| C-SPAN airs CCPS winter institutes
The Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies’ (CCPS) Campaign Management and Public Affairs and Advocacy Institutes garnered AU more than 65 hours of live and taped coverage on C-SPAN over the last three weeks. With a long list of guest speakers that includes former members of Congress, Washington Post columnists, and nonprofit advocacy experts, the winter institutes have attracted C-SPAN’s attention for the past 23 years during the final week in December and the first week in January. According to CCPS director James Thurber, the coverage benefits AU not only by bringing exposure to CCPS, but also by attracting future students. “Every year I hear from students who say, ‘I saw you on
C-SPAN over Christmas vacation, went to the AU Web site, and eventually applied to the school,’” said Thurber. Covering local, state, and federal campaign strategies, grassroots lobbying, congressional testimony, and advocacy regulations and ethics, the institutes offer students intensive two-week, four-credit courses designed to help launch careers in politics. While some of the speakers’ and guest lecturers’ renown in political circles may help catch C-SPAN’s eye, Thurber notes that everyone the institutes invite to lead their classes must be dedicated teachers. “We make sure we get people who not only know about these subjects, but also know how to teach them,” he explains. “No matter how famous they are, they have to be good teachers.”
AU named regional assistance center for teaching the deaf
The U.S. Department of Education recently awarded AU’s Office of Disability Support Services a $20,000 grant to serve as the Northeast Technical Assistance Center (NETAC) for postsecondary schools serving the deaf and hearing impaired in Washington, D.C. With the grant, the director of disability support services, Joanne Benica, plans to work with disability support offices at other area schools to establish a local advisory board providing direction on such issues as how to find an interpreter for a new deaf student or how to handle note-taking assistance for the hard of hearing. “The grant enhances the resources that we already have,” said Benica. “It makes us the one-stop shop for getting information on serving the deaf and hard of hearing.” With centers in 12 states and Washington, D.C., the NETAC program aims at increasing postsecondary educational access for the hearing impaired throughout the Northeast. AU ‘fourpeats’ at National Conference on Undergraduate Research
For the fourth consecutive year, American University is the most published academic institution in the National Conference on Undergraduate Research Journal. Thirty-two of the 331 papers published in the 2004 edition of the journal were written by AU students. The papers were selected from a pool of more than 2,300 during the conference, held at Indiana University in May 2004. More than 300 colleges and universities were represented at the event, including Harvard and Columbia. “Even more wonderful is that many of our students have been so excited about NCUR that they spent their spring and summer semesters working on their research projects to help our university ‘fivepeat’ at NCUR 2005,” which will be held April 21–23 at the Virginia Military Institute and Washington and Lee University, said Abdul Karim Bangura, professor at the School of International Service and NCUR coordinator. The NCUR, established in 1987, is a forum for undergraduate students to present research they’ve conducted in any area of study, from business to the liberal arts.
AU also had 32 papers published in the 2003 journal. SOC professor wins Fulbright to Lebanon
School of Communication professor Brigid Maher recently earned a Fulbright Scholar grant to teach broadcast media at Notre Dame University in Lebanon during the spring 2005 semester. One of some 800 U.S. faculty and professionals participating in the prestigious cultural exchange program in the 2004–05 academic year, Maher teaches film and media arts at AU and has directed and produced films that have won honors from the Anti-Defamation League, the City of Chicago, the Marshall Center for the Arts, and the Washington Commission for the Humanities. “I’m really excited about the opportunity on both a personal and professional level, ” said Maher on receiving the grant. “On the one hand, it will allow me to continue to make connections there, which is important to me because I believe that the Middle East is grossly misrepresented in the U.S. media, and I want to show that not all Americans have such negative feelings about the area. Then, on a professional level, I’m just excited about the opportunity to collaborate with fellow filmmakers in the region.” |
