic.”
The former social worker and nonprofit
director’s dissertation focused on another
overlooked population: bystanders. Palmer
examined the role of bystanders in situations
of sexual assault and dating violence
on college campuses. She’s continuing
that research today, evaluating bystander
programs at three universities.
“My research captures new ways of
understanding and preventing violence. I have
faith that when we see something that’s not
right, we want to do something. It’s about a
mass of people—it’s bigger than individual
offenders and individual victims.”
Michael Bader recalls driving through D.C.
as a child and being struck at the sight of
razor wire. Only 20 miles separated his
native Derwood, Maryland, and Southeast
Washington, but the budding urban
sociologist was rattled by what he saw.
“Our lives were completely different, and
our chances were completely different. That
had a big influence [on me],” Bader says.
His fascination with the urban environment,
including a boyhood obsession with SimCity,
led him to Rice University, where he studied
architecture. But his interests soon broadened
beyond buildings to the ways in which city
dwellers navigate the built environment.
“I began to wonder how social and racial
inequality are perpetuated in cities,” says
Bader, a member of AU’s Center on Health,
Risk, and Society, an interdisciplinary
community of scholars that looks beyond
biomedical technology to examine the social
dimensions of health.
Bader, who coauthored a study this summer
on retail investment as a barometer for teenage
obesity, has two projects in the works: an
examination of the ethnic and racial turnover
of neighborhoods in New York City, Chicago,
Houston, and Los Angeles from 1970 to 2010,
funded by the National Science Foundation;
and the Google Street View Project, which
assesses neighborhood walkability and
disorder. The latter is funded by a $250,000
grant from the National Institutes of Health.
Though he’s come a long way from
SimCity, Bader says one of the lessons learned
from the computer game still applies to his
work today: “space matters.”
The granddaughter of a Kentucky grower,
Garrett Graddy grew up on the family farm but
never had much interest in the family business.
“Then I started traveling and discovered
that the plight of the small-scale farmer was
both personally and intellectually intriguing.”
High in the Andes—3,000 miles from home—
“I discovered my research question.”
A cultural geographer and political
ecologist, Graddy researches agricultural
biodiversity conservation across the Americas.
This year, she published a pair of journal
articles about her work with six indigenous
Peruvian potato farming communities, who
have repatriated 1,000 native varieties of their
crop in hopes of adapting to—and surviving—
climate change.
Graddy’s research on the seed banking
system helping farmers in Parque de la Papa
(Potato Park) diversify their crops figures
prominently in the book she’s penning
on the politics of agricultural biodiversity
conservation. It highlights the genetic
erosion of crops around the globe, the history
of conservation measures, and the seedsaving movement, which is taking root in
the United States.
To cultivate a crop base that’s adaptive and
diverse, the seed-saving movement encourages
farmers to use open-pollinated, heirloom
seeds—passed down from generations—rather
than seeds from a store.
“A grower with a beloved seed variety will
trade it with her neighbor,” says Graddy. “On
the ground, agricultural biodiversity looks like
heirloom seeds. They’re beautiful and packed
with cultural memory and indigenous identity.”
Let’s talk #americanmag 25
26 American Magazine NOVEMBER 2013
by mike unger
Pushed by their hearts, their heads, or their wallets,
hundreds of thousands of people each year become U.S. citizens.
Here are a few of their American stories.
“It’s highly
emotional.
Many times
people cry at
naturalization
procedures.
Are they crying
because they’re
so happy to be
Americans? For
many I think
that’s true. Are
they crying
because they’re
leaving something
behind and cutting
themselves off
from a dimension
of their former
life? It is a very
important moment
of transition.”
—Alan Kraut,
professor of history
28 American Magazine NOVEMBER 2013
“I’m always
going to be an
Afghan, but
I’m also an
American now.”
E
leven-year-old Mohammadulla Hassan’s
days were spent in the manner of men.
Inside the cramped two-room apartment
he shared with his parents, five of his seven
siblings, and another family in Islamabad,
Pakistan, he’d be jostled awake by 7 a.m.,
then head to work. At the local bizarre he
sold plastic bags for two rupees each (turning
a one rupee profit) to shoppers buying fruits
and vegetables. As day turned to dusk, he’d
scour the city collecting scraps of cardboard,
which he then flipped to recyclers for three
rupees per pound. Often, he didn’t return
home until 9 at night.
He had never been enrolled in a school,
knew no English, and although he could
speak Farsi, could not read or write it.
The Hassans are Afghans and Shiite
Muslims, refugees who were driven from
their homeland in the late ’90s by the Taliban.
Across the border, life was safer but no easier.
“We didn’t have any future,” Hassan, now
19, says. “Education was always important
to my parents. We weren’t able to get that in
Pakistan. My parents knew that if we moved
back to Afghanistan, it would be the same
thing. To come to the United States, there
would be opportunities for a better life.”
Dullah, as his friends call him, is
recounting this on a bench in front of the
Mary Graydon Center on a sunny early
September day. Behind him on the quad,
students lounge on blankets, soaking up sun
and laughing with their friends. Frisbees,
not bullets, fly through the air. That he could
blend into this idyllic setting—a few weeks
earlier he arrived at AU to begin his freshman
year—is a proposition he or any other rational
person would have found unthinkable just
eight years ago.
Only in America, as the cliché goes. For
millions of immigrants who make their way
to this country in pursuit of the same thing
the Hassans were chasing—“a better life”—the
phrase has deep meaning.
Hassan has a full plate these days. He’s
adjusting to the nuances of dorm cohabitation,
diving into financial accounting class (he wants
to become an economist), and trying to find time
to play soccer. But these activities, all important
ones to an undergrad, have taken a back seat to
another: pursuing American citizenship.
P
ushed by their hearts, their heads, or
their wallets, hundreds of thousands of
people each year become U.S. citizens. Their
motivations range from patriotic to pragmatic.
Like the country they’re becoming a part
of, new Americans are a complex, diverse
group with a wide spectrum of pasts, present
circumstances, and futures.
Naturalization is not a quick process.
Applicants must be permanent residents for
at least five years; undergo a background
check; prove they can speak, read, and write
English; and pass a civics test before they earn
the right to raise their right hand and take the
oath of allegiance.
“I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely
and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance
and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate,
state or sovereignty, of whom or which I have
heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will
support and defend the Constitution and laws
of the United States of America against all
enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear
true faith and allegiance to the same; that I
will bear arms on behalf of the United States
when required by the law; that I will perform
noncombatant service in the armed forces of the
United States when required by the law; that I
will perform work of national importance under
civilian direction when required by the law; and
that I take this obligation freely without any
mental reservation or purpose of evasion;
so help me God.”
Those words are not taken lightly by
the men and women who say them, even if
many are allowed by their native nations to
maintain dual citizenship.
“To seal your relationship with a society
in a legal bond, the same way you do when
you step before a judge and marry someone,
that’s a very powerful experience,” says
history professor Alan Kraut, an expert in
immigration. “It’s highly emotional. Many
times people cry at naturalization procedures.
Are they crying because they’re so happy to be
Americans? For many I think that’s true. Are
they crying because they’re leaving something
behind and cutting themselves off from a
dimension of their former life? It is a very
important moment of transition. It’s not quite
religious conversion, but if you measure the
emotion in the room, it could almost be.”
H
assan isn’t sure how he’ll react when he
trades his green card for an American
passport. He’ll have to wait a little longer
to find out. His naturalization interview,
originally scheduled for October 10, was
delayed due to the government shutdown.
Considering what he’s been through,
a little partisan bickering is nothing more
than a minor annoyance to him, like a pesky
gnat. In Afghanistan, 24 members of his
extended family—all men—were killed before
his father took four-year-old Dullah and the
rest of the family to Pakistan. There he was
unwelcome at Pakistani public schools due
to his ethnicity and unable to afford private
schooling. So work it was.
Miraculously, he does not look back
at that period of time as particularly harsh
or unpleasant.
“I never feel sorry, I never regret it, I
never say ‘why’ or ‘I wish,’” he says. “I enjoy
those memories because, although some
kids I’m friends with now, when they were
kids they went to school and Disney World,
I might have had just as much fun working
hard and flying kites, playing marbles. I was
conditioned to that living style.”
The family applied for refugee status in
the United States and was set to go. Then
9/11. Four more years, filled with 14-hour
work days and nights spent sleeping on the
floor, passed before Refugee Resettlement and
Immigration Services of Atlanta (RISA) was
able to process them.
Not a g’day goes by
in which Chris Tudge
doesn’t think about
his native Australia.
“You don’t get
adjusted,” says the
biology professor,
who’s leaning back in
his Hurst Hall office
desk chair, sporting
shorts and a casual
blue short-sleeved
shirt. “People ask
me all the time,
‘What do you miss
about Australia?’
“I don’t feel
like a visitor My answer’s always
‘everything, especially
here.”
family.’ I think about
Australia in some capacity all the time, whether
it’s looking out the window and comparing the
weather to my hometown or thinking, ‘I should
have called my mother last night.’”
Yet Tudge isn’t exactly homesick. In one sense,
Takoma Park, Maryland, the Washington suburb
where he lives with his wife, Karen, and their
two daughters, now is his home. Tudge came to
the U.S. in 1995 for a one-year postdoc program
at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural
History. While there he met his soon-to-be bride,
an archaeologist, at a Friday-night social function
at the museum.
When Tudge returned to Australia for another
postdoc appointment, Karen joined him five
months later. They were married in his hometown
of Brisbane before she returned to the U.S.
The first year of their marriage was spent a
world apart.
Practical reasons caused the couple to choose
the U.S. over Australia as their permanent residence.
“She had a federal government position, which
is nothing to sneeze at, and we wanted to adopt
kids,” he says. “The American system is way faster
and cheaper than the Australian system.”
So on Christmas Eve, 1998, Tudge returned to
America. They did adopt those children—Laura is
12, Hannah, 10—and settled into life in D.C. In 2002,
Tudge decided to become a U.S. citizen primarily
for convenience.
“I heard about a job at the Smithsonian as
a research fellow,” he says. “I found out I was
ineligible because I wasn’t a citizen, so I decided I
would start the process of applying.”
In 2005, Tudge added an American passport
to his Australian and United Kingdom ones (the
son of British parents, he’s actually trinational).
While that federal job never materialized, he loves
Washington and the life he’s created.
“I don’t feel like a visitor here,” he says, “but
when I talk about home, I talk about Australia.”
Seven years
separated the two
embraces.
Pallavi Kumar
doesn’t remember
the first. It was March
of 1973, and she was
just nine months old.
Born to parents of
Indian decent (neither
of whom grew up in
India), Kumar, SOC/
SPA/BA ’94, had just
arrived at Pittsburgh
“I vividly
International Airport
remember
when her father,
the day, I ran
Jitendra, first laid
to him and
eyes on her.
said ‘Are we
“Holding her in my
citizens yet?’”
arms,” he says, his
voice cracking, “was an amazing feeling.”
Jitendra was a Ugandan citizen when President
Idi Amin expelled all Asians from the country in
1972. His wife, Bharti, had returned to India to give
birth to Pallavi. Suddenly a refugee, he headed to
Pittsburgh, home to a brother-in-law he had never
met. He quickly landed a job in pharmaceutical
sales—“I was lucky,” he says—and arranged for his
now larger family to come to Pennsylvania.
“He bought his first house within a year of
moving here, then we got a bigger house in a better
school district when we went into grade school,”
says Kumar, a School of Communication professor.
“He sent my sister to the University of Pennsylvania,
he sent me to AU. My dad came to this country with
$20. He was living the American dream.”
In 1980, Pallavi became a U.S. citizen when her
father did. “I vividly remember the day,” she says.
“I got out of school and wore a pretty dress. I knew
that my dad had been practicing the test, and I knew
that if he passed, that meant we were part of this
country. He was in a black suit, and when he came
out, I ran to him and said, ‘Are we citizens yet?’ He
picked me up, hugged me, and said, ‘Yes we are.’”
“My colleagues gave me an American flag,”
Jitendra says from Florida, where he’s retired. “I
thought, ‘Now I have a country.’ It’s been a great life. I
worked hard for 40 years, put the kids through college,
and watched their careers grow. Nowhere else in the
world can you do what you can do in this country.”
Let’s talk #americanmag 29
In 1972, Chris Palmer
found lasting love.
Twice.
A British national
born in Hong Kong, the
then 26-year-old had
just traveled across
the pond to Cambridge,
Massachusetts, to
study at Harvard’s
Kennedy School of
Government.
“I was going there
for a year to have
the time of my life,”
“I have
he says. “That was
grown
the plan.”
incredibly
On the first day of
loyal to
orientation, he spotted
America. I
a beautiful woman
felt I had
with an open seat next
joined
to her.
something
“I remember I wore
huge.”
this bright green
suit and purple shirt and tie,” he says. “I thought
I looked good. There weren’t many seats left, so I sat
down next to her and said hi. She turned out to be
my wife.”
Palmer would have moved anywhere to be with
Gail, to whom he’s been married for 38 years. But
he didn’t want to move anywhere—he’d fallen for
her country too.
“The typical American is driven by ambition and
audacious goals, revels in a buoyant optimism and
practicality, doesn’t care about class or who your
parents are, applauds hard work and entrepreneurial
zeal, lauds the self-made person, relentlessly
pursues constant self-improvement, and is fearless
when it comes to new and noble challenges,” the
School of Communication professor says. “I love all
those notions and wanted to live in a country where
those values mean something. I wanted to stay here
for the rest of my life.”
Palmer worked on Capitol Hill and in the Carter
administration, never paying much mind to his
nationality, until he learned he was ineligible for a
high-level position in the Environmental Protection
Agency because he wasn’t a citizen.
“I thought about it for a few minutes and said to
myself, I’m happy to be American,” he recalls.
So he pursued citizenship, ultimately taking the
naturalization oath of allegiance in Baltimore in 1981.
“It was very poignant,” he says. “I’ve read a
lot about American history. I love reading about
the Founding Fathers and Abe Lincoln. George
30 American Magazine NOVEMBER 2013
Washington strikes me as one of the greatest
men that’s ever lived. All this was going through
my mind as I took that oath.”
More than three decades later, Palmer
thinks of himself as “a very proud American of
British heritage.”
“Even now it makes me emotional,” he says.
“I have grown incredibly loyal to America. I felt
I had joined something huge, and I had thrown
my lot in to a country that I think is the greatest
country in the world.”
Jazmynn walked into
the federal building
in downtown Detroit a
Canadian, and walked
out an American.
She also walked in
a Bigelow and walked
out a Croskey.
The 19-year-old
freshman’s journey to
citizenship was every
bit as much about her
familial identity as her
“I felt like
nationality. The daughter
I really
of a European father she
accomplished never met, she grew up
something.
in Brampton, a suburb of
I can go
Toronto, before moving
anywhere
to Michigan at age
and say,
seven when her mother,
‘I’m an
Andrea, met and married
American.’”
her stepfather, David
Croskey.
“My grandparents are from Guyana, and my
brothers were born in America,” she says. “We’re a
nice big, blended family.”
Before heading off to college, Croskey, SIS ’17,
wanted to make official the country she calls home
as well as take the last name of the only father
she’s ever known. In August, just a week before she
came to AU, she became a U.S. citizen and changed
her name.
“I was the youngest person at the ceremony,
and that was something the judge and the
clerks noticed,” Croskey says. “I felt like I really
accomplished something. I can go anywhere and
say, ‘I’m an American.’”
“I felt proud for her, I felt proud for our entire
family,” says her mother, Andrea, who also became
a citizen. “It’s nice to feel that our family is
connected through citizenship.”
“Coming to America was important
because I could see a future for us here,” says
Hassan’s father, Mohammad. He doesn’t speak
English, so his son translates his emails. “I
imagined life in America as peaceful, with no
fear of danger and with job opportunities.
I never thought we would be living in America
until we got on the plane to come here.”
They were set up in a three-room
apartment in public housing in the rough
Atlanta suburb of Clarkston, Georgia. Thrown
into a fifth-grade classroom, Hassan simply
sat quietly and watched.
“For me it was pretty bad,” he says. “I didn’t
speak the language—I didn’t even know my
ABCs. I was bullied every single day. I couldn’t
go outside [our house]. I saw with my own eyes
people getting shot. Our neighbor to our left
was killed. Two bullets came into our house.”
He had made it to the world’s bastion
of democracy, only to discover that cruelty
knows no nationality.
T
he turning point came when Hassan
joined the Fugees Family, a soccer team
for refugee children. He was a shy, quiet,
wayward soul when Luma Mefleh spotted him
on a playground.
“One of his classmates was playing on my
team, and he was watching me,” says Mufleh,
the team’s coach. “I asked him if he wanted to
join, and he got this big grin on his face.”
Having never played organized sports
before, Hassan struggled on the field. But
his development—both on it and in the
classroom—was striking. He began making
friends and transferred to a private school
run by the Fugees, a nonprofit that includes a
variety of organized soccer programs, afterschool tutoring, the private academy, and an
academic enrichment summer camp.
“He had a work ethic that put a lot of his
teammates to shame, and it started to pay off,”
Mufleh says. “It wasn’t just on the field, it was
academically. He was with other refugee kids
with similar backgrounds, not a lot of formal
education. But academically he was much
further ahead. In eighth grade, we had him
sign up for an algebra class online through the
University of Nebraska. The other kids could
barely do their multiplication. He went from a
kid who couldn’t speak, make eye contact, or
carry on a conversation to one who was a lot
more confident, a lot more secure.”
Hassan’s father found work as a mechanic
and was able to move the family to a nicer
house in a safer suburb an hour away. In ninth
grade, he enrolled in the prestigious Atlanta
International School, relying on scholarships
to cover his tuition.
“With education, one can not only resolve
one’s own problems but work toward helping
others and resolving others’ problems,” his
father says. “With education one becomes
aware of the world.”
Hassan focused on college from the outset,
taking International Baccalaureate classes in
subjects like English and biology.
“My older brother and older sister never
got to go to college,” says Hassan, who has
younger siblings studying at universities
in Atlanta and Iran. “I always knew that I
wanted to be something on my own.”
“I think citizenship, in
a country of great
diversity such as
ours, is an important
element of cohesiveness.
It says that legally,
whatever your religion,
whatever your race,
whatever your ethnic
origins, you are now
a permanent member
of this society with
all of the rights
that a person who
was born here has.”
—Alan Kraut
A
s is the case for many immigrants,
scraping together $680 for the
citizenship application fee was an immense
hardship for Hassan. Of the estimated 13.3
million green card holders in the United
States in 2012, about 8.8 million were
eligible for citizenship. Yet the most ever
naturalizations in one year was 1.05 million
in 2008, according to the federal government.
The hefty price is perhaps one reason why.
This summer RISA helped him arrange to
cover the fee. The average lag time from filing
to oath is five months, but the dysfunction
in Washington means that Hassan’s will be
even longer. He’s not worried about the test.
Candidates must demonstrate aptitude in
English by reading one of three sentences
correctly and writing one of three correctly.
That won’t be a problem for Hassan, whose
English is impeccable. He picked it up in
the first six months he was here, in part by
watching TV and talking to friends.
Candidates also must correctly answer 6
of 10 civics questions selected from a pool
of 100. (Kraut was one of the historians
involved in revising the history portion
of the test, an experience he describes as
“fascinating and political.”) Hassan should
ace that portion without breaking a sweat.
He’s now lived in the United States for
almost as long as he’s lived outside it.
“In a society that is homogeneous, in
which everyone comes from similar ethnic
backgrounds, similar religious backgrounds,
similar racial profiles, and can trace their
roots back deep into the country’s history,
perhaps citizenship wouldn’t be so important,”
says Kraut, who’s working on his latest book,
Forget Your Past: Negotiating Identity,
Becoming American. “But I think citizenship,
in a country of great diversity such as ours, is
an important element of cohesiveness. It says
that legally, whatever your religion, whatever
your race, whatever your ethnic origins, you
are now a permanent member of this society
with all of the rights that a person who was
born here has. Naturalization then becomes
terribly important.”
As it is to Hassan. When the conversation
shifts to his impending citizenship, a smile
sweeps over his gentle face.
“I love this country,” he says. “Although
there were some bad experiences and
sometimes I didn’t feel welcome, that’s
a part of everywhere. You go to Afghanistan,
and in some parts you might feel hated. In
some parts loved. But I love [the United
States]. It’s given me a lot. I never would have
been able to go to a regular school.
“I want to become a citizen so I can
go back to my village, because the vague
memory I have of there is like a drawing.
The mountains, the river, the farm, I still
have the connection. I was born there,
my extended family is there. I’m always
going to be an Afghan, but I’m also an
American now.”
Denied.
The word felt like a
punch to Fanta Aw’s
gut. While planning
a trip to visit to her
native Mali, she was
refused a transit visa
by France.
Aw, Kogod/BSBA
’90, SPA/MPA ’94, CAS/
PhD ’11, had moved
from the small African
nation to the U.S.
in the 1970s, when
her father worked
for the World Bank.
“in that
France’s decision not
moment
to allow her into the
you’re
country might have
overcome
been minute on a
by a sense of
geopolitical scale,
tremendous
but it came to hold
pride.”
immense consequence
to Aw. It started her
on the path to American citizenship.
“I was struck that being born in a certain part
of the world created an obstacle for me,” says Aw,
assistant vice president of Campus Life and director
of International Student and Scholar Services. “The
freedom of movement is very important to me.
[American citizenship] was the only way I felt I could
regain my sense of empowerment.”
Along with securing an American passport,
earning the right to vote was critically important to
her. Soon after becoming a citizen in 2008, she cast
hers for president. Years later, Aw still remembers the
emotion of her naturalization ceremony in Baltimore.
“Each person there had a story and a journey,”
she says. “Whether it was a refugee who left
everything behind to start all over; whether it was
the person with an entrepreneurial spirit who saw
infinite potential in America; or whether it was,
in my case, the journey of someone who came to
this country as a student, gained an education,
and I thought I could give back to this society. As
we were standing there, I think each person was
playing in their own mind what their journey had
been. In that moment you’re overcome by a sense
of tremendous pride.”
Aw, who retained her Mali citizenship as well,
considers herself an American of African descent,
not an African American.
“A lot of times you kind of romanticize in
your own mind what all of this means,” she says.
“Citizenship is socially constructed. We make it up.
And in making it up, we build our own stories and
pretty grandiose narratives about what it is. I think
for anyone who makes that decision, they see the
glass as three-quarters full.
Let’s talk #americanmag 31
or a man who once made his living
looking backward—through his
legs—Ryan Kuehl always has been
intently focused on the future.
In the hierarchy of professional athletic
glamour, long snappers—football players
who specialize in snapping the ball on punts,
field goals, and extra point attempts—rank
somewhere near middle relief pitchers in
baseball or members of the pit crew in auto
racing. Although they’re an important cog
on a successful team, they toil largely in
anonymity. If you see a fan wearing a long
snapper’s jersey at a game, you can safely
assume they’re a relative. McDonald’s has yet
to sign one to hawk Big Macs.
Over the course of a 12-year NFL career,
during which he played for four teams,
including the Super Bowl XLII champion
New York Giants, Kuehl intrinsically
32 American Magazine NOVEMBER 2013
understood the realities of his position. He
final meetings on Monday with the team,
knew he lacked the earning power or dreamy
and I had class Tuesday in D.C.,” says the
dimpled chin of Tom Brady; he realized that if
Washington-area native. “I would literally
he was fortunate enough
walk in limping. Forty-eight
to retire from pro ball
hours ago I was fighting for
I remember very
before the league chewed distinctly years
my life on the field, and now
him up and spit him out, when we would lose I’m sitting here in class.”
he couldn’t rely on his
Kuehl, 41, is perched
a playoff game in
name, banked millions,
at a high-top table in the
January, have final
or supermodel wife for
meetings on Monday Hungry and Humble Café,
his livelihood. So for
on the Baltimore campus of
with the team, and I
seven long springs after
Under Armour. He joined
had class Tuesday
each season ended, while in D.C.”
the upstart athletic apparel
his teammates lounged
company in 2008 and now
on a beach or teed up a Titleist, Kuehl,
serves as its senior director of sports marketing
Kogod/MBA ’07, dragged his battered and
for professional sports. As the leader of a group
bruised body straight from the locker room to
of 15, he’s charged with forming partnerships
classrooms at AU.
with athletes, teams, and leagues.
“I remember very distinctly years when
“Essentially what we do is provide the
we would lose a playoff game in January, have
vehicles for our brand marketers and our
“
Growing up, Kuehl wasn’t a Tiger- or
“The ability to project beyond one’s playing
LeBron-like prodigy, but he did possess
career can be a rare trait among athletes.
two attributes that can’t be coached: size
Beginning with our earliest conversations,
and desire. As a high school freshman, the
Ryan displayed a genuine curiosity in
205-pound Kuehl began playing running back,
understanding the business side of sports
and by the time he graduated, he was a 6-footmarketing and athlete management,” Plank
4-inch, 225-pound defensive lineman.
says. “He continued to follow our company’s
It wasn’t until after his junior year at
progress and to educate himself about our
the University of Virginia that Kuehl began
newest products and innovations. There
thinking about the NFL. Although he went
was an authentic thirst for knowledge and
undrafted, he clawed his way onto the San
information that really struck me. The
Francisco 49ers practice squad following
underlying implication was that Ryan was
an impressive training camp. Kuehl was no
deeply committed to building a successful life
dummy; he knew his spot on a NFL roster
for himself after football, and he was starting to
always would be precarious at
outline that road map for
best. Somehow he had to set
his next career.”
At the end of
himself apart. Long snapping,
Gary Ford, one of
the day, unless
which he picked up in college,
his professors at Kogod,
you’re a Hall of
was his differentiator.
also isn’t surprised by
Fame–level player,
“You realize quickly that
Kuehl’s success in the
when you retire
in football there’s a reason
corporate world.
no one cares.”
the average career is three
“Any athlete has to
years long,” he says. “They’re
be committed to their
constantly bringing in players that are younger
sport and spend a lot of time practicing and
and healthier. As my skills on defense started
suffering,” he says. “I think that discipline,
to deteriorate—I wasn’t that good to begin with and the experience of working with others for
from a professional perspective—snapping kept a common good, helps in business. Once he
me in the league. I probably would have had a
started [at Kogod], he wasn’t going to give up,
five-year career instead of 12.”
because he doesn’t quit.”
After five surgeries and a string of sixKuehl’s office, located near Plank’s in the
figure minimum contracts (and at least one
restored former Proctor and Gamble complex
significantly meatier one), Kuehl retired in
on the south Baltimore waterfront, is sparsely
2008. Armed with his MBA, he was prepared.
decorated. Pictures of Baltimore Ravens’ greats
“A lot of guys will open a bar with their
Ray Lewis and Terrell Suggs hang above a
name on it, or they’ll do camps,” Kuehl says of
dry-erase board. A pink cleat autographed by
20- and 30-something NFL retirees. “That’s all
members of the Kansas City Royals, for whom
fleeting. At the end of the day, unless you’re a
Under Armour designed the special Mother’s
Hall of Fame-level player, when you retire no
Day shoe, and a photo from the Michael Phelps
one cares. That’s not a negative statement—
Foundation Golf Classic sit on a cabinet, along
that’s reality. Education is the thing that’s going with other mementos. In a corner stands a
to pay off in the long run. Yeah, you may not
life-sized cardboard cutout of him in his Giants
have a bar that you can take your friends to.
uniform that his Under Armour team had made
That’s fine—most bars fail.”
as a gag gift for his 40th birthday.
During the spring and summer, Kuehl
It’s one of the only reminders of his old life
would supplement his studies and workouts by
that he keeps around. Even his Super Bowl ring
shadowing business leaders.
sits in the T-shirt drawer of his dresser at home,
“I made it my mission to make sure I was
its 1.5 carats of sparkly, white diamonds rarely
constantly building relationships in the offseeing the light of day. To Kuehl it represents
season,” he says. “Everyone thinks athletes get
the past, not the future, and that’s a direction in
their asses kissed all the time, so I’d flip that. I’d which he doesn’t waste time looking.
say, ‘I’d love to come down to your office and
“I’m proud of my career, but I don’t think
take you to lunch.’ I picked five or six people
about playing anymore,” he says. “We’re
and developed deep relationships with them.”
chasing some very aggressive goals at Under
One was Kevin Plank, Under Armour’s
Armour. There’s no time to think about
founder and CEO, whom he met at a sports
anything but the present.”
business symposium in 2003.
“
storytellers to sell products and elevate the
brand,” he says, sounding very much like
a man who paid attention in class—and at
home. Kuehl’s father, Philip, was a business
professor at the University of Maryland.
“He felt football was a great get-in-thedoor thing, but when people are looking to
hire somebody, they’re looking to see your
value,” Kuehl says. “There are 1,800 active NFL
players, and we’ve got 8,000 to 9,000 retired
players around the country. That’s a pretty
select group, but you want real select? Get your
degree, show people outside of the sport that
this guy is serious about being a contributor.
Education is a long-term investment that
shows people you’re committed to learning,
you’re committed to applying yourself, you’re
committed to improving yourself. Those
are things that, in my opinion, leaders of
companies are interested in.”
Let’s talk #americanmag 33
Rosy Tamam, SPA/BA ’15, (center); mom
Lana Tamam; and sisters Lillian Elgayar, 9,
and Jasmine Elgayar, 10, share a hug during
All-American Weekend, October 19.
Abraham J. Peck, SIS/BA
’68, SIS/MA ’70, coauthored a
historical memoir, Unwanted
Legacies: Sharing the Burden
Jeffery King, SPA/BA ’64,
of the Post-Genocide
published a new book,
Generations.
Kill-Crazy Gang:
References to
The Crimes of
Peck’s time at
the Lewis-Jones
AU during the
Gang, about the
tumultuous
your
email
violent Lewis1960s are
address
at
Jones gang of
included
in the
american.edu/
the 1910s.
book.
alumni.
Stephen
Pamela Elliott,
Morton, CAS/
CAS/BA ’69, published
MA ’64, was inducted
a clinical text, I Got
into the Bowling Green State
the Leftovers: Case Study of
University Athletic Hall of
Traumatic Brain Injury.
Fame as a member of the 1959
1960s
UPDATE
National Small College Football
Championship team.
Connie Morella, CAS/MA ’67,
president of the U.S. Association
of Former Members of Congress,
received the Knight Commander’s
Cross of the Order of Merit from
the Federal Republic of Germany.
The award is Germany’s highest
honor. She received the award
for her commitment to fostering
dialogue and better understanding
between the United States and
Germany.
Dennis Grubb, SIS/MA ’68,
former alumni board member,
participated in the June 17
ceremony for the transportation
of the John F. Kennedy Eternal
Flame to Ireland. The event
commemorated the 50th
anniversary of Kennedy’s visit to
Ireland. Grubb attended AU after
serving in the first Peace Corps
contingent to Colombia in 1961.
-1969-
TIME
CAPSULES
Top Tune
“Sugar Sugar,” The Archies
Top Grossing Flick
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
In the News
The United States, Soviet Union, and
100 other countries sign the nuclear
nonproliferation treaty; Apollo 11
astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz
Aldrin become the first men to walk on
the moon; Janis Joplin, the Who, and Jimi
Hendrix perform at Woodstock
From the AU Archives
The Kay Spiritual Life Center hosts
a workshop on draft alternatives:
“deferments, conscientious objection,
emigration (Canada and Sweden),
resistance, and jail.”
1970s
Demetrios Pulas, SPA/BA
’70, former Federal Energy
Regulatory Commission senior
enforcement attorney, joined the
energy regulation team of Husch
Blackwell LLP.
Theodore “Ted” Simon, Kogod/
BS ’71, has been installed as
president-elect of the National
Association of Criminal Defense
Lawyers.
Jeffrey Citron, Kogod/BSBA ’72,
comanaging partner of Davidoff
Hutcher & Citron LLP, was
named “best attorney” by the
New York Enterprise Report.
Citron was selected from more
than 80 nominees.
Patrick Hagan, WCL/JD ’75,
was selected Philadelphia’s
Patent Lawyer of the Year 2013
in a peer-review survey by the
editorial board of Best Lawyers.
He specializes in pharmaceutical
patent law at Dann, Dorfmann,
Herrell & Skillman.
Jay Lenrow, WCL/JD ’77, was
elected as a member of the Johns
Hopkins University Board of
Trustees.
Susan Ellis Wild, SPA/BA ’78,
was named among the top 50
female lawyers in Pennsylvania
on the list of 2013 Pennsylvania
Super Lawyers. Wild’s practice
focuses on the defense of
healthcare practitioners and
hospitals as well as personal
injury defense, civil rights claims,
and employment matters.
Jeff Baxt, SOC/BA ’79, was
interviewed by Rep Radio, an East
Coast podcast network, on his
start as an actor.
-1975-
TIME
CAPSULES
Top Tune
“Love Will Keep Us Together,”
The Captain and Tennille
Top Grossing Flick
Jaws
In the News
Vietnam War ends after nearly 20 years
of fighting; President Gerald Ford escapes
two assassination attempts within 17 days;
Saturday Night Live debuts on NBC
From the AU Archives
More than a dozen disgruntled former
Student Confederation leaders—frustrated
with campus politics—form the Rooster
Club. The only grounds for expulsion:
“reinstatement in one’s former post.”
1980s
Simon Carmel, CAS/MA
’80, CAS/PhD ’87, published
a 400-page book, Invisible
Magic: Biographies of 112 Deaf
Magicians from 28 Countries. In
2008, he published Silent Magic:
Biographies of 59 Deaf Magicians
in the United States from the
Nineteenth to Twenty-First
Centuries.
american.edu/alumni 35
class notes
David Smith, SPA/BA ’82,
published a book with the United
States Institute of Peace Press.
Peacebuilding in Community
Colleges: A Teaching Resource
includes contributions by 23
community college professionals,
arguing that community colleges
are well suited to strengthening
global education and teaching
conflict resolution skills.
Sylvia Lamar, WCL/JD ’83, was
appointed to the First Judicial
District Court of New Mexico
by Gov. Susana Martinez. Her
appointment was featured in
the Santa Fe New Mexican.
keepjudgelamar@gmail.com
Robert Surrette, CAS/MA ’83,
published an article in Prime
Time Cape Cod. “Lean on Her: A
Hand to Hold for Children and
Special Victims of Crime” profiles
Deborah Thompson, victim
services coordinator for the
Dennis Police Department.
Mike O’Brien, SOC/BA ’84, had a
book published by the University
Press of Mississippi. We Shall
Not Be Moved: The Jackson
Woolworth’s Sit-In and the
-1981-
TIME
CAPSULES
Top Tune
“Bette Davis Eyes,” Kim Carnes
Top Grossing Flick
Raiders of the Lost Ark
In the News
Sandra Day O’Connor becomes the
first female Supreme Court justice;
52 hostages held in Tehran since 1979
are released; John Hinckley Jr. shoots
President Ronald Reagan in the lung,
wounding three others
At the Helm
Don McEachin was 1981–1982 Student
Confederation president; he’s now a
Democratic member of the Virginia
Senate, representing the Ninth District.
Movement It Inspired is the story
of the 1963 movement that shifted
the racial status quo in Jackson,
Mississippi.
Oliver Chamberlain, CAS/MA
’85, published Landscapes and
Writings of Harold Caparn, on
I learned my first trick from my
father, who showed me how to
‘remove my thumb’ by twisting
my fingers. It was a way for him to
communicate with me. I’ve been
doing magic all of my life, and I’m
still learning a new trick every
week—sometimes every day.”
—Simon Carmel, CAS/MA ’80, CAS/PhD ’87, on how
magic helped his father connect with his deaf son
36 American Magazine NOVEMBER 2013
the landscape architect of the
Brooklyn Botanic Garden, 1912–
1945. Chamberlain is retired as
executive director of the Center
for the Arts at the University
of Massachusetts–Lowell.
ochamberlain2@verizon.net
David Heller, SOC/BA ’90, wrote
Facing Ted Williams, published
by Sports Publishing. The book
received favorable reviews from
the Boston Globe, ESPN.com, the
New York Journal of Books, and
the Library Journal.
Donald Leka, SIS/BA ’86,
Kogod/MBA ’97, and Claire
Leka, SOC/BA ’91, SOC/MA
’94, published a book, Cloud
Computing: The Glide OS Story,
Solving the Cross-Platform Puzzle.
The book tells the story of Glide,
an operating system that allows
users greater control over their
personal data across multiple
computing platforms.
Jeraline Shields, SPA/MSHR
’91, received a PhD in human
and organizational development
from Fielding Graduate
University in July.
Juan Nolla, SPA/BA ’93, was
widowed on April 24, after
his wife, Margarita MedinaFeliciano, passed away in Ponce,
Puerto Rico.
Lawrence Polsky, SPA/
Nicholas Malone,
MSHR ’93, published
Kogod/BSBA
his third book,
’87, was named
Rapid Retooling:
CFO of the
Developing
class notes
Year by the
World-Class
photos online at
Boston Business
Organizations
pinterest.com/
Journal.
in a Rapidly
americanmag.
Malone is CFO
Changing World.
of Wayfair.com, a
retail site for home
Saima Huq, SOC/
furnishings and decor.
BA ’95, played Cobweb
in Cheeky Monkey Theatre
Peter A. Quinter, WCL/JD ’89,
Company’s production of A
chair of GrayRobinson’s Customs
Midsummer Night’s Dream. The
and International Trade Law
show took place at the American
Group, was appointed liaison of
Theatre of Actors in midtown
the American Bar Association
Manhattan. Her other roles were
Section of International Law to
Tom Snout the Tinker and Wall.
the Florida Bar.
Gretchen Bylow, SIS/MA ’97,
cochaired a charity benefit
for the Boys and Girls Club of
Greenwich, Connecticut, to raise
$650,000 for youth programs.
Stephanie Bloom, WCL/JD ’90,
The benefit was themed “From
and her company, Bloom and
Greenwich with Love—007 Bond
Grow, Inc., launched A Place to
with the Club.”
Grow, an interactive children’s
reading and learning app for
Jehan Harney, SOC/MA ’97,
iPad and iPhone inspired by
celebrated the national premiere
her award-winning children’s
of her film, The Lost Dream. The
picture book. appstore.com/
film was broadcasted as part
bloomandgrowinc
of the World Channel’s Global
Voices series.
View
1990s
thank you
Illustration by Bruce morser
If not for the generosity of an alumnus
who first walked the campus half a century before, senior Kyung Eun Kim
would’ve had to leave American University and the United States altogether.
The psychology major, known to friends as Daisy, came to Atlanta from
her native South Korea—by way of China—when she was 16. A bubbly
student who has her sights set on medical school, Kim has lived apart from
her parents for six years. She relies on scholarships, including the Barnard
Scholarship—established by John Fiske Barnard, Kogod/MBA ’59, in memory
of his late wife, Lovelle—to finance her AU education.
“My dad gathers and resells recyclable car parts in Japan, but his
business was devastated by the tsunami in 2011. Without the Barnard
Scholarship, it would’ve been impossible for me to stay here,” Kim says.
As beneficial as the Barnard Scholarship—awarded annually to a
psychology major—is, it’s not Barnard’s only gift to the university. The
longtime federal employee, who passed away in July following a battle with
cancer, first established a charitable gift annuity in 1995. Inspired by
psychology professor James Gray, with whom the Barnards took classes, he
then made provisions for a future scholarship through his estate plans. After
consulting financial and legal advisors, however, he realized that by making
a current gift of appreciated stock, he could eliminate capital gains taxes
and enjoy the benefits of the gift during his lifetime.
“I never missed that stock,” Barnard said a few months before his passing,
“but I’ve had the pleasure of meeting wonderful young scholarship recipients
every year. They have shown genuine appreciation for the assistance, but it is
I who am grateful; our meetings have made a difference in my life.”
Kim, who says Barnard and his wife, Jan Anderson, not only welcomed
her into their home but into their family, is inspired by the alum’s warmth
and legacy of philanthropy.
“The Barnards made a huge difference in my life. I can’t wait to pay
it forward.”
FOR INFORMATION ON CHARITABLE ESTATE DONATIONS, VISIT AMERICAN.EDU/PLANNEDGIVING
american.edu/alumni 37
Gifts to the university create a legacy of philanthropy
that changes the life of our institution forever.
The gleaming new Cassell Hall opened its doors at the beginning
of this semester to its first group of residents. Alumni who come
to campus will be surprised, if not shocked, to see it there. It used
to be a parking lot, and now there’s an eight-story building that
will change lives for generations of AU students to come.
Cassell Hall is important because it’s the first residence hall at AU
named for philanthropy. It provides a resource that was badly
needed, but it also gives a lot of joy to the donor. To me, working
with people who give is about enabling their joy in giving. That’s
what we want philanthropy to be—joyful giving.
Other great philanthropic legacies at AU include the Kogod
School of Business, Katzen Arts Center, Kay Spiritual Life Center,
Greenberg Theatre, facilities named by the Abramson family, and
the Susan Carmel Lehrman Chair of Russian History and Culture.
Higher education
in America was
created to provide
opportunity, and
that opportunity
continues in
every gift.
There are many ways to create a legacy. Higher education
in America was created to provide opportunity, and that
opportunity continues in every gift. Gifts in support of
scholarships enable students to come to AU who otherwise
might not be in school anywhere. Our excellent studentfaculty ratio means that all students are personally impacted
by faculty. That makes the legacy of philanthropy through
investment in faculty significant and lasting.
Faculty are the skeleton of the institution—they hold the meat
on the bones. To attract and retain the best and the brightest
scholars in all the disciplines, we need support for faculty. That
assures that we have brilliant people who spend the balance of
their careers here.
We know that the best donors are engaged in multiple aspects of
the institution’s life, and we know that the best volunteers are
also donors. So it’s important for us to have our alumni step up
and participate in giving at whatever level they can.
No matter how much you give, you are contributing to a legacy
built by a community of Eagles.
Sincerely,
Thomas J. Minar, PhD
Vice President of Development and Alumni Relations
38 American Magazine NOVEMBER 2013
giving
Our student-athletes
returned to campus to find
updated locker rooms and dedicated
space for each sport. In addition, the new
Cassell Hall and the Stafford H. Cassell Jr.
Fitness Center provide an unsurpassed
living environment and doubles the
campus’s fitness center space.
This fall, 80 new faculty members
joined the ranks of AU’s world-class
scholars, including 23 tenured or tenuretrack professors. Two key priorities
are empowering faculty and enhancing
the research infrastructure, including
providing equipment and facilities that
reflect our commitment to the sciences.
AU’s ambitious campus
plan guides the university’s growth
over the next decade. In addition to
Cassell and Nebraska Halls, it includes
the renovation of the historic McKinley
Building, a new home for WAMU, and the
relocation of the Washington College of
Law to the Tenley Campus.
AU filled two newly endowed
chairs this fall. Jeffrey Harris joined
Kogod as the Gary D. Cohn Goldman
Sachs Chair in Finance. Michael
Brenner, an internationally renowned
scholar who started Germany’s first
Jewish history and culture program,
was named the Seymour and Lillian
Abensohn Chair in Israel Studies. Both
of these important positions were made
possible through philanthropy.
A new East Campus, including
three residence halls, administrative
offices, and a welcome center, will rise
across from main campus, on the corner
of Nebraska and New Mexico Avenues.
AU will break ground in summer 2014.
american.edu/alumni 39
Illustration by Bruce morser
By limiting tuition increases
and increasing financial aid for the
next two years, AU is working to help
students reduce debt levels. Donorfunded scholarships support hundreds
of students each year.
class notes
Tablets and smart
phones can be
wonderful teaching
tools, but they’re
not substitutes for
person-to-person
sharing and learning.
There is something
very special about
children reading
with adults and with
other children.”
—Stephanie Bloom, WCL/JD ’90,
on her interactive children’s book
app, A Place to Grow
Loretta Hobbs, SPA/MSOD ’97,
received a PhD in human and
organizational development from
Fielding Graduate University
in July.
Patrick Krill, SPA/BA ’97,
WCL/LLM ’03, was appointed
director of the Legal Professionals
Program at the Hazelden
Foundation. Hazelden is one
of the world’s largest and most
respected private, not-for-profit
alcohol and drug addiction
treatment centers with locations
across the United States.
Stacy Posillico, SPA/BA ’98,
received a master’s degree in
library science from St. John’s
University in January. She is
now a law librarian at the Touro
Law Center Gould Law Library
in Central Islip, New York. In
2011, Stacy and her husband, Joe,
welcomed a daughter, Elizabeth
Margaret.
Damon Seils, CAS/MA ’99, was
elected to the Board of Aldermen
in Carrboro, North Carolina.
2000s
Seth Darmstadter, SPA/BA ’00,
Daniel J. Vukelich, Esq., SPA/
was named a partner at Meckler
BA ’99, WCL/JD ’05, president of
the Association of Medical Device Bulger Tilson Marick & Pearson
LLP in Chicago, where he was
Reprocessors, was awarded the
most recently an associate.
Certified Association
Executive (CAE)
Sharon Foster,
credential by the
SOC/MA ’02,
American Society
participated
of Association
your friends
in a “Justice
Executives.
in the loop.
for Trayvon
The CAE is
Send your updates
Vigil” held in
the highest
to classnotes@
Washington,
professional
american.edu.
D.C., on July 20.
credential in the
Toby McChesney,
association industry.
SPA/BA ’02, was
Kendee Yamaguchi, SPA/
elected to the board of
BA ’99, left her cabinet position
directors for the Graduate
working for the governor of
Management Admissions
Washington to accept a position
Council. He is the youngest
in the senior management team
member of the board.
for the Washington State attorney
Kelly Costello, CAS/BA ’03,
general. She is now the assistant
overturned his insurance denial
attorney general and director
for receiving transgender-related
of policy, legislative affairs, and
health-care coverage. This case
external relations.
in Colorado may affect other
policies regarding access to
transgender inclusive healthcare.
KEEP
-1995-
TIME
CAPSULES
Top Tune
“Gangsta’s Paradise,” Coolio
Top Grossing Flick
Die Hard with a Vengeance
In the News
Los Angeles jury finds O. J. Simpson not
guilty of murder; 168 die in the terrorist
bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal
Building in Oklahoma City
40 American Magazine NOVEMBER 2013
At the Helm
Mark Sylvia was 1995–1996 Student
Confederation president; he’s now
commissioner of the Massachusetts
Department of Energy Resources.
Brian Levin, SOC/MA ’04, is
making his feature film debut
as a writer on the upcoming
comedy Flock of Dudes. The film,
featuring an all-star cast, is slated
for release in the spring of 2014.
Alisa Wohlfarth Otten, Kogod/
BSBA ’04, and Lucas Otten
welcomed their first child, Tyler
David Otten, on June 26, 2013.
Jacqueline Fortier, SPA/BA
’06, received her JD from Touro
College of Law in 2009. She is now
admitted to practice in Florida,
Georgia, and the District of
Columbia. Fortier joined the law
offices of Garnett Harrison, PC, as
an associate attorney in May 2013.
Rebekah Moan, SOC/BA ’06,
wrote and published a book
called Just a Girl from Kansas,
a memoir about what happens
when you have the courage to
pursue your dreams.
-2006-
TIME
CAPSULES
Top Tune
“Bad Day,” Daniel Powter
Top Grossing Flick
Pirates of the Caribbean:
Dead Man’s Chest
In the News
Saddam Hussein convicted of crimes
against humanity and hanged in Baghdad;
lobbyist Jack Abramoff sentenced to six
years in prison for fraud; International
Astronomical Union redefines the solar
system, revoking Pluto’s status as a planet
At the Helm
Kyle Taylor was 2005–2006 Student
Government president; now he’s chief of
staff and campaign director for British
Parliament member Simon Hughes.
Bethany Lynn Corey, CAS/BA
’07, was awarded the 2013 Ann
Shaw Fellowship by TYA USA. It
will fund continuing research in
theater for the young, conducted
in collaboration with Patch
Theatre Company of Adelaide,
Australia, and will provide
resources for a tricultural artistic
collaboration in Singapore. She
received her MFA in drama and
theater for youth and communities
from the University of Texas at
Austin in May 2013.
Benjamin Lamson, SOC/BA ’07,
received the Wall Street Journal’s
Start Up of the Year award for his
company, WeDidIt.
teamwork
WEDDING RESEARCH INTERESTS
Ghazal Nadi, SPA/PhD candidate + Tofigh Maboudi, SPA/PhD candidate
Love blossomed in their hometown of Ahvaz, Iran, about 500 miles outside of Tehran. They got married two
years ago; after she came to the United States to earn her master’s degree in political science, he arrived at AU to begin his
doctoral studies. A year later, she joined him in Washington. Shared passion: While his focus is on the interaction
between citizens and elites during constitution making and hers tends toward budget policies, they presented a paper together
in May on the struggle over Egypt’s constitution. “We encourage each other when we work together,” Maboudi
says. “Sometimes she’s tired, so I work on it, and she sees me, so she gets energy. And the other way around.”
The couple adores living in Washington. “We’ve been to New York, Chicago, Philly, and I lived in Detroit,” Nadi says. “Every
time we went [somewhere] I was like, ‘I want to go back home to D.C.’ We love everything that D.C. has to offer.” A unique
perspective: “I feel like both sides are blinded by their political relations,” Nadi says of U.S.-Iranian relations, “so they
depict the people and the culture in a way where you think the other side is hostile. Now that we have access to both sides, we
know it’s not like that. We love Americans.”
american.edu/alumni 41
class notes
Emily Goldberg, SIS/BA ’08, SIS/
MA ’09, and Jason Knox, SPA/BA
’08, were married on January 5.
Several other members of the AU
community were in attendance.
Joseph Vidulich, SPA/BA ’08,
was named vice president of
government relations for the
Fairfax County Chamber of
Commerce. He is a seasoned
government relations professional
with public policy experience
in the business and technology
sectors. He serves as the
chamber’s lead legislative liaison
and lobbyist before the Fairfax
County Board of Supervisors, the
Virginia General Assembly, and
the governor’s office.
2010s
Viachaslau Bortnik, SPA/MPA
’10, became the first Belarusian
man to enter a same-sex marriage
in the United States.
Alexandra Loken, SIS/BA ’10,
founded Loken Creative, a causebased marketing firm in Austin,
Texas.
Walakewon Blegay, WCL/
JD ’11, was appointed to the
Prince George’s County Human
Relations Commission and
the Maryland Governor’s
Task Force on the Study of
Economic Development and
Apprenticeships.
I had teenagers who couldn’t string
together a sentence in English.
By the end of the year I had them
writing a paragraph or two in a
language that was foreign to them
nine months earlier.”
Ashley Rose Stumbaugh,
Kogod/BSBA ’12, and Robert
Maisano, SPA/BA ’13, reached
the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro
early on Saturday, June 8.
They have plans to continue
to climb and to reach all of the
Seven Summits before their
30th birthdays.
—Andrea Finuccio, SIS/BA ’11, on helping students at Miami
Edison Senior High School in Little Haiti master English
Andrea Finuccio, SIS/BA ’11,
following AU’s tradition of
service, spent a year with City
Year, an AmeriCorps program.
Jessica Williams, SIS/MA ’11,
was named vice president
of public relations at C. Fox
Communications. Prior to joining
C. Fox, she worked at the Pew
Charitable Trusts with the fiscal
and economic policy project
teams on communications and
media outreach.
Dianne Winter, CAS/MA ’11, has
joined the staff of Caffé Lena’s
landmark Saratoga music venue
as associate director.
Brenton Fuchs, Kogod/BSBA ’12,
was awarded the Learning Ally
Mary P. Oenslager Scholastic
Achievement Award for academic
excellence, outstanding leadership,
and service to others on April 27
at a National Achievement
Awards Gala at the Newseum in
Washington, D.C. Fuchs celebrated
Dean Carter, CAS/BA ’47,
May 2, 2013, Blacksburg,
Virginia
Merrill Ewing, Kogod/MBA ’59,
March 31, 2013, Salisbury,
Maryland
John Krupin, Kogod/BS ’50,
December 12, 2012, New York,
New York
Petra Kahn, SIS/BA ’71, July 18,
2013, McLean, Virginia
42 American Magazine NOVEMBER 2013
his award with his parents,
Deborah Daddio, WCL/JD ’79,
and Kurt Fuchs and friends Bruce
McDonald, WCL/JD ’79, and
Gulnara Bekieva.
Emily Roseman, SOC/BA ’12,
wrote a book, The Diploma
Diaries, published by Sourcebook.
The book relays advice for
young professionals entering
postgraduate life.
To update your address
Email
alumupdate@american.edu
Visit
american.edu/alumni/connected
Write
Office of Alumni Relations
American University
4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20016-8002
James Wexler, Kogod/BSBA ’75,
April 18, 2013, Lake Worth, Florida
Antoinette Tomasek, CAS/BA ’02,
June 29, 2013, Haiti
Meet David Schain ’60, dapper deejay.
“The photo was taken in 1958 when
I was working on a regular basis
at WAMU. I was also pledging Phi
Ep, and you can see the pledge pin
in the photograph,” writes Schain,
who attended AU on the GI Bill. The
communications grad enjoyed success
in the real estate and video production
industries before pursuing a career as
a model and spokesman. Recently the
Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, resident
“spent six days in Barbados doing a
modeling shoot as a grandfather for
an upscale hotel chain. I had to work
15 to 16 minutes a day; hard work, but
somebody had to do it.”
Meghan Aberle, SPA/BA ’04,
July 30, 2013, Bogota,
Colombia
faculty
Alfred B. Chaet, July 23, 2013,
Maitland, Florida
memories
Excerpts from the Eagle archives
at theeagleonline.com/archives
1938
The men have the “ham house”—short for Hamilton
House (named for brothers Franklin and John, both
former AU chancellors)—so the Eagle calls for a catchy
moniker for the women’s residence hall. “We ought
to have something with ‘umph,’ something clever.”
Suggestions include “the hennery,” “the roost,” and,
simply, “the umph.”
1966
Giving new meaning to “spring fling,” McDowell Hall’s
feisty, female inhabitants toss their panties to a crowd
of male students gathered outside on a warm March
evening. Colorful underwear float out the windows to
chants of “We want silk!” before head resident Estelle
Kelsey breaks up the fun, dousing the panty raiders with
water and calling campus police.
1975
After a string of sofa heists, the Residence Hall
Association addresses the pressing problem of stolen
lounge furniture. Students are fined $10 for the first
offense and $15 for the second. A third offense results in
suspension from the dorms. Resident advisors’ “illegal
and intrusive” searches for hot furniture leave students
feeling cold.
2013
Recognize
these students settling
into Anderson Hall during
the late ‘60s? Reveal their
identities at magazine@
american.edu.
Once a parking lot, Cassell Hall, an eight-story structure
(with a sprawling, 8,000-square-foot fitness center)
nestled on the northwest corner of campus, opens
its doors to 360 upperclassmen. Across Mass. Ave., a
three-story addition to Nebraska Hall offers apartmentstyle housing for another 150 students. The structures
are AU’s first new residence halls since Centennial Hall
opened in 1986.
Were you a panty raider
or a resident of the roost?
Share your stories of life in Leonard,
Letts, and AU’s other residence halls:
email magazine@american.edu.
american.edu/alumni 43
where we are
AU’s reach
crosses over
land and sea
to Puerto Rico, a Caribbean gem with a
centuries-long mash-up of Spanish, African,
and Taino Indian traditions and home to
some 250 alums. They crunch numbers,
inspire students, interpret the law, and
attract customers.
What do these Eagles all share, besides
prizing the Puerto Rican–concocted piña
colada and the island’s symbol of pride,
the coquí, a tiny indigenous tree frog? An
insider’s edge on Washington, gained while
studying at AU.
AU was in Puerto Rico earlier this month,
when Raina Lenney, assistant vice president,
alumni relations, hosted a reception for
alumni living in the U.S. territory. Learn
more about the Puerto Rico alumni chapter’s
upcoming events at american.edu/alumni.
44 American Magazine NOVEMBER 2013
Luz Deliz-Cruz, WCL/LLM ’06
Martha Hermilla, SOC/BA ’91
Legal advisor
Puerto Rico Public Buildings Authority
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Senior director of marketing
Developers diversified realty (DDR)
Bayamón, Puerto Rico
On a tropical island like Puerto Rico, visitors and residents
revel in the year-round sunshine. But schools have to shield
students from its harmful byproducts—heat and humidity—
that can breed mold and lead to respiratory problems.
Air conditioning, the go-to choice for decades, is pricey to
install, run, and maintain. Short of reverting to the practices
of the island’s first settlers, the Spaniards, whose high
ceilings used the power of the wind to keep them cool and
dry, the government has begun to tap into, rather than fight,
the elements when building new schools.
“They want to use wind and sunlight in a more natural
way,” says Puerto Rico native Luz Deliz-Cruz, a legal
advisor with the Puerto Rico Public Buildings Authority,
which constructs and maintains mostly schools but also
courts, hospitals, and other government buildings. “Right
now we have only two green schools, and we are using the
wind, using the sunlight. But we are looking to save energy,
because in Puerto Rico energy is very expensive. We are
trying to change the old system we had from the 1970s.”
“Puerto Ricans love to shop,” says Martha Hermilla, who,
born to Cuban parents, grew up on the island and now
oversees marketing for 15 shopping centers in Puerto
Rico for retail investor DDR. They see outings to the mall,
she says, as social and cultural events—perhaps the way
previous generations would have gone to town squares, or,
as they are known in the Latin American tradition, plazas,
strolling arm in arm, greeting neighbors, and shopping in
surrounding stores.
This past spring families across Puerto Rico turned
out to the malls in droves, with some 450 kids raring for
the chance to partner with world-renowned pop artist
Romero Britto, whose work vibrates with the colors of the
tropics. Some of their masterpieces were later donated
to nearby schools and nonprofits. As to what the future
Picassos themselves received, Hermilla notes: “Working
with such an artist, [the] children got exposure to the
arts in a great way, which they otherwise might never
have gotten.”
teamwork
Shanghai Express
Kyle Long, Kogod/BSBA ’07 + Jamie Barys, SOC/BA ’07
Roasted starfish, stewed crawfish, and deep-fried water snakes butchered to order. Exotic eats are all in a day’s work
for Long and Barys, founders of UnTour Shanghai, a company that caters to foodies and adventure seekers from around
the globe. “After seeing typical ‘follow the flag’ tours, we knew we wanted to showcase a part of the city most tourists don’t have
access to,” Long says. Though they also offer jogging sightseeing tours and cultural outings, culinary tours, rated No. 1 in
Shanghai by travel website TripAdvisor, make up the bulk of their business. Guests include tourists, expats, and locals who
want to tickle their tastebuds at Shanghai’s famous night markets and mom-and-pop noodle shops. On the menu: Yunnanstyle, deep-fried insect platter, which includes honeybees, bamboo worms, and dragonflies (“the wings tend to get stuck in your
throat,” warns Long). Chief eating officer Barys and chief running officer Long studied abroad together in Beijing during their
junior year at AU. They vowed to return—and in 2010, they launched UnTour. Favorite destination: “Whenever we’re
away from Shanghai for too long, we crave spicy peanut sesame noodles at Wei Xiang Zhai,” says Barys, a former dining writer.
“That’s our first stop back.”
american.edu/alumni 45
vision + planning = legacy
For Washington College of
Law alumna Dorothy Toth
Beasley, a legal career meant
continuing a family tradition.
Beasley, a senior judge for the
State of Georgia, says part-time
work and financial assistance
provided by the Grace Markel
Daish Scholarship were
integral in kick-starting her 50year career as an attorney,
judge, and mediator.
She established the Stephen
and Beatrice Dodd Toth
Endowed Scholarship Fund to
honor her parents and support
WCL students interested in
public service. The Atlanta
resident enjoys meeting Toth
Scholarship recipients:
“students with big plans who
will make a difference
through service and whose
aspirations and enthusiasm
are energizing.”
We are grateful to Beasley,
who hopes the Toth
Scholarship will cover an
increasingly significant
portion of recipients’ legal
education costs. In addition
to generous annual gifts that
enhance the scholarship’s
impact, Beasley has named
WCL among the beneficiaries
of her estate. “By supporting
students’ legal education, we
can equip them with the
knowledge to pursue their
passions,” she says.
For information on how your
vision and charitable estate
planning can create a legacy at
American University, contact
Seth Speyer, director of planned
giving, at 202-885-5914 or
speyer@american.edu, or visit
american.edu/plannedgiving.
46 American Magazine NOVEMBER 2013
top picks
Simson’s most influential
recording artists of the
past 50 years:
1.
Sam Cooke—The first singer-songwriter of
the modern pop era, Sam wrote a catalog
of hits, broke down racial barriers, and
sang sweeter than any bird.
1
6
2
7
3
8
4
9
5
10
2.
The Beatles—John and Paul’s rivalry,
each pushing the other in the best way
possible, created some of the most
memorable songs ever.
John Simson’s 40-year
career in the music industry has
had its share of high notes.
The singer-songwriter
turned copyright lawyer
managed five-time Grammy
winner Mary Chapin Carpenter,
while racking up an Emmy nod
of his own for the PBS special
American Roots Music. A member
of the Library of Congress
National Recording Preservation
Board, Simson served as executive
director of SoundExchange, a
Washington-based nonprofit that
collects and distributes artists’
royalties, until 2010.
Now the music wonk has
a new gig: director of
photo by Laura Herring
Kogod’s business of
entertainment program,
which welcomed its first crop
of undergrads this fall. The only
bachelor’s degree of its kind in
D.C., the program gives budding
entertainment execs a strong
foundation in accounting, finance,
marketing, and information
technology and allows them to
choose from specializations such
as audio technology and film.
3.
Bob Dylan—The poet and subterranean
leader of the ’60s, Bob’s written more great
songs than anyone and influenced the
growth of the singer-songwriter aesthetic.
4.
Aretha Franklin—The Queen of Soul
had a voice that could raise goose bumps.
The classics are too many to mention, but
“Think” took it to another level.
5.
Stevie Wonder—The blind 12-year-old
harmonica player grew up in front of us. His
body of work may have a few sappy tunes,
but the bulk and breadth are arresting.
6.
The Who—They invented the “power trio.”
When they played “My Generation” in 1967
and destroyed their instruments during the
finale, it was like nothing I’d ever seen.
7.
Brian Wilson—Brian’s creations were
mini-symphonies of layered confection.
“God Only Knows” may be the greatest pop
single of all time.
8.
Bob Marley—The voice is gorgeous and
rich, the writing is evocative and political.
He expanded the possibilities of commercial
music and embodied the “island” sound.
9.
Michael Jackson—Michael’s dancing and
visual approach crowned him King of Pop.
10.
Kurt Cobain—Every now and then, rock
’n’ roll got stale and needed a kick in the
butt. Nirvana did that for a new generation.
american.edu/alumni 47
must haves
9
4
1
10
5
7
6
2
8
3
*SPA alumnus, Buzzfeed legal editor covering LGBT issues
2. I live on Starbucks venti iced coffee
with sugar-free vanilla.
3. I’ve had my Sony digital voice
recorder for three years. If I’m at a
press conference, I can throw it on
the podium and still use my iPhone to
Tweet and take pictures.
4. One of the rules I learned at the
conventions was “ABC: always be
charging.” I’m never without my
iPhone 4S and Mophie backup battery.
5. This Buzzfeed notebook is almost too
nice to write in.
6. I always wear a tie at the Supreme
Court and the White House. When I’m
on Up with Steve Kornacki on MSNBC,
they encourage you to be casual, but
I can’t get over what my mother’s
reaction would be if she saw me on
national TV without a tie. I also carry
48 American Magazine NOVEMBER 2013
a spare pair of glasses; they once
snapped right in the middle, so I had
to do Last Word without glasses.
7. I worked for Metro Weekly from 2009
to 2012. They started my career.
Buzzfeed gave us the iPad Mini as a
present the first month the website
got 40 million unique views.
8. My 13-inch MacBook Air travels well
and has a good battery life. The
Verizon MiFi allows journalists to
write more than five sentences with
their thumbs on a phone.
9.I have subway cards from D.C.
and New York, where Buzzfeed’s headquartered. I go to Boston just because
it’s Boston.
10.Twitter and modern journalism are
inextricably intertwined. I got this
button from the Twitter booth at one
of the national political conventions
(from which I’ve kept all my press
credentials) last fall. I have over 21,000
Twitter followers (@chrisgeidner).
photo by Macey Foronda/buzzfeed
1. Supreme Court briefs are printed in
the press room as soon as decisions
come out. These are the four biggest
cases from the past term, including
the case challenging the Defense of
Marriage Act.
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THE CHALLENGE
Rachel Sullivan Robinson’s syllabus looks intimidating—think z-scores and regressions—but
the School of International Service professor’s aim is simple: to help students “be informed
consumers and producers of statistical knowledge.” Most of the data wonks in Robinson’s
600-level statistics and methods class nailed this exam question. Where does your knowledge
of measures of central tendency fall on a normal distribution curve?
THE QUESTION
This chart shows the distribution of the Polity score for 151
countries. The Polity score is a measure of democracy: a score
of 20 is a complete democracy, a score of 0 is a complete
autocracy, and a score in the middle is a system in transition.
POLITY COMBINED 20-POINT SCORE, RECODED TO A POSITIVE SCALE
1.
2.
3.
4.
What is the mode?
What is the median?
If you remove the two complete autocracies, will it make the mean smaller or larger?
If you remove the two complete autocracies, what will the value of the median be?
Data from systemicpeace.org/polity/polity4.htm
Go fact to fact
with AU’s people in the know at
americanwonks.com/quizzes.
The details Submit the correct answers to magazine@american.edu by
December 31 to be entered to win a six-month subscription to Politics and Prose
Bookstore’s Book-a-Month Gift Program.
Congratulations to Christopher Byrne, SIS/MA ’91, who aced last issue’s final exam.