Magazine of the American University Winter 1986 Vol

Magazine of The American University Winter 1986 Vol. 37 No.1 American Literature: An Intellectual Adventure.................. 3 .AMERIG.IN Publication of several new books mark an especially productive year for AU's American is the official alumni magazine of Department of Literature faculty. The American University. It is published by the l ' niversity Publications and Printing Office, Pursuing a Dream......................... 7 Office of University Relations. Suggestions and AU's Department of Performing Arts comments concerning American should be sent attracts people with dreams and gives tO American 1\lagazine, University Publications them an opportunity to develop their and Printing Office, The American University, ~~00 1\lassachusetts Avenue, N\\', WashingtOn, talent. DC 20016 Khashoggi Center Anita F. Gottlieb, DirectOr, University Groundbreaking ............................ 17 Relations A very special event for the AU l\lartha N. Robinson, DirectOr, University , community is pictured. Publications and Printing Marion 1\lartin, Assistant DirectOr/News & Development Publications, Llniversity Cover note: AU's soccer team, with its Publications and Printing President's Message ...................... 2 best record ever, went to the NCAA EditOrial Staff: Amy Alotta, lary Jo CasciatO, championship game-the farthest any Campus News ............................... 10 Terry Cornwell , Bob llalliday, Anita Kelly. New master's in economic Pally Ondrasik, Gerry Snyder, Betty Lynn AU team has ever advanced. See story Sprinkle page 33. communication; World Food Day; Designer: Bonnie Narduzzi Watkins Gallery celebrates 40 years; Cover Design: Kevin Grasty Jihan ei-Sadat is commencement ilmerican is published quarterly by The speaker; Berendzen writes a book American llni,ersity. \\'ith a circu lation of about being president. about 55,000, Amnica11 is sent tO alumni and other constituents of the universi[\· communi tv. Faculty ........................................... 13 Copyright 1986, The American l ' ~iversity, an' Professor emeritus Charles Clark is equal opportunity/affirmative action university. teaching more than literature; economics chair Nancy Barrett combines academic and political instincts; philosophy and religion professor Theodore Rosche reviews ancient thoughts for modern times. Students ......................................... 16 Activities include special weekends for students and parents, a Career Expo, and an open house; graduate students receive new scholarship. Tamara Sobel, Aaron Shields and Hortence Claver are profiled. Alumni ........................................... 23 News-Vic Kamber talks about the annual fund , alumni come back to school, and distinguished alumni are recognized. Caroline Aaron, john Hildreth, Stephen Lester and alumni behind the scenes of professional sports are profiled. Class Notes. Sports ............................................. 33 The soccer team goes to the NCAA championship; basketball season is underway; field hockey. l 1'86-421 Letters ............................................ 36 WINTER 1986 President Berendzen's message opens with a quote from his newly published book, Is My Armor Straight?: A Year in the Life of a University President. An article in this issue's Campus News section tells more about how and why AU's president wrote this book. In 1981, Gail and I, waiting to board the New York shuttle, noticed a student and her mother reading an AU brochure. I introduced myself and asked if I could help them. Surprised, they asked a torrent of questions. At the end, the mother said, "My daughter and I know the university much better having met you and your wife. I'm far more interested than I was before." Neither of us had attempted to sell AU; rather, we had answered questions, calmed fears, and, most of all, humanized the institution. Is My Armor Straight? he above excerpt from my book is representa Ttive of many similar incidents that I have ex perienced since becoming president of The American University. For the last three years, the university's provost, deans, administrators, and fac ulty members have joined me in what has become an annual tour, with breakneck scheduling, predawn wake-up calls, and checks of the calendar watch to make sure that, yes, if it's Tuesday, it must be New Jersey. And in New Jersey ... or Connecticut ... or Florida ... or Illinois, we meet with prospective students, parents, and school counselors to convey the story of The American University. The frenetic travel and meeting schedule-known as the annual road show-has proved what that airport conversation with a prospective student demonstrated to be true. There is no substitute for this personal contact. Over time, we have expanded our "road show" concept to include major recruiting and fund-raising visits to London and Los Angeles. This issue of American contains a photo of the latter trip. Doing their own bit of "humanizing," AU alumni and parents in the different cities we've visited have been of immeasurable help. They've hosted receptions and given their own warm encouragement to those who want to know more about the university. Your help is needed, too. As this issue reaches you, we will be winding up our annual road show tour of Northeastern cities. Other recruiting visits are planned, however, for February-in Los Angeles on the 17th and Miami on the 25th. The Miami visit, incidentally, coincides with a major AU basketball contest with the University of Miami on Feb. 26. Also, throughout the academic year, uni versity representatives travel the country and the world to visit local sec ondary schools and meet prospective students. If you would like to help by meeting with prospective students and their parents, please write our alumni office, which, in coordination with admis sions, will alert you to events in your area. You, too, can be an ambassador for AU. 2 AMERICAN American Literature: An Intellectual Adventure Observation and analysis lead n campus, some of AU's best-known professors to the sharin~ of new knowl are the members of the edge with the world beyond the literature department. campus, \\'hich ha~ Ion~ been That's because all full- a measure of excellence in uni 0---- time faculty members versit} communities. This ar teach one semester of College Writing ticle focuses on recent creath e every year. This course is the outward expression contributions and scholarly re of the faculty's commitment to promote search by Al ''s Department of literacy through the study of literature. I .iterature faculty as reflected "I try to teach students what makes in its current publications. The literature an intellectual adventure- and books published by members of I think it is just that," says faculty mem ber Jonathan Loesberg. this one department exemplify Loesberg and six other literature fac the academic link beh\een ulty members (out of a department of teaching and publication exist 17 full-time professors) had ten books ing broadly in all AU depart published or accepted for publication in ments acros8 campus. the 1984-85 academic year. Ranging from critical analysis of an individual author Through the example of their and discussions of types of literature to professors, students can ob poems and novels, the works are char sen-e firsthand the discipline acteristic of what department chair Jo required to conduct original re Radner describes as "a very rich group. search successfully, the jo} of The department has a tradition of flex seeing hard-\\ On ideas and lan ibility about scholarship and teaching." Among the critical analyses is Loes ~uage accepted for publication berg's book, Fictions of Consciousness: Mill, for the world, and the prestige Newman and the Reading of Victorian Prose such recognition brings not only (to be published by Rutgers University to the authors but to their stu Press next summer) which develops a method for reading Victorian prose us dents and univen~ities. More- ing philosophical and literary analysis. 0\'er, students benefit even more Loesberg says having a lot of people directly from the intellectual around you conducting research "is the e:xcitement and inspiration that most direct aid to a researcher. It forces scholars who '' ork on the you to make your own cases very clear." frontier of knowledge can pro He uses his research directly in his teaching, especially for graduate stu vide in the classroom. dents. -M.N.R. He sees the critical analysis of liter ature as an integral discipline, apart from the creative writing process: "The critic does not try to answer questions about how people write books, but about how cultures produce literary works and how literary works produce culture." The cultural aspects of writing are part of Roberta Rubenstein's new study, Boundaries of the Self: Gender, Culture, Fiction, (to be published this fall by the University of Illinois Press). Rubenstein uses literary, cultural, psychological, and WINTER 1986 3 feminist perspectives to explore a con women produce popular culture, how undergraduate minors in literature and cept used by contemporary women writ certain media are produced for women, cinema studies, the department also of ers. and the assumptions made about women. fers an M.F.A. in creative writing. She says her research has a direct role Mussell's expertise is in American stud The classes of the department's cre in her teaching in that she has taught or Ies. ative faculty complement the work of will be teaching about the writers she She says critical analysis is central to their colleagues in critical analysis. has studied. "And teaching often brings the teaching of literature. "It is impor "Part of what we try to do is help the out approaches to subjects I might not tant for students to learn to read care writing students learn to be better read see in isolation." fully and analytically, so they can have ers," says Myra Sklarew, director of the Feminist criticism tries to bring in a sense of each work's richness." master's program in creative writing. sights from several disciplines, says Mussell's next project is a book about Giving aspiring writers a broad back Rubenstein.

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