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AU in the News

Showcasing AU programs, professors, students and alumni in the news
Week of December 15 - 21

Good Year, Bad Habits
With 2007 coming to a close, WUSA-CBS9 turned to Stacey Snelling, associate professor of health and fitness at American University, for a wrap-up of the year's top health stories -- the good and the bad. A nationwide E. coli outbreak topped the list of stories, which also included calorie counts on menu boards and bad food habits. Snelling warns people who enjoy a daily Starbucks drink, "That's where you start to see an additional two to three-hundred calories in your diet every day. That mathematically equates to about 20 to 25 pounds per year.

A Sign of the Times
The fleeting uproar over Barack Obama's teen drug use serves as an example of how quickly issues that were once important now lose relevance, reports the Dallas Morning News. According to Leonard Steinhorn, professor of politics and media at American University, the new attitude is the result of a generational change. “In the past, private morality was predominant, and people gave a wink and a nod to bigotry and sexism. Now as long as you aren't hurting people, that's your personal morality you're figuring out,” he said. (12/14/07)

Monetary Values
“The U.S. cannot be complacent about the sources of the dollar's current weakness,” Howard M. Wachtel, a professor of economics at American University, wrote in his opinion piece for the Los Angeles Times. “Further interest rate reductions will only hasten the dollar's decline as a reserve currency; continuing trade deficits do the same. Restoring confidence in the United States as a 21st century nation is of the highest priority, and not just for global financial reasons.” (12/14/07)

Hardball for Steroids
While Congress is being urged to push forward with stricter scrutiny of Major League Baseball following the release of the Mitchell Report, the chances of a quick passage of anti-steroid laws are slim, Newsday reports. "Put in the context of a deadlocked Congress over the budget, over the war, over a very difficult energy bill ... deadlocked over No Child Left Behind ... the timing is terrible," said James Thurber, director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University. (12/15/07)

Social Skills a Must
With social skills becoming a higher requirement in today’s job market, there is less room for loners to succeed, according to the California Job Journal. “The jobs that are staying in the United States are those that require regular touch, face-to-face contact with clients or a manager”' says Erran Carmel, chair of the Information Technology department at American University, stating that people with great social skills are landing those jobs due to the complication of managing teams distributed across cultures. (12/17/07)

Going Green for Christmas
The Rockefeller Center Plaza in New York is taking a more eco-friendly approach to Christmas this year, using energy-saving light bulbs for its Christmas tree. The efforts have produced a energy savings per day equivalent to what an average family uses in a month, reports Voice of America. “That means that it is going to cut into the carbon emissions that lead to climate change and it is eventually going to save the city money,” says, Robert Musil, a scholar-in-residence at American University in Washington who is writing a book on sustainable environmental practices. (12/18/07)

AU in the News Archives