Opinion

Opinion

Letter from the editor: keep an open mind

By Charlie Szold | August 15

Dear American University Freshmen, Welcome to AU. Over the next four years you spend at AU or, perhaps, another institution, you will have the opportunity to truly grow into the person you wish to be. If you grow correctly, you will be well prepared to enter the world and contribute. If you grow wrong, you will have wasted time and money. The choice is yours alone. Professors, parents and guidance counselors cannot make you work harder, attend classes, do your reading or study for your tests. They cannot make you get internships or jobs in the city, and they cannot make jungle juice-induced hangovers disappear on Wednesday morning.

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Opinion

A letter from the vice president of Campus Life

August 15

Dear Class of 2014, Do you hear a loud BUZZ? That’s the sound of Welcome Weeks at American University. The campus is alive with anticipation and excitement about the year ahead. Your class brings lots of new energy to a campus community that is already exceptional for its active engagement in the ...

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Opinion

A guide to the editorial page

By Linda Barnhart | August 15

Have an opinion? Care to share it with the AU community? We here at The Eagle are inviting you to submit your written opinions to be published in our public forum. However, before you set your ranting pen to paper (or rather, fingers to keyboard), there are a few things to learn about The Eagle’s editorial page.

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Opinion

Eagle rants

August 15

More of your Eagle rants!

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Opinion

Staff Editorial: Metro’s ‘party foul’

June 1

Based on proposed changes to Metro service, night owls and party animals may need to start rethinking their plans for Friday and Saturday night excursions. Among the proposals in Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s 2011 budget is the reduction of weekend night service, with the termination of bus and rail service by 2 a.m., instead of the current 3 a.m. Although this move stands to save Metro $8 million and reduce its budget gap by 4 percent, it creates a whole host of other issues that makes us want to cry “party foul.”

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Opinion

Lessons in freedom hard to teach

June 1

Individual rights are too important to let partisanship cloud our judgment. Strangely, this is a hard lesson to teach on our nation’s college campuses.

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Opinion

Revisiting the exercise of youth

By Michael Stubel | June 1

Bang! — the shutting screen door was once a familiar sound of America’s summers. Children would venture out from under the watchful eye of their parents and spend the day on the streets, playgrounds and parks that surrounded their homes. There was stickball in the vacant corner lot and hopscotch on the blacktop.

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Opinion

Football games lead to serious crises

By Parvez Khan | June 1

For the first time in 24 years, Algeria will play for the FIFA World Cup title in June. Its road in getting there, however, shall remain one of the most uproarious yet sobering international affairs tales to date.

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Opinion

Letter to the Editor

April 25

I joined the Undergraduate Senate, at the behest of outgoing Secretary Colin Meiselman, when I transferred to American University. I joined the body out of anger. I was incensed that the Senate was voting on what I deemed to be a pointless issue: criticizing Columbus Day and calling for an alleged "Indigenous People's Day," and I was determined to get the Senate to start focusing on issues that mattered to the students.

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Opinion

Eagle rants

April 25

More of your Eagle rants!

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Opinion

Staff Editorial: Student Government recap

April 21

Writing a holistic critique of anything is a difficult undertaking. There is a tendency to focus on the negative, to lament the way things have become and to yearn for times past. Such feelings are entertaining to read, and perhaps even more fun to write. As a result, the critic is tempted to ignore the positive and focus of failures, scandals and incompetence.

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Opinion

Pondering AU’s new sexual assault policies

April 21

The administration’s Sexual Assault Working Group released the revised Student Handbook policies regarding sexual assault and misconduct procedures. These policies aim to clarify the language used to define sexual misconduct and better codify the university’s response toward it. Changes include more specific guidelines regarding sanctions against individuals and groups and a concise examination of what constitutes consent within the context of a potentially intimate situation.

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Opinion

The perils of free market authority

By Isaac Stone | April 21

In a classic episode of “The Simpsons,” the fictional town of Springfield finds itself with a surprising surplus of cash. When Springfield’s citizens gather to discuss how to spend the new bundle, a sensible verdict is reached. But a smooth-talking salesman bounds out of nowhere and announces that a “genuine, bona fide, electrified, six-car monorail” would really solve the town’s problems. So, the town inexplicably builds a monorail, with few people questioning why a small town needs a mass-transportation system.

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Opinion

Eagle rants

April 21

More of your ostentatious rants.

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Opinion

Staff Editorial: Grade not, lest ye be evaluated

April 18

One of the most important steps in the determination of merit pay is the Student Evaluation of Teaching. Those infamous bubble sheets that reappear without fail at the end of the semester are much more than an excuse to stop lectures early. As The Eagle reports this issue, these forms play a critical role as departments decide various alterations in professors’ salaries.

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Opinion

Letter from the editor

April 18

When I reflect on my four years at AU, I think the most formative and educational experiences I have had happened outside of the classroom. The better part of my college education has taken place in MGC 252, behind the doors of The Eagle office.

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Opinion

America’s cultural protectionism

By Alex Priest | April 18

Last Thursday Sarah Palin asked, via Facebook, if perhaps President Barack Obama had a lack of faith in “American exceptionalism.” Former Speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich seems to think Obama is leading “a secular socialist movement ... that represents essentially a European socialism.”

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