AU shuttle buses will run directly between main campus and the Metro after 8 p.m. on weeknights and weekends, according to Mark Feist, assistant director of Facilities Management. The Super Loop will now only run after 6:30 p.m. on holidays and when school is not in session.

Only one bus will run directly to and from the Washington College of Law and the Metro after 10:30 p.m. on night and weekends. Two buses will run directly from the Washington College of Law to main campus until 10:30 p.m. during the week, according to Feist.

These changes to the AU shuttle system were implemented in response to student feedback about the shuttle system and the Super Loop in particular, he said.

“We heard from students that the Super Loop was an inconvenience late in the evening when they were trying to get to main campus — the shuttle bus would drop them off in front of Katzen,” Feist said. “The Super Loop is really most useful when ridership is at its lowest.”

Student Government President Andy MacCracken held town hall-style meetings last October to address student concerns about the shuttle changes implemented at the beginning of last semester.

MacCracken told The Eagle he is pleased with the new AU shuttle route changes, but he would have liked to have seen these changes sooner.

“I wish this would have been able to happen sooner — and that was the plan — but obviously there were complications with the snowstorm that Facilities Management had to deal with,” MacCracken said. “But [these changes] address the concerns that we brought up during the town hall meetings last October. Better late than never.”

There are many more projects being developed to make improvements to the shuttle system. In the near future the AU shuttles will be outfitted with a GPS system to help students locate shuttle buses, Feist said.

Students will be able to log on to a Web site to see where AU shuttles are and see estimates of what times shuttles will be arriving at each stop.

The GPS project is still in its beginning stages, and Facilities Management has not yet determined when the system would be in place, Feist said.

Facilities Management will also be working to make more visible signs to designate every shuttle stop along the shuttle routes, MacCracken said. These signs would not only benefit the AU community but also prospective AU students, he said.

“I have talked to prospective students and parents, and they have had difficulty with getting off the Metro and knowing where the shuttle stop is,” MacCracken said. “They know it’s supposed to be there but unless the shuttle is sitting there with the AU logo on it, they’re not going to know that it picks up right there because there’s no sign there.”

Facilities Management will be working with the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority and the D.C. city government in the coming months to address the signage issues and implement new changes, MacCracken said.

You can reach this staff writer at jryan@theeagleonline.com.

The Undergraduate Senate failed to put a referendum on the ballot that would have asked students if they supported increasing student activity fees to support the Clean Energy Revolving Fund.

The proposed referendum would appear on the spring 2010 ballot and would ask: “Do you support increasing student fees by $10.00 for one academic year to the Clean Energy Revolving Fund?”

CERF is a program created by the SG in an effort to make AU more carbon-neutral. Under the program, donations would be made to purchase renewable energy products such as solar panels or wind turbines. The energy costs saved by the renewable energy would be put back into CERF to support further projects, The Eagle previously reported.

Click for full graphic.

The referendum would help the SG gain a better idea of the campus-wide willingness to raise student activity fees in support of clean energy. However, if the referendum received over 50 percent of the vote, it would not guarantee that fees would be raised.

Brett Atanasio, senator for the class of 2013, wrote and proposed the bill with the purpose to “re-gauge the students’ feelings on funding for green energy and especially CERF,” he said. “We should find out how students felt about it. I didn’t think it was appropriate to make any decisions like that without asking them personally.”

In the wake of the failed referendum, Antanasio and supporters are trying to petition the referendum onto the ballot.

There are two ways to get a referendum onto a ballot: two-thirds of the Senate can vote for it to be placed, or 10 percent of the undergraduate population can petition for the referendum.

Antanasio’s petition garnered 761 signatures. The petition must be submitted to Student Activities for the names to be checked for legitimacy.

Forrest Young, senator of the class of 2012, opposes the referendum.

“[The] referendum [is] about raising a $10 fee on top of the student activity fees that students currently pay,” he said. “Activity fees are for programming and for clubs and organizations. It’s not to support free initiatives.”

Some senators hope CERF will become more independent of the SG in the future.

“We’ve done enough,” Young said. “We’ve said that we support CERF. We’ve done as much as we can for them. I’m wondering when is it their turn to do what they told us they would do.”

SG President Andy MacCracken supports putting the question on the ballot.

“There are issues that are too big for the Undergraduate Senate to decide,” he said. “I would like to see what the students say before anyone potentially raises their student activity fees.”

Steve Dalton, senator of the class of 2010, also opposes the referendum.

“People should be able to donate to CERF if they want to,” he said. “Should all students be forced to contribute to CERF? I say no. I say it should be voluntary. “

The CERF legislation says all funds are to be voluntary donations. However, CERF needs to raise at least 100,00 dollars to become self-sufficient, according to MacCracken.

CERF, though created by the SG, is a separate entity from the organization. 

Young believes it should be treated and funded separately from SG.

“Clubs are under-funded right now,” he said. “So, if we start raising fees for other organizations that aren’t SG-related, I think all the clubs that are SG-related are going to be like, ‘Hey, you’ll raise a 10 dollar fee for a club that isn’t SG-related but you won’t raise fees for us?’”

The largest obstacle facing the CERF debate and the referendum is the administration itself, Atanasio said. Both Atanasio and Young cited a similar referendum in 2006 that found 71 percent of AU’s student body supported increased fees to support green energy. No policies or additional fees were ever adopted from the referendum.

Young said that despite the debate, the administration is free to act however it sees fit.

“When it comes right down to it, [the SG advocates] for policy,” he said. “For the policy to change, it has to be an administration decision to do this.”

Atanasio agreed on this subject.

“Only time can tell what is going to happen with CERF,” he said. “Quite honestly the SG can yell and scream until we’re blue in the face about raising student fees. Even if 100 percent of the student body said they wanted activity fees raised for CERF ... the administration can still say no. There are no guarantees. Only time will tell.”

You can reach this writer at news@theeagleonline.com.

Correction: In this article, The Eagle incorrectly stated that Steve Dalton is a senator from the class of 2012. In fact, Dalton represents the class of 2010. This version has been corrected.

“[Interning on Capitol Hill] is something that’s emblematic of the internship experience that the general public has about being in Washington, D.C.,” says Christopher Hughes, an internship adviser for students at the School of Public Affairs.

Every season, students flood D.C. for mostly unpaid internships with their congressmen and senators. The blog “Spotted: D.C. [Summer] Interns,” said it best when it defined the “dreaded” summer intern season as a time when “interns swarm in like the eighth plague of Egypt (or the cicadas of 2004).”

With a high turnover rate, a relative abundance of positions and often times menial assigned tasks, what makes Capitol Hill internships special in a city where its seems like every other student majors in political science and harbors the same desire to work in government? 

In the book he co-wrote, “Congress and Its Members,” Walter Oleszek, an AU adjunct professor and Congressional Research Service specialist, writes that the average House representative has about 15 full-time staff members and a budget of $1.2 million to pay their salaries. However, as the expectations for congressmen constantly grow, members need as much help as they can get and unpaid interns are sometimes the perfect solution.

Congressional intern duties vary by office, but generally the position includes some degree of clerical work. Reading and drafting letters to constituents, answering calls, running materials to different offices and giving tours of the Capitol building are all standard tasks.

Susey Davis, an AU sophomore double-majoring in political science and economics, is over a month into her internship with Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo. She says she was initially surprised by the amount of “grunt work” she was expected to complete. 

“You kind of first expect to be a major part of it [the legislative process], but you’re not” Davis says. “You’re doing the small things, which do help in the long run. You’re making sure the congressman is using his time in more appropriate matters, but it’s stuff that can be done by a secretary.”

Hughes, who himself interned with Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., while in college, says it is a misconception that all Capitol Hill interns do is lick envelopes and staple papers together. He argues they are substantive since many students get to work on policy issues and attend hearings, which can become stepping stones to a future in government and policymaking.

“It’s pretty safe to say that you pretty much do need to have at least one Hill internship if you want to work on [Capitol Hill] because it is such a competitive thing to get a job there,” Hughes says.

Montgomery College student Raquel Halsey was interning for former Rep. Albert Wynn, D-Md., for two months when she was promoted to the position of staff assistant. Despite her 12-hour workdays, she recommends students work on Capitol Hill.

“Just making the connections that I made have continued to help me grow professionally,” says Halsey, 23, who is now employed at a non-profit that works with foster children.

“Even though there were long hours and some days were really hard, it was one of the best experiences I’ve ever had professionally,” she says.

While Hughes has no concrete figures about how many AU students have previously or are currently interning on Capitol Hill, it is one of the most popular types of internships, especially among political science majors, according to Hughes.

Jackie Frederick, a senior political science major at AU, is part of that statistic. She has been making the long trek to the Rayburn House Office Building for more than three years, first as an intern then as fellow for Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla. Since she started working for Ros-Lehtinen on and off as a high school sophomore in her home district of Miami, Frederick says her experience has been invaluable. In the unique position of openly being a Democrat in a Republican office, she says one of the most important lessons she has learned is respecting other people’s views.

“What you try to do is take away your personal opinions and just do the job,” Frederick says.

Halsey says dealing with constituents taught her a similar lesson.

“It’s not your job to agree or disagree,” she says. “It’s your job to just listen.”

Ultimately, Davis says she understands the value of her work since she eventually wants to become an elected official.

“It’s all part of the political process,” she says. “I do realize that’s necessary if I ever wanted to campaign.”

Until she was promoted to the position of fellow two years ago, Frederick performed typical intern duties. The transition was a big step, Frederick explains, because it both deepened her research skills and policy knowledge while cementing her desire to work on Capitol Hill as a staffer after she graduates in the spring. Fellows, while not on the payroll, follow a legislative aide and help research a specific legislative area — in Frederick’s case, medical care issues.

Frederick says she would love to work for Ros-Lehtinen after she graduates.

“[Interning on Capitol Hill] is your one step into the door,” she says. “Once you’re inside, the Hill is very loyal.”

You can reach this staff writer at thallerman@theeagleonline.com.

This was partly because not everyone who signed up for the lottery actually participated, according to Chris Moody, executive director of Housing and Dining Programs.

A total of 540 rising juniors and seniors completed the online housing application by the Feb. 12 deadline, Moody said. All of these students received a random lottery number and were able to participate in the housing lottery last week.

“Every student who attended the housing lottery or who designated Housing and Dining Programs as their proxy was able to secure a space for next fall,” Moody said.

Results of the process are still being recorded, and once sophomores have completed the online room selection process, data will be available about the process, according to Moody.

Stephanie Eichmann, a sophomore in the School of Public Affairs, had number 370 in the lottery, which was in the “red zone” — the most unlikely category to get on-campus housing. In an e-mail, Housing and Dining told students with lottery numbers over 200 they may not receive housing unless they were intending to room with someone in the green or yellow zone.

Eichmann said she was discouraged and did not plan to attend the lottery because of her number. A friend convinced her to go and she managed to secure a space in the AU-rented Berkshire Apartments.

“I think the biggest problem with the lottery was they made it sound like no one was going to get a room,” Eichmann said. “They claimed that anyone over number 200 was in the red zone, but when I went with my ticket I had the   opportunity to move anywhere but Nebraska Hall.”

Eichmann said she thinks everyone who participated in the lottery may have secured a room because many discouraged students did not attend.

“I think a lot of people who wanted a room assumed they weren’t going to get one and never showed up to the lottery,” she said.

Most students were able to secure housing in the groups they wanted to be in. Some groups of four students who wanted to be in Nebraska Hall together were not able to secure a room there, Moody said. Instead, they may have chosen to split into groups of two and live in the Berkshire Apartments, he said.

Dan Lincoln, a sophomore in the School of International Service and creator of the Facebook group “Loyal Opposition to American University’s New Stance on Student Housing,” is going abroad in the fall but applied for a housing lottery number in case he were to change his mind. He got ticket number 180, but he did not attend the lottery.

“I feel as if the university is trying to do the best it can under extenuating [housing] circumstances,” Lincoln said. “Since deciding on going abroad, I feel removed from the process since I found out that the university is going to guarantee housing and give preference to returning abroad students in spring 2011.”

You can reach this staff writer at nglass@theeagleonline.com.

The event was co-sponsored by the Kennedy Political Union, Women’s Initiative, the Women and Politics Institute, The Eagle and the Student Government. Mikhail is now living in exile in the U.S. after fleeing her native country of Iraq for fear of censorship for her book of poetry, “Diary of the Wave Outside the Sea.” In an exclusive interview, she spoke with Eagle Staff Writer Meg Fowler about her writing and experiences.

MF: What is the greatest inspiration for your work?  How has your writing changed since coming to America?

Dunya Mikhail: I remember, one day somebody asked me while I was reading, and somebody from the audience said that he started to write, and what was my advice about how to get inspired? As a writer do you have to live and have special experiences in order to write? I said, “Do you need experiences?  Yes.  But, do those experiences need to be yours? No. You don’t have to live those experiences in order to be inspired.”

My very recent poem I wrote, the title of it is “Earthquake” because of what is happening not necessarily in my country but anywhere in the world. We are influenced by what is happening in the world.

I’m not one of those writers that have certain goals or certain intentions.  As a poet, my intention is not anything beyond a bird’s intention – to sing.  I don’t think the bird thinks of changing the world, for example.  It just enjoys singing, and that’s how I am.  I enjoy working with words, and it’s true that it beautifies our world.

MF: What made you first want to start writing poetry?

Mikhail: Maybe I had nothing else to do. There is a saying that says, “A human being is valued by what they do when they have nothing to do.” I started very early ... Poetry gave me a similar feeling to when you are in love.  You feel like you have a secret, and you smile for no reason.

MF: What were some of the first topics that you wrote about in your poetry?

Mikhail: In Iraq, I opened my eyes to the war.  I was a teenager when the Iraq-Iran war started, so I don’t know if it’s a huge war for this age to write about these crises, but that’s how I really started writing about that ... My first book that I published when I was at the university, it was mostly war poems.

MF: How did poetry impact your life and cause you to have to leave Iraq?

Mikhail: Poetry saved my life ... What happened is that I really needed to leave the country because when my book, “Diary of a Wave Outside the Sea” was published in Baghdad in 1995, there were a lot of question marks ... The book was an anti-war document. It was a humanitarian document. It did not take sides…But even that was not acceptable for the regime because they expect from you to praise their side. Even if you don’t take sides, that’s a bad thing. You should take sides – their side.

A friend warned me that there was some negative report. The case in Iraq is that people can write reports about you, and there could be a big investigation, you could get in big trouble, in prison, even killed. They were telling me, “you need to leave as soon as possible.”

How poetry saved my life is that it is hard to leave Iraq quickly because first ... as a journalist for the Baghdad Observer, you need a leave of absence, and that takes a very complicated procedure, a long time. But a friend of mine ... knew people in the passport office – and used his influence.  They changed my profession from “journalist” to “poet” so that I didn’t need a leave of absence ... So I could leave fast because of poetry. Although, I also had to leave because of my poetry ... but it was like poetry paid me back.

I left in the summer of 1995 in July. I stayed in Jordan about 9 months until the day of my birthday, when left for America. I’ve been in the U.S. ever since.

MF: How did it affect you when the U.S. invaded Iraq, and how do you think that has changed your country?

Mikhail: It’s hard to see it positively ... The saying in English, the “ends justifies the means,” I don’t believe in this ... I know what the war is.  Whatever goal you have, I am against it ... For me, the end does not justify the means ... Like many other Iraqis, I was dreaming of a change in Iraq, I was dreaming of a democratic Iraq, of having normal life.  But that’s not the means that I dreamed of.

MF: What do you write about now?

Mikhail: The difference is not only what [I write] about, but the difference is even in the way of writing. Before I was using more war images, more metaphors, more levels of meaning ... Now, it’s more realistic.  I don’t feel the need to always hide behind those meanings. There’s no censorship here.

MF: What is the importance of poetry, writing and literary expression to you in today’s society in the Arab world?

Mikhail: In the Arab world, the published word, in general, has a leading role. It has an importance in the life of people ... In Arab world ... you see them talking, listening – listening to songs, listening to poetry. They gather around for poetry readings. They expect poetry to be tarab – pleasing to the ear.

That is why you see leaders, especially dictators pay big prizes to those who praise them and even kill those who don’t ... That’s why censorship is important in the Arab world ... A word there may cost one’s life. If you don’t say the right thing, you may pay your life as a prize. I was not ready yet, so you find other ways.

MF: How did you come to receive the UN Human Rights Award for Freedom of Writing?

Mikhail: It seems I just got lucky.  Many Iraqis deserve this award. Some deserve it more than me. Some ended up in prison. I was not in prison. Freedom of writing was essential in my life.  It was essential for me. In Jordan, I wrote. I had a column in the newspaper. But I think some people nominated me, and I got lucky with that.

This year, the Class of 2010 will raise money to buy furnishings for the patio that will be located outside the new School of International Service building.

The furniture — including chairs, tables and umbrellas — will try to create the feel of an outdoor cafe, according to Senior Class Adviser Andrew Toczydlowski. 

“The funds will cover a little bit of everything for the patio,” Tocydlowski said. “It’s a great choice of a gift; it will be a fun and comfortable place to be.” 

The senior class set the fundraising goal at $20,000, which Toczydlowski says is on par with past senior class fundraising goals. 

“We try to combine the senior class gift with existing university projects that don’t have funding,” said Toczydlowski. “Obviously, we keep our budget in mind — we can’t choose a project that costs $5 million. This project is realistically something the seniors can make happen.” 

The senior class has raised nearly $1,000 after launching their fundraising campaign at the end of January, according to Director of Development for Annual Giving Casey Jacobs.

The patio will be accessible through the coffee shop in the new building, according to Jacobs. 

The décor will be selected and purchased by the Office of Facilities Management who will keep the building’s high level of sustainability in mind, he said. 

“The amount of seating and the expense of the décor will depend on how much the seniors raise,” Jacobs said.

The 2010 class officers tossed around other ideas such as an electronic jukebox in the Tavern. They ultimately decided, with the help of other on-campus departments including SIS, that this project made the most sense for the university.

“The new [SIS] building will serve as a physical symbol of the school’s tradition of global service, and innovative initiatives and the outdoor patio will be at the heart of it all,” the 2010 officers said in an e-mail to the senior class.

Donations are collected at senior class events such as the kickoff event held at the restaurant/bar Ireland’s Four Fields. At the event seniors were encouraged to make a donation of $20.10. Donations may also be made through the “AnewAU Campaign” where a drop-down box lets donors specify that their money will go to the Class of 2010 Senior Class Gift.

You can reach this writer at news@theeagleonline.com.

Two shares have been sold at AU so far, with several more sales in process, according to Allan Balliett, who owns a farm in West Virginia.

Balliett runs the program, which allows students to receive a bag of fresh produce once a week after buying a share in his farm.  He grows a variety of different produce in an environmentally-safe manner and then delivers that produce to the shareholders.

Balliett was surprised that so few shares have been paid for so far. Sales will continue until the shares are sold out, he said.

Money raised by shares fund the CSA so that he doesn’t have to take out loans for the farm, Balliett said.

Amy Farr, the health promotion manager in Human Resources, helped advertise for the CSA on campus.

Farr used targeted e-mails, Today@AU newsletters, AUPedia, the electronic billboard in the tunnel and the plasma TVs in Mary Graydon Center to advertise for the program, she said. The CSA opportunity was also listed in a letter to faculty and staff about what programs are happening on campus.

Julie Munro, a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences, is in charge of promoting the CSA on campus through EcoSense. She and other EcoSense members have been promoting the program at environmentally-themed campus events.

“We figured this was the best audience to reach out to,” Munro said.

Students who buy shares in the CSA have several options regarding the size and price of the share. A full share is $600, a single-person full share is $425 and a single share for nine weeks starting in the fall is $225, according to Balliett.

Balliett’s CSA program is not the only one in the D.C. area. Kate Sparks-Auclair runs Green Fence Farm with her husband in Greenville, Va., which has a CSA program. The Green Fence Farm CSA delivers to Capitol Hill and Northwest D.C.

Sparks-Aclair said that last year she doubled the number of shares available from the year before and still sold out in 10 days.

“We’ve only been doing a CSA for two years now, but I definitely think interest is growing,” she said. “Overall, I think people are becoming much more aware of what’s in the food they eat,” Sparks-Auclair said.

Shares can be purchased at the CSA’s Web site, http://www.freshandlocalcsa.com.

You can reach this writer at news@theeagleonline.com.

Since Mayor Adrian Fenty signed the Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act of 2009 last December, the bill has been in a mandatory period of Congressional review.

During the review period, a group led by Bishop Harry Jackson, a pastor at Hope Christian Church in D.C., fought to block the legislation, The Eagle previously reported. The group proposed that the bill should go to a ballot referendum, leaving the question of same-sex marriage up to a popular vote throughout the District.

A referendum on same-sex marriage would have violated the D.C. Human Rights Act of 1977, a bill that prohibits popular votes on issues having to do with minority civil rights, including questions of discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Midterm elections could determine whether political opposition to same-sex marriage within the District has ended, according to Matt Bruno, program director at AU’s GLBTA Resource Center.

“The election of more social conservatives to the Democratic Party could mean more backlash,” Bruno said.

Professor in the School of Public Affairs and Chevy Chase Town Councilmember David Lublin said that loopholes in past legislation have allowed Congress to coerce D.C. to submit to its desires before. Should Congress decide in the coming years to force the repeal of the D.C. Marriage Equality Amendment Act, it could simply withhold funding, he said.

“Congress could condition funding in D.C. for the repeal of the law ... it’s the same method that was used to enforce the drinking age nationwide,” Lublin said.

This initial period of legalization could act to quell fears that same-sex marriage might act to undermine societal values, according to Sara Bendoraitis, director of the GLBTA Resource Center. 

“For the folks who truly believe that the world will end, this will be proof to the contrary,” Bendoraitis said. “[GLBT individuals] are just regular folks.”

Some worry that too much focus has been placed on campaigning for the right to marriage. 

“It’s a symbolic victory, but it really didn’t do anything,” said Diego Halpern, a freshman in the School of International Service. “Our main goal should be combating homophobia.”

Regardless of the long-term implications of legalization, gay marriage in the District has set off a chain of events in the District and the surrounding counties.

Estimates on marriage-related spending ranged from $45 to $22 million, The Eagle previously reported. Newer estimates anticipate even greater economic benefit to the District due to pending same-sex weddings.

Mark Guenther, executive director of the Capital Area Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, told the Northwest Current that about 14,000 same-sex weddings are likely to take place in the District over the next three years, and $52.2 million can be expected to flow into the District from nuptial spending.

The first same-sex weddings are expected to begin next Tuesday because it takes three business days for marriage license to be processed.

You can reach this writer at news@theeagleonline.com.

Campus Brief

AU PARTNERS WITH SMITHSONIAN FOR SERIES OF EVENTS

AU and Smithsonian Associates — the membership organization of the Smithsonian Institution — formed a partnership recently to hold a series of six events April 15 to 29.

The upcoming programs include a panel on the future of museums, a musical event, a biologist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author interview, a discussion with several White House correspondents, a look into the Center for Environment Filmmaking Director and School of Communication Professor Chris Palmer’s book, “Shooting in the Wild” and a jazz performance, according to AU’s Web site.

Jacqueline Corbett, a former Smithsonian employee and the director of communications for the School of Public Affairs, said the collaboration has been in the works for about a year and the programs will “run the gamut of the interests of both the Smithsonian and AU.”

“I think everyone is thrilled about working with the Smithsonian,” she said. “It’s a great institution, our nation’s cultural treasury, and we’re lucky to be in the same city and share so many of the same interests and values.”

The Smithsonian Associates were looking to engage with AU and the surrounding community to help fulfill the Smithsonian’s overall mission of reaching out to the academic communities, according to Christine Cimino, public affairs director for Smithsonian Associates.

A limited number of free tickets will be available for the AU community, with more information in about a month, according to Corbett.

Tickets are on sale now at http://www.residentassociates.org. Prices vary by event.

-STEFANIE DAZIO

AU Student Government Brief

CURRENT SG PRESIDENT WILL NOT SEEK SECOND TERM

After nearly a year as the face of the Student Government, President Andy MacCracken hopes to take on a new government job: as an intern on Capitol Hill.

MacCracken, a junior in the School of Public Affairs, announced his decision not to seek a second term as SG president on Tuesday, March 2, The Eagle previously reported.

With projects like the student Metro discount and Clean Energy Revolving Fund still in the formative stages, MacCracken said he worries about their progress. However, he plans to keep some level of involvement even after his term ends.

“I think both of [the projects] are very fragile right now,” he said.

But MacCracken is confident in whoever his successor may be.

“I wouldn’t step away if I didn’t think that someone else ... would be able to handle it,” he said. “Regardless of who comes in ... I’ll trust that, and work with the incoming administration as much as they need me to or want me to.”

Elections for the SG president and other executive positions for the 2010-2011 school year are scheduled to take place March 23 and 24. MacCracken’s successor will begin the transition process April 25, and his term officially ends May 1.

Check online for a full list of candidates for executive SG positions.

-JEN CALANTONE

Metro Brief

STUDENT INCHES NEARER TO ANC SEAT

Sami Green — an AU student attempting to fill an empty Advisory Neighborhood Commission spot — is only four signatures away from completing her petition for the seat.

By early this morning, she anticipates having more than the 25 signatures required by the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics.

Green needs those 25 signatures from D.C. residents in single-member district ANC3D07 to fulfill the petition’s requirements. After she has collected the signatures, Green must submit the form to the BOEE, which determines if the petition’s signatures are valid.

If the BOEE confirms the signatures, Green must then wait a month to see if anyone challenges her for the seat. If no one does, she will be made commissioner for that single-member district.

The district’s boundaries cover all of the South side dorms and a few residential streets next to AU’s campus. For years, the seat has sat empty because residents were unable to find enough voters to sign the necessary petition.

This is Green’s fourth attempt at collecting the necessary signatures. The previous three attempts were derailed by procedural holdups and the inability to find enough registered voters. Green led a voting drive at AU and registered 23 students, giving her enough potential signatures to complete the petition.

ANCs deal with issues in the neighborhood, including zoning regulations, liquor licenses and traffic issues. ANC3D deals specifically with the ongoing Army Corps of Engineers’ dig for World War I-era chemical weapons in Spring Valley, complaints about AU students and the debate over the university’s Campus Plan.

If everything proceeds as planned for Green, she will be seated as commissioner by April. Since the election cycle begins the month afterwards, she will only serve as commissioner for one meeting. Green plans to go abroad next year, so she will not petition for the seat again, although she hopes another student will take the spot.

“Ultimately, regardless of how long I get to serve, it will benefit the community,” she said. “Just getting someone on the ANC proves that the university and students are dedicated to forging a very positive relationship with the neighbors.”

-CHARLIE SZOLD

Correction: In an earlier version of the metro brief, The Eagle incorrectly reported that Sami Green was running for the ANC3E07 seat. In fact, Green is running for the ANC3D07 seat. This version has been corrected.

The Department of Public Safety responded to a report of an injured person in the sixth floor females’ bathroom in Leonard Hall and escorted her to the Student Health Center.

A smoke detector activated a fire alarm in the first floor staff lounge of Bender Library. Burnt toast was discovered in a toaster in a lounge. No smoke or fire was observed in the library.

A student’s wallet was taken from an exam room in the Health Center while the student was in a restroom across the hall.

Feb. 25

A resident reported prescription medication stolen from her room in Letts Hall. 

An ambulance transported a sick student, accompanied by her roommate, from Mary Graydon Center to a local hospital.

A resident assistant in Centennial Hall followed the odor of marijuana to a room. Two occupants in the room advised the RA they had been smoking marijuana a few minutes earlier. The occupants gave a small bag of suspected marijuana and a pipe to a resident director. The RD gave the items to DPS. DPS tested the suspected marijuana. The results were positive.

Feb. 26

A student reported Japanese currency taken from her room in Centennial. The currency had been locked in a suitcase. The door to the room is sometimes left unlocked.

A window above a door in the Katzen Arts Center shattered as someone entered. Inclement weather is believed to be the cause. Aramark and Facilities Management were notified.

Feb. 28

DPS responded to McDowell Hall and met with the victim of an assault that occurred near the Tenley Campus shuttle stop. The victim had walked from an establishment to the Tenley shuttle stop near Congressional Hall to be picked up by friends to return to the main campus. Two friends arrived at 2:40 a.m. As the victim entered the vehicle, an unidentified suspect approached and called the victim a derogatory term. The victim exited the vehicle and walked toward the suspect. The suspect assaulted the victim. The friends put the victim back in the vehicle and drove to the main campus. The D.C. Fire Department and the Metropolitan Police Department responded. The victim signed a medical refusal form.

DPS responded to a report of a sick person in Letts. The individual signed a medical refusal form.

March 1

DCFD transported a sick person from the sixth floor of Centennial to a local hospital.

DCFD transported a sick person from the McDowell lobby to a local hospital.

DPS responded to a report of a trash can fire outside of the McKinley Building and extinguished a cup which was burning inside the can. There were no reports of damage to the trashcan.

DPS discovered a bottom panel of an exterior wall broken outside of the Katzen Arts Center. Tracks on the ground appeared to suggest some type of heavy equipment had been in the area.

March 2

A student placed his computer behind his chair in a classroom in the School of International Service building and later discovered it missing. No personal or sensitive information was stored on the laptop.

Students should participate in informational interviews, job shadows and networking opportunities over the break, Puri said in a job search presentation last Thursday.

Although the unemployment rate is near 10 percent, Susan Gordon, director of Career Development at the AU Career Center, said she is still hopeful for AU students’ job prospects.

“The job market is in the recovery,” Gordon said.

In December, the job search Web site juju.com released a “Job Search Difficulty Index for Major Cities.” D.C. was listed as the city in which it was least difficult to get a job.

Gordon also said that more students, especially seniors, are looking for internship opportunities rather than full-time jobs.

Jobs right now come primarily from the federal government, she said.

About 27,000 jobs were created in the D.C. area from November 2008 to November 2009, many of which were federal government-related jobs, according to the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University.

The Career Center will host the Job Search Crash Course, a job and internship fair, on March 23, a week after spring break. Gordon said about 83 employers have already registered for the job fair, and she hoped to have over 100 employers come to AU this semester.

She also said students should consult with career advisers and begin their job search early.

“We are providing one-on-one advising to help students search for jobs and internships through various online databases,” Gordon said.

Megan Carpenter, a junior in the Kogod School of Business, said she has applied to the Republican National Committee for a summer job. She hoped to hear back from the RNC in April. Carpenter has interned previously for Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Texas.

“[The job market] is not really tough this year [for current students],” Carpenter said. “But it is definitely tough for the students who graduate in May.”

You can reach this writer at news@theeagleonline.com.

MacCracken also said a D.C.-wide student discount will not be implemented because of the varying distances that students travel depending on the school they attend.

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority made a few student Metro discount proposals last year, but none of these turned into discounts because there is no accurate data on AU student ridership, according to MacCracken.

“Metro thinks students ride the Metro more regularly than they actually do,” he said. “These inflated numbers make them predict higher costs to cover.”

The SG has been working on getting a student discount for years, but MacCracken thinks the process is slow because the WMATA has more pressing issues to deal with.

SmarTrip-compatible AU IDs will give the WMATA the data on student ridership needed to estimate the cost of the discount, according to MacCracken.

One of the WMATA’s proposals is to charge students $296 for a semester’s worth of usage, but that would only be worth it for students who go downtown and back in rush hour every weekday, MacCracken said.

“I’d venture to say 95 percent of us don’t do that, which means the cost is inflated,” MacCracken said. “If we can properly show that our ridership is lower, that $296 would drop quickly.”

Even if the WMATA can estimate how often students use public transportation, they cannot predict how far students are traveling. In D.C., the distance a student travels on the Metro determines the price of their trip. All D.C. colleges are in different locations and have students travel at different distances, a blanket program for all schools cannot be created, MacCracken said.

If a student discount is established, it would probably be subsidized by AU or the D.C. government, according to MacCracken.

“If I had enough money, I would subsidize it myself,” he said. “So if you have a really rich uncle who really likes helping students travel, let me know.”

Liron Bruck, a junior in the School of Public Affairs, grew up in Israel where students get a discount on public transportation. It is especially important for students who have unpaid internships to get a transportation discount, since they should not be paying as much to go to work, she said.

“Almost every country in the world has a discount in transportation for students,” she said. “Students use the Metro a lot as a way to go to their unpaid internships.”

Kirsten Neus, a sophomore in the School of Public Affairs, said SmarTrip-compatible AU IDs would be convenient for students who do not have money but have EagleBucks.

“It would be convenient for students to be able to use their AU IDs as a SmarTrip if they could use their EagleBucks to swipe into the Metro,” she said. “But it would be even better if there was a discount too.”

You can reach this staff writer at nglass@theeagleonline.com.

Residents of the sixth floor of McDowell reported the leak at 1:20 p.m., according to Chris Moody, the executive director of Housing and Dining Programs. Residence staff and Facilities Management staff immediately responded to the situation and assessed the damage.

The staff of Facilities Management then turned off the water supply to the affected heating units and pipes. Water had also leaked down to rooms on the third, fourth and fifth floors.

Aramark staff members arrived on the scene and began drying up the wet carpets.

Lauren Linhard, a junior in the School of Communication and a contributing writer for The Eagle, was in her room on the sixth floor when the hot-water pipe burst.

“It sounded like rain was hitting the window, then water was pouring down the sides of my wall and a few of my ceiling tiles fell,” Linhard said.

Linhard’s roommate, Rachel Goldy, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, went down to the front desk and notified the resident assistant on duty, who then notified Leonard Hall Resident Director Julie Eller and the Facilities Management staff.

Goldy was pleased with the quick response time and open communication from Housing and Dining.

“People from Housing and Dining and the residence staff have been checking up on me and my roommate and helping us move our furniture,” Goldy said.

Matt Wolkoff, a sophomore in CAS, lives in a room on the third floor of McDowell that was affected by water damage from the pipe burst. Wolkoff was sitting in his room when water suddenly started rushing from the ceiling tiles down his wall and his window.

“What started out as a steady drip of water soon became a downpour,” Wolkoff said.

Wolkoff’s carpet sustained damage and one of his posters was ruined.

He was disappointed with the staff response to the incident, he said.

“I was unsatisfied with how they handled it but not surprised,” Wolkoff said. “I didn’t hear about [the pipe burst] until someone else on my floor told me. They also weren’t as thorough as they could have been with cleaning the floor. They were only in here cleaning for about five minutes.”

All but one of the residents affected were in their rooms at the time of the pipe burst, according to Moody. Residents have reported damage to ceiling tiles, room carpets and one mattress, which has already been replaced.

Moody said Facilities Management staff is still in the process of assessing the damage and making decisions about repairs.

Last Tuesday morning an unidentified person tampered with the sprinklers on the Anderson 5 North bridge, causing a flood, The Eagle previously reported. Numerous rooms sustained water damage when the sprinklers were activated.

You can reach this staff writer at jryan@theeagleonline.com.

The fraternity decided not to appeal the judgment because it admitted to the charges and therefore accepted the sanctions, PSK President Mike Kaufman said. The fraternity had seven business days after the trial to appeal the decision, The Eagle previously reported.

“We chose not to appeal because we felt they were fair given the seriousness of our charges,” he said.

Kaufman said he believes other social organizations — not just PSK — will be inadvertently affected by the events surrounding the fraternity and the IFC.

“We cannot comment directly on the operations of other greek organizations on campus, we do believe that all social organizations at AU will face new challenges in light of the increased involvement that the Office of Greek Life and the IFC are taking in the recruitment process,” Kaufman said.

The sanctions consist of a one-year social probation, no open or closed recruitment for the fall of 2010, chapter participation in AU Campus Beautification Day with an additional five hours per member through AU’s Community Service Office and funding and planning a professional speaker on responsible drinking for the spring of 2011, The Eagle previously reported. The sanctions were effective immediately upon the fraternity’s positive acknowledgment of them, according to Kaufman.

Michael R. Radlick, AU fraternity Delta Chi’s president, said he thinks the sanctions will have a large impact on PSK’s prosperity.

“The members of Delta Chi understand the intricacies on both sides of the issue, and we respect the decision made by the IFC,” Radlick said. “However, as the president of a fraternity who has had size problems in the past, I also know that the rush restriction placed on [PSK] for the coming fall could be very detrimental to their success.”

PSK has not felt rebuked by the greek life collective as a result of the events, according to Kaufman.

“[PSK] in general feels a great deal of support from the greek community at American University that we continue to be a proud part of,” Kaufman said.

You can reach this staff writer at srudnick@theeagleonline.com.

Within a few seconds however, the shaking picked up and it was obvious that something was wrong. The dance floor was pitching up and down and people started screaming and clutching their friends for dear life. I grabbed onto the edge of the bar just to keep from falling over.

After about a minute, the shaking stopped and everyone rushed down the stairs and out of the club. The street outside was complete chaos, with people screaming and running in all directions. I was separated from my friends, so I started pushing my way through the crowd trying to find them. At one point, I tripped over someone’s foot and had to be helped up by a couple of Chileans.

Then I heard someone calling my name and looked over to see Nacha, my host sister, and Roman, her boyfriend. They grabbed my hands, obviously more worried about my safety than I had been. “Hubo un terremoto,” Roman said. Translation: there was an earthquake.

As Nacha drove us back to her house, we passed a few buildings that seemed to be sagging slightly into the piles of rubble at their bases. A crash scene on one area of the highway was blocked off with several ambulances that surrounded a twisted and destroyed car.

The rest of my host family was waiting up for us when we got home, somewhere around 4 or 4:30 a.m. Power across the city had gone out, so we sat drinking juice around the kitchen table in the glow of a flashlight. Laughing, my host father told us how the cat had screamed when the ground started shaking and that his first reaction had been to grab the plasma TV and make sure it didn’t break.

I did not realize until I saw news coverage the next morning just how bad the earthquake had been. Santiago, where I am staying, is about 200 miles from the quake’s epicenter in Southern Chile. Damage in the city was nothing compared to the images from further south I saw shown all day on every TV station.

All the students on AU’s Santiago study abroad program have been accounted for, according to an e-mail Study Abroad Adviser Brita Doyle sent to students and parents of students in the program.

While there was not extensive damage to Santiago, there were still several fatalities in the city. While it sounds bad to say, however, when everything started shaking at around 3:30 a.m., I was more confused and kind of excited than scared. It did not occur to me until later that I should have been scared. Nacha and Roman even made fun of me later for being so relaxed about the whole thing.

After reading all the news, however, I realize now the AU students here are all very lucky nothing happened to us or even to any of our houses. Not everyone was so lucky, and those in Southern Chile need all the help they can get.

You can reach this staff writer at mkendall@theeagleonline.com.

Located on Wisconsin Avenue between Chesapeake and Brandywine Streets, patrons choose from a variety of dishes in addition to the traditional Irish fair and the 11 beers on tap. The menu offers Irish staples such as shepherd’s pie and fish and chips as well as “crispy calamari” and grilled cheese for the “wee ones.”

Co-owner Mark Sullivan estimated 20 to 25 percent of business at Murphy’s Law comes from college students.

Murphy’s Law offers Tuesday night specials that vary week to week. Sullivan said that tended to be a popular time for AU students to come in.

Sullivan said he and his partner brought the Irish restaurant to Tenleytown after conversations with people in the neighborhood led them to believe that there was nothing like it there.

“The neighborhood has a wonderful eclectic mix of opportunities from all sorts of different cuisines, which is awesome,” Sullivan said. “I think people really enjoy that, but at the same time, they did want a place where they could just go get a burger or fish and chips or shepherd’s pie and watch a game.”

Murphy’s Law is located within the boundaries of the Advisory Neighborhood Commission 3E, according to a strategic report on the area that the commission released in 2008.

The report said the retail area in Tenleytown felt “disjointed” but that its proximity to the Metro, to offices with a “strong daytime population” and to AU gave Tenleytown the potential to grow and expand its market.

The report suggested the addition of “a neighborhood Italian bistro, an Irish bar and grill or similar independent food service operations” as a recommendation for the future of the community.

Valentine Joseph, a visiting student in the master’s program for the College of Arts and Sciences, said she would like to see some expansion of business in Tenleytown as long as it did not include big chain stores.

“It would be great to have more boutiques, kind of make it more like ... U Street, those places where there’s a lot of stuff going on, especially for young people,” Joseph said.

Several reviews of Murphy’s Law from the Web site yelp.com stressed the friendliness and efficiency of the staff.

“What I was taught 20 years ago was you hire personality, you train skills,” Sullivan said. “But you can’t do it the other way around.”

On Friday afternoon, Sullivan was not behind a desk, crunching numbers or making phone calls. Instead, he was behind the bar, serving drinks. Sullivan said that happens pretty often.

“It’s the funnest part of my job,” Sullivan said.

You can reach this staff writer at sparnass@theeagleonline.com.

So, on Friday, Feb. 19, the AU graduate student filed his paperwork to run in September’s Congressional primary for Maryland’s fifth district against Steny Hoyer, D-Md., the Democratic Majority leader of the House of Representatives.

Gall is in his second year of earning a Master’s of Public Policy at the School of Public Affairs, and he also works part-time as a graduate assistant. At 27 years old, Gall will run for Congress at the same age at which Aaron Schock, R-Ill., of the 18th district in central Illinois took the oath of office and became the youngest current member of the House of Representatives in 2009.

Gall’s opponent, Hoyer, who has held office in the House since 1981, is 70-years-old and serves as the House majority leader.

Gall said that the idea that he could run for public office has been building for a few months, but when a friend who was 32 years old passed away from a heart attack in the summer of 2009, he was spurred to action.

“It just sort of got me thinking about what I wanted to do with my life and sort of not putting off things I can do today,” Gall said.

The chances of postponing his campaign until after he gets his degree is very slim, he added.

“Why not now? There is this palpable frustration with how the system works,” Gall said. “As the youngest member of Congress,  I would have a unique platform ... [I] will, as the youngest member of Congress, have the ability to speak out and be heard in ways that [I] wouldn’t if [I were] an average member of Congress.”

Gall first experienced campaigning when he volunteered for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign in 2008. The experience taught him the importance of civic engagement, he said.

“All types of people from middle-schoolers through senior citizens [were] helping out and volunteering,” Gall said. “Seeing democracy at work ... definitely had an impact on my decision to run.”

Gall’s campaign strategy will heavily involve the use of social media, he said.

His campaign strategy will involve “the same sort of community organizing that we did on the Obama campaign, so knocking on doors, calling people, making use of social media,” Gall said.

Gall posted a Facebook fanpage for his campaign on Feb. 25. A few hours later, he already had over 50 fans, he said. As of press time, there were 114 members in the group.

Gall said he has already recruited several volunteers for his campaign.

“As far as staff goes, I won’t have the resources that a lot of more traditional campaigns have. I will have to rely on 100 percent student staff,” he said.

Tim Trautman, an undergraduate sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, worked with Gall on the Obama campaign and immediately agreed to be a volunteer when Gall approached him about his congressional campaign.

“[Gall is] a really great guy and a wonderful leader,” Trautman said. “His dedication to his degree in public policy at AU really shows his character.”

Trautman supports Gall’s emphasis on separating money from politics.

“It’s one of the things I’m concerned about, and it’s something each and every one of use should be concerned about,” Trautman said. “The people with the greatest amount of money shouldn’t be the people influencing politics the most. It should be everybody … that’s what America is all about.”

In particular, Gall wants to oust Hoyer because he voted for the Iraq war and receives money from special interest groups, Gall said.

“I don’t see someone who voted for the Iraq war ... and who raises more money from lobbyists than any other Congressman as somebody who represents to me big-D Democratic values,” Gall said.

It will be difficult running against Hoyer because he has more money than anyone else in Congress, Gall said.

“The reality is, no matter how much I raise, I’m still going to have less than Rep. Hoyer,” Gall said.

Gall put up a profile on Act Blue, a Web site for online fundraising for Democrats, and he is going to raise as much as he can from Internet donations, he said.

“I think I’m going to have to rely more on volunteers, be a little more creative, and maybe even get a little bit lucky,” Gall said. “If you’re willing to work hard, and if you’re honest and earnest with people, you can overcome a lot.”

Gall said he knows that the campaign will be difficult — especially since there is still homework to worry about.

“It’s definitely going to be a challenge,” he said. “Between ... working part-time, going to school full-time, a full-time campaign, throw in a social life and sleeping — there are just not enough hours in the day.”

You can reach this staff writer at mfowler@theeagleonline.com.

The increase represents the largest growth the fund has ever seen in a single year, according to Kudravetz.

The endowment was worth $370 million as of Dec. 31, 2009 — up from $279 million the year before. Kudravetz estimated the endowment was $372 million at the end of January.

The increase in AU’s endowment was one of the largest in over 200 endowments tracked by Cambridge Associates, a company that produces financial reviews.

Prior to this increase, the endowment decreased 20.7 percent during the 2009 fiscal year from $393 million in 2008, according to an annual study by the National Association of College and University Business Officers and the Commonfund Institute.

The overall average return investment for 863 institutions of higher education across the United States and Canada in the 2009 fiscal year fell 18.7 percent from the previous year, marking 2009 as the worst year for university endowments in the history of the study, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

“These results illustrate the extreme difficulties colleges and universities faced at the height of the global economic crisis,” NACUBO president and chief executive officer John Walda said in a press release.

The endowment is a compilation of funds received from a donor with the restriction that the original donation will never be spent, according to Kudravetz. The interest earned on the original donation is then spent according to stipulations set by the donor.

Kudravetz credits AU’s rebound to an unchanging asset allocation policy.

Assets are invested in sectors including large-capital firms, international equities, fixed income, hedge funds, cash, real estate, real assets, emerging market equities and small- capital equities.

“The real intent of this is to have a broad diversification of your investments, so if there is a downturn in a particular sector, you’re not affected as much,” he said. “You don’t want all of your investments invested in one sector, because if there’s a problem in that sector, you’re in trouble.”

Kudravetz said that because AU does not depend on the endowment to support the university’s base operating budget — the endowment only consists of one percent of the operating budget — it was able to weather the financial crisis fairly well.

“In times when the endowment declines—and the endowment income declines—you’re in a tough position if you’re relying heavily on the endowment for your operating budget,” Kudravetz said. “We’ve resisted that over the years.”

Other D.C. schools like Georgetown University and George Washington University have larger endowments than AU. Kudravetz attributes this to their longer histories and more donations.

Georgetown’s student newspaper, The Hoya, reported the school’s endowment was $958 million as of the end of last November. GWU’s endowment stood at $1.01 billion at the end of June 2009, according to its Web site.

You can reach this staff writer at sdazio@theeagleonline.com.

Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy filing in September 2008 was the largest in U.S. history, according to MarketWatch’s Web site, and furthered the subprime mortgage crisis and the global economic downturn.

“The theater was on fire,” Larry McDonald said at the Feb. 24 Kennedy Political Union event. “And our CEO, Richard Fuld, was ordering more popcorn.”

The subprime mortgage crisis began August 2007, according to an International Monetary Fund report. It involved a substantial number of banks losing significant amounts of money because they issued an abnormally high number of high-risk mortgage loans to borrowers in the United States.

The Board of Directors helped Lehman Brothers become an enabler of the subprime mortgage crisis, according to McDonald. They were not sufficiently familiar with the implications and consequences of certain recently created methods of issuing and exchanging loans, especially mortgage loans, he said.

The board decided to concentrate most of the firm’s assets on commercial real estate, despite the urgings of employees within Lehman Brothers as early as 2004, to reduce the firm’s presence in the market for subprime mortgages, McDonald said.

Lawrence B. Lindsey, who chaired the National Economic Council from 2001 to 2002 and was later hired by Lehman Brothers to analyze its activities, warned the Board in late 2006 of growing concerns regarding so-called “NINJA” mortgages. NINJA is an acronym for subprime mortgages being lent to people who had “no income, no job, no assets,” according to McDonald.

Lehman Brothers’ rapid growth in the assets it was managing further hampered its ability to operate properly, McDonald said. The firm had total assets of $42 billion and $36 billion in debt at the end of fiscal year 1998. It had total assets of $691 billion and debt of $669 billion at the end of fiscal year 2007, according to the firm’s balance sheets filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

McDonald said he feels financial services firms of Lehman Brothers’ size should be considered as too big to properly succeed rather than “too big to fail.”

“They’re too big to be managed,” McDonald said in an exclusive interview with The Eagle before the KPU event. “Bank of America, today, is like a snake that has swallowed 5,000 rats ... I don’t care how smart you are, I don’t care if you put 10 analysts on Bank of America, I’m telling you right now, you cannot judge the risks on that balance sheet.”

Bank of America had $2.2 trillion in assets at the end of fiscal year 2009 with $2.0 trillion in debt, according to a balance sheet filed with the SEC on Feb. 26.

Alessandra Conti, a sophomore in the School of Communication, said she appreciated McDonald’s efforts to educate the public about the state of Lehman Brothers before it filed for bankruptcy.

“In spite of all this corruption, there are people who are willing to take a step back and look at the situation and be able to expose it,” Conti said. “In order to make change, you have to acknowledge what happened in the past.”

McDonald is touring the country to promote greater financial responsibility. His book, “A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers,” provides further analysis and recommendations.

The next KPU event will be held this Wednesday, March 3 in MGC 4-5, and will feature Dunya Mikhail, an Iraqi poet and former literary editor for The Baghdad Observer.

You can reach this staff writer at hperlman@theeagleonline.com.

Alcohol is the primary cause of health and safety violations at AU, and it exceeds all other violations tracked by the Office of Campus Life, Treter said.

Even with AU’s no-tolerance alcohol ban in the residence halls, the number of alcohol-related health incidents has “definitely increased,” according to Michael McNair, chief of the Department of Public Safety. Over three-quarters of AU’s on-campus student population has violated university alcohol regulations, The Eagle previously reported.

In 2008, there were 244 “Judicial Referrals” for alcohol violations on the Main Campus and 37 on the Tenley Campus. A total of 281 violations occurred in the residence halls, according to the 2009 Annual Security Report.

Last year, there were also 38 transports. McNair estimated that the number of transports may have doubled in 2009.

AU usually notifies parents after a student’s second violation of alcohol restrictions or when a student’s violation of the university’s alcohol or drug policies is judged by the dean of students to be egregious,” according to the 2009 Annual Security Report.

But this level of abuse is not unique to AU, according to Treter.

“AU’s alcohol issues are pretty much on average with other schools in the area,” he said.

Schools in the D.C. area have tightened restrictions in recent years to combat alcohol abuse on their campuses.

Georgetown University limits on-campus parties to one keg and requires that at least one host be over 21, according to the university’s student newspaper The Hoya. George Washington University and The Catholic University of America send a notification to a student’s parents after every alcohol violation, according to The Washington Post.

At one time, AU permitted on-campus alcohol consumption. In 1983, the Tavern dispensed the largest amount of beer out of any D.C. drinking establishment, The Eagle has previously reported. However, the university banned alcohol on campus in 1984 after a freshman died falling from the roof of the Letts study lounge.

AU regulations now prohibit alcohol at all on-campus events unless authorized by the president, the provost or a vice president.

The number of deaths from an alcohol-related injury increased by nine percent among college students from 1998 to 2001, according to a study by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

D.C. recently ranked 37th “drunkest” city by Men’s Health magazine. Cities ranked in the survey were ranked based on death rates from alcoholic liver disease, the frequency of binge drinking and the number of alcohol-related car accidents, the number of DUI arrests and the severity of DUI penalties, according to the magazine.

D.C. raised its legal drinking age to 21 in 1986 and the D.C. City Council decriminalized underage drinking in 2004, according to the Post.

You can reach this writer at news@theeagleonline.com.