Top Story
2018 Reflections: D.C.-Area Executives Open Up About Their Highs and Lows |
AU President Sylvia M. Burwell was one of several D.C.-area leaders featured in the Washington Business Journal's end of year reflection. President Burwell said, “My main takeaway [from 2018] is the importance of the next generation being prepared to help shape our changing world. Not only do our students need to be prepared for the present and the future, but it's our role as a university to inspire them, and help them become drivers of change in a rapidly changing world.” (12/28) |
Additional Features
Public Affairs Schools Launch Diversity Alliance |
Inside Higher Ed reported that a collective of six nation's top public affairs schools launched a Public Affairs Diversity Alliance. AU's School of Public Affairs, which initiated and funded the Diversity Alliance, will chair it for the first two years. The goal of the alliance is to encourage and sustain diverse candidates for faculty positions in criminal justice, policy and public administration. Member institutions have committed to hiring up to two alliance postdoctoral fellows or visiting scholars annually and will appoint internal and external mentors to promote networking and professional development. (1/4) |
Faculty Authors
Going Nowhere Fast on Climate, Year After Year |
Paul Bledsoe, adjunct professorial lecturer in the Center for Environmental Policy, wrote an opinion article for The New York Times about the state of climate policy in the United States. Bledsoe wrote, “Progress has been made in fits and starts, but not nearly enough has been done to confront the planet-altering magnitude of what we have unleashed.” (12/29) |
What the Believers Are Denying |
Director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center Ibram X. Kendi wrote an article for The Atlantic comparing climate change deniers and racism deniers. Kendi wrote, “The disbelievers do not believe that either climate change or racism is real… All this disbelief rests on the same foundation: the transformation of science into belief.” (1/1) |
The Military's New Boss Is Walking Into an Ambush |
School of International Service professor emeritus Gordon Adams wrote an opinion article for Foreign Policy Magazine about Patrick Shanahan, the new acting Secretary of Defense. Adams wrote, “[President] Trump clearly likes firing people and replacing them with yes men and women-- people for whom loyalty comes before patriotism, good sense, or, often, good policy.” (12/28) |
Humanitarian Assistance Has a Terrorism Problem. Can It Be Resolved? |
School of International Service assistant professor Jessica Trisko Darden wrote an article for War on the Rocks about how humanitarian assistance can indirectly benefit terrorist groups. Trisko Darden wrote, “More broadly, there remains a culture clash between human organizations, whose work transcends national boundaries, and the state-based systems of oversight and accountability that seek to regulate them.” (1/3) |
Expertise
Texas' One-Stop Shopping for Judge in Health Care Case |
The New York Times quoted a 2016 article written by Washington College of Law professor Jonas Anderson about stopping ‘judge shopping' in courts. Anderson wrote, “The court itself can make this assignment procedure change with a simple memo from the chief judge.” (12/24) |
When Death Awaits Deported Asylum Seekers |
Cori Alonso-Yoder, practitioner-in-residence in the Washington College of Law, spoke to The Washington Post about the fate awaiting deported asylum seekers. Alonso-Yoder said, “Immigration detention is inherently coercive. It's indistinguishable from being detained in a criminal facility. The jumpsuits, bars, the limitations on visits-- that whole system is going to have a deterrent effect on asylum.” (12/26) |
Trump's Bizarre History Lesson on the Soviet Union, Russia and Afghanistan |
Eric Lohr, Susan E. Carmel Chair of Russian History and Culture, spoke to The Washington Post about President Trump's claims that the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan led to financial ruin and its collapse. Lohr said, “The moral, social and political costs of the war were substantial and contributed to the crisis of the Soviet Union, but it wasn't a decisive financial burden.” (1/2) |
Christmas Shutdown: Why Washington Let the Government Close |
Patrick Griffin, adjunct professorial lecturer of public affairs, spoke to The Christian Science Monitor about the most recent government shutdown. Griffin said, “There's nowhere else to have these fights, so it becomes more and more attractive as less and less gets done.” Prof. Griffin also spoke with AFP about the government shutdown. The AFP article ran in multiple media outlets including Yahoo News.(12/24, 12/28) |
Ocasio-Cortez Gains Instant Stature in Congress, and Social Media Is a Key |
Betsy Fischer Martin, executive director of the Women and Politics Institute, spoke to The Christian Science Monitor about freshman representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's use of social media to connect with constituents. Fischer Martin said, “It'll be interesting to see… what she's doing with her platforms.” (1/3) |
'Fake News' a Real Problem Long Before Trump Era, Media Watchdogs Say |
Richard Benedetto, adjunct professor of Communication, spoke to The Washington Times about ‘fake news'. Addressing the issue of errors in reporting, Benedetto said, that news stories that are biased, unbalanced and often just plain wrong has left the public “shell-shocked” and distrustful of the press. (12/30) |
Bonus Clip
Warren, a Critic of Pentagon Bloat and Nukes, Heads to 2020 Presidential Run |
Defense News covered Senator Elizabeth Warren's announcement of her presidential exploratory committee. The article mentioned Warren's November 2018 speech delivered at American University, where she revealed several of her foreign policy positions. Photo captions in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and HuffPost also mentioned her AU speech. (12/31) |
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