AWOL Issue 33: Fall 2023

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AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE | FALL 2023 | ISSUE 33

IN THIS ISSUE: THE FIGHT FOR NARCAN ADMISSIONS ON TRIAL ABSENT ADVISORS

AWOL FALL 2023 | ISSUE 33

MISSION AWOL Magazine aims to continue pushing both ourselves and American University to be more critical of issues that deserve to be understood with nuance; to work subversively when dismantling barriers that suppress certain voices; and to love irrepressibly when it comes to serving our community. We ignite campus discussions on social, cultural and political issues. We want to make our campus more inquiring, egalitarian and socially engaged.

Our stories have an angle, which is different from having an agenda. Our reporting is impartial and fair, but our analysis is critical and argumentative.

We were independently founded by American University students in 2008. AWOL Magazine is a member of the Associated Collegiate Press and Generation Progress Voices Network. This publication has won awards at the National College Media Convention, and its writers have won awards from the Society for Professional Journalists and the College Media Association.

EDITORIAL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Grace Hagerman MANAGING EDITOR Kathryn Gilroy PODCAST DIRECTOR Helena Milburn MULTIMEDIA DIRECTOR Maegan Seaman PR DIRECTOR Kevin Becker DESIGN DIRECTOR Casey Bacot DESIGN PRODUCER Leehy Gertner STAFF EDITORS Alexia Partouche, Zoe Kallenekos, Kalie Walker and Caleb Ogilvie CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Neal Franklin ASSISTANT EDITORS Kate Kessler, Quinn Volpe and Vanessa Levins GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Elizabeth Hopper, Demitra Moutoudis, Arati Periyannan and Jocelyn Peller PHOTOGRAPHERS Michelle Miramontes and Ben Austin STAFF WRITERS Will Sytsma, Stella Camerlengo, Ava Ramsdale, Mia Norton, Zori Rouleau, Abby Johnson, Jake Botelho, Gus Bachmann, Olivia Bohart and Emma Pierce

FIND US ONLINE WEBSITE ISSUU INSTAGRAM TWITTER

www.awolau.org www.issuu.com/awol @awolAU @awolAU

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR Dear Reader, First and foremost, thank you for picking up AWOL’s 33rd magazine issue. We appreciate those who take the time to read, watch and listen to our content that we work on tirelessly every semester.

I walked into this role as Editor-in-Chief with the goal of picking up where our growth left off last year. The work AWOL has done this semester is credited to a daily mindset of putting in the work while not getting overwhelmed by the uncertainty of what’s to come.

This semester at AWOL, our work has drawn from our mission of ensuring that our stories are critical, subversive and irrepressible.

Our cover story – written by Ben Austin, Olivia Bohart and Arati Periyannan – investigated the university’s $30 million budget deficit by asking tough questions so that readers can understand what the deficit means for the future. Kalie Walker wrote about a recent Supreme Court decision to end affirmative action to show readers the impact of a decision like this one. One of our photo essays – photographed by Michelle Miramontes and written by Emma Pierce – is about Little Amal, a 12-foot-tall puppet who traveled to the district to inspire love and support for Syrian refugees.

This magazine is not all AWOL does. This semester, our podcast team took on the challenge of producing two podcast episodes – one for Ripped from the Wall and one for The Hum. While each podcast is quite different, both episodes brought the perspectives of students who are often in the dark, into the light. Additionally, our multimedia team produced a mini-documentary that questioned how students and staff feel about accessibility and accommodations on campus. All of which you can find on our website.

Thank you to all of AWOL’s staff for the dedication you have brought to this organization. It is also imperative that I recognize Managing Editor Kathryn Gilroy for her passion, which is nothing short of admirable. I am grateful that I got to have her by my side this semester. Finally, I want to thank Neal Franklin, who will be stepping into the Editor-in-Chief role next semester, for his guidance from miles away during his study abroad trip in Mexico.

AWOL will continue, day by day, to produce content that we are proud of and address topics that are important to our readers. We hope that this issue has inspired you also to ask the tough questions because ultimately that is the first step to initiating change.

Sincerely,

GRACE HAGERMAN EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

POLITICS IN THE DISTRICT PAGE 4

5 THE FIGHT FOR NARCAN

8 COSTS OF HOUSING

Students concerned as AU naxolone access on campus remains difficult.

Rising rent and demand complicate search for housing.

Written by Will Sytsma and Stella Camerlengo

Written by Ava Ramsdale

9 ADMISSIONS ON TRIAL Banning of race-conscious admissions affects diversity on campus.

Written by Kalie Walker

CAMPUS LIFE 13 BEHIND THE BUDGET PAGE 12

16 ABSENT ADVISORS

A $30.8 million deficit causes a push for budget tightening.

Students express frustration over AU advising experience.

Written by Arati Periyannan, Ben Austin and Olivia Bohart

Written by Casey Bacot and Kevin Becker

19 A DEAL FOR A MEAL From food to energy, the worth of a meal exchange varies.

Written by Caleb Ogilvie

PHOTO ESSAY: LITTLE AMAL PAGE 21

CULTURE 26 SKATING TO A STOP PAGE 25

28 KEEPING GO-GO ALIVE

D.C. skaters worry as Freedom Plaza heads for remodel.

Firefighter band shows importance of Go-Go music genre.

Written by Jacob Botelho and Gus Bachmann

Written by Kate Kessler and Quinn Volpe

PHOTO ESSAY: ON OUR DOORSTEP PAGE 30

PAST THE 35 THE HUM Experiences at a PWI PRINT PAGE 34 36 THE MULTIMEDIA TEAM Accessibility uncovered

35 RIPPED FROM THE WALL Investigating IAP

37 COMMUNITY PROFILE: HUMANITIES TRUCK

Written by Mia Norton, Zori Rouleau and Abby Johnson

POLITICS IN THE DISTRICT

IN THIS SECTION: THE FIGHT FOR NARCAN COSTS OF HOUSING ADMISSIONS ON TRIAL

POLITICS IN THE DISTRICT

THE FIGHT FOR NARCAN Students concerned as AU naloxone access on campus remains difficult.

Written by Will Sytsma and Stella Camerlengo Thomas Cortez said that he didn’t realize the lifesaving capability of Narcan – until he knew someone who overdosed.

The medication saved their life.

A Tennessee native and a student in Washington, D.C., two places where overdoses abound, he was upset not to have known about Narcan. Cortez said this inspired his passion for increasing its accessibility.

“It was something that kind of opened my eyes to how prevalent this issue is,” Cortez said. “Whether or not you’re the person that is actually the victim of the overdose itself, it does have a wide-ranging impact.”

April 2023 article by WUSA9.

As a response to the overdose, 578 people submitted a petition to AU President Sylvia Burwell and two counseling and prevention specialists who worked in AU’s counseling center.

The petition stated that many AU students supported making Narcan available in all dorms. It emphasized Narcan’s safety and provided examples of universities that have successfully implemented Narcan programs, including Columbia University, the University of Maryland and Bridgewater State University.

“To wait to implement Narcan at AU is unethical and deadly,” the petition said.

In September 2023, two Narcan training and distribution events were held by the Center for Well-Being Programs in Mary

tanyl, as well as tranq and other drugs, getting into college systems and making their way across the United States, it’s extremely important to ensure that college students have access to these lifesaving drugs,” Cortez said.

Many trainees have already used the Narcan supplied to them by the training to save lives, Cortez said.

Through the Center for Well-Being Programs and Psychological Services, AU has also sponsored its own naloxone training.

Aside from this training, Cortez said that he hasn’t seen enough work done by the university to provide overdose prevention resources to students. The amount of student action, he said, may be reflective of this inaction.

“I think the fact that a student-led group had to be the one doing it in the first place is kind of stark and unacceptable,” Cortez said. “There should be widely available resources on campus.”

Narcan is a nasal spray that works to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose.

Binding to the opioid receptors in the brain, naloxone – the compound of which Narcan is composed – inhibits the ability of an opioid to affect the body’s functions, according to the National Institute of Drug Abuse.

American University does not yet provide the necessary accessibility for Narcan, Cortez said. AU said in an Oct. 19 email to the community that the university is exploring the possibility of providing Narcan on campus.

With opioid overdoses in the District on the rise, American University students have been at the forefront of fighting for Narcan accessibility across campus.

In April 2023, a 19-year-old woman was faced with a life-threatening experience when she nearly died from an overdose in McDowell Hall, according to an

Graydon Center, according to Engage. The second training, attended by an AWOL reporter, included an overview of overdose statistics in the District and a demonstration of how to administer Narcan in the event of an emergency.

The District had 411 overdoses in 2020, over a hundred deaths higher than the six previous years, according to Live.

Long. D.C. Now an AU alumnus, Cortez is the former executive advisor of the SIS Graduate Council. In the 2022-23 academic year, the council organized two Narcan training events on AU’s campus, Cortez said.

Through a partnership with the Wards 3 and 4 Prevention Center, which supplied resources for the event, the council provided students with a two-minute training session and their own Narcan.

“With the current prevalence of fen-

“I think the fact that a student-led group had to be the one doing it in the first place is kind of stark and unacceptable,” Cortez said. “There should be widely available resources on campus.”

Matthew Ellis, assistant professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine, said that Narcan saves lives, especially on college campuses.

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AWOL MAGAZINE “It’s definitely one of the most important and effective routes of saving lives,” Ellis said. “I mean, that’s really what Narcan is about. It’s about saving lives.”

Ellis said Narcan access is important for students given the prevalence of drug experimentation on college campuses.

“We know that a lot of substance use starts in college, that there’s a real risk there that someone may ingest something, and so I think having Narcan freely accessible is a necessary situation to have on campus,” Ellis said.

AU alumna Lillian Frame, who signed the petition, said she wants to see the school directly implement Narcan to alleviate the burden placed upon students when it comes to responding to opioid overdoses on campus.

“A lot of it falls, as literally everything else does at AU, onto the students who are educating each other and helping each other,” Frame said.

Frame said she hopes for Narcan training to become a standard part of the university curriculum and for AU to distribute Narcan kits to all individuals on campus.

“We have AUx, everyone takes AUx,” Frame said. “Get everyone Narcan trained at AUx and give them Narcan. Teach every single person who is on our campus how

The program saved over 300 lives, according to a report from the Organization of State Offices of Rural Health in April 2017.

Soon after, Burwell’s department expanded the budget for funding naloxone-related relief to combat this crisis, funneling $12 million into the Rural Opioid Overdose Reversal Grant, according to a 2016 White House Press Secretary release.

In an October 2015 release written by Assistant Secretary Richard Frank, naloxone distribution was called a “priority” of

“I mean, that’s really what Narcan is about. It’s about saving lives,” Ellis said. to use Narcan and carry it around. I want to see frickin’ Narcan vending machines on campus.”

Frame said she expects more from Burwell when it comes to Narcan access.

“I think that the university especially, you know, with who our current President is, this is something that we should know,” Frame said.

Burwell was the Secretary of Health and Human Services in September 2015 when the Department of Health and Human Services announced a $1.8 million grant fund through the Rural Opioid Overdose Reversal (ROOR) Grant Program in order to equip first responders with naloxone injections and train them in its use, according to a White House blog post written by Senior Policy Advisor Doug O’Brien.

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Burwell’s department.

“I haven’t seen any evidence of her doing anything health and human services related on this campus,” Frame said, referring to Burwell.

Frank didn’t respond to a request for comment and the AU Communications Office did not respond with a comment on behalf of President Burwell.

J.R. Denson, the alcohol and other drugs prevention specialist for the Counseling Center, headed the two Narcan training and distribution events in September.

He said that Narcan accessibility has been in the works with the Center since before he took his position at AU. Denson said that the center began conducting this training for the benefit of the campus community.

“This is a public service,” Denson said. “It’s a good thing for people to know to how to do, to want to help someone that might be in need.”

Student interest was a motivating factor for the center’s training, Denson said.

“As long as students are interested, we’re going to host programming that they want to see,” Denson said.

Denson said to attendees at the training that the Counseling Center had sought to obtain status as a Narcan distribution hub, but had encountered hurdles in that process.

“My understanding is that we are ineligible based on our private institution status, and that only nonprofit community-based organizations are eligible to be distribution hubs,” Denson said, speaking after the session.

The AU legal department was not made available for comment. It remains to be determined whether or not the university would qualify to be a distribution site under D.C. policy.

According to an excerpt written by its Health Promotion and Wellness Services and published on Engage, the University of Maryland was able to obtain status as a distributor through the Maryland Department of Health. Although the University of Maryland is a public institution, universities like Columbia have gained access to naloxone programs in the same way, according to Columbia Health.

In an Oct. 19 email from Chief Financial Officer Bronté Burleigh-Jones and Vice President of Student Affairs Raymond Lu Ming Ou, the university announced its plan to broaden access to Narcan through additional Counseling Center training.

POLITICS IN THE DISTRICT “As part of our harm reduction strategy, we are exploring the feasibility of providing placements of naloxone boxes, supplied with Narcan, across campus,” the email said.

Burleigh-Jones and Ou said that the university will work with members of the AU community to consider implementing supply locations. The Oct. 19 email said AU police officers would also be equipped with Narcan and AU will host additional

that we had had a wildly successful event in the fall,” Cortez said.

Cortez said an increase in awareness would allow students to benefit more from university Narcan events but that the fight against overdoses remains in students’ hands.

“It seems like we often have such a reactive approach to everything on this campus, that it’s worrisome that we’re going to end up seeing a student either pass away or

With the help of other organizations, the SIS Graduate Council was able to reach around 1,300 members of the AU community in fall 2022 and spring 2023, Cortez said. He said he’s proud of its work.

“It is clear that student leaders will have to continue taking leadership on this issue until the university decides to take it seriously,” Cortez said.

“Despite their statement trying to say otherwise, American University has not shown any commitment to increasing access to lifesaving Narcan,” Cortez said.

Narcan training.

Although university-sponsored training is set to continue, some students have said they have concerns about a lack of visibility of the training conducted by the university.

“At one point, the Student Health Center tried to do a training and didn’t advertise, didn’t work with us, despite the fact

have more students OD on our campus before anything is finally done,” Cortez said.

Cortez said in an October 2023 comment to AWOL that he was skeptical of the university’s updated Narcan policy.

“Despite their statement trying to say otherwise, American University has not shown any commitment to increasing access to lifesaving Narcan,” Cortez said.

Will Sytsma is a freshman studying journalism and political science.

Stella Camerlengo is a freshman studying journalism and political science.

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AWOL MAGAZINE

COSTS OF HOUSING Rising rent and demand complicate search for housing.

Written by Ava Ramsdale Unable to secure campus housing at American University as an upperclassman, Madison DeFrancesco said she eventually found her college apartment in Silver Spring, Maryland.

DeFrancesco, who graduated in 2023, said living off campus was cheaper than living in a dorm but led to transportation difficulties. DeFrancesco said she would sometimes get stuck in traffic for two hours while driving from the campus to her apartment.

Finding affordable off-campus housing was difficult because so many other upperclassmen were searching for apartments as well, DeFrancesco said.

“Places were just going so quickly, so I would have tours scheduled for certain houses and they would pretty much be gone by the time I was able to get all my friends on board with a place,” DeFrancesco said.

Looking for housing options in the D.C. area can often be cheaper for AU students. The university only guarantees housing for first and second-year undergraduates, according to AU’s Housing

According to the website Apartment List, rent in the district has increased by 0.3% over the past year, while rent across the U.S. has decreased by 1.2%.

AU’s Office of Housing and Residence Life charges between over $5,000 to over $6,900 per semester for a double room, depending on the dorm location and style, according to AU’s Housing & Residence Life website. In contrast, off-campus housing, depending on the location in the D.C. area, can be as little as $750 per month, according to apartments listed on Rent.com.

Internal Communications Manager for AU Jasmine Pelaez said AU provides an off-campus housing resource page, which includes tools for negotiating your first lease and things to know when attending a tour.

“To assist all students, the Off-Campus Housing Services web page provides resources, including access to the Off-Campus Postings Site, and a video presentation outlining housing tips, how to approach a

“As the university gets bigger, or just as the housing gets older and there’s fewer options, it’s only going to get worse,” LeRoy said.

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& Residence Life website, so finding off-campus housing may be a necessity for upperclassmen. However, rising prices and demand have made it difficult for students to find housing.

About 44,000 households in the district spent at least half of their income on rent in 2021, according to the action agency United Planning Organization. The district’s attempts to create affordable housing have not made a substantial difference in housing costs within the private market, and there is a call for the district to provide more housing geared toward its struggling residents, according to the organization.

housing search, and additional considerations,” Pelaez said in an email.

However, many students said they did not know about this resource when looking for housing and relied more on help from older students and siblings with prior experience.

Sophomore Sachi Lozano said she did not know this resource page existed when looking for housing.

“The most helpful resource was upperclassmen who had prior experience,” Lozano said.

Lilia Bose, a junior at AU who lives in an apartment about half a mile from cam-

pus, said that living off campus taught her how to live on her own.

“Just the idea to be able to have your own space and [be] part of the more independent lifestyle,” Bose said when asked why she decided to look for off-campus housing.

Senior Mia Bowman had similar thoughts and said they would like to see the university educate its students on personal finance skills, such as budgeting, to help prepare students for life post-graduation.

“I really wanted to get a headstart on what it was going to be like after college, living off campus, understanding rent and stuff like that, and buying my own things,” Bowman said. “I just feel like I’m better prepared for what my life is going to be like after college.”

LeRoy said he decided the pros of living off campus outweighed the cons when he moved into his apartment in Glover Park. He said that while on-campus housing provided more access to campus life, it has been more cost-effective to live off campus, especially for students like himself who live farther from campus.

“I’m sure there are a lot of kids who live on campus out of convenience that are able to afford it,” LeRoy said. “But I know there’s a lot of kids who can’t afford it that don’t have the ability to find other spots around campus.”

LeRoy said he predicts increased demand for off-campus housing could pose an issue for AU students trying to find somewhere to live.

“As the university gets bigger, or just as the housing gets older and there’s fewer options, it’s only going to get worse,” LeRoy said.

Ava Ramsdale is a freshman studying political science.

POLITICS IN THE DISTRICT

ADMISSIONS ON TRIAL Banning of race-conscious admissions affects diversity on campus.

Written by Kalie Walker When the Supreme Court banned affirmative action, colleges across the U.S. had to ask themselves one question: What comes next?

The Supreme Court overturned affirmative action on June 29 in a 6-3 decision when the nonprofit organization Students for Fair Admissions sued Harvard University and the University of North Carolina for allegedly unfair admissions processes through their use of affirmative action.

Latinos En Acción Mentorship and Guidance Co-Director Sofia Rodriguez said that the diverse cultural clubs on campus are engaging for students of color.

“I think it makes it feel a lot more comforting,” Rodriguez said. “And, so, I guess my worry would be in the future that that comfort and that kind of community that we’ve all built within the coalitions kind of ends.”

AU College Democrats President Tyler Brown-Dewese said that diversity is essential to campus.

a September 2023 email. This includes an optional essay question allowing students to discuss their perspectives.

Kaplan said she was concerned about the proposal of essay topics concerning experiences with race.

“We have now replaced the notion of diversity with the valorization of adversity,” Kaplan said.

Kaplan said there’s more work to be done regarding admissions as well.

“This struggle is actually not over, but is moving to a really new stage in thinking

“We have now replaced the notion of diversity with the valorization of adversity,” Kaplan said.

In its argument, Harvard College defined affirmative action as considering student backgrounds and characteristics, such as race, as a factor in admissions.

Lia Epperson, a professor of law at AU’s Washington College of Law, spoke at a September 2023 panel about what affirmative action means for American University. Epperson, a civil rights lawyer and legal expert, said former precedent had held that race consciousness could be one of several factors in a holistic admissions process.

“The court has, prior to this decision, held that the benefits that flow – the educational benefits that flow – from having a diverse student body are compelling,” Epperson said.

According to AU’s academic reference book, the university’s population is 51% white as of fall 2022.

“Teams across the university are engaging in extensive analysis to determine how to adhere to the law,” said Elizabeth Deal, assistant vice president for community and internal communication, in a comment to AWOL. “This work has included evaluating processes, training our teams and reviewing the public-facing information for our admissions and academic programming.”

“It’s also good for the university to have a diverse perspective on different issues, because we’re not all gonna have the same stance on an issue,” Brown-Dewese said.

Sara Kaplan, executive director of AU’s Antiracist Research & Policy Center, spoke at the center’s September 2023 panel on affirmative action. Kaplan said that no race-blind, class-based admissions data brings proportionate levels of racial diversity.

New training is being developed for teams who review undergraduate, graduate and Washington College of Law admissions, AU President Sylvia Burwell said in

about what we have to do about educational access and equity,” Kaplan said.

In a June 2023 email, Burwell said the Supreme Court’s decision negatively impacted the AU community.

“Addressing these court decisions, and our actions, will always be grounded in our values and beliefs and supporting the members of our community to the greatest extent possible,” Burwell said. “Nothing in these decisions can or will change who we are as a community or the values we cherish.”

Epperson said that private colleges, such as AU, must comply with the court’s decision because most private colleges re-

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AWOL MAGAZINE ceive some form of federal funding. This decision doesn’t touch diversity programs, scholarships or pipeline programs, but there will likely be challenges around these programs now, Epperson said.

Brown-Dewese said universities should try something different and reach out to more low-income students.

“Low-income areas, they’re all over the U.S.,” Brown-Dewese said. “So, go to them, speak to those students, try to find out the talent and potential there. Make the

Georgetown public policy professor Harry J. Holzer said he expects only a moderate drop in minority enrollment.

“The dip might not be as large as some people fear, because I think the following is going to happen,” Holzer said. “I think universities are trying to figure out: How can they do this legally? How can they do it indirectly?”

AU College Republicans Vice President Johnny Szani said that one way schools can open up more opportunities is

all 4-year institutions after affirmative action is banned. The study found that there’s expected to be a 10% decline in minority representation at the most selective colleges.

Representatives from the Center for Diversity and Inclusion and the AU Admissions Office were not made available for interviews.

American University Internal Communication Manager Jasmine Pelaez sent AWOL a statement on the recent Supreme

“Affirmative action was built on hope — the hope that we could be better in the future than we’ve been in the past,” DeGioia said. effort because my philosophy, really, is all people need is an opportunity.”

The lawsuit brought by Students for Fair Admissions Inc. that led to the Supreme Court ruling said affirmative action discriminates against both Asian and white students, giving them a lesser chance of being admitted.

In an August 2022 amicus brief responding to the lawsuit, various universities said that diversity increases teaching innovations and learning abilities and decreases prejudice. The brief said that repealing affirmative action would have a drastic resegregating impact. The percentage of Black students enrolled in college would drop from 7.1% of the student body to 2.1%, according to the brief.

Georgetown President John J. DeGioia said in a June 2023 statement that Georgetown is still committed to maintaining a diverse student body but that it would likely see a decrease in minority enrollment.

“Affirmative action was built on hope — the hope that we could be better in the future than we’ve been in the past,” DeGioia said. “Georgetown embraced this hope. Now, we will need to find new ways of restoring this hope.”

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by removing SATs and legacy admissions.

“A lot of Ivies, especially our elite colleges in the South, have a history of only taking white people or disproportionately white people, right?” Szani said. “So if we remove this legacy admission, suddenly, that opens us up to a whole different class and student body.”

According to a 2014 University of Washington study, the gap between white students and students of color on the SATs widened between 1992 and 2004. Holzer

Court case.

“Since the Supreme Court decision on race-conscious admissions earlier this year, teams across the university are engaging in extensive analysis to determine how to adhere to the law,” Pelaez said.

“This work has included evaluating processes, training our teams, and reviewing the public-facing information for our admissions and academic programming,” Pelaez said. “As President Burwell noted in the September 15 community message,

“The issue of diversity impacts all racial groups on campus and it is up to all of us to hold our institutions accountable,” AASU said. said that test scores are where Black students lag, so some schools may become test-optional to bridge that gap.

Holzer said that college exposes people to new perspectives and lifestyles, in which diversity plays a huge role.

“It expands people’s horizons, maybe it challenges some of their, sort of, racial stereotypes,” Holzer said. “I think there’s evidence to that. So there might be a little less of that.”

According to a 2010 University of Chicago study, there is expected to be a 2% drop in Black and Hispanic enrollment at

our commitment to building an inclusive, diverse, and vibrant community is foundational to AU’s values.”

In the Supreme Court case, building a diverse community on a college campus was a central point. Students for Fair Admissions claimed that Asian Americans were being discriminated against through affirmative action, but this isn’t true, Kaplan said. Instead, Kaplan said this decision would hurt them.

“With the end of affirmative action, the 20% of Asian Americans who are Southeast Asian – Kinai, Pinoy – who actually were

POLITICS IN THE DISTRICT benefiting from affirmative action, who often are newer immigrants, come from newer immigrant families, lower socioeconomic levels, are actually completely left out in this decision,” Kaplan said.

The AU Asian American Student Union said in a comment to AWOL that it condemns the use of the Asian American and Pacific Islander community as a scapegoat.

“These efforts unjustly attempt to paint the AAPI community as an enemy to other minority groups by claiming to ‘uplift’ the AAPI community while oppressing the rights of other marginalized groups,” AASU said.

AASU also wrote that it would do its part to advocate for its community and uphold other community voices.

“The issue of diversity impacts all racial groups on campus and it is up to all of us to hold our institutions accountable,” AASU said.

AU College Democrats said in a June 2023 Instagram post that this decision emphasizes the importance of voting.

“We must take up our battle gear and push towards a just society which is equal for all people, not just the few,” the statement said. “Our strength is in our diversity and our unity in what is right.”

AU’s Black Student Union said it had no comment.

Rodriguez fears that there will be a loss of her community and culture on campus.

Kaplan said racial data is still needed to protect against discrimination and that it’s crucial that students of color continue to apply to schools.

“This is not the moment to stop checking the box and this is not the moment to stop applying,” Kaplan said.

“This is not the moment to stop checking the box and this is not the moment to stop applying,” Kaplan said.

“I’m not super worried that they’re gonna go down without a fight, they’re gonna put up a fight,” Rodriguez said.

“They’re gonna keep trying to make their presence known and that makes me hopeful for the future.”

Kalie Walker is a sophomore studying journalism and marketing.

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CAMPUS LIFE IN THIS SECTION: BEHIND THE BUDGET ABSENT ADVISORS A DEAL FOR A MEAL

CAMPUS LIFE

COVER STORY

BEHIND THE BUDGET

A $30.8 million deficit causes a push for budget tightening.

Written by Ben Austin, Olivia Bohart and Arati Periyannan American University confirmed a $30.8 million deficit for the 2024 fiscal year, according to an Oct. 17 budget update. Two questions loom over this year’s deficit: How did it happen? And what are the consequences?

An AWOL investigation of the AU’s finances found that this year’s failure to hit graduate enrollment and undergraduate retention targets, combined with AU’s reliance on student-generated revenue, led to this years deficit.

The $30.8 million deficit is around 3.6% of the university’s total $850 million yearly budget and represents a negative gap between earnings and spending for the year.

In response to the deficit, AU has dipped into reserves and cut budgets in multiple departments and offices, Bronté Burleigh-Jones, AU’s chief financial officer, said at an October community forum.

“We are working against a $30 million shortfall due primarily to undergraduate and graduate enrollments coming in lower than our targets,” said Burleigh-Jones and Vicky Wilkins, the acting provost, in a July 19, 2023 email sent to the student body.

Over 80% of AU’s operating budget comes from student tuition and fees, according to AU’s 2022 Fiscal Year Budget Report. The university’s budget is “significantly influenced by student enrollment and retention,” with 92% of its current operating budget coming from student-generated sources, such as tuition, housing, dining and fees, according to a June 2, 2023 Memorandum.

In comparison, the George Washington University sources about 47% of its operating budget from tuition, according to GW’s 2022 Fiscal Year Budget Report.

A large part of GW’s operating budget instead comes from their medical center, as well as individual grants and contracts, according to GW’s Consolidated Financial Statements for the 2022 fiscal year ending on June 30, 2022.

Because a large portion of AU’s budget comes from student-generated sources, the budget is significantly impacted by enrollment and retention rates.

Retention refers to the percentage of students who return each year, according to the Federal Student Aid website. Enrollment is the total number of students who enroll each semester.

AU’s largest non-student-generated revenue stream is WAMU, the Washington D.C. area NPR station licensed by AU, which brought in $31 million in 2022, according to AU’s 2022 Fiscal Year Budget Report.

In comparison, patient care at GW’s hospital brought in $309 million the same year, according to GW’s 2022 Fiscal Year Budget Report.

Another non-student-generated source of revenue for universities is their endowments.

An endowment is a pot of money donated by alumni that is invested and grows over time, said Gergana Jostova, a professor of finance at the GW School of Business. Each year, universities pull a set amount from the pot to assist in meeting their revenue demands.

“Think of it as a special savings account or portfolio that they have typically generated from alumni who donate to the university,” Jostova said. “It’s not just sitting there, it’s not idle cash, it’s usually invested in, let’s say, the stock market or somewhere relatively safe.”

AU’s endowment was $908.9 million

in 2022, according to AU’s consolidated financial statements for the 2022 fiscal year ending June 30th. Meanwhile, that same year, GW had a $2.41 billion endowment, according to GW’s consolidated financial statements for the 2022 fiscal year, and Georgetown had a $3.21 billion endowment, according to GU’s consolidated financial statements for the 2022 fiscal year.

Both GW and GU have larger class sizes than AU, according to U.S. News and World Report data. However, Tufts University — a school with a similar class size to AU — has a $2.39 billion endowment, according to its consolidated financial statements for the 2022 fiscal year.

AU pulls around 5% from its endowment each year, Burleigh-Jones said at an October 2023 community forum.

Endowments represent a revenue stream not directly affected by enrollment or retention, Jostova said. A large endowment can help a university weather financial challenges.

“Let’s say Harvard has so much of an endowment that they could probably not get revenue for some time and still survive,” Jostova said. “Most universities don’t have such a big endowment that they can rely on so much to cover their expenses.”

Burleigh-Jones said at an October community forum that AU wants to remedy its reliance on student-based revenue. The

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AWOL MAGAZINE

Change Can’t Wait donation campaign represents a significant step in building non-student revenue streams. As of October 2023, the campaign had raised $440 million of its $500 million goal, according to AU’s website. AU has also separated its finance and investment departments to improve the management of the budget and endowment.

“We recognize our vulnerability in terms of our tuition dependency in terms of our revenue,” Burleigh-Jones said.

The $30.8 million deficit can be split into three parts: failure to hit graduate enrollment targets, failure to hit undergraduate retention targets and over-budgeted student aid and merit equity funding, Burleigh-Jones said at an October community forum.

“The projected yearly (fall & spring) deficit associated with graduate enrollments is about $18.5m,” wrote Wendy Boland, the Dean of the Graduate Programs at AU, in an Oct. 10 email to AWOL. AU usually creates two-year budgets, meaning every time a budget is set, it is done in two-year increments, according to past AU budget reports. The yearly budgets are based on predictions of how many students will enroll and subsequently pay tuition, according to a University Budget Development Guidelines memo from 2016.

Burleigh-Jones said that graduate enrollments have historically been challenging to predict. She did not specify why.

“Taking a look at our activity over the

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last seven to eight years, as it turns out, we’ve hit our target once in that period of time,” BurleighJones said.

This fall, AU’s graduate program missed its residential enrollment target by 11% and its online enrollment target by 27%, Boland wrote in an Oct. 10 email to AWOL. Boland said that as schools transitioned back to in-person classes, graduate enrollments quickly rose.

“We saw really big spikes in 2021 in grad school enrollments, way above budget,” Boland said.

Since 2021, graduate enrollment rates have fallen nationally, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. The spike and falloff in enrollment rates led to this year’s missed target, Boland said.

“We set the budget way back when we saw the numbers in 2021,” Boland said.

“And so then when the market fluctuates, and we have these things that happen, that’s why you see a bigger gap, because of those things.”

Boland said that changes in the international student market also hurt enrollment.

saw one of the largest drops in graduate student enrollment, said Mateo Maya, the president of the SIS Graduate Council.

“People don’t want to just go to college because they don’t see the actual return on their investment,” Maya said.

SIS Graduate Program Coordinator Madison Shomaker said that, within SIS, the development management program, which is targeted towards mid-career professionals, saw the largest enrollment drop this year.

However, failure to hit graduate enrollment targets does not make up the entirety of the deficit. For the 2024 fiscal year, failure to hit undergraduate retention and enrollment targets made up $7.3 million of the deficit, according to an Oct. 17 email sent to the student body.

Undergraduate retention has caused problems for AU before. The university also projected a deficit for the 2023 fiscal year, primarily due to missing undergraduate retention targets, Burleigh-Jones said at an October community forum.

“At mid-year, we were projecting a $10 to $15 million shortfall on the year,” Burleigh-Jones said regarding the 2023 deficit. “And I am happy to report that because of our collective efforts, we were able to reduce that shortfall to $4.7 million.”

Housing and dining have also seen issues in recent years, Burleigh-Jones said.

“In the last seven or eight years, we have not hit our housing targets,” BurleighJones said. “That’s a pretty significant thing for us to take a closer look at because that’s an important portion of our revenue

“People don’t want to just go to college because they don’t see the actual return on their investment,” Maya said.

“It’s a lot easier to get into other countries, and some places like Canada are seeing a huge increase in the international graduate student market, where the U.S. is seeing declines overall,” Boland said.

Over 100 graduate students, primarily from Western and Central Africa, couldn’t get visas for the fall semester to study at AU, Boland said. AU expected many of these students to attend. However, many had visa issues as late as a week before the fall semester.

The School of International Studies

flow into the university.”

Burleigh-Jones said that the dining program currently does not generate net revenue for AU. “Our dining expenses, especially following COVID, as inflation and labor costs have gone up, have outpaced the revenue that we’re generating in dining,” BurleighJones said. “This particular year, we’re actually ahead of what we expected in terms of actual dining revenue, more of our students are signing on to the meal plans.

Unfortunately, our expenses are still rather

CAMPUS LIFE significant.”

The deficit also includes $5 million in financial aid and merit equity spending, Burleigh-Jones said at an October community forum.

“There have been changes in the federal calculation of need for our students and so we needed to add additional funds for

Second, AU is implementing $9.8 million in budget cuts.

This summer, schools, colleges and administrative units at AU were asked to adjust their budgets to make up for the current deficit, according to an Aug. 31 email

have been suspended for one year.

AU is taking a hard look at its budget and closely tracking it moving forward, Burleigh-Jones said.

AU plans on creating a one-year budget for the 2025 fiscal year, last done for the 2022 fiscal year, Wilkins said.

“We’re usually on a two-year budget

“Taking a look at our activity over the last seven to eight years, as it turns out, we’ve hit our target once in that period of time,” Burleigh-Jones said. financial aid,” Burleigh-Jones said.

Now that the fall semester is underway, AU is looking to combat the deficit.

AU is employing a three-part strategy to mitigate the $30.8 million deficit, Burleigh-Jones said at an October community forum.

First, AU is pulling $10.35 million from reserve funds.

Every year, 1% of AU’s operating budget is placed into AU’s reserve funds, Burleigh-Jones said.

“These are funds that are set aside for unforeseen circumstances, either positive or challenges like we’re currently facing,” Burleigh-Jones said. “They are not additional discretionary funds, and they are not to be recurring funding streams.”

Burleigh-Jones said that AU also pulled from reserves to remedy the 2023 deficit.

For the 2024 fiscal year, AU is pulling from its enrollment and compensation reserves, BurleighJones said.

sent to the student body.

Across the board, most departments and offices faced 2% budget cuts, BurleighJones said at an October community forum.

AU allowed different schools, colleges and administrative units to decide on the exact places the cuts would affect internally.

“The savings instructions are not prescriptive; individual divisions/units can make decisions that work for their goals and teams,” wrote Wilkins and BurleighJones in a July 19 email sent to the student body.

Club funding is among the areas that have seen cuts. Typically, the American University Student Government receives about $100,000 each year from the Center for Student Involvement, Ava Falkenrath, the AUSG Finance Chair, said.

“This year we got $80,000 with $20,000 coming from reserves,” Falkenrath said. “We were told that it’s the deficit and that reserves are too large.”

Falkenrath said that the cuts could also exacerbate retention issues with undergraduate students.

“It’s fairly difficult right now because they’re losing money, but they also need to spend money to keep more students,” Falkenrath said. “So they’re like, ‘How can we spend less and spend more at the same time?’”

AU also hopes to regain $9.85 million in institutional expense savings.

“We looked at additional vacancy savings throughout the course of the year, there are always savings as we’re transitioning to fill positions,” Burleigh-Jones said during the forum.

Burleigh-Jones said AU has also delayed certain spending, such as vehicle purchases and maintenance projects, which

cycle, but this is an important year for us to use as reflection and planning and understanding and analysis of where we are as a university so that we can be ready to allow the new president to come in and fall into a two-year budget cycle,” Wilkins said.

Burleigh-Jones said the fiscal year 2025 budget will likely be less than the 2024 budget.

AU is also looking to the future, where greater demographic shifts could impact the college landscape. According to an estimate shown at an October community forum, from 2025 to 2035, there will be a 10% to 20% decrease in 18-year-olds across the eastern seaboard, one of the university’s target areas for prospective students.

“Very clearly we’re going to be challenged there,” said Burleigh-Jones.

AU is now focused on hitting upcoming enrollment targets. If AU enrolls enough students this spring, it does not anticipate the need for any additional budget actions, Burleigh-Jones said.

“It is absolutely imperative for us that we hit our spring enrollment targets,” Burleigh-Jones said.

Ben Austin is a sophomore studying journalism and data science.

Olivia Bohart is a freshman studying data science and justice, law and criminology.

Arati Periyannan is a freshman studying public relations and data science.

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AWOL MAGAZINE

ABSENT ADVISORS Students express frustration over AU advising experience Written by Casey Bacot and Kevin Becker With less than two semesters left at American University, Senior Lily Tierney said she doesn’t have a permanent advisor in either of her areas of study.

“Right now, I have no advisor in SIS; they were either fired or left at the beginning of this semester,” Tierney said. “I think the same situation happened with my SOC advisor, so I have an interim advisor right now.”

Because of the confusion and what Tierney said is a lack of attention surrounding her advising situation, she said she is not confident in her ability to graduate on time.

“When I transferred here, I was so excited about the opportunities that I had and being somewhere that I felt was really going to support me,” Tierney said. “That really went to the wayside after this semester, when it felt like I didn’t have really any support, which was a total bummer because I felt very connected to my academic advisors.”

AU students have to meet qualifications to graduate, including completing integrative requirements and 120 credit hours. A major like International Studies requires 54 credits, according to the university catalog. Advisors at the School of International Service inform students about curriculum and university regulations, according to the SIS undergraduate advising

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website. Students like Tierney struggle with registration and selecting their classes when they do not have an advisor.

“I think people are kind of feeling like they’re flailing right now, and they have no idea what to do,” Tierney said. “People are just registering for random classes, and

Survey of Student Engagement, showcasing that the quality of academic advising is the single most powerful predictor of satisfaction with the campus environment for students at four-year schools.

According to the report, universities should “provide all students with a lead ad-

“Right now, I have no advisor in SIS; they were either fired or left at the beginning of this semester,” Tierney said. that’s not a great thing because we’re paying a lot of money to go to this school.”

Elizabeth Deal, the assistant vice president for Community and Internal Communication, said AU isn’t experiencing a high turnover rate or a shortage of advisors in an October 2023 comment to AWOL. “The voluntary separation of academic advisors from their advisor positions and/ or from AU is comparable to that of our peers in higher education,” Deal said.

Deal also wrote that the Boyer 2030 Commission Report from the Association for Undergraduate Education at Research Universities suggests a ratio of one advisor per 250 students.

“AU’s first-year advising provides one advisor per 76 students, which is more than 3x times better than the national recommendation,” Deal said.

College of Arts and Science advisor Kylie Stigler said she currently advises roughly 450 non-first year students; Director of Undergraduate Student and Academic Affairs for the School of Communications Tara Flakker said she advises about 300.

The report also uses data from the 2005 National

visor/mentor with whom they can develop a long-term relationship and with whom they are required to meet each term.”

Other AU students are also dealing with the issue of advisor retention. Senior Maxine Hickey said she has had three advisors during her five semesters on campus.

Hickey said her current advisor seemed to lack knowledge in areas such as major requirements, transferring credits from other institutions and effectively communicating with her students.

“I came in as a transfer student, which is difficult in itself because AU doesn’t accept many transfer credits that can actually help you graduate,” Hickey said. “I was never explained why I had to take my Habits of Mind or AUx. Like I had no idea what anything was.”

Hickey said she is concerned about her ability to graduate within the traditional four years.

“I guess when I think of an academic advisor, I think of it in the most literal sense: you advise me in my academics,” Hickey said.

When it occurs, advisor turnover within universities can impact students like Hickey, who are working to graduate. Almost 42% of student affairs employees quit or were fired one to five years after they started their jobs, according to a 2016 study published in the Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice.

Advisor turnover extends beyond AU’s campus. Frustration with academic advisors is common among students across the U.S., past and present.

“I didn’t have a great advisor when I

CAMPUS LIFE was an undergrad,” said Stigler. “I was like, ‘I want to be a better advisor to students and not a barrier.’”

However, Stigler said being on the other side of the desk has provided her with a new point of view.

“I think a lot of times students think that we are like a magic eight-ball answer to everything that might arise for student issues,” Stigler said. “If a student can’t get into a class or they miss their spot on the waitlist, anything like that.”

Stigler said the biggest frustration she has heard from students is that they have had multiple advisors in their time at AU. She said she recognizes the fear students have about their advisors leaving them semester after semester.

Stigler said her students experienced a change in advisors when she moved positions after her second semester working at AU. Stigler joined AU as a SOC advisor in 2022. In August 2023, she moved to the College of Arts and Sciences.

“It was more just about professional growth. I felt learning more would help me in future career goals and with future employment opportunities versus just staying in one school for my duration of being an AU,” Stigler said.

helps them retain staff for the long run when, in reality, it doesn’t.”

Flakker said she has been working with SOC advising since 2014 and wants to see changes in advising.

“I would love for this position to be one across the university where people come into the position able to commit to three or four years; four would be ideal,” Flakker said.

“I’m also really aware that this type of position and academic advisor position is often, but not always, sort of an entry point into higher education.”

Flakker said she knows she has a love for academic advising that others may not.

“I think that most people in this professional position realize that there will be times when we’re short-

“I think a lot of times students think that we are like a magic eight-ball answer to everything that might arise for student issues,” Stigler said.

Stigler also said her move was related to systemic issues within higher education.

“Unfortunately, with a lot of positions within higher ed, there isn’t a lot of vertical movement. It’s mostly just lateral,” Stigler said.

Her sentiment is a common one. According to a May 2016 Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice study, about 48% of participants in the study highlighted “noncompetitive salaries” as a reason for burnout, and 32% cited limited career advancement.

“I think the lack of middlemen positions at the university is a big hindrance for people staying in positions where they are because there is no room for growth,” Stigler said. “And I think that keeping people at lower wage positions, in their mind,

staffed, and we’re doubling up,” Flakker said. “I think all of us are mostly attuned to how it impacts students.”

Flakker said she understands it is confusing and stressful for students when an academic advisor leaves, particularly after first-year advising.

“Everyone’s working really hard to try to think of new and creative ways to support students and make sure your needs are met,” Flakker said. “Everyone should always feel free to walk through the door or make a phone call and ask [for help]. We don’t want anybody to just be sitting out there frustrated and concerned.”

Hickey said while she understands that AU was affected by a pandemic for two years, she wishes she had a stronger and more personal connection with her advisor.

Hickey said she often feels she might as well be talking to a robot.

“My experience with my academic advisor has negatively affected my experience at American University and with just trying to graduate,” Hickey said.

Casey Bacot is a senior studying journalism and political science.

Kevin Becker is a senior studying political science.

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AWOL MAGAZINE

A DEAL FOR A MEAL From food to energy, the worth of a meal exchange varies.

Written by Caleb Ogilvie Editor’s Note: This story includes discussions of measuring calories. Our purpose is not to assign value or judgment on how many calories someone eats in a meal but rather to examine a meal exchange’s energy content and food value.

Students on an American University meal plan can spend one meal exchange to eat a variety of food ranging from 5 to 2,600 calories, according to AU meal exchange documents, menus and nutritional information reviewed by AWOL. Students can use meal exchanges to purchase a variety of food, but some purchases give them more food than others, according to AWOL’s investigation. With each swipe, students use up part of their meal plans, potentially receiving less energy than they could’ve gotten.

Students can use a meal swipe to eat 2,600 calories by ordering a Subway 12inch tuna sandwich on Italian herb and cheese bread with the 21 toppings AU’s Subway offers and pepper jack, provolone or Monterey cheese paired with a 22-ounce Mountain Dew soda, according to Sub-

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way’s July 2023 nutrition information document and Pepsico’s online Fountain Calorie and Nutrition Report tool.

However, one meal exchange is also worth a five-calorie bowl of vegetables, ac-

therefore, worth five calories and can be purchased with the same meal exchange as the 2,600-calorie Subway sandwich, according to DineOnCampus’ “Using a Meal Exchange” page for AU.

“I use [calories] as a barometer for how hungry it’s going to leave me,” Kanter-Huchting said cording to Hissho Sushi’s in-person meal exchange menu. Customers can order a poke bowl with just three vegetables, according to the menu. Two of those vegetables can be green lettuce and red radish, which the menu lists as having zero calories. Venues can list foods as zero calories if they have less than five calories, according to a 2010 report published by the National Library of Medicine. The third vegetable can be cucumber, red cabbage or carrot, which have five calories each, according to the menu.

The three-ingredient Poke Bowl is,

The energy provided by food is measured in the unit of calories, according to “Calories,” a book by Eva Osilla, Anthony Safadi and Sandeep Sharma published in 2022 by the National Library of Medicine.

Cells use the energy to function properly, according to the book.

The measurement includes energy from carbohydrates, fats, proteins and alcohols in foods, according to an August 2023 calorie information document from the Food and Drug Administration.

However, people convert calories to energy differently because of differences in

CAMPUS LIFE organisms inside the body, according to a gut microbiome study published by Nature Communications in May. To report caloric information from AU venues, AWOL reviewed in-person menus, food packaging, DineOnCampus’ virtual AU menus, nutrition information documents from Subway, Panera Bread and PepsiCo and the United States Department of Agriculture’s FoodData Central database.

AWOL analyzed in-person menus, GrubHub menus, DineOnCampus’ “Using a Meal Exchange” and “What’s on the Menu” pages for AU and caloric databases to find students can order a variety of calories with one meal exchange. It all depends on how they use their meal exchanges.

First-year student Sabine Kanter-Huchting said she chooses to spend most of her meal exchanges on lunch because of small portion sizes.

“Usually I’m looking for a lighter lunch,” Kanter-Huchting said. “I’m not starving afterwards. Maybe I can eat a little more when I go to my dorm. Fruit or something like that.”

Hissho Sushi’s food can be especially unfulfilling, Kanter-Huchting said. When she does order from the sushi and poke bowl venue, she said she looks at the calories on the sushi containers to make an order likely to fill her up.

“Sometimes I find [that] after I have more calories, I’m more full,” Kanter-Huchting said.

The rolls are between 210 calories and 410 calories, according to the caloric information on the packages. The venue’s poke bowls have anywhere between 30 and 605 calories, depending on their ingredients, according to the caloric information on in-person menus and the Department of Agriculture’s average calorie counts for ingredients like cucumbers, avocados and mangoes.

At Hissho Sushi, students can order a maximum of 605 calories per meal exchange. That’s the second lowest amount of calories a person can order when compared to the maximum amount of calories available at other venues.

In the eyes of first-year Roderick Purdy, places like Hissho Sushi are designed for snack-sized portions while places like True Burger and Baba’s Pizza offer fuller meals, he said.

“Calorie-wise, there’s something about a double-cheeseburger,” Purdy said.

True Burger and Baba’s Pizza’s items offer items that trend toward higher calorie counts per meal exchange, according to AU menus, DineOnCampus’ meal exchange page and the Department of Agriculture’s average calorie counts for their ingredients.

Subway offers more calories to students if they choose the right ingredients.

Freshens and Cravetown offer a maximum

“With a footlong and a drink, I’m usually pretty satisfied with the amount of food,” Gutterman said. “It fills me up for several hours.”

As such, Kanter-Huchting uses calories as a general check for how much food is in her meal.

“I use [them] as a barometer for how hungry it’s going to leave me,” Kanter-Huchting said, referring to the caloric values listed on AU’s menus.

Hissho Sushi’s food, of which Kanter-Huchting said she regularly checks the calories, does have some of the lowest calorie counts at AU.

Hissho Sushi, along with District Pickle, Eagle Express, Halal Shack and Panera Bread’s breakfast menu, offers the lowest-calorie foods at AU. At those venues, meals, including sides and drinks, have fewer calories than the other five venues. That’s regardless of how they spend their meal exchange, according to AU’s “Using a Meal Exchange” document and caloric information reviewed by AWOL.

of 1,640 calories despite having different menus. Panera’s menu for lunch and dinner also offers one of the highest-calorie meals at AU. In addition, all on-campus venues sell meals with calories between the venue’s calorie range, according to caloric information reviewed by AWOL. The range depends on where students choose to spend their meal exchanges.

Sophomore Jonah Gutterman usual-

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AWOL MAGAZINE ly orders a 12-inch Subway sandwich and fountain drink when he’s hungry, he said.

“With a footlong and a drink, I’m usually pretty satisfied with the amount of food,” Gutterman said. “It fills me up for several hours.”

That’s one of two meal exchange options at Subway, according to DineOnCampus’ meal exchange page for AU. Students can also order a six-inch sandwich and receive chips or a cookie in addition to a drink.

However, last year, students used to be able to order chips or a cookie with a 12inch sandwich.

year and said ‘Okay, let it go.’ It was a mistake by the employees there [to allow] students to get the footlong when it started.”

Powell said she compared the production cost of the footlong with the cost of a meal exchange alongside other AU Dining leaders whom she did not identify.

“Cost-wise, a footlong is not what you would normally be getting with a meal exchange,” Powell said.

AU Dining team members compared food options at each venue to the value of a meal exchange when planning for the school year, Powell said.

AU Dietitian Taylor Guskind, Execu-

what should be available through meal exchanges, Powell said.

“Eating from fast food [restaurants], not eating at home, [and] quick, on-the-go meals have become the norm,” Powell said.

Powell said she encourages students to make meals more convenient by considering what foods they like and the time they have to wait for food.

Students should also contact AU Dining to suggest what to include in venues in meal exchanges, Powell said.

“It’s about communication,” Powell said. “It’s a two-way street.”

“This footlong should have never been an option,” Powell said. “We gave in last year and said ‘Okay, let it go.’ It was a mistake by the employees there [to allow] students to get the footlong when it started.”

AU Dining leaders removed the option to get a side with a 12-inch sandwich when planning for the Fall 2023 semester because of the price value of meal exchanges, according to Senior Director of Dining & Auxiliary Services Ann Marie Powell.

“This footlong should have never been an option,” Powell said. “We gave in last

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tive Chef Robert Marquez and Chartwells’ regional dietitian also help determine the foods available through meal exchanges, Powell said.

They consider the amount of calories the United States Department of Agriculture recommends college students eat and the convenience of food when deciding

More information on the methodology behind this article is on AWOL’s website. Please search “Meal Exchange Equivalency Methodology.”

Caleb Ogilvie is a sophomore studying journalism.

PHOTO ESSAY: LITTLE AMAL IN DC How a 12-foot puppet has symbolized refugees across America Written by Emma Pierce and Michelle Miramontes

Washington, D.C., welcomed Little Amal, a puppet representing a young Syrian refugee, in September.

Little Amal made her way across the National Mall and to the Washington Monument on Sept. 17, where she was greeted by the Welcome.US agency. Welcome.US provides Americans with the resources needed to welcome those seeking refuge and partnered with Little Amal in her walk through the District, according to their website.

Ilah Ash, 11, and Thea Keller, 10—the daughters of the CEO and COO of Welcome.US.—gifted Little Amal a friendship bracelet.

Emma Pierce is a sophomore studying CLEG. Michelle Miramontes is a sophomore studying international relations and history.

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“Everyone calls her Little Amal, but she’s really big,” Keller said.

At 12-feet tall, Little Amal towers over the crowds of people following her as she walks through city after city, with the help of a puppeteer on each arm and one inside of the puppet on stilts, according to David Lan, the co-founder and producer of The Walk Productions, the non-profit company that organized Little Amal’s journey.

These walks first began as a recreation of the journey that a Syrian refugee might make from the border between Turkey and across Manchester in the United Kingdom, Lan said. As one of her two producers, Lan worked with The Walk from its conception and is the only producer with Little Amal as she travels from Boston to San Diego.

“A 10-year-old child refugee is going to turn up in your village or town or city,” Lan said. “She can be really

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tired and hungry. Very hungry. So how will you audience’s attention to Ash and Keller who then welcome her?” gave the puppet the bracelet.

The Walk Productions initiated the project in July 2021 by commissioning the Handspring Puppet Company to create her, according to Lan. For two years, the puppet has represented a child in need of a supportive community as she has traveled through several countries across Europe and the Middle East before arriving in the U.S. in September of this year. Over a span of two months, Little Amal traveled through 30 U.S. cities and partnered with different artists and organizations along the way, Lan said.

The two girls said they were excited to be involved in the event and that it was significant.

“I got the feeling like it’s gonna be something really big and really heartwarming for a lot of people,” Ash said.

Two days later, on Sept. 19, Little Amal walked from Freedom Plaza to the Capitol surrounded by a sea of silver: large pieces of tinfoil representing safety blankets for the doll that were handed out to the audience to be waved around like an ocean. At Assistant Secretary of State Julieta Valls Noyes the Capitol, Rep. Debbie Dingell and Rep. Jamaal spoke at the Sept. 17 event in front of the Washington Bowman met Little Amal.

Monument. She said that it is important to sponsor refugees and welcome them into our communities. “I’m glad to welcome you here with the Capitol dome behind us,” Dingell said. “Because that “Little Amal will be spreading her message of hope dome stands for democracy. It stands for hope. It and inviting everyone who she meets to become stands for welcoming you to the United States of welcomers,” Noyes said, before directing the America.”

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Managing Director at the Soze Agency, which partnered with The Walk Productions for the event, said the grandeur of Washington was fitting for Little Amal’s impact as she was welcomed into the nation’s capital.

“To meet all the families who have come here, as newcomers to this country, greeting her and welcoming her, many of which have traveled the same journey she’s traveled, was beautiful,” Skolnik said.

The Soze Agency, which means “never again” in the South African Bantu language Zulu, is a creative agency that works to create campaigns, projects and impact strategies for their clients, according to their website. Skolnik, one of the six co-founders, said he became involved with The Walk after visiting Little Amal in New York last year.

The Walk’s mission reflected a larger problem in Syria overall, AU History Professor and Mohamed S. Farsi Chair of Islamic Peace at SIS Elizabeth Thompson said. She said Syrian refugees have been through a series of struggles both throughout and after the civil war.

“Leading into the refugee situation, more than half of the population was displaced, because the fighting took place in every single town,” Thompson said.

“And, you know, half or more of those who fled their own homes, ended up across the border.”

Thompson said that there might be a second generation of children who do not have a normal life, and Skolnik said he sympathizes with this.

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“If children of refugee status need a place to sleep at night, we should find them a place to sleep,” Skolnik said. “I think it shows the best of who we are, and shows the abundance of love and care that we have in this country for others.”

CULTURE

IN THIS SECTION: SKATING TO A STOP KEEPING GO-GO ALIVE

AWOL MAGAZINE

SKATING TO A STOP D.C. skaters worry as Freedom Plaza set for remodel.

Written by Gus Bachman and Jacob Botelho A planned redesign of Freedom Plaza has worried skateboarders in Washington, D.C. about the future of the area and their ability to skate there.

Situated between the Capitol building and the White House, Freedom Plaza is a marble plaza on Pennsylvania Avenue that opened in 1980, according to the Cultural Landscape Foundation website.

Mikey Payne is a 31-year-old skater who has been going to the plaza for almost 20 years. Payne said the plaza is the best place to skate in the Washington area compared to other smaller and confined parks.

“The marble, the amount of space Freedom Plaza has and the fact it’s not like a skate park where you’re in a confined environment make it great for skating,” Payne said. “You can just bounce around and there’s no people in the way.”

However, an initiative to change the plaza was proposed by the National Capital Planning Commission, a commission that advises the district government on urban planning, as part of a larger redesign of Pennsylvania Avenue. Some aspects of the initiative have concerned the skaters of

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Freedom Plaza.

The initiative is focused on adding more green space and larger sidewalks to Pennsylvania Avenue and the surrounding area, according to the NCPC Pennsylvania Avenue Plan Request for Proposal report.

The report was released in September 2015 and is intended to make the area more attractive to tourists.

An NCPC report released in March 2022 introduced the public to the designs by the NCPC. The report implied that the plaza was going to be redeveloped in some way.

According to the report, reconfiguring Freedom Plaza would “restore the avenue’s historical alignment.” Some of the designs suggest cutting through Freedom Plaza, and one design suggests rerouting traffic from Pennsylvania Avenue north of the Plaza.

Fears about the plaza’s fate have caused some in the skating community to take action. Brian Aguilar, the owner of Crushed, the only skate shop in the district, started a petition on Change.org that aims to save Freedom Plaza from redevelopment. The petition, created in March 2022 after the initial designs by the NCPC were released, has over 12,000 signatures.

“So initially the plans the NCPC had didn’t have any marble, and it seemed like they planned on leveling the plaza with the street and putting in grass paths,” Aguilar said. “Seeing this plan is what got me to start the petition to make folks aware of

what’s happening.”

In the past, Freedom Plaza has had multiple uses, Payne said.

“The community of D.C. itself, outside of skateboarding, utilizes this place as a tool, or platform to bring people together,” Payne said.

However, the skateboarding community has utilized the space for years.

Freedom Plaza is well known in the skateboarding community and has been a breeding ground for many famous skaters, such as Darren Harper, Sean Sheffey and Pepe Martizen, according to style magazine The Face.

Planning for the initiative has progressed in 2023, and phase one of the planning process is estimated to be completed by the end of 2024, according to the NCPC. The initiative’s planning has been split into three phases, with the first half of phase one scheduled to be completed by the end of 2023.

Even though the project has been in development for a couple of years now, according to the NCPC, there is still a lot of work to be done. Karin Shierhold, an urban planner with the NCPC, said that the first request for proposal, or RFP, develops an economic analysis of the plans that factor in potential revenue opportunities. The RFP then identifies feasible options for the reconstruction team to pursue, Shierhold said.

“We’re looking at about a year of that kind of work combined with updating a lot

CULTURE of the studies that we did pre-COVID,” Shierhold said.

Shierhold said the NCPC wants skaters to have a voice in the project.

“We’ve reached out with the skateboarding community and we’ve met with them and cleared up some of the concerns and really tried to help provide additional context,” Shierhold said when asked about

Freedom Plaza serves the community by allowing skateboarders to skate there instead of other areas around the city, Farsh said.

“The police don’t really care if we skate here,” Farsh said. “They think of it as stopping people from skating near actual government buildings.”

The NCPC has been hosting public

“It’s so unregulated, and that’s what I love about it,” Farsh said. “It just brings everyone together.” the potential redevelopment of Freedom Plaza.

“We tried to communicate that we’re not just targeting Freedom Plaza, we’re looking at Pennsylvania Avenue holistically. We’re happy to receive feedback and skaters are a stakeholder group that need to have a voice.”

Nikita Farsh, a younger skater at Freedom Plaza, said he has met many friends and found a community there.

“It’s so unregulated, and that’s what I love about it,” Farsh said. “It just brings everyone together.”

comment sessions, which are held and recorded by the organization in order to get public feedback for the project, according to phase one of the Pennsylvania Avenue Implementation program. Part of the initiative was a 136-day period for public comments on the redesigning of the Plaza that concluded on July 29, 2022, according to the program. The comment period was conducted after Aguilar’s initial petition was made in March 2022.

The NCPC will take the public feedback into account when choosing a design, according to the implementation plan. Be-

cause the organization is in the early stages of development, there is still uncertainty over whether Freedom Plaza will be affected by these changes.

The NCPC is continuing its efforts for the initiative, which includes further engagement with stakeholders in the project and working with other organizations in the district to garner public support for the project, according to the NCPC implementation program.

Aguilar said he attended the initial meetings, but since he was interested to know more about NCPC’s plans, he reached out to them personally. Aguilar said he has not heard back from them yet.

Aguilar said he was born and raised in the district, and the Plaza has a magic to it.

“You go there and it’s just this open space of marble that’s just like a playground where everyone meets up and skates,” Aguilar said.

Gus Bachman is a sophomore studying international studies.

Jacob Botelho is a junior studying international relations and economics.

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AWOL MAGAZINE

KEEPING GO-GO ALIVE Firefighter band shows importance of Go-Go music genre Written by Kate Kessler and Quinn Volpe When a group of Washington firefighters and emergency medical service workers put a band together, they thought it would be a one-time thing to entertain their coworkers.

The band, Heat Stroke, has reached a greater audience after the District of Columbia Fire and Emergency Medical Services Department’s X account posted a video of them performing on May 31.

Heat Stroke plays go-go music, an offshoot of funk that originated in the district in the mid-to late-1970s, according to The Beat is Go Go website. Examples of go-go music include “Pump me Up” by Trouble Funk and “Bustin’ Loose” by Chuck Brown and the Soul Searchers.

Bandleader Michael Timmons said he was surprised to see Heat Stroke go viral, with the X video gaining over 155,300 views.

“When we got together, it was the EMS wing,” Timmons said. “We thought, ‘Let’s put something together and go on over to the EMS wing and do something for the community.’ So, when it went viral, I think we were all surprised.”

Kevin Wilson, Heat Stroke’s percussionist, said his job correlates with playing music because it

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helps him bond with his community. “[Go-go] pulls us together, it strengthens us, as a community, as a people,” Wilson said. “So [being] able to do this is like providing another service.”

Wilson said he believes the brotherhood that the band members have developed while working together as firefighters and EMS personnel contributes to their successful collaboration as musicians.

“We have instilled in us a structure, a template, that we follow from being in the fire department,” he said. “We’re able to understand and correspond with one another more. So it’s not too much heckling, it’s just an understanding.”

Go-go music is a reflection of the people, Natalie Hopkinson, an AU journalism professor, said. The culture surrounding gogo remains an important part of the lives of Heat Stroke members and their fans.

Go-go as a genre holds a lot of cultural significance, Hopkinson said.

The genre represents a tie to African culture because it pulls from African beats people’s ancestors maintained in the Americas, Hopkinson said. She analyzed go-go’s cultural and political significance in her doctoral dissertation, according to her website.

“The music reflects the people and the culture and some of the traditions that people say that Black people lost in the slave trade,” Hopkinson said. “We didn’t. We still have the beat.”

M a y o r Muriel Bowser named go-go music the official music of the district on Feb. 19, 2020, according to a press release on the D.C. government

website. The genre has had a long-standing history in the city, starting from Chuck Brown’s fathering of the genre, according to the press release.

Go-go combines elements of funk, blues, soul and salsa, according to the same February 2020 press release.

It also utilizes call-and-response – an element of music that encourages listeners to respond and participate in the songs the musicians are playing – polyrhythms in percussion, Afro-Latin beats and hip-hop elements to create a beat that makes you want to dance, or “go-go,” Derek Gray, an archivist at the D.C. Public Library’s GoGo archive, said.

“What I like about it is it speaks to its name,” Gray said. “It’s go-go, it just keeps you going, going and going and going and going.”

Gray said go-go is a very interactive genre that prioritizes listener engagement to create a unique live experience. Gray said he believes that elements like call-andresponse and nonstop music engage the audience in a way that is unique to go-go.

“I’d have to say, there’s no way you could go to a go-go performance and just be up against the wall, not moving,” Gray said.

Wilson said go-go is important to him and the community where he grew up because it kept them off the streets by giving them something to pour their passion into. “[Go-go] kept a lot of us out of trouble,” he said. “You don’t have to find [trouble]. It’ll find you. So being part of the global community, it kept us occupied and kept us busy.”

In 1988, the district’s local government enacted curfews that prevented teenagers from attending go-go performances after 11:30 p.m. on weekdays and 1 a.m. on weekends, according to a D.C. Council amendment.

“They specifically singled out go-go establishments because they felt that it was causing violence, which is absurd to think about,” Hopkinson said. “Music does not cause violence. People cause violence.”

Hopkinson said that the current gogo scene in Washington rejects the notion that Black people have lost their resilience and that, instead, the genre has the poten-

CULTURE

tial for empowerment in a country that for many decades rejected the genre and what it meant for people. “[Go-go is] really just showing the strength of our culture and exploding the myth that Black people lost everything,” Hopkinson said. “Like, actually, we carried it with us, we came, our ancestors did anyway. They didn’t get separated from it, it’s still part of who we are. And so when you see it pop up in this particular manifestation, it’s really empowering. It just makes you feel really good and strong and religious; sort of proud of the resilience of culture and people, who a lot of people in power just don’t want to hear.”

Go-go music stayed alive even throughout its criminalization. Musicians played at underground clubs that flew under the government’s radar, and fans created organizations that supported the genre’s perseverance in Washington, Hopkinson said.

Though it never reached the same popularity it once had in the ‘80s, it remained important for Heat Stroke keyboardist Ronald Roundtree, whose father played in the go-go band Experience Unlimited, he said.

Roundtree and other band members said they credit much of their success and love for the genre to men like Roundtree’s father and his contemporaries – the people they deem the forefathers of go-go.

The band members said they see “joy,” “happiness,” “smiles” and “healing” in their audience members while they per-

form. Bassist Bruce Yarborough said that this positive energy brings them closer to the communities that they serve.

“We were going to neighborhoods that some people wouldn’t go into, and we were there,” Yarborough said. “We saw healing in the neighborhood, we saw people enjoying themselves. They opened up and were willing, more, to communicate with us about certain things that maybe they didn’t talk about prior.”

Wilson, the band’s percussionist, said that playing music provides relief for him and the rest of the band. Wilson said he appreciates it as a refuge from his stressful job.

“We witness so much on the job: death, from kids, babies, we see that,” Wilson said. “We’re running into the places that people are running out. So to have time to fortify and come back to your hobby, it sets a balance mentally because we all need that as humans.”

The therapeutic nature of go-go is felt throughout the world, Hopkinson said. She said her organization, Don’t Mute DC, proves this point.

In 2019, the Metro by T-Mobile cell phone store, formerly known as Metro PCS, in Shaw received noise complaints, Hopkinson said. The store in the Washington neighborhood is known for blasting gogo music when it’s open, Hopkinson said.

The complaints came from a neighbor living in the Shay, a luxury apartment in the area, Hopkinson said. Eventually, T-Mo-

bile, Metro PCS’s parent company, told them to shut off the music.

Hopkinson co-founded the Don’t Mute DC movement with Ronald Moten, an author, scholar and activist. The pair adopted the hashtag #DontMuteDC started by Julien Bloomfield, a Metro by T-Mobile customer and student at Howard University. Hopkinson said she aimed to continue the Metro by T-Mobile’s goal of keeping the music alive.

They created a petition that garnered worldwide support, gaining over 80,000 signatures from 94 different countries, Hopkinson said. The petition resulted in T-Mobile directly allowing the store to continue playing the music.

“I never imagined that I’d be in the streets and organizing concerts, organizing protests, really using the music in such a direct way,” Hopkinson said.

Movements like Don’t Mute DC are in part responsible for bands like Heat Stroke’s popularity because they fought to keep the genre alive, Hopkinson said. Hopkinson said she loved the viral Heat Stroke video and hopes to see go-go remain in the public eye, especially in the district, where she fell in love with the music.

“What other city in America does that happen?” Hopkinson said. “To be able to sort of incorporate our official music and our culture, and to be able to speak to people, and to be able to express that part of our identity.”

The band members also see a future for go-go in the district—they said they plan to play at the Bethesda Blues & Jazz Festival on Dec. 10, and they have the prospect of creating a full-length album.

Roundtree said that seeing the band grow from something small with his coworkers to a well-known group after their viral video has been exciting to watch.

“To me, it was just another gig, but again, once it blew up, once it went viral, it was like, wait a minute, I mean, I’ve played in go-go bands for years and I’ve never had anything that went as viral as this,” Roundtree said.

Kate Kessler is a sophomore studying journalism and music.

Quinn Volpe is a sophomore studying journalism and business and entertainment.

29

ON OUR DOORSTEP A photo essay by Maegan Seaman

While walking the neighborhoods in the district, it’s interesting to stop and take notice of the little things.

In the fast paced environment of American University, it can be so easy to become caught up in classes, work and everything else on campus.

Every once in a while, it’s nice to take a step outside and appreciate the beauty that is right on our doorstep.

D.C. row houses most commonly feature a mixture of Federal, Victorian and Romanesque Revival style architecture.

This, paired with the bright colors and soft pastels commonly found lining the streets, gives each and every home a unique feel.

Each door offers an expression of those who live behind it.

This essay is an example of a photographic typology, or a group of photos that share high levels of consistency.

One of the most famous examples of this are Bernd and Hilla Becher’s ‘Water Towers’ (1972-2009).

This format allows each door to be placed together in comparison and demonstrates the beauties they hold.

Maegan Seaman is a senior studying broadcast journalism.

PAST THE PRINT

IN THIS SECTION: RIPPED FROM THE WALL: INVESTIGATING IAP THE HUM: EXPERIENCES AT A PWI MULTIMEDIA: ACCESSIBILITY UNCOVERED

PAST THE PRINT

The Podcast Team Presents:

RIPPED FROM THE WALL: INVESTIGATING IAP An exploration of AU’s International Accelerator Program.

This semester, the Ripped from the Wall podcast team analyzed American University’s International Accelerator Program or IAP. The team looked into whether and how the program helps to support first-year international students and whether international students in the program have equal access to campus services during their first year at AU. The IAP students we interviewed also talked about off-campus life, the quality of their housing accommodations and access to transportation.

The IAP is a non-degree program for international students who lack the required English proficiency to be admissible to degree programs at AU, according to the program’s website. Since the program started, it has consisted of the Extended Accelerator track, a four-term program, and the Academic Accelerator track, a threeterm program.

Students in the IAP program live in the Park Crest apartment complex located

in Glover Park, over a mile away from the AU campus. Some IAP students said they dislike the location of their housing and the lack of an AU shuttle bus or convenient WMATA options between the apartments and campus.

Mackenzie Hale is a former tutor and supplemental instructor for IAP who currently works as a Resident Assistant for IAP. Hale said that before 2020, IAP students were housed in the Berkshire Apartments, a complex much closer to campus, but problems with pests, rodents and management prompted the switch to Park Crest. However, current IAP students say that bugs are also a problem in the Park Crest apartments.

Selma Nour Mallem was an IAP student in 2020 and is currently a tutor working for the program. Mallem was raised in Algeria, where she studied French and Arabic. Mallem said she enjoyed her time in IAP.

“So AIP was more convenient as a prep for me to be 100% prepared to be in AU,” Mallem said.

To hear the whole story, be on the lookout for the new episode of Ripped from the Wall on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other podcast platforms.

THE HUM: EXPERIENCES AT A PWI Students of color at AU speak about their time at a predominantly white institution.

This semester, The Hum team interviewed students of color and students for whom English is a second language, or ESL students, about their experience at American University, a predominantly white institution, or PWI. The new episode explores the prejudices students face, the expectations that society sets, how much support ESL students get from AU and the umbrella term “students of color.”

Tyler Brown Dewese is a Black AU student who also attended a PWI in high school, an all-boys Catholic school in New Rochelle, New York. He said that although the only major difference between AU and his high school was the campus’ political leanings, he’s found more of a community at AU. Dewese is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, a historically Black fraternity.

“I’m very known around the African

American community,” Dewese said. “It’s small, but you know, we all know each other.”

Dewese said that he has no issue with the term “people of color.”

“That’s exactly what we are,” Dewese said. “We are students of color. We are people of color. And there’s nothing wrong in saying that. We’re literally embracing our identity, whether it be in Black or Latino or Asian American, it doesn’t matter. That’s just who we are.”

Dewese said he appreciates university resources like the Center for Diversity and Inclusion and the Anti-Racist Research Center, in addition to classes focused on civil rights in the School of Public Affairs.

A place Dewese said he hasn’t seen as much diversity is in the people teaching his classes. He said while he knows of other

Black professors at AU, Dewese, who is currently in his third year, has only had two.

Another student interviewed for The Hum, Elsie Bustamante, has also had problems with professors relating to her identity. Bustamante is from Peru, and her first language is Spanish. She said because her first language was not English, professors make assumptions about her or her work.

Bustamante described one experience where she asked for an extension on an assignment, and the professor assumed it was because English is not her first language, even though her reason for asking for the extension was unrelated.

Other students from different identities and backgrounds shared their experiences on the podcast. Listen to the newest episode of The Hum on your preferred podcast platform to hear their stories!

Produced by Helena Milburn, Ela Hernández, Blake Guterman, Alexandrea Valerio, Arrow Nason, Grace Manson, Marisa Alvarez, Sia Patel, Sofia Borin, Stella Camerlengo, Zoe Kallenekos and Kate Hapgood

35

AWOL MAGAZINE

The Multimedia Team Presents:

ACCESSIBILITY UNCOVERED American University students and faculty advocate for other forms of accessibility than what campus provides.

Maegan Seaman, Ben Austin, Michelle Miramontes, Ben Ackman, Beverly Freidenrich, Kathryn Gilroy, Claire Gover, Alyssa Guevaram Vanessa Levins, Natalie Monga, Benjamin Noenickx, Emma Pierce, Zori Rouleau, Nico Roldan and Callie Whicker

36

This semester, AWOL’s multimedia team investigated how students and staff feel about accommodations and accessibility on American University’s campus.

Many students said they felt frustrated about the Academic Support and Access Center, or ASAC, through which accommodations are often acquired.

Katherine Radt, a first-year sociology major at AU, said she is concerned about the lack of guidance ASAC provides for students requesting accommodations. Radt said she is familiar with advocating for herself in this way but worries about those who don’t have that experience.

“I think transparency would be my starting place because students still don’t know what their possibilities are,” Radt said. “I think knowing what ASAC could possibly provide for you is essential.”

Radt said she worries about the structure of AU in general. After detailing multiple instances in which campus infrastructure did not work for her and her physical mobility aid, Radt said she felt frustrated.

“I just can’t leave that sense that everything has been designed for people who aren’t like me and I’m just trying to find my way through it,” Radt said.

Aleyah Ewing, the campus advocacy director for the Disabled Student Union, or DSU, also shared her feelings on the requirements for accommodations. Ewing said that a lot of the issues she has seen at the university stem from society’s view of disabled individuals as a whole.

“I think that this is really a reflection of a larger structural issue about how people with disabilities, especially invisible disabilities, are constantly forced to have to prove that they’re actually disabled. To prove that we need accommodations,” Ewing said.

Other students, however, had more positive experiences with ASAC. While she spoke about other issues on campus she has experienced, Elli Anderson, a first-year at AU, said she received the ASAC accom-

modations that she requested.

“ASAC’s actually been pretty positive for me. I know other students have not had great experiences, but for me personally I had a letter from a doctor that was very detailed and they were able to very clearly understand why it needed to be implemented,” Anderson said.

While ASAC offers accommodation services, some students felt a desire to grow a larger community. In 2021, the Disabled Student Union was created on campus to offer an affinity space for disabled students and their allies. According to its Engage page, the DSU states, “We want to inch closer to our goal of a friendly and compassionate world where ability does not define your worth.”

Elise Buellesbach, a senior and an accommodations advocate through DSU, has worked with the university to make changes for disabled students on campus.

Buellesbach said while ASAC makes decisions regarding students, she wishes the center would focus on student perspectives.

“AU has a lot of processes with intent to be really inclusive,” Buellesbach said.

“But what gets lost in that is the humanness of it. The story of it. The emotions of it.”

Buellesbach, who has dietary-based needs, said accommodations cannot be generalized for all students. When centering disabled students’ perspectives, it’s important to acknowledge how unique they all will be, Buellesbach said.

“Disability doesn’t fit into a box,” Buellesbach said. “Disabilities are different and ranging. And even other people with dietary-based disabilities have had different experiences or need different things on campus.”

Faculty members have also said there is a need for community spaces on campus, which led to the formation of the Disability+ Faculty and Staff Affinity group. Marc Medwin, the co-lead for

D+ FSA group, said that he feels the group cultivates space for faculty members of all different backgrounds, specifically those identifying as disabled.

“Disability always ends up last at the table when it comes to discussions regarding human issues facing the AU community.” Medwin said.

Overall, students expressed a need for more adequate accessibility options on campus. Buellesbach said she feels the issue is essential.

“Accommodations are about making campus accessible to everybody,” Buellesbach said. “Accommodations are about making campus and college this incredible opportunity for all students regardless of their ability.”

To view this story, see the “Accessibility Uncovered” video on AWOL’s YouTube channel.

Watch the full video on AWOL’s YouTube channel: @awolau

COMMUNITY PROFILE

COMMUNITY PROFILE:

THE HUMANITIES TRUCK FEATURING FOUNDER DANIEL KERR

Daniel Kerr is the associate director of American University’s Public History program and the founder of the Humanities Truck program. Kerr specializes in community history, oral history and public history. Kerr’s research has focused on the causes of homelessness and promoting social justice for people experiencing homelessness.

37

AWOL MAGAZINE Written by Zori Rouleau, Mia Norton and Abby Johnson As a kid, self-proclaimed nerd Daniel Kerr was torn between a future as a truck driver or a historian.

“I never thought I’d be able to bring those two things together,” Kerr said Today, as the founder of the Humanities Truck and the associate director of American University’s Public History program, he has achieved both of his childhood dreams.

The Humanities Truck is a customized delivery truck that can act as anything from a recording studio to an art gallery, Kerr

tions and public forums.

Kerr said he developed the idea for the Humanities Truck during his time as a graduate student at Case Western Reserve University. There, he worked on the Cleveland Homeless Oral History Project, which sought to analyze the causes of homelessness in Cleveland, Ohio.

When interviewing the homeless population, Kerr said he soon realized it would be more impactful for the participants if the analysis of homelessness in Cleveland was based foremost on their own stories.

“Rather than doing a life history interview, I was going to do a thematic interviewing about their understanding of how

Kerr said.

One of the truck’s primary goals is to create long-term sustained relationships between the truck and communities in the district by having continuous conversations about the issues affecting the communities, such as homelessness and racial disparity, Kerr said.

The truck does this by attending events throughout the district neighborhoods, such as Adams Morgan Day and the Columbia Heights Day festival. Residents are invited to share their experiences living in the district, according to the Humanities Truck website.

“It’s kind of what I view as a mashup

Through the concerted, ongoing activity of building movements and transformations, we can make changes,” Kerr said. said. The truck’s purpose is to democratize knowledge through “collecting, exhibiting, preserving and expanding dialogue” in Washington, D.C., according to the Humanities Truck’s website.

According to the website, the project is funded through grants from the Henry Luce Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The truck is equipped with a TV and speakers that allow interviews to be shared back to community audiences. It also provides a meeting place for exhibi-

38

homelessness came to be such a predominant part of life in Cleveland, especially for them,” Kerr said.

Kerr said that instead of practicing disengaged reporting, where the interviews are only published within academia, he wanted the information to be shared within the community he was engaging with.

“This creates a situation where they can position their own personal experiences in the context of others who are similarly situated, or perhaps differently situated,”

between old school people’s history and digital humanities, making things accessible, generating real world connections and communication,” Kerr said.

Kerr said the truck is not meant to bring people together during large-scale events, like the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, but instead focuses on generating conversations within and from the communities.

Kerr said that in the district, the complex power structures make realizing what needs to change difficult.

“City Hall?” Kerr said. “Are you going to the place where immediate harm is being done, like the shelter itself? The federal government?”

While he said it is difficult for systemic change to occur, Kerr said he believes that it can happen with time and focus.

“Through the concerted, ongoing activity of building movements and transformations, we can make changes,” Kerr said.

Change requires a space willing to host those conversations, which is what the humanities truck aims to provide for the people of the district, Kerr said.

“Rather than think in the abstract about what we think the community wants, just go into that community and ask people, what are their needs, their wants, their concerns?” Kerr said.

One member of his team, Megan

COMMUNITY PROFILE

Henry, said she was able to get invaluable hands-on experience in the field of public history through the truck’s graduate student fellowship program.

“I’ve been able to get my hands dirty, so to speak, in the field,” Henry said.

Henry said that through this program, she has also been able to explore the complexities of D.C. “I think it’s cool how unique different aspects of the city are when they’re, like, blocks away from each other,” Henry said.

Jane Palmer, another member of the Humanities Truck team, was a fellow during the 2022-2023 term and led the Youth Power Project in collaboration with the Humanities Truck and nonprofit DC Action. With the aid of the truck, this project allows young people to share their experiences of life in the district and changes they want to see made, Palmer said.

“We talked to almost 100 youth who are often not listened to and disregarded,” Palmer said. “Now, we could really amplify their voice through this project.”

Palmer said the project also created a

sense of community among the youth interviewees and recalled a button-making activity set up at one of the interview sessions.

“Creation creates connection,” Palmer said.

“You can’t be serious all the time, you have to make time for joy and fun,” Palmer said. “I think that also helps them be more comfortable with telling their stories.”

Palmer said she is proud of the Youth Power Project and that it wouldn’t have been possible without the Humanities Truck.

“I wanted to be listened to as a youth activist by people in power and I want to help facilitate that for young people who maybe don’t feel like they will be listened to or haven’t had the same opportunities,” Palmer said.

Kerr said that Palmer’s project embodies the core mission of the truck, as the experiences of youth add another layer to crucial dialogue centered around issues they face and build connection by welcoming more of the community into these con-

versations.

Kerr said it is the inclusion of all the different perspectives within the community that makes this dialogue create productive change.

“If we’re thinking about how we want to transform the world, we need to do that with others, with communities, with people in neighborhoods,” Kerr said.

Zori Rouleau is a freshman studying international studies.

Mia Norton is a sophomore studying journalism and political science.

Abby Johnson is a freshman studying political science.

39