News

News

Missing alumna released from Syria

By Rebecca Kern | October 16

Two American journalists, including an AU alumna, were released into U.S. custody last Thursday after being detained in a Syrian prison for crossing border from Lebanon aided by smugglers. Holli Chmela, 27, a 2003 AU graduate and former Eagle staffer, and Taylor Luck, 23, claimed they were "kidnapped" by a taxi driver in Lebanon.

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Program encourages fitness

By Nicole Glass | October 16

The Jacobs Fitness Center plans to host the Turkey Slim-down, a fitness contest throughout the pre-holiday season, in which AU students may participate to try to burn the most calories. The center's staff named the program, which it calls a "holiday calorie workout challenge.

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News

SOC seeks reaccreditation

By Katie Litvin | October 13

The Accrediting Council on Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (ACEJMC) will assess the School of Communication this week to certify that the school will continue to meet the council's national standards. ACEJMC representatives will watch SOC classes and interview faculty members as part of the six-year renewal process according to SOC professor W. Joseph Campbell, who is involved in the accreditation.

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AU students plan to assist at polls

By Rachel Lynne Smith | October 13

In addition to campaigning and canvassing during this election, students at AU and other schools across the country will assist in the electoral process by working at polling places. Some AU students have signed up to work at area polling places Nov. 4 through AU's Center for Democracy and Election Management.

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News

Metro calendar

October 13

Monday, Oct. 13 Exhibition - "One Planet: Ours" 10 a.m.-5 p.m. WHERE: U.S. Botanic Garden, 100 Maryland Ave. S.W. METRO: Smithsonian (blue and orange lines) INFO: This exhibit features garden displays and structures that focus on sustainability and solutions to global warming.

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News

Few AU students return home after graduation

By Sarah Rudnick | October 13

The majority of AU graduates have not ended up moving back into their parents' homes following graduation, which contrasts with recent national statistics. A recent study from CollegeGrad.com, a job search Web site, found that 77 percent of college students moved back into their parents' homes after graduation in 2008.

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Kent State prof fires back at Web site

By Rachel Lynne Smith | October 13

Students aren't the only ones who look at RateMyProfessors.com anymore. An increasing number of students and professors access the Web site, a forum for students to discuss their positive or negative feelings about specific teachers. Professors at AU and schools across the nation have begun to view the site more as a place for students to vent than to post useful information.

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Students average $20k in debt

By Elena Isella | October 13

The average debt AU undergraduate students accumulate in four years of college for federal loans is $19,000, according to Shirleyne McDonald, associate director of Financial Aid. However, there is no way for the Office of Financial Aid to keep track of personal student loans because the student initiates those loans, she said.

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Annual documentary series to begin this week

By Olivia Stitilis | October 13

The ninth annual Human Rights Film Series, which begins Thursday, will highlight social issues through up-to-date documentaries, according to Micael Boger, the project manager for the School of Communication's Center for Social Media. The Center for Social Media and the Washington College of Law's Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law will present the series, which is open to both the AU community and the public.

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National brief

October 13

The Connecticut Supreme Court overturned the state's three-year-old ban on same-sex marriage Friday. Connecticut is the third state to legalize same-sex marriage, after California overturned a similar ban in May and Massachusetts took similar action in 2004, according to The New York Times.

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Fulsom reflects on Watergate

By Clint Rice | October 13

School of Public Affairs professor Donald Fulsom said during a "Professors Are People, Too" event Thursday night that when he was a White House correspondent in the early 1970s, he was the first person to connect the 1972 break-in at the Democratic National Committee's headquarters in the Watergate complex to Richard Nixon's presidential re-election campaign.

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Campus brief

October 13

AU's board of trustees approved the Strategic Planning Committee's progress during their meeting in late September, President Neil Kerwin said in an e-mail to the campus community Wednesday. "The trustees were impressed with the process that has brought the plan to its current state and with the quality of analysis and ideas presented in both themes and goals," he said in the e-mail.

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Metro brief

October 13

Crime on the Metro could reach a new high by the end of the year. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority has reported 1,348 crimes - including robberies, aggravated assault and vehicle theft - thus far this year, according to the Associated Press.

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Metro plans cell service upgrade

By Julia Ryan | October 13

AU students will get better cell phone service when they travel on Metrorail because of legislation that will fund plans to expand cell phone service to include all carriers in the 20 busiest Metrorail stations, according to The Washington Post. The Senate passed the bill that included this funding Oct. 1, after the House of Representatives also approved it. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority will make these updates within the next year, The Post reported.

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Some colleges allow pets in dormitories

By Sarah Rudnick | October 13

Sometimes AU students will have a roommate that has puked on their bed, peed on their floor or ate their pizza that has sat around for five days. Students in other colleges across the nation have similar problems - but these roommates are pets. Several colleges have begun to allow students to keep animals in their dormitories, but AU is not one of them.

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International brief

October 13

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences presented three scientists with the Nobel Prize in Chemistry Wednesday for discovering a protein in jellyfish that aids in the study of diseases. U.S. scientists Martin Chalifie and Roger Tsien worked with Japan's Osamu Shimomura to discover the green florescent protein, known as GFC, according to a press release.

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AU may take action against gossip site

By Ethan Klapper | October 9

AU will not take any action against the Juicy Campus Web site until it sees what action Georgetown University takes, according to Associate Dean of Students Sara Waldron. The AU community has been reacting to the Web site since it established an AU site Sept. 29.

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