AU in the News

Showcasing AU programs, professors, students and alumni in the news
July 2007

Say No to College?
New research by Public Agenda and the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education indicates that more and more Americans are developing an unease toward higher education, with 76 percent of parents concerned about tuition bills, writes Andrew L. Yarrow , vice president and Washington director of Public Agenda, a nonpartisan think tank, and professor of U.S. history at American University, in an editorial piece in The Baltimore Sun. “[American colleges] need to think about how to make college more affordable, restore more equitable access and ensure that students and parents - their consumers - feel that their hard-earned dollars are used as fairly and effectively as possible,” he said. (07/06/07)

More financial aid for AUS
The American University of Sharjah (AUS) Board of Trustees announced that it has recently given approval to allocate approximately $10.9 million for scholarships and financial aid to UAE students, according to MENAFN.com , as reported by Khaleej Times. The measures will be implemented for the academic year of 2007-08 to lessen the financial load on students, and to students to persevere in their diligence. (07/05/07)

Israeli/Palestinian Truce Option
The best solution toward the end of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is to adopt and promote a nonviolent political culture in which neither Israelis nor Palestinians tolerate their own leaders' decisions to launch military campaigns on the assumption that armed victory can lead to peace, writes Mohammed Abu-Nimer , associate professor at American University's School of International Service in Washington, D.C., and director of the university's Peacebuilding and Development Institute, in an opinion editorial for Newsday . “The competition between Hamas and Fatah, with each taking control of a portion of the bread crumbs that the Israeli government left when it pulled out of Gaza and agreed to elections in the West Bank, entails disastrous results for anyone interested in securing a free and democratic Middle East ,” he wrote. “A new culture could take hold if moderate Palestinians and Israelis, of whom there are many, are willing to step up and publicly reject the status quo and campaign and vote for political leaders who will move in this direction.” (07/01/2007)

An hour and a half of bad television
The Democratic debate hosted by Fox News and the Congressional Black Caucus Institute in September threatens to be 90 minutes of bad TV, reports The Politico. Although Dotty Lynch , a long-time television journalist now serving as an executive-in-residence at American University , suggested that inviting Republicans could enliven the forum, she noted, however, that even partisan crossfire goes only so far to save a doomed event. “There are so many debates and so much going on that most of the debates are not special. If you don't have an Edwards, a Clinton or an Obama, I would expect even lower interest,” Lynch said. (07/07/2007)

Can Bush and Congress get along?
President Bush's relationship with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is a fascination in Washington , and important because it affects what is done for the country, reports the Philadelphia Daily News . However, Bush's tendency has never been to engage Congress, said James Thurber , director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University . “He doesn't have a close relationship with either one of them,” Thurber said, referring to Pelosi and Reid. “I think that makes a difference. I don't see any evidence that he has come around to engaging the opposition party the way (Bill) Clinton did.” (07/07/2007)

Minimum wage having a minimum effect
“The insignificance of the latest wage hike is surprising in view of the intensity of the political debates that preceded it,” Bradley Schiller , professor of economics at American University and the author of “The Economics of Poverty and Discrimination,” wrote in an opinion editorial for The Wall Street Journal . “An ‘effective' wage hike must actually raise someone's wages. With labor-market wages already significantly above $5.85, this ‘hike' was largely ineffective.” (07/11/07)

Writers' Conference at AU
Three students from the Antigua State College will represent the country in Washington as they attend the Hurston-Wright Junior High School Writer's Week, reports the Antiqua Sun. The students will join others from high schools in the USA , at the American University in Washington to meet agents, editors and writers as well as attend writing workshops and share their work at open mike events. (07/10/07)

Cat Shelter at Sharjah
Since its founding five years ago, Mueza's Feline Friends, a Sharjah-based group, has helped to rescue, neuter, and release or find homes for about 300 cats, Gulf News reports. Started by members of the faculty of the American University of Sharjah, most of the organization's work involves taking unwanted cats and caring for them until new homes are found. (07/12/07)

The President's Approval Ratings
With such a mixed picture, it is unlikely that President Bush's rhetoric will change many minds in both Congress and among the general public, The Los Angeles Times reports . 'It has to be done by Iraqis changing and the situation on the ground changing. It's out of our control,' said James Thurber , a political scientist at American University . (07/12/07)

Has the NAACP become unnecessary?
Those who question the NAACP's necessity in the post-civil rights era should take a look at the Supreme Court's recent decision concerning public school integration, or the federal government's botched response to Hurricane Katrina, NAACP Chairman Julian Bond said as reported by The Baltimore Sun . “As we find ourselves refighting battles we thought we had already won, we are reminded that the NAACP is as needed now as ever before,” said Bond, who teaches courses at the University of Virginia and American University on the civil rights movement, to a crowd of several thousand at the Cobo Conference/Exhibition Center. (07/09/07)

Key document in Padilla case
The key to the case against Padilla, a 36-year-old Muslim convert charged with being part of an al-Qaida plot to set off a radioactive “dirty bomb” in the United States, is how much weight jurors give to the five-page “mujahedeen data form” he allegedly filled out in July 2000 to attend an al-Qaida training camp in Afghanistan, the Seattle Times reports. “The question is whether the defense has a plausible theory for how Padilla's fingerprints got on the form that doesn't implicate him,” said Stephen Vladeck , law professor at American University in Washington , D.C. (07/14/07)

Testing the "Five-Second Rule"
The “five-second rule,” states that if you drop food on the floor, you can pick it up within five seconds before it's contaminated by germs, does not work, WTTG Fox 5 reports. Students from Dr. Nancy Zeller's biology class at American university tested the theory and found that most of their samples were clean and those that did grow colonies didn't grow enough to make most healthy people sick. (07/16/07)

Spring Break: Volunteer Style
When American University student Justin Bibb saw the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans , he was determined to give back, and flew to Louisiana in 2006, armed with tools, to help rebuild some of the storm-ravaged communities. “I' m watching the news and I was like, whoa. Like, this is bad. This is deep. I was just so torn up about that moment in our history that I wanted to be a part of it somehow,” he told E! Entertainment Television . In D.C., Bibb spearheaded a community service-based spring break program, inspired by his motivation to give back. (07/17/07)

Hail to the Chief
American University 's Board of Trustees have tapped Cornelius M. Kerwin to become the school's 14th permanent president, reports The Washington Post . Kerwin had been serving as acting and then interim president of American since August 2005, when then-president Benjamin A. Ladner was forced to resign after an investigation of his spending. Before Ladner's departure, Kerwin had served as AU's provost for more than seven years. His new appointment will become effective Sept. 1. (07/20/07)

Dow Jones record: what it means for the retired
To discuss the effects of the Dow approaching 14K and what it could mean for retirements plans and the like, Robert Losey , professor of finance and real estate at American University 's Kogod School of Business, was interviewed on set at Retirement Living Television . (07/18/07)

Marketing Food to Children
Eleven of the largest food and drink companies in the United States announced they have established and will adhere to new standards for marketing high fat, high sugar foods to children under the age of 12, ScienceDaily reports. Although the rules are a step in the right direction, it is the first of many steps needed to help turn the tides on the childhood obesity epidemic gripping the nation, American University's Kathryn C. Montgomery , an expert on children and media and online marketing, testified at the forum, Weighing In: A Check-Up on Marketing, Self-Regulation, and Childhood Obesity, held by the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Health and Human Services. (07/21/07)

No electoral college?
“The plan to create a national popular vote might penalize candidates with a serious shot at breaking the two-party duopoly,” writes David Lublin , professor of government in the School of Public Affairs at American University . In his column for The Washington Post , Lublin said that winning the popular vote is more difficult for a third-party candidate who doesn't appear on every ballot, and that close elections would become a national nightmare instead of challenges in just one or two states. (07/15/07)

Understanding the Muslim world
Though President Bush has frequently talks of winning Muslim hearts and minds, many of those are estranged today because he has relied on ill-informed advisers and out-of-touch experts, Akbar Ahmed wrote in an op-ed for The Washington Post . Ahmed, Ibn Khaldun chairman of Islamic studies at American University , also wrote that by substituting false expertise for his own sensible intuitions, the President has failed to understand the Muslim world and the arena in which the first post-9/11 presidency will be judged. (07/22/07)

YouTube Presidential Debate...Boring
The July 23 CNN/YouTube presidential debate consisted of too many candidates, too little time, and candidates who couldn't be pulled off their talking points with a tractor, reports the St. Petersburg Times. “The larger question is ... if the format itself, which pretty much enables the candidates to present their 30-second ads for each question, is the appropriate way to hold a debate,” said Leonard Steinhorn , who teaches politics and the media at American University. “It's not really a debate, it's an opportunity ... for each of them to spout their talking points.” (07/25/07)

How to counter terrorism
According to The Chronicle of Higher Education , several contributors to Terrorism Financing and State Responses: A Comparative Perspective, a new edited volume from Stanford University Press, agree with Mr. Hamm that counterterrorism officials should pay more attention to ordinary criminal activity. Hezbollah, the Tamil Tigers, and other groups have recently engaged in counterfeiting, human trafficking, and smuggling of cigarettes and stolen cars, according to Louise I. Shelley, a professor of public affairs at American University , and John T. Picarelli, a project director at the university's Transnational Crime and Corruption Center . "Law enforcement and the intelligence community have too often viewed terrorism and organized crime as separate phenomena," they write. (07/27/07)

Conception behind bars
When a child was born to two inmates at the Richmond City jail, Brenda V. Smith , a professor at American University's Washington College of Law, was not surprised, for she knew of such pregnancies when she represented inmates in Washington in 1993, stating that the conception happened with the help of the staff “That's my only experience to say I know for sure it happened,” she told the Richmond Times-Dispatch . “But, I'm not surprised at all. . . . I think that the uncommon thing is that somebody is being forthright about the way that it occurred.” (07/24/07)

Demotion is always bad news
Should four generals be demoted for their role in providing misleading information about the death of Army Ranger Pat Tillman, it would be a stinging and rare rebuke, Associated Press reports. “For officers generally, a reprimand is a devastating career injury,” said Eugene Fidell , a lawyer who specializes in military cases and teaches at American University 's Washington College of Law. “It can trigger an effort to throw the person out of the military, it can trigger a reduction in pay grade when the time comes to retire, it can prevent a future promotion, and it can gum up a promotion that has already been decided. Letters of reprimand are truly bad news.” This article appeared in more than 70 additional outlets. (07/30/07)

2009
Mar	6	13	20	27
Feb	6	13	20	27
Jan	4	9	16	23	30
2008
Dec	5	12	19
Nov	7	14	21
Oct	3	10	17	24	31
Sept	5	12	19	26
Aug	1	8	15	29
July	4	11	18	25
June	6	13	20	27
May	2	9	16	23
Apr	4	11	18	25
Mar	7	21	28
Feb	1	8	15	22	29
Jan	4	11	18	25
2007
Dec	7	14	21
Nov	2	9	16		30
Oct	5	12	19	26
Sept	7	14	21	28
Aug	3	10	17	24	31
July	31
June	30
Feb	2	9
Jan	5	12	19	26