Delivering American University's news and views since 1925 | Saturday, December 2, 2023
In The Eagle's staff editorial last week, it was argued that AU's move to implement software that can block file sharing was the latest in a long string of decisions made by the University without student input. It's not a new complaint. It was the same one I heard from seniors at Ultimate Frisbee practice during my first week as a freshman almost five years ago.
The University is considering following a national trend in public health by installing heart-restarting Automatic External Defibrillators on campus, though no decision has yet been made. An AED is a laptop-sized electrical device with paddles or pads attached to it that, when placed on someone going through sudden cardiac arrest, sends an electrical shock through the victim's chest, often restarting the heart.
Following an academic year plagued by the rampant spread of viruses across AU's computer network, service outages and sluggish network speed, the University has taken steps to combat the problems, including turning to students for help.
It is well-known that many AU buildings and offices, such as Gray, Hurst, Roper, McCabe, Watkins, Kreeger, Asbury, Hamilton and the School of International Service are not accessible to physically disabled students. Though this problem is expected to be reduced over the next decade or so as various buildings undergo renovation, it seems that the most frustrating obstacles the disabled or physically challenged have to surmount are less obvious and yet probably easier to fix.
For the average AU student, who is less than one-fifth through his or her life, death can be sobering, traumatic and incomprehensible all at once. It's not supposed to happen so soon, and when it does, the search for meaning and the grieving of a life cut short begin, as they did with Andrew Burr, 20.
Personal information belonging to almost every one of AU's 13,000 computer network users has been available to anyone on the Internet for about a year and a half through a series of loopholes in the my.american.edu Web portal. University officials were informed of the problem by The Eagle last Monday and were given a week to address the issue prior to the publication of this article.
Expanding global markets, reducing barriers to trade and working through multilateral institutions such as the United Nations and World Trade Organization are the best ways for the United States to work with small countries like New Zealand in making the world a safer place, New Zealand Ambassador John Wood said Monday night.
A female student was grabbed by an unknown assailant last night in an apparent sexual attack in the garden adjacent to the amphitheater, according to the Metropolitan Police Department. The attack was the fourth such incident in the past week and is the sixth reported incidence of an unwanted sexual advance on campus this semester.
When Gordon Simonett, a relatively junior General Assembly member representing the Class of 2004, left the GA meeting Friday night, he didn't imagine that the next time he would take those steps he would be leaving as the body's most senior member. But after a week that began with the expulsion of one GA member and that resulted in the resignations under fire of most of the group's leadership, the GA has in Simonett's words "thrown out experience and brought in ideas."
For our Thursday debate Evan Wagner argues the merits of the California recall.
