THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE SUMMER 2019

Q&A: MEET THE PRESS HOST CHUCK TODD TALKS ABOUT JOURNALISM, POLITICS AND THE FIGHT FOR

"SOMETIMES I THINK WHEN YOU’RE IN “We’re so much more combative THE MIDDLE OF IT, YOU DON’T FULLY in some ways with people today, APPRECIATE THE MASSIVE CHANGES and I think people think we’re not THAT ARE TAKING PLACE.” combative enough.” “I wish I could fall back on some historical “YOU HAVE TO MAKE ADJUSTMENTS AND ACCEPT THE FACT context to know how another generation of journalists dealt with similar situations, THAT YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE PEOPLE MAD.” but I don’t think we’ve had a similar situation.” “At the end of the day, “I THINK THE FUTURE OF I’m pretty cynical, but JOURNALISM AS WE KNOW I don’t like to be as IT IS ACTUALLY AT STAKE IN SOME WAYS.” cynical on TV.” Inside on...... Page 30 gw magazine / Summer 2019 GW MAGAZINE SUMMER 2019 A MAGAZINE FOR ALUMNI AND FRIENDS CONTENTS

FEATURES

30 / ‘A Competition For Facts’ Meet the Press host Chuck Todd, who attended GW in the 1990s, Q&As with GW Magazine about political journalism, “both sides” and the slow death of good faith. / By Matthew Stoss /

38 / The Border Ball For more than a century, a U.S. border town and its Mexican counterpart have thrown a festival to mark George Washington’s birthday. GW professor Elaine Peña went home to understand why, and what it says about people and dividing lines. / By Matthew Stoss /

48 / Any Place of Worship As a Muslim, Sana Ullah, MA ’17, is required to pray five times a day. That can be hard, for example, in a 9-to-5. In 2015, Ullah started photographing Muslims praying, like her, wherever they could. Now that project—“Places You'll Pray”—has become so much more. / As told to Julyssa Lopez /

DEPARTMENTS Laredo, Texas, started 4 / Postmarks On the cover: the Washington’s Design by Dominic N. Birthday Celebration 6 / GW News Abbate, BA ’09, MBA ’15; in 1898 as a way Chuck Todd photo by Sally to Americanize a 58 / Class Notes Montana / Redux historically Mexican area. This WBC photo is from circa 1910. WEBB COUNTY HERITAGE FOUNDATION

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Be Informed | Be Connected | Be Notified gwtoday.gwu.edu Summer 2019 Volume 29, Issue 3

managing editor // Danny Freedman, BA ’01

associate editor // Matthew Stoss

photo editor // William Atkins

design // GW Marketing & Creative Services

art director // Dominic N. Abbate, BA ’09, MBA ’15

art director // John McGlasson, BA ’00, MFA ’03

editorial assistant // Jennifer Cheng, CCAS ’2021

contributor // Keith Harriston, senior managing editor GW Today

contributor // Briahnna Brown, GW Today

contributor // Kurtis Hiatt, GW Today

contributor // Tatyana Hopkins, GW Today

contributor // Kristen Mitchell, GW Today

contributor // Ruth Steinhardt, GW Today

Thomas J. LeBlanc president of the university

Donna Arbide Lorraine Voles, BA ’81 vice president for development vice president for and alumni relations external relations

Leah Rosen, BBA ’96, MTA ’02 Sarah Gegenheimer Baldassaro Rachel Muir associate vice president for associate vice president executive director marketing and creative services for communications for editorial services

GW Magazine (ISSN 2162-6464) is published three times per year by GW’s Division of External Relations, 2000 Pennsylvania Avenue NW, 300, Washington, D.C. 20006. Phone: 202-994-0817; email: [email protected].

© 2019 The George Washington Opinions expressed in postmaster Please send change-of-address notices to GW Magazine, University. The George these pages are those of GW Alumni Records Office, 2033 K St., NW, Suite 300, Washington, D.C. Washington University is an the individuals and do not 20052. Notices can also be sent via alumni.gwu.edu/update, email to equal opportunity/affirmative necessarily reflect official [email protected], or 202-994-9350. Postage paid at Washington, action institution. positions of the university. D.C., and additional mailing offices.

gwmagazine.com / 3 POSTMARKS

Familiar Faces Wow! Wow! Was I surprised when I opened up your latest spring 2019 mag and saw pictures and comments of my teammates Corky [Devlin], Elliot [Karver], Joe [Holup], John [Holup] and George [Klein] (“They Had What We Would Call Today Attitude,” spring 2019). At the time, I was a scrub who was honored to play two years (’55, ’56). I was eventually cut, but guess what? GW continued my scholarship until graduation—what a gift! You were right-on regarding Coach [Bill] Reinhart. I just had to tell you how happy you made me regarding the article. I wonder how many are still around? Howard Frushtick, BS ’55

Danny Freedman

[From the editor] After nine years at GW Magazine and the Peer Review past five as editor, I’m signing off—my family “One judge wants to subscribe!” and I are headed to Memphis, where a new That was the word that came back from one group of job awaits my wife and where that new-place adjudicators in the international awards contest run by the Council tangle of thrill and melancholy stands by to for Advancement and Support of Education. This spring, GW help us unpack. Magazine won a silver award in the overarching “general interest” Like for many of you, GW will be near category for its slate of issues last year; a bronze in the “special to me wherever I am, for the experiences of issues” category for the spring 2018 “Power Issue”; and a bronze in this job and for much more: It’s where as a feature-length profile writing for Samantha Cole’s article “To Simply student I learned my trade and where I met Name It Aloud” (fall 2018) about alumna Helena Bala’s “Craigslist my wife; it’s where our children were born; Confessional,” an index of trauma that strangers ask Bala to divulge. it’s where my dad was an administrator and Find that story and all of the 2018 back issues at GWMagazine.com. still teaches journalism. GW doctors saved his life, and later the life of my newborn daughter, dragging a beat from her stubborn and hesitant heart. I’m grateful to our readers for sharing with me your time and stories and support, and to the leadership here, straight to the top, for believing in this publication, believing in our team and for challenging us by saying “yes” far more than “no.” It’s been a wonderful ride—and there’s so much more on the horizon for GW Magazine. Stay tuned. Danny Freedman, BA ’01 FREEDMAN: WILLIAM ATKINS / BASKETBALL PLAYERS: GW ARCHIVES GW PLAYERS: BASKETBALL / ATKINS WILLIAM FREEDMAN:

4 / gw magazine / Summer 2019 Memory Bank

Recently we asked: What keepsakes—objects, photos, etc.—do you keep around as reminders of your time at GW? We heard from Susan McGuire Smith, BA ’69, JD ’73, about a cut-glass window that she saved from the student seizure of Maury Hall in April 1969: I graduated with my undergraduate degree a semester early and, with a few months on my hands before beginning law school that fall, I took a temporary job at the Institute for Sino-Soviet Studies. My desk was in the lobby in front of the beautiful entry door, a remarkable solid-wood double door with two sidelights and one window over the entire door, each with a hand-cut beveled glass insert that dated from the family home of the famous U.S. naval officer Matthew Fontaine Maury, which housed the institute. I used to love the beautiful rainbow pattern that resulted from the morning sun shining through that magnificent The Ghosts of historic door. Thurston Past That spring, the local chapter of the Students In honor of a planned $80 million for a Democratic Society marched on the building interior renovation of Thurston Hall, and seized it late at night. In the process, all but GW Magazine is cracking open the one glass side panel were broken beyond repair. time capsule of Thurston’s past, and When we finally were able to return a few days we need your stories for an upcoming later, I was heartbroken to see the damage. It took feature: tales from too late and several days to put what we could back together— from bleary dawns; of shenanigans files dumped in every office, trash everywhere, and fizzled plans and what-are-the- damage to walls, doors, books, fixtures. Later, odds wins that became legend; of a custodian arrived and began destroying the roommates and laundry and classes broken glass from the front door. He replaced it and life inside the dorm. with “bathroom” glass. Quite a comedown for Have a keepsake you such a beautiful and unique door. I asked him about the one sidelight want to tell us about? Send your memories to magazine@ that was still intact and he told me he was to remove it and toss it, too. I Write us at magazine@ gwu.edu or mail them to us at the asked if he could remove it in one piece and I would gladly rescue it. He gwu.edu or on Twitter address below. was happy to do that, and my bosses told me to take the pane home. I at @TheGWMagazine; stored it, and when I later bought my first home, I proudly stood it in the we'll feature some of window. It has now graced six windows as I moved around the country. them in this space in It currently resides in Florida. future issues. Several years ago, I wrote the university president and offered to All Write!

73 / THURSTON HALL: VMDO ARCHITECTS deliver it to GWU, thinking they might want to preserve this piece of We want to hear from you, too. history. I never got a response. My offer still stands. Contact us through our website, 69, JD ’ gwmagazine.com, on Twitter (@TheGWMagazine) or send a note to: GW Magazine Runs in the Family 2000 Pennsylvania Ave. NW Brains and brawn can pass from generation Suite 300 to generation, and so too can Colonial Washington, DC 20006 pride. If you have family members who [email protected] have attended GW before or after your time here, we’d like to hear from you. Contact Please include your name, Marie Treanor, director of legacy family degree/year, address and a engagement, at [email protected]. And daytime phone number. for more about GW’s Legacy Alumni Letters may be edited for

WINDOWPANE COURTESY SUSAN MCGUIRE SMITH, BA ’ Network, visit: go.gwu.edu/legacyfamilies. clarity and space.

gwmagazine.com / 5 NEWS AND INSIGHTS FROM CAMPUS AND BEYOND

p. 16 ‘There is no wasted opportunity.’

p. 12 p. 18 p. 20 p. 22 Events Nuclear Faire Ye Surveying Calendar Waste Well A Border

When I look back over my life, I’ve often been the first, and many times I have been the only—the only woman, the only African American—in the positions I’ve achieved.

Grace Speights, JD ’82, who took over in June as the chair of the GW Board of Trustees

p. 14 GUTHRIE, SPEIGHTS: WILLIAM ATKINS / FINGERPRINT INSTALLATION: SIENNA LONG, JOHN MCGLASSONHEART: / PHOTOS: HAND MATT KNIT HODGKINS BY ANNETTE / M. THOMSON, MSIST ’08, FROM A PATTERN BY TEAL LARSEN VIA ETSY.COM

6 / gw magazine / Summer 2019 [research] More of You

As 3D printing comes of age, researchers turn to 4D printing and the possibility of building replacement organs from patients’ own stem cells.

BY SARAH C.P. WILLIAMS

A kid runs the bases on one of three manicured diamonds at the Nationals’ Youth Baseball Academy

gwmagazine.com / 7 a matter of hours to treat heart failure. Zhang, an associate professor in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, admits the goal of a printed, transplantable heart is likely decades away. But as she works toward it, the smaller feats along the way carry their own potential to revolutionize medicine. Zhang’s lab is among just a few in the country using a cutting-edge 4D bioprinting approach to create moving, responsive shapes that can carry out myriad tasks in the human body. Her approach might allow engineered blood vessels implanted into a child to grow as they age, or a drug-delivery device to open like a blooming flower when it reaches the right organ. In 3D printing, three- dimensional solid objects are created, layer by layer, based on a design plugged into a computer. In place of standard ink, a 3D printer can extrude a variety of materials, from plastics and resins to foodstuff— chefs have used 3D printing to concoct uniquely shaped candies and pastas. And when scientists S discovered that living cells can survive the trip through a 3D printer, they began printing She wants to build a layers of cells in the shapes of beating human heart. organs—heart cells in the exact Not just a heart- shape of a human heart and liver shaped blob of cells and cells in the shape of a liver, for not an organ that beats instance. to an off-kilter cadence. “People have bioprinted She wants to make from hearts already,” Zhang says. “But scratch—using something the problem is functional: How not far removed from can we make that 3D heart work? an inkjet printer—a How can we make it beat?” heart that surgeons To make these inert organs can transplant into more versatile and useful, a person’s body to Zhang’s team is adding a new keep them alive. dimension to bioprinting—a This heart, Lijie fourth dimension: time, or more Grace Zhang precisely, the ability to change imagines, could over time, shifting shape or be personalized rearranging molecules. with a patient’s By printing in 4D with unique own cells and nanomaterials, the scientists Lijie Grace Zhang be created on- can design shapes they’re able to demand by a control using external forces—

3D printer in light or heat, for instance. Then WILLIAM ATKINS

8 / gw magazine / Summer 2019 human cells can be layered onto from bones and cartilage. that shape-changing scaffold. “She tells everyone that they can pick any organ they want to study and she’ll support them,” says PhD student Timothy Esworthy. “So we have people BEFORE 2010, when she join the lab and get really excited became a GW faculty member, about new organs; livers and Zhang had never used a 3D muscles and hearts and brains.” printer. She studied chemical That diversity, and the knack “WITH 4D PRINTING, WE CAN engineering in China, then Zhang has for bringing together flew halfway around the world expertise in so many areas, is for a graduate program at part of why the Zhang lab has NOT ONLY SPECIFY HOW CELLS Brown University in Rhode gained a reputation as a hot spot Island, where—despite never of innovation. having worked with living cells “I’d certainly describe her ARE PLACED TO MIMIC THE before—she joined a biomedical as a top-caliber researcher,” engineering lab in which says Michael McAlpine of the culturing cells was an everyday University of Minnesota, whose ACTUAL CIRCUITRY OF THE task. By the time she arrived at 3D and 4D bioprinting work GW, she had jumped around two overlaps with Zhang’s in many BRAIN, WE CAN NOW CONTROL more times, with postdoctoral areas. “She’s brought a lot of positions at Rice University high-quality work to the field.” and Harvard, developing THIS SHAPE CHANGE AS WELL.” nanomaterials for cartilage and bone regeneration. At GW, Zhang became part of the Department for Mechanical TODAY, the closest thing that & Aerospace Engineering, the Zhang lab has made to a another unlikely move—they’d beating heart is a thin patch just been looking for expertise in half a centimeter in diameter. biomaterials, she says—that It contains a mixture of stem shaped the arc of her research cells isolated from human ever since. bone marrow and, despite its “I was suddenly surrounded diminutive size, could someday FROM FLAT TO FLOWER BUD by these mechanical engineering change the way people recover Zhang and her colleagues demonstrate the reversible, shape- students with very different from heart attacks. Other changing effect of their process with this 4D-printed structure that backgrounds than my own,” researchers have tried injecting opens and closes like a flower, published in a cover article last year Zhang says. “They excelled in similar mixtures of stem cells in the journal Advanced Biosystems. The structure is shown first mathematics and design and into injured hearts, but the in its natural form, then scrunching and slowly flattening as it’s modeling. They already had very power of the organ keeps immersed in ethanol, then gradually recoiling again in response to expertise in using 3D printing to that approach from being immersion in water. make device prototypes.” successful—as the heart beats, For Zhang, it was more even weakly, it pushes cells out Flower blooming intriguing than intimidating. She to the rest of the body instead immediately saw the promise in of keeping their healing power applying the new 3D technology close. But a bioprinted patch, to tissue engineering—she Zhang has shown, can hold the could take material similar to cells in place on the heart as they Natural 5 seconds 10 seconds 5 minutes the injectable bone substitutes form new tissue. (ETHANOL) she’d engineered, for instance, A perfect scaffold for Form and print it in the shape of a bone harnessing stem cells and to create entirely new types of encouraging them to grow into Flower closure artificial joints and prosthetics. mature heart tissue has two So Zhang’s inventive students qualities that are hard to achieve: built a custom 3D printer (and tiny—really tiny—grooves and then another and another) the ability to bend and move. for her lab. And as she forged The grooves, which must be 15 minutes 30 minutes 5 minutes 30 minutes ahead into 3D—and then 4D— mere fractions of a millimeter (WATER) printing, Zhang branched out wide, help align cells so they can

gwmagazine.com / 9 A SAFE, NIMBLE APPROACH 3D model Printed object 4D Response to Near-Infrared This year in the journal Nano Research, Zhang’s team demonstrated a 4D-printing nanomaterial that could be Flower controlled using near-infrared light, which would be safe for human tissue—unlike the use of temperature, solvents or ultraviolet light—and brings the research a Hand step closer toward reality.

form a continuous, unbroken sheet. And the ability to flex, but the technique motion— ideally close to that of a beating isn’t ideal for creating micro- heart— helps coax the stem cells to become sized grooves. For that, Zhang heart cells rather than other kinds of cells. and her colleagues use a To build a patch with those qualities, second type of 3D printing— A PRINTED OBJECT that Zhang starts with an ink developed by stereolithography, which can furl and unfurl—and at the her lab in 2016 called smart soybean oil uses a more precise laser same time act as a scaffold for epoxidized acrylate, or SOEA. It’s considered beam of a different intensity living cells—has a plethora of safe in the human body and, importantly, to form channels in the patch other uses in the human body. it turns from a thick liquid into a solid in after it’s been formed by For instance, Zhang is one of response to light from a laser. That means it photolithography. the only researchers in the can be used in a type of 3D printing called In 2018, Zhang reported in U.S. applying 4D bioprinting photolithography. In that type of printing, the journal Biofabrication that technologies to brain tissue. In a rather than extrude an ink directly, the stem cells grown on these double- developing embryo, the surface computer-controlled printer directs a printed 4D cardiac patches are of the brain buckles and folds laser in precise patterns into a vat of liquid more efficient at maturing into as it grows, eventually resulting resin, such as SOEA. As the laser moves, it heart cells than those grown in the organ’s wrinkly texture. solidifies section after section of the resin, on other types of scaffolds. This folding signals neural stem creating a three-dimensional solid object that Her lab has already tested one cells to differentiate into mature emerges from the liquid. 3D-printed patch—although not brain cells. And folding is just SOEA has another property that makes it the bendable, SOEA version— in the kind of motion that a printed ideal for 4D printing: When a solid, printed mice with heart injuries similar nanomaterial can achieve. SOEA scaffold is cooled, the temperature to those seen in the aftermath “The brain is arguably change affects the way its molecules link of a heart attack, and the patch the most complicated tissue together, pulling them taut and flattening helped the mice recover normal that exists in the body,” says the shape. But when it’s warmed again, the heart function. Esworthy, who helps lead brain scaffold spontaneously curls up, like a roly- “With the 4D patch, we’ll tissue projects in the Zhang lab. poly bug hiding from danger. While there are be able to have these shape- “But with 4D printing we can not other photolithography inks that can change changing effects that might only specify how cells are placed shape, few are safe in humans and other move in conjunction with a to mimic the actual circuitry of animals. beating heart,” says Zhang. “So the brain, we can now control Making a cardiac patch using I think the success we’ve already this shape change as well.” photolithography and SOEA gives it the seen with the 3D patch will be To that end, the researchers amplified with the 4D version.” have 3D-printed a scaffold in a

10 / gw magazine / Summer 2019 3D Model Printed Object 4D Response to Near-Infrared

Heart

Brain

kinked shape that mimics the Nano Research, that changes into the age of personalized medicine, brain’s folds. With heat, they shape in response to infrared and 4D tissue models like this could allow can pull the resulting shape light instead, which Esworthy doctors to do more accurate drug testing so flat to seed it with stem cells. says is safe for human cells. we’re not just playing the game of prescribing Over the course of a few weeks, Engineered neural tissue that’s one thing after another.” the scaffold begins to refold, implanted in the brain would still 4D bioprinting, of course, is still very eventually assuming its original be reachable by infrared, too, he much in its infancy. 3D printers now appear shape. Cells proliferate and says. in elementary schools, libraries and co- mature in the troughs of each working spaces, and are being used to kink—the same pattern seen make everything from shoes and bicycles to in developing embryos. It’s an robotic hands. But Zhang and McAlpine, of approach that may improve the University of Minnesota, were two of the methods for growing brain cells INSIDE THE NEXT DECADE, first researchers to integrate 3D printing for research and clinical use. Zhang predicts the emergence into tissue engineering less than a decade To really effect change of 4D-printed tissues that can ago. in the human body, though, help guide the treatment of “At the time both our groups started in researchers still need better diseases, albeit without being this field, there were not many people doing ways to remotely, and quickly, transplanted into a person. it,” says McAlpine. “We got into it early and control the 3D-printed organs. Organs-on-chips have already are both recognized as early pioneers. But Temperatures and solvents gained notoriety as tiny, often now there’s been an absolute explosion in affect structural change slowly— very simplified replicas of human interest. Things that were really novel a year over hours or days—and aren’t organs that can be used to test or two ago are commonplace now.” ideal for use in the body, where the effects of drugs. With 4D There still are challenges. Zhang says temperatures and chemical printing, more complex replicas she’d like to come up with more versatile inks conditions need to remain stable. could be built from a patient’s that are safe for use in humans, and printers The use of light is an option, and own cells to determine whether with better resolution are needed for more a number of other responsive a particular drug works to treat precise control over nanomaterials. And even materials use ultraviolet light to conditions like heart disease or if the devices that Zhang is producing now effect change over mere seconds, neurological, gastrointestinal or are small, and don’t yet operate within the but it can damage human breathing disorders, Zhang says, body, her ideas loom large. cells. So Esworthy, Zhang or whether it might carry side “I think printed organs that we can and others have developed a effects. fabricate and put in patients will be realized new nanomaterial, which they “The future is now,” says within our lifetimes,” she says. “And it will be described this year in the journal Esworthy. “We’re really entering a significant milestone in human history.”

gwmagazine.com / 11 Calendar

31 / AUGUST THROUGH OCTOBER 6 WASHINGTON, D.C. WASHINGTON, D.C. COLONIALS WEEKEND The exhibit “Woven Interiors: The Corcoran School of the Arts 20-22 / SEPTEMBER Furnishing Early Medieval Egypt” & Design exhibition “6.13.89: The WASHINGTON, D.C. opens at the George Washington Cancelling of the Mapplethorpe University Museum and The Exhibition” presents never- Celebrate the people and places that make GW unforgettable at this Textile Museum (through Jan. 5), before-seen archival materials year’s redesigned and enhanced Colonials Weekend, which includes the bringing together rarely displayed that explore the highly politicized events below plus many more. (colonialsweekend.gwu.edu) artworks from the fourth to the and publicized cancellation of 12th centuries to reveal how the 1989 exhibition, “Robert textiles infused warmth and Mapplethorpe: The Perfect beauty into Egypt’s interior Moment,” at what was then the FRIDAY, SEPT. 20 spaces. (museum.gwu.edu) Corcoran Gallery of Art. The 50th Reunion Reception: Join classmates from the Class of show’s closure reverberated ’69 for a special day of activities planned to mark the occasion. throughout the city and the wider 3 / SEPTEMBER museum community, and has Deans’ Receptions: Mingle with fellow alumni, reconnect with long sparked discussions on the faculty and hear updates from your school’s dean. WASHINGTON, D.C. role of artistic freedom and the Ahead of watching the dangers of censorship. (corcoran. Kickoff Party: Connect with friends and classmates at an Washington Nationals take on gwu.edu) evening of food, drinks and dancing under the main-attraction the New York Mets, hear from tent in the heart of campus. Nationals leadership and connect with fellow Colonials at a GW 16 / OCTOBER SATURDAY, SEPT. 21 alumni pregame reception. WASHINGTON, D.C. (alumni.gwu.edu/events) Legacy Admissions Info Session: Alumni with college-bound The eighth annual Blush Lunch children can hear about the wealth of opportunities and programs benefits the GW Mammovan—a available at GW, then enjoy a tour of the Foggy Bottom Campus. 5 / SEPTEMBER self-contained, mobile breast cancer screening site committed A Conversation With President Thomas LeBlanc: In an ONLINE to making early detection possible intimate, interview-style conversation and audience Q&A, GW The GW Alumni Association for all women in the D.C. area, President Thomas LeBlanc shares his vision for the university as executive committee wants to regardless of their ability to it approaches its bicentennial. hear from alumni before it enters pay. The Mammovan travels to a strategic planning process this corporate and community sites, Buff and Blue BBQ: Wear your spirit attire to University Yard fall. Share your ideas during this screening more than 2,500 and meet the men’s basketball team and new coach Jamion listening tour, or via an online women each year. (go.gwu.edu/ Christian while enjoying some acoustic blues music and survey—you could win a GW gear blushlunch) barbecue. bag. (go.gwu.edu/gwaalistens) Vern Harvest: Check out a family-friendly, fall-themed event on the Mount Vernon Campus quad, featuring pumpkin carving, hot 21/ OCTOBER cider and lawn games. 25 / SEPTEMBER NEW YORK ONLINE Come meet GW students Classes From GW’s Best: Informative and engaging TED Talk- Connect with alumni around the interested in the fields of media, style presentations feature prominent GW alumni and faculty world during a free, hourlong communications and journalism, members discussing unique themes and timely topics. virtual networking event through who will be in New York City over GW’s Alumni Industry Networks. fall break as part of a career Acapellapalooza: See high-energy performances by GW’s (alumni.gwu.edu/networking) development program, GW Career student a cappella groups at their first concert of the season. Quest. (alumni.gwu.edu/events) Class Reunion Parties: Members of the milestone reunion classes of ’94, ’99, ’09 and ’14 gather to dance and celebrate SEPTEMBER-NOVEMBER memories and friendships at unique venues in D.C. WORLDWIDE THROUGH DECEMBER 15 WASHINGTON, D.C. Events are taking place across the SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 22 globe to welcome local members A diverse group of emerging of the Class of 2019 into the GW and established contemporary Jazz Brunch: These live jazz performances showcase GW’s alumni community. (alumni.gwu. artists and filmmakers scrutinize talented students and faculty, coupled with a buffet brunch. edu/events) the garment industry in “Fast It’s a lively, theme-driven panel discussion Fashion/Slow Art,” an exhibition Political Discourse: by alumni and faculty on the hottest topics shaping today’s films and video installations at political landscape. the Corcoran School of the Arts & Design. (calendar.gwu.edu/fast- *Final schedule subject to change prior to the event. fashionslow-art) Visit colonialsweekend.gwu.edu for the latest information.

12 / gw magazine / Summer 2019 [innovation] a discount—$5 or less—and chance to compete for a portion alerts its users to the deal. It of $200,000 in unrestricted was born out of the experience cash prizes, as well as more than of co-founder and CEO Erin $600,000 in in-kind prizes. Waste Not McGeoy, BBA ’18, an athlete The New Venture and scholarship recipient who Competition this year drew skipped meals and relied, in part, more than 215 teams. Winners New businesses addressing on free food from university were selected from three tracks: food surplus, throwaway events to help fill her plate. social, tech and new ventures. corporate gifts and plastic “Businesses face huge Each of the first-place track trash in landfills topped barriers to getting food from winners was awarded $20,000 to their restaurant to a food pantry, fund their ventures. GW’s annual New Venture resulting in millions of meals Corcoran School graduate Competition. going to waste each year while student Edith Leiva represented millions of Americans go to bed Dulceology, which won the new- hungry every day,” co-founder venture track. The online bakery Chloe King, a senior at the sells caramel sandwich cookies Elliott School of International for corporations to give to Affairs, said in April during clients, as opposed to traditional the final round of GW’s New small items like pens, key fobs or Venture Competition. “We help lanyards. One-third of corporate businesses sell out instead of promotional gifts and keepsakes throw out.” are discarded, Leiva said. The team won big in the Manyung Emma Hon’s finals, topping the competition’s Plast-Ways won the tech track. social-venture track and taking The junior mathematics major’s In an effort to alleviate both the strain home $45,000 in cash prizes, startup uses naturally occurring, Iof people facing food insecurity and of plus a $100,000 Google Cloud plastic-eating microbes that restaurant food waste, a GW alumna and package. would expand the lifetime of a student have designed a tool to bring The competition—organized landfills by reducing the time together the two groups’ complementary by GW’s Office of Innovation plastic takes to degrade, from needs. and Entrepreneurship within 1,000 years to as few as six The online marketplace Last Call works the Office of the Vice President weeks. —Tatyana Hopkins

WILLIAM ATKINS with restaurants to offer surplus meals at for Research—offered teams the

gwmagazine.com / 13 [board of trustees] Too Often The First And Only

#MeToo attorney and new Board of Trustees Chair Grace Speights, JD ’82, has spent years working for equality and inclusivity for others—and herself.

By Ruth Steinhardt

work environment: pay, whether investigations is to create safe, you got a role, whether you inclusive work environments— worked again.” conditions under which In late 2017, when PBS cut ties with anchor Speights has been in a employees from all backgrounds ITavis Smiley over multiple allegations of number of rooms where the can flourish. sexual misconduct, it was an early sign that people in power didn’t look Speights’ own background the #MeToo movement—then in its infancy— like her. And when she took differs from many of her would reveal exploitative behavior by some of over as chair of the GW Board peers. Growing up in South America’s most established cultural figures. of Trustees in June, Speights Philadelphia in the 1960s and Few people knew that sooner than Grace became the first woman and the ’70s, Speights and her best Speights, JD ’82, a partner in the labor and first African American to do so. friend were known as “the step employment practice at Morgan Lewis, “When I look back over my sisters”—not due to a family which was brought on to defend the public life, I’ve often been the first, relationship, but because the two broadcaster against Smiley’s suit for breach and many times I have been studious girls couldn’t be enticed of contract. the only—the only woman, the further from home than the front “When the #MeToo movement broke, I only African American—in the steps of the Speights family’s think the biggest surprise for most people positions I’ve achieved,” she says. rented row house. was that so many cases of sexual harassment Her goal now is to try to “To tell you the truth, I was and abuse had gone unreported for so many ensure that doesn’t remain the afraid of letting my mother years,” Speights says. “But there was a power case. At Morgan Lewis, she leads down, so while everybody else dynamic there. These were women dealing a team that investigates and was running around, I did not with men who were very powerful in their assesses organizations’ culture, get into any mischief,” she says. organizations relative to them. Men had the including allegations of sexual Speights’ mother, Ellen ability to control almost every aspect of their misconduct. The intent of these Venters, whom she calls her WILLIAM ATKINS

14 / gw magazine / Summer 2019 “hero and role model,” was a my mom worked I can see through the single parent who had kicked in that factory lens of the woman, of the out her abusive husband when and how workers GRACE SPEIGHTS ON... African American, and can Speights was a small child. there seemed to understand why they would Venters worked long hours six have no real rights. So I wanted believe they were being discriminated days a week at a local drapery to basically right the wrongs.” ENROLLMENT against,” she says. “So I have been able—and “Our goal is to factory. Still, only as a young That drive brought her to GW that’s what I have enjoyed most—not to teach reduce the size of the adult did Speights become aware Law, which offered her a full my clients how to discriminate and sexually undergraduate class harass people without getting in trouble, but of the extent of her family’s scholarship. As a law student, by 20 percent over poverty. she liked clinical work for the the next five years. how not to do any of that in the first place.” “Despite the conditions I practical good it did and the If you have a smaller Speights’ three decades in the trenches grew up with—the gangs in the hands-on experience it gave her class, the student of workplace discrimination entered a neighborhood, clothes made with clients. Outside of class, experience should new context in the last few years when from scrap, scratching and she and best friend Donna be a lot better. We the #MeToo movement began to expose itching every day—despite all of Hill Staton—now a fellow GW are bursting at the entrenched toxicities in corporate culture. that, I thought we were rich,” she board member—went to “I seams right now.” Around the time PBS hired her to represent says. “I had a mom who worked can’t tell you how many” Prince it in Smiley’s suit, Speights realized that hard and cared for me, and I had concerts. And in 1981, she landed STEM such cases were likely to increase: With the a lot of love.” a summer associateship with “We have to think movement amplifying their stories, women Speights’ hard work Morgan Lewis, where, except for about STEM broadly were more likely to feel empowered to name eventually landed her a spot at a two-year clerkship for a federal and take a cross- longtime offenders. the University of Pennsylvania, judge, she has spent her entire discipline approach. So Speights assembled a group of several but not without a lucky career. The work that we dozen women in Morgan Lewis to work on intercession. At Morgan Lewis, Speights do in terms of culture assessments for clients. The group She had been accepted began in the general litigation politics and political interviews corporate leaders and employees, to, and planned to attend, a group, where she eventually science—there’s noting problems and recommending change. small state school. Then, at made partner, specializing in a big data piece In 2018, The American Lawyer magazine to that, and that’s a luncheon where she was to commercial litigation. named Speights “Attorney of the Year” for technology that goes receive a scholarship from a “Frankly,” she says, “I hated her work on “many of the investigations of with STEM.” local organization, she happened general commercial litigation.” the organizations whose #MeToo stories have to sit next to a man named Bill But when the Civil Rights Act made headlines in the past year,” including GRADUATE Brown, one of only a few African was amended in 1991 to allow PROGRAMS the Humane Society, NPR and PBS. American partners at major people in protected categories “We have a lot of Now, Speights and the group spend law firms in Philadelphia at the to sue for discrimination graduate programs— much of their time traveling, working with time. Speights says that Brown before a jury (previously all how many of them companies that want to discreetly assess and, believed she was attending a such suits went before judges are great and how if necessary, correct their culture before a university beneath her academic alone), the firm had a sudden many of them are public scandal forces them to do so. That achievement. So, she says, Brown need for attorneys with both preeminent? We corporate proactivity has given Speights arranged for her to meet with an understanding of labor and need to do that hope that the days of unreported harassment officials in the admissions office employment law and experience inventory. Are and slaps on the wrist are over. at the Ivy League’s UPenn. That trying jury cases. Speights there maybe some “I really do believe #MeToo is a watershed spring, Speights was accepted had both, and her position was programs we don’t movement,” Speights says. “It’s a new and received a scholarship that strengthened, for once, by her need to have?” paradigm.” paid for her tuition and campus demographics. But there are also unintended negative housing. “Rightly or wrongly, clients HER consequences. Speights says she talks to “That whole experience believed if a woman or a “I want to spend some leaders who say they’re afraid to travel taught me about the need to give black person is suing us in a more time on or network with female employees as a result back,” she says. “My motto is: It’s discrimination case and we have campus. The of the movement.Her response? “Guys, stop students are very important to be the Bill Brown in to go before a jury, it may help to it.” important to me, someone’s life.” have a woman or a black person “We can’t use the #MeToo movement as and I do want representing us,’” Speights says. an excuse for not mentoring or professionally As an undergraduate, she to find a way to flirted with medicine and At first, Speights was leery interact with them developing women,” Speights says. “All you teaching as vocations, but of the implication: that she had more. I also want to have to do is, one, behave yourself—How do quickly settled on the law. been hired, cynically, for the interact more with you talk to your sister, mother, grandmother? “I really was looking to optics of her race and gender. the faculty, with the Make sure you respect the women you work come out and do good,” she But she came to see both as professors, with the with. And two, have faith in your HR system. says. “I’d seen gang warfare substantive, not superficial, staff. I’m a people In all the years I’ve been practicing, there in my neighborhood; I’d seen advantages. person and I like to have only been approximately two cases in the conduct of police in my “I can say to a client, ‘You’ve learn from talking to which I believe the claim of sexual harassment neighborhood. I saw how hard got problems here,’ because people.” was made up. Two. In 35 years.”

gwmagazine.com / 15 [commencement] Success Waits “on the Other Side of Your Fear”

NBC News’ Savannah Guthrie, former NASA engineer Christine Darden, DSc ’83, and businesswoman Cindy McCain address graduates on the National Mall. WILLIAM ATKINS 16 / gw magazine / Summer 2019 One of the “biggest, craziest jumps” Savannah Guthrie made came just after law Oschool, when she thought she had her future planned. She had a clerkship lined up with a federal judge, but she realized she didn’t want it. “I still had that nagging hope that one day I could really make it in television news,” the co-anchor of NBC News’ Today show and chief legal correspondent for the network told GW graduates at their Commencement in May on the National Mall. “And so, what I did next was insane and unthinkable: I quit, More Graduation before I even started.” It was a moment of truth, she said; a moment to jump. Wisdom: A few months later, Guthrie found a job “As you graduate and move “The next time you hear with a legal network looking for a lawyer into the future, if you haven’t fear whispering into your with TV experience. Opportunities and already found your passion, ear, remember your time challenges like those illustrated a point try to perceive what it is you at the George Washington she wanted to make to the graduates: Life really enjoy. Try to move in University and every lesson Watch Guthrie’s doesn’t follow a straight line. that direction and to remove learned that taught you to be speech and the “It was a zig-zagging, dotted, sometimes or go around any roadblocks brave, to look fear straight in full ceremony at or detours that you may the eyes, to say never again broken line, with pauses and detours and commencement. encounter. Most important, will you cause me to doubt beginnings that ended too soon and endings gwu.edu. that turned out to be beginnings,” she said. however, keep moving and myself and tell me I’m not Guthrie advised graduates to think big and persist.” good enough. Because that is then head in that “general direction.” —Former NASA “human not true.” “Your blossoming and your computer” and lauded aerospace —Student speaker Tyriana Evans, growth—which is to say, your engineer Christine Darden, DSc BA ’19 ’83, who at the ceremony was success—is always, always, given an honorary doctor of “I charge you to develop inevitably, on the other side science degree greater empathy every of a risk,” she said. “It’s day, in your personal and on the other side of a bold “Please remember, always be professional interactions choice. It’s on the edge, true to yourself, do everything and as part of your lifelong waiting for you, on the other you do from your heart. Listen journey of learning. I believe side of your fear.” to your heart.” that what you discover—from Even if a leap doesn’t —Businesswoman, philanthropist others, about others and with work out, “there is no wasted and widow of the late U.S. Sen. others—will have a positive opportunity,” Guthrie said. John McCain Cindy McCain, who influence on you and your “Your obstacles, at the ceremony was given an community. Each of us has your broken places, honorary doctor of public service something important to the spots where degree contribute to our society. you’ve healed, Make your contributions while the things you’ve lifting up others, too.” overcome—this —GW President Thomas LeBlanc is the source of your strength, and it also is the source of your beauty.” GUTHRIE, DARDEN, EVANS: RICK REINHARD / MCCAIN, LEBLANC: WILLIAM ATKINS gwmagazine.com / 17 [Q&A] ‘An Ever The spent nuclear fuel, more than 80,000 tons of it, sits at Tightening Tdozens of sites across the U.S., waiting for somewhere to be. It’s supposed to be deep beneath Gordian the surface, a thousand-year-to- all-time solution, but decades of effort and billions of dollars have Knot’ led only to political stalemate. So last year, a group of experts— including Allison Macfarlane, a GW professor and director of A new report finds the fate of spent the Institute for International nuclear fuel in the U.S. hopelessly Science and Technology Policy— tangled and calls for a radical convened five public meetings “reset.” hosted by GW and Stanford University. In a report last fall, the group concluded that the nation’s spent nuclear fuel is “caught in an ever tightening Gordian Knot,” an impossible tangle of science, law and politics, which won’t be untied. Instead the group calls for a “reset,” a new start. And this time they want to bypass politicians altogether. Macfarlane, who chaired the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission from 2012 to 2014, discussed the nuclear knot and what may be the nation’s best shot at beating it. —Danny Freedman, BA ’01

How did we get into this mess? Well we created the mess—all the waste—and we created it without having a plan for what we were going to do with it. In the 1980s, there was a concerted effort for the government to do something with this waste, and so they did, with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. And it was actually quite a well-thought-out piece of legislation. In 1986, when the Department of Energy got down to three top candidates—one was in the Texas panhandle, one

was at the Nevada test site where HAGERMAN ISTOCK.COM/ DAVID

18 / gw magazine / Summer 2019 Yucca Mountain is, and one was Is a “reset” possible? management structure. That will last a lot in Washington state—Congress Sure. If we didn’t think it were longer than having it be a federal agency balked at the price tag associated possible, we wouldn’t have done where you have changing faces every two to with characterizing those sites this. What really struck us is, four years. And then you would still have a and then started to have political if you look at other countries role for congressional oversight, and it would battles. The congressional that are making much more be regulated by the Nuclear Regulatory delegates from Washington and progress—like Canada, Finland, Commission, just like reactors. We’re Texas were pretty senior and Sweden, Switzerland—it’s not comfortable with nuclear power plants being they basically shoved it all off on their governments that are run by corporations, why shouldn’t we be Nevada, which had a very junior managing the spent fuel, it’s the comfortable with this? congressional delegation. They utility companies that made the amended the Nuclear Waste spent fuel. They’re the ones in The other panels, as you said, have Policy Act in 1987 and basically charge of managing and finding sounded the alarm and called for said the only place we’re going to a final disposal facility. It works similar changes. What’s different look is Yucca Mountain. a lot better because they have a this time? Nevada has adamantly financial incentive and they own With all the other ones there was some kind opposed that legislation. They all the stuff—they know where it of government role. Now we’re saying: Let’s call it the “Screw Nevada” bill. is, they know how old it is, they forget about the government. After 30 years And Congress really hasn’t had know its status. of failure, that’s pretty good evidence for me a stomach to go forward: The In the past, groups in the that they’re not succeeding. licensing process was only half U.S. have offered up different completed, and even if it were models of managing this The report also advocates for a more completed, Nevada would still material. The Blue Ribbon participatory approach, one that oppose it, and you need access to Commission on America’s gives communities the chance to water and other things that the Nuclear Future that President consent or even volunteer. Will they state has power over. Obama put together, which I volunteer? was a member of, recommended Well, they already have. That’s kind of the What are we doing with a federal corporation, like New sad thing about this whole situation. There’s this stuff, if we’re not York’s Port Authority or the a site in southeastern New Mexico and one storing it? Tennessee Valley Authority, in Texas, and they’re sort of ready to dip It’s all at the reactors where it which are corporations but still their toes into this process. But because was produced, and some high- government entities. What we’re Congress is just so focused on Yucca level waste is at the Department saying in this report is: Don’t Mountain, we’re going to lose these people. I of Energy nuclear weapons bother with that. Just give it over think a combination looking for volunteers, complex facilities. So it’s at 65 to the nuclear industry. They but also approaching communities that are sites around the country. And made this, they know what it is, comfortable with nuclear technology, is that doesn’t seem like a good they should manage it. important. plan, does it? Every nuclear power plant Of course, companies have What’s the incentive for those has to have a cooling pool for their own interests. Were communities? spent fuel. But the pools were there concerns about that? Well, they’ll have jobs. These projects take a never intended to have the spent Initially I think some of us had long time. First you have to do years’ worth fuel very long. Most pools are those concerns, but it will all be Allison of technical analyses, then it’s going to take full, or close to full, so most regulated, right? So it just sort of Macfarlane a while to construct it and load the fuel, and plants have these steel-lined, dawned on a lot of us that, well then you want to monitor it for a hundred concrete overpack storage casks actually, maybe this is a really years. There are not many industrial where the fuel can go after about good idea. Maybe this is the one facilities that you’re sure will provide jobs for five years in the pool, until some way to make it work. Because over a hundred years. of the radiation has dissipated. right now, politicians aren’t This is totally temporary. really interested in solving Where do the recommendations go? They’re licensed for 20 years, this problem, they’re We’ve been to Congress. We talked to the and we don’t know how long interested in getting nuclear industry folks. The next step is to they’ll last. Of the early ones that elected again. offer more detail about the legal and the were licensed in the 1980s, their It would have to financial piece of this; those were questions licenses have been extended be established by the that we got. It’s a long shot, but I think once. Maybe they’re going to be nuclear industry, but really we need outside-of-the-box thinking extended twice, we’ll see. We’re also be independent from right now, because we’re not getting still trying to understand some of them; you can’t have the anywhere just hammering away at the the aging issues associated with CEOs meddling. It would have same old arguments. these casks. a CEO, a board structure, a

gwmagazine.com / 19 [arts] My Faire Lady

When Virginia’s Renaissance festival folded in 1999, alumna Cornelia Rutherford put up her $52,000 retirement to save it.

By Matthew Stoss

Dismayed by the folding of Virginia’s Operating on about a $170,000 $90,000. DRenaissance festival in 1999, Cornelia Virginia budget, the handmade and “If I had known what I Rutherford, MFS ’86, a refugee “cast Renaissance Faire largely volunteer event draws, know now, there would be no member,” decided to resurrect what had founder Cornelia depending on how much it rains, Virginia Renaissance Faire,” been made dead. Rutherford 17,000 to 21,000 “patrons” every says Rutherford, who also has “I found out what a drug it is to make dressed as year for five weekends in May a bachelor’s degree in physical people smile,” says Rutherford, who turns 68 Mildred Cecil, and June. anthropology from Ohio State. in September and is retired from careers in Lady Burghley The VaRF has lately “It would’ve scared the living health care information systems and working (1526 to 1589), outgrown its leased home of 15 daylights out of me—and I at a pathology lab. “When you can make an English years—a sloped clearing with should’ve been scared but I people laugh, it feeds your soul. And when noblewoman limited parking just outside didn’t know enough at the time they closed that fair after four years, they left who served as an Fredericksburg in the Lake to know how daunting a task it a lot of us dressed up and nowhere to play. adviser to Queen Anna Winery’s backyard—and would be. All I knew was that I We went the whole year with nothing, and it Elizabeth I. is thus trying to move to a really missed it.” was like withdrawal, and every time we got nearby 500 or so acres. There, Rutherford’s daughter, together, we’d fall into a pattern of bouncing for a price of around $2 million, Emily Whittacre, got her into bits off each other. Rutherford can establish a Renaissance fairing. Whittacre “They need this art form to make them permanent home for the VaRF worked the VaRF’s predecessor, whole, and part of the art form is sharing it and, ideally, build a year- which ran from 1996 to 1999, with the people. That’s what compelled me to round common-use space for and Rutherford, with her affinity start this fair. It was killing me not to do this Spotsylvania County, 60-some for history and performing, got anymore because in my regular job I did a lot miles south of Washington, D.C. recruited. She made friends and of sad things, and this was a happy thing.” She and the VaRF continue to found a real world application So Rutherford helped save it. raise funds, but Rutherford is the for her affected English accent On April 19, 2002, she and a handful of force that made it all happen. At that, she claims, has passed for her fellow fair 1.0 veterans restarted the 50 years old, she just had to cash the real thing among our former festival, dubbing it the Virginia Renaissance out her, at the time, $52,000 Colonial potentates. Faire. Seventeen years later, the VaRF is a retirement stash and blow the Seems plausible. Rutherford self-sustaining nonprofit with hundreds of limits on several credit cards is as entertaining as she is thousands of rainy day dollars in the bank. to debt herself up by around quotable, speaking in aphorism, KEVIN HEDGECOCK

20 / gw magazine / Summer 2019 discoursing in adage. She detests area with a taste for the English I jumped off a cliff and they followed. For snakes—“Locomotin’ without Renaissance—the meat of which whatever reason, they followed—and look legs ain’t natural,” she says, happened, roughly, between what we did. We did that. We did this thing the native Ohioan summoning Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. from nothing. We did it. And if I hadn’t, I a Southern accent—and she “I’d think it was a big deal if would go to my grave wondering if I could describes one man as looking we got more than 400 people to have.” “like an unmade bed.” Ideas show up one day,” says Meredith The Virginia Renaissance Faire, one to her can be “intellectually Eriksen, the VaRF’s general of hundreds nationwide, operates with orgasmic” and she says that manager and budget master a complement of about 150, depending dressing like an English woman for about 15 years. Eriksen is on the year. This includes the staff—first from 1568—the year the VaRF is known as “She Who Says No,” aid, groundskeepers, vendors—and the set—is tantamount to “wearing a the business degree-bearing costumed performers who do 16th-century- sofa for hours.” realist to Rutherford’s flavored improv and instruct at the various At the fair, Rutherford does fluttering dreamer. Just ask tents, giving the VaRF its educational a little bit of everything. Stacey her about the Faire’s early emphasis. There’s an armory, a scullery, Hamilton, MFA ’19, who plays a days. pillories, and tents where you can 30-something Queen Elizabeth, “I would’ve learn about, among other period called Rutherford their “Faire smothered it in its things, naval navigation and mom.” cradle,” she says, bookbinding. There’s also food On the second to last day laughing. “I would’ve of the English Renaissance— of this year’s fair, Rutherford said, ‘There’s no way we even the grownups giggle at the even gives directions to lost and will ever make it work. “fartes”—and stage acts: dancers, jousters, would-be patrons when they call This is dumb. This is impossible Stacey Hamilton, minstrels and magicians. A few are paid the main VaRF number. It is also from a financial perspective.’ … MFA ’19, has for performers. They professionally ride the Rutherford’s number. But Cornelia is just irreplaceable. years portrayed “fair circuit” to pry a living from a hobby. “I’m sorry,” she says, reaching Her strength of belief makes you Queen Elizabeth Back on the second to last day of the 2019 for the non-Apple smartphone want to believe. It’s like, ‘Well, I I at the Virginia Faire, Rutherford is making her morning playing the Ohio State fight song gotta help her make this happen. Renaissance rounds. She’s not dressed as the historical inside her shirt. “My bosom’s Look at her. She’s going to do it Faire. In Mildred Cecil, Lady Burghley—an adviser ringing again.” anyway.’” this issue’s to Queen Elizabeth I—as she will be when The early years of the Slowly, the staff and cast installment of she closes the day with a reverent peroration resurrected fair weren’t as good made it work by adopting some “Institutional of that Tempest soliloquy you may remember as these. Before 2004, it was an version of We’ve got to save Knowledge,” she from a high school English class. itinerant happening. A small Cornie’s golden years since she teaches us how We are such stuff as dreams are made on… troupe roamed Virginia putting mortgaged them for our fair. They to dress like an That’s a tradition at Cornelia Rutherford’s on makeshift shows wherever established a five-person board of Elizabethan. show. they could, entertaining directors anchored by Eriksen, Page 64. “People are not going to remember me as themselves as much as their Pantazis and Rutherford, who the world’s worst housekeeper—although patrons—fields, parks and kept the VaRF together in its maybe they should, because I am,” she says wineries among their bivouacked first years with sheer hustle and later. “They’re not going to remember me as venues. mulish will. an oboe player or someone who got a forensic “One day,” longtime When the Faire lost $32,000 science degree from GW or went to The Ohio production director Chris worth of tents, props and State University or the crazy cat lady or the Pantazis says, “we had five costumes—someone cut the lady with the goofy fingernail polish I get people.” lock on their self-storage unit— when it’s not fair season. They’re going to Pantazis, a biology professor during the Faire’s penurious remember that once upon a time there was a at John Tyler Community travelin’ days, Rutherford made lady that made this thing happen. College in suburban Richmond, a handshake deal to secure new “As long as my fair exists, I will live and says three of them ended up tents from a Northern Virginia people will be smiling because of something joining the VaRF. Typical crowds vendor. Over the next several we did, that everyone said we couldn’t do—it in those years were in the low years, Rutherford bought and wouldn’t work. They were wrong. I just think hundreds, peaking in Northern paid off the tents. They’re still it’s an example to anybody that if you have Virginia where most of the cast used today. Rutherford also has an idea and you really believe in it and you’re and crew lived. recouped her retirement (and willing to cast fear aside and just put your The old fair also was near more). She says it took her 12 head down and go for it, you can do it. And Fredericksburg and it left a years. you know what? If it hadn’t worked out, and vestigial cachet, boosted by “It’s only money,” Rutherford at the end of the year everyone said, ‘Screw the proximity of the Maryland says. “After all that, I made you lady, this sucked,’ it was just money and Renaissance Festival in not-so- something special. I did it with I’ll make it back, and I tried. What the hell.” far-away Annapolis. So it’s an the help of a lot of people and

gwmagazine.com / 21 [history] Russman, now 81, by phone their jobs because they would in June from his home in have to cross the disputed Harrisonburg, Va., three months border. This was a potentially after the 40th anniversary of lethal risk, and theodolites Egypt and Israel’s peace treaty. make poor weapons. Surveying “That was the bottom line. This The sides, Russman says, was a very important part of the eventually found detente in the agreement.” shared tongue of surveying. Diplomacy The United States acted as “They talked the same mediator, shipping an all-star language—and these weren’t team of diplomats to Cairo. political guys,” Russman says. In 1986, geodesist Robert Russman, BS ’80, Russman joined them as a “These were technical guys.” had a role in finalizing a lingering component technical expert and he would When the two sides of the Camp David Accords: a peace treaty oversee and assuage the feuding proceeded after a mollification, survey teams, each with a it was with a Russman- between Egypt and Israel. roster of five or six men. At the proposed arbitrary “datum,” DMA, now called the National or neutral starting point, from By Matthew Stoss Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which each side could plot its the Rockville, Md., native did border. Since maps at a high defense maps but says he rarely enough magnification are dealt with boundaries. And if classified for military purposes, he did, the boundaries weren’t Russman’s arbitrary datum separating enemies. meant that neither country “Two of the [surveying] marks would need to let the other between the countries were peek at its cartographic intel. only a meter apart,” Russman With their data safe, says. “And I said something one Russman says, the surveying day—I think it was to the Israeli progressed amicably. He team—I said, ‘Why don’t you just ended up staying for 52 days divide the difference in half and as the teams, relieved of peril, For years after the signing of the Camp David Accords—the 1978 call that the boundary?’ And he surveyed and made their Ftalks stewarded by President Jimmy Carter that in 1979 put peace in said, ‘Well, our blood’s in this borders, and the first treaty writing between Israel and Egypt—the treaty had loose ends. Robert sand and we’re not going to do between an Arab country and Russman, BS ’80, helped tie one of them. that.’ So, I never brought that up Israel eventually went final. In 1986, Russman, then a 48-year-old high-ranking geodesist in again.” “I thought it was a really what was then called the Defense Mapping Agency, performed an To shore up the treaty parts great experience,” Russman act of micro-diplomacy. He persuaded rival survey teams to coexist still dangling, Egypt and Israel says. “Most of the time we long enough to plot their respective versions of the Egyptian-Israeli had to agree on a border and, were in the field, climbing border, which had been contested since 1967 when Israel seized the very notably, to whom Taba and surveying, and we were Sinai Peninsula during the Six-Day War. belonged. When Russman working with people on a very Each country would later pitch its borders to a tribunal in Geneva. arrived in July 1986 for what sensitive situation. I think it The tribunal ruled in 1988 for Egypt and forced Israel to return was supposed to be a weeklong was one of the most exciting seized lands, including the very coveted gulf-side resort town of Taba. assignment, distrust had forced jobs I’ve ever been on.” “Without having this settled, there was not going to be an a standoff. Russman says the agreement and the ambassadors would not be exchanged,” says survey teams were afraid to do

The Sinai peninsula STOCK.COM/HARVEPINO i

22 / gw magazine / Summer 2019 [art] had unpleasant experiences. As part of the exhibition, the For her master’s But a particularly frightening building’s rotunda was occupied thesis, Margaret encounter with an aggressive by large-scale installations like Wroblewski man a few years ago pushed her senior Kelly Tumulty’s “A Place photographed from discomfort to action. to Rest,” a dreamlike forest A people who have “It was a fairly small incident, diorama where bones peek been harassed on public but it got me really angry,” through moss. Downstairs, transportation. she says. “I thought, ‘I have to senior Seung Hyun Rhee’s Glimpse do something about this, it’s “Homesick” explored the tension Wroblewski says her personal disgusting.’” between his adopted hometown experience inspired Her master’s thesis project of Washington and his home of What’s the project. at the Corcoran School of country of South Korea via the Arts and Design, entitled photographic collages of Korean “Underground,” is the fruit pop stars superimposed on ‘NEXT’ of that resolution. It features spaces like his D.C. apartment. 25 large-scale portraits of Upstairs on the building’s riders who have been sexually bridge, visitors at the show’s At the Corcoran School’s harassed on public transit, most opening sat meditatively in annual thesis exhibition, in Washington but some from real Metro seats installed next other cities on the East Coast. to Wroblewski’s photographs. students in disciplines Alongside the portraits, the The effect was to create a sense from dance to photography victims share a short excerpt of of intimacy by putting viewers display their work. their stories. alongside survivors. Wroblewski’s work was “I’ve had women reach out among those featured in NEXT to me and say, ‘Thank you for 2019, the Corcoran’s annual creating this project—now thesis exhibition—including the I know I’m not alone,’” says work of graduate students and Wroblewski, who solicited senior undergrads in programs stories and sitters via Instagram ranging from digital media beginning in 2017. “I want to give design, fine art and photography space for women to talk about to theater, dance and exhibition what happened to them and Margaret Wroblewski, MA ’19, has been a design—which ran in the Flagg share it.” —Ruth Steinhardt Mdaily Metro commuter for years, and like Building for about three weeks SYDNEY ELLE GRAY other riders, the Olney, Md., native has this spring.

gwmagazine.com / 23 Sports [philanthropy] New, $5 Million Institute to Fight Online Misleading Nate Fassnacht Information

[BASEBALL] Knight Foundation is funding GW’s Institute of Data, Democracy, and Phillies, Red Sox Draft Politics. Fassnacht, D’Alessandro

The Philadelphia Phillies drafted Atlantic 10 Player of the Year and GW junior shortstop Nate Fassnacht in the eighth round of the 2019 Major League Baseball draft. Fassnacht, who hit .372 with 11 home runs and 60 RBIs this season, went 240th overall, becoming the highest drafted GW player since Eric Cantrell went in the seventh round in 2010 Senior first baseman Dom D’Alessandro—who had the second A new research institute at GW will fight distorted and highest batting average in Division I (.423) and led the A-10 in Amisleading online information and work to educate home runs (13), slugging percentage (.668) and on-base percentage policymakers and journalists on how to grapple with the (.506)—got drafted by the Red Sox. Boston picked D’Alessandro threat to democracy posed by digital propaganda and in the 22nd round. He went 677th overall. The MLB draft has 40 deception. rounds. The Institute for Data, Democracy, and Politics— supported by a $5 million investment from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation—will be a research hub for [WOMEN’S BASKETBALL] [SOFTBALL] tracking the spread of distorted information online, sharing research and hosting events on combating disinformation. Rizzotti Jenna Cone IDDP researchers will produce timely publications about the role of online content related to current events again on U.S. Named A-10 to better inform public policy debates. They also will assist national team MVP journalists in developing stories that help correct distorted public narratives. coaching staff Steven Livingston, professor of media and public affairs After leading GW to a program- and of international affairs, will be the inaugural director GW women’s basketball coach record 42 wins and a share of the of the institute, which is a cross-disciplinary initiative of Jennifer Rizzotti will again serve Atlantic 10 title, Jenna Cone was the School of Media and Public Affairs. IDDP will bring as an assistant coach on the USA named the league’s 2019 Softball together GW faculty members specializing in data analysis Basketball Women’s National Player of the Year. The junior and the study of technology and media and will collaborate Team when it competes in the third baseman hit .381 (72-for- with the Poynter Institute. Poynter’s PolitiFact is the largest 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. This 189) with 20 home runs and 67 political fact-checking news organization in the United will be Rizzotti’s eighth stint as RBIs. She is the program’s all- States and winner of a Pulitzer Prize. a national team assistant. South time leader in home runs, RBIs Knight Foundation was founded nearly 70 years ago Carolina’s Dawn Staley is the and total bases. by the late Knight brothers, John and James, of Knight- national team’s head coach. Ridder Newspapers. Today, Knight Foundation invests in fields spanning journalism, technology and the arts to foster informed and engaged communities and promote

democracy. ATHLETICS COMMUNICATIONS

24 / gw magazine / Summer 2019 Briefly...

In April in Washington, D.C., the inaugural GW Leadership Advisory Council held its first meeting. This group of presidentially appointed, distinguished alumni advises GW President Thomas J. LeBlanc and 62 university leadership on strategic initiatives intended The number of to further GW’s efforts to achieve preeminence. Learn awardees this more about the council: go.gwu.edu/gwlac. spring of the Harry S. Truman Scholarship— including junior political communications major André Gonzales— A gift from former Board of Trustees member from a pool of Jay Katzen, BA ’67, MD ’72, and the Dr. Cyrus Katzen 840 students Foundation will establish an endowment to name nominated by the top post at the GW Cancer Center after Katzen’s UPDATES AND ARRIVALS nearly 350 colleges late father and to help fuel the center’s growth. The and universities. Dr. Cyrus Katzen Family Director of the GW Cancer Museum studies professor and Assistant Director Recipients receive Center will be filled by the center’s current leader, for Academic Affairs at the Corcoran School of the $30,000 toward Eduardo Sotomayor. The endowment follows a $10 Arts and Design Kym Rice, PhD ’15, will serve as their graduate million, cancer-related gift from Cyrus and Myrtle interim director of the school following the departure studies. Katzen in 2008. of Sanjit Sethi, who became president of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs and Professor of Law MEANWHILE, Christopher A. Bracey will serve as interim dean of GW Law, following Dean Blake D. Morant stepping DOWN THE STREET ... down to return to the faculty after five years in the post. 42 John Lach, an electrical and computer engineering The number of professor at the University of Virginia and director of years Professor its engineering school’s cross-cutting initiatives, has of Theatre Leslie been named dean of GW’s School of Engineering and Jacobson served on Applied Science. Associate Dean Rumana Riffat has the faculty before The Senate in late In July, President Trump served as interim dean since David Dolling stepped announcing her July confirmed announced that two down last summer after 10 years in the role. retirement this Mark Esper, PhD ’08, researchers from the School spring. Jacobson’s by a 90-8 vote as of Engineering and Applied The Columbian College has named Mary Tschirhart, work as a director, the U.S. secretary Science are among the a professor at the John Glenn College of Public producer, writer of defense. Esper recipients of the Presidential Affairs at Ohio State University, the new director of and teacher, on succeeds James Early Career Award for the Trachtenberg School of Public Policy and Public campus and off— Mattis, who resigned Scientists and Engineers: Administration. She succeeds Kathryn Newcomer, from Horizons in December. Esper, a Chunlei Liang, an associate who will return to full-time teaching and research. Theatre, where she West Point graduate, professor in the Department was the founding was most recently of Mechanical and Aerospace And joining the senior administration are: Jared artistic director; to the secretary of Engineering, and Volker Abramson as GW’s inaugural vice president for writing, producing the Army. He also Sorger, an associate financial planning and operations, who previously and directing at served as the deputy professor in the Department served as vice chairman for administration and the U.S. Capitol; to assistant secretary of Electrical and Computer finance for the University of Miami’s Department leading workshops of defense under Engineering. According to a of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences; Patricia with D.C. students, President George W. news release, the award is the Carocci as senior associate vice president of alumni the homeless, Bush. “highest honor bestowed” relations and annual giving, who most recently served and incarcerated by the government to early as director of advancement at the Spence School in women—made her career researchers. New York; and Dana Bradley as vice president and a widely respected chief people officer, who arrives from Northwestern presence in the University where she was associate vice president for city’s theater

CANCER CENTER: BIOMEDICAL COMMUNICATIONS CANCER CENTER: BIOMEDICAL human resources. community.

gwmagazine.com / 25 George Welcomes

Headliners at University Events “Democratic socialism means, to me, requiring and achieving political and economic freedom in every community in this country.” Presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in a speech on campus in June, defining the label that’s often applied to him as a pejorative, and contrasting it with what he called “corporate socialism,” by which the rich avoid taxation and large corporations get taxpayer-funded bailouts. Sanders proposed an “economic bill of rights” that would codify Americans’ right to a living wage, health care, education, affordable housing, a clean environment and a secure retirement.

“Unfortunately, progress will come at the expense of mistakes that will “If you happen to be almost pull us apart as a one of the nearly 700 society, and my goal here million people that still is to get the conversation live in extreme poverty going … before we have today, this success means our own version of nothing to you.” Hiroshima.” World Bank CEO Kristalina Georgieva Manoj Saxena, the first general manager offering the flipside of the coin after noting of IBM Watson, from 2011-2014, and now recent gains against extreme poverty: While executive chairman of CognitiveScale, 36 percent of the world lived in extreme warning of the dangers of artificial poverty in 1990, she said, the estimates for intelligence systems if they’re not designed 2018 indicate it’s now just over 8 percent. responsibly and are given too much authority She spoke on campus in April as part of the over complex decisions. Saxena spoke on School of Business’ “George Talks Business” campus in April as part of the School of

series. Business’ “George Talks Business” series. DIGITAL ILLUSTRATIONS BASED ON PHOTOGRAPHS BY HARRISON JONES: GEORGIEVA, SANDERS / SAXENA: ABBY GREENAWALT

26 / gw magazine / Summer 2019 The astronauts spoke in July at Lisner Auditorium during “One “In international Giant Leap: Space Diplomacy Past, Present, Future,” an event co-sponsored by the Elliott School of International Affairs and cooperation, there’s its Space Policy Institute in partnership with the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum and the U.S. State always a tension between Department. It marked the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 sovereignty and defense.” mission that landed Buzz Aldrin and the late Neil Armstrong on the moon. Michael Collins was the command module pilot. Director of Europol’s counterterrorism center Manuel Navarrete in June on threats the European Union faces from, notably, the Islamic State and right-wing ideology. The event, sponsored by the Program on Extremism, was held in the Jacob Burns Moot Court Room at the GW Law School.

“It might slow us down a little bit in some cases, but I’m not sure speed is the paramount goal in mind. I think getting the job done, getting it done by all inhabitants that “Neil’s words were a are able, inhabitants small step and a giant of the globe, is more leap. I think a number important.” of us are still waiting for Michael Collins on the United States taking a unified, worldwide approach to space that giant leap.” exploration, spoke as part of the Computer Buzz Aldrin on the future of space Science Department’s Internet Distinguished exploration, referencing Neil Armstrong’s

DIGITAL ILLUSTRATIONS BASED ON PHOTOGRAPHS BY HARRISON JONES: COLLINS, ARMSTRONG / NAVARRETE: PROGRAM ON EXTREMISM Speaker Series first words on the moon

gwmagazine.com / 27 Bookshelves

I agonized over the first line of my book, especially because this first chapter was not originally the first chapter. I initially started the book with Hanssen triumphant on the bridge at Foxstone Park after his final drop of secrets to the Russians. I ultimately decided to start my story where stories usually start—at the beginning.

These words paint a very detailed image. I was an Eagle Scout. Gene was in a rush to meet with the FBI director. He must have assumed I would say yes, but he’d still have to argue the case to the director. I sometimes wonder how my life would have turned out had This sentence captures I told Gene no. everything about that cold, little apartment.

My goal in the Hanssen case was not just to hunt a master spy, but also to make sure I did not lose my wife while doing so. The case caught me up in an immense web of lies and deceit. In many ways, Gray Day is an apology letter to Juliana.

Gene would later tell me that the decision about who to put in room 9930 with Hanssen sparked a minor war among the small squad of FBI agents responsible for the case. Numerous agents desperately wanted the career-making job—but Gene proposed me from the start. None of those covert agents knew enough about computers to do the overt job of cybersecurity.

Annotated: Eric O’Neill, JD ’03, offers insights into Page 1 of his book, Gray Day: My Undercover Mission to Expose America’s First Cyber Spy.

28 / gw magazine / Summer 2019 The Great War in America: World War I introduction. He once offered a prospective and Its Aftermath (Pegasus Books, 2018) football coach a higher salary than the coach By Garrett Peck, MA ’96 at powerhouse Clemson, only to be rebuffed. More than 116,000 Americans were killed What did the coach want? “Winnebagos on in World War I, during which more than 4 Wednesday.” Scott Cowen is stumped, so the million Americans served. The country took coach explains: He wants a football program a while to enter the so-called Great War, so good, people start camping in their RVs whose cause divided the nation even after on Wednesdays for games on Saturdays. the war had ended. The U.S. also discovered It made Cowen think long and hard about other things stateside in the aftermath of higher education’s ultimate purpose. the war: race riots, a Red Scare, women’s suffrage, and prohibition. The book tells the Never Lose a Customer Again: Turn Any story of “a nation that was rapidly growing Sale into Lifelong Loyalty in 100 Days up—and yet not mature enough to accept its (Portfolio, 2018) By Joey Coleman, JD ’98 global responsibilities.” “All business is ultimately the same, because all business boils down to humans dealing The Hill to Die On: The Battle for Congress with humans,” writes the author, who Gray Day: My Undercover Mission and the Future of Trump’s America advocates for an H2H (human to human) to Expose America’s First Cyber Spy (Crown, 2019) By Jake Sherman, BA ’08, mindset. That approach considers not only (Crown, 2019) By Eric O’Neill, JD ’03 and Anna Palmer people who buy a product, but also the The culmination of 26 months of reporting others who interact with it. Perhaps nothing by co-authors of the Politico Playbook shows the author meeting his customers Spy vs. Spy newsletter, this narrative-driven book puts where they are more than this guarantee: readers beside politicians at key moments— He will refund the book to anyone who The memoir begins with Eric O’Neill of Donald Trump phones a congressman to disagrees with his mentality. the FBI rushing out to meet a supervisor ask about Mike Pence, only to reveal Pence who showed up unannounced at is sitting with him; the moment before John Where Epics Fail: Meditations to Live his home on a Sunday morning. The McCain votes against repealing Obamacare; By (Unbound, 2018) and Trump seeing Brett Kavanaugh as By Yahia Lababidi, BA ’96 supervisor had a new assignment too D.C. and too akin to the chief justice. Among the more than 800 aphorisms for O’Neill: Investigate FBI agent and Throughout, one gets the impression that in this small book are: “There’s nothing computer expert Robert Hanssen. Code- Congress (and perhaps Washington at large) casual about intimacy, or passing through named “Gray Day,” Hanssen turned is “one of the pettiest collections of adults a temple without bowing.” And, “If we out to be one of the most notorious the planet has ever seen.” gaze deeply into our own wound, we also moles in U.S. history. As the supervisor see the wounds of others.” And, “Whether Winnebagos on Wednesdays: How or not we are aware of it, our biography is tells O’Neill, “Kiddo, this is the biggest Visionary Leadership Can Transform perpetually being written—by the books case we’ve ever run,” or as O’Neill puts Higher Education (Princeton University on our shelves.” A reader is inclined to it himself, “Catching Hanssen was the Press, 2018) By Scott Cowen, MBA ’72, add one more: Reading this book without intelligence-community equivalent DBA ’75, with Betsy Seifter thinking long and hard about the short of dredging Nessie from Inverness’s The author, a former Tulane University observations would be an underestimation president, explains the title in the deepest loch.” With all the deceit along of its thoughtfulness. the way, O’Neill had to be careful that he didn’t lose his marriage, too. – Menachem Wecker, MA ’09 ALL IMAGES: WILLIAM ATKINS

gwmagazine.com / 29 SALLY MONTANA/REDUX SALLY

SOMETIMES I THINK WHEN YOU’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF IT, YOU DON’T FULLY APPRECIATE THE MASSIVE CHANGES THAT ARE TAKING PLACE. // I WISH I COULD FALL BACK ON SOME HISTORICAL CONTEXT TO KNOW HOW ANOTHER GENERATION OF JOURNALISTS DEALT

30 / gw magazine / Summer 2019 EXCLUSIVE ‘A COMPETITION FOR FACTS’ MEET THE PRESS HOST CHUCK TODD Q&As WITH GW MAGAZINE ABOUT POLITICAL JOURNALISM, ‘BOTH SIDES’ AND THE SLOW DEATH OF GOOD FAITH. // BY MATTHEW STOSS

SOMETIMES I THINK WHEN YOU’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF IT, YOU DON’T FULLY APPRECIATE THE MASSIVE CHANGES THAT ARE TAKING PLACE. // I WISH I COULD FALL BACK ON SOME HISTORICAL CONTEXT TO KNOW HOW ANOTHER GENERATION OF JOURNALISTS DEALT

gwmagazine.com / 31 EXCLUSIVE TEXT TO KNOW HOW ANOTHER GENERATION OF JOURNALISTS DEALT WITH SIMILAR SITUATIONS, BUT I DON’T THINK WE’VE HAD A SIMILAR SITUATION. // WE’RE SO MUCH MORE COMBATIVE IN SOME WAYS WITH PEOPLE TODAY, AND I THINK PEOPLE THINK

32 / gw magazine / Summer 2019 CHUCK TODD FEARS THE FUTURE. THE MEET THE PRESS HOST WONDERS WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN IF PARTISAN REALITIES AND WILLFUL DERANGEMENT CONTINUE TO DEFINE U.S. POLITICS— ALTHOUGH, HE CONCEDES, THAT WHAT’S LEFT OF THE PLANET MIGHT JUST MELT BEFORE ANY OF US SEES IF POLITICS GETS WORSE OR BETTER.

IN JULY, TODD, WHO ATTENDED GW IN THE EARLY 1990S, CHATTED WITH GW MAGAZINE ABOUT WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE A JOURNALIST TODAY. OCCASIONALLY EXASPERATED AND RELUCTANTLY FATALISTIC, ALL WHILE SUPPRESSING A CYNICISM THAT FEELS MORE AND MORE RATIONAL, TODD COVERED THE FLOURISHING OF PARTISAN MEDIA, THE FIGHT FOR ANY KIND OF OBJECTIVE TRUTH AND HOW CLOSE JOURNALISM (AND US) MIGHT BE TO CALAMITY.

THIS Q&A IS LIGHTLY EDITED FOR CLARITY. CHUCK TODD: NBC NEWSWIRE / CONTRIBUTOR / TV EQUIPMENT: ISTOCK.COM/DPMIKE

TEXT TO KNOW HOW ANOTHER GENERATION OF JOURNALISTS DEALT WITH SIMILAR SITUATIONS, BUT I DON’T THINK WE’VE HAD A SIMILAR SITUATION. // WE’RE SO MUCH MORE COMBATIVE IN SOME WAYS WITH PEOPLE TODAY, AND I THINK PEOPLE THINK

gwmagazine.com / 33 What’s it like to cover During the Nixon era, you job, you’re going to make people mad and politics today? had a handful of television people aren’t going to like you, and you have networks, radio and the to get over the personal. I think the problem with too many of my colleagues is they worry It certainly feels a lot different than it did major newspapers, and that too much about their social media likes. just four years ago, which is a lot different was about it. At that point, And I think that there are too many people than it did four years before that. Sometimes all of those entities pretty that are trying too hard to please a group I think when you’re in the middle of it, you of people. And there’s comfort in pleasing a don’t fully appreciate the massive changes much agreed, more or less, group of people. that are taking place. You sort of deal with on what was happening. But You have to make adjustments and accept the incremental, in the moment. You don’t today you have I don’t know the fact that you’re going to make people appreciate what is actually taking place until how many other outlets, and mad, and you’re going to make people mad in a few years later and you’re like, “Oh wow, I different ways. I didn’t know it was going to think I know what happened.” there’s competition for a come in the form of death threats and I didn’t So for instance, we’re in a place now—and perspective— know it would come in the form of character part of this goes back to the essay I wrote in assassination and things like that. That just The Atlantic [in September 2018]—where sort of comes with the turf if you’re going to I think there has been a campaign against Well, there’s competition for facts. This cover American politics in the 21st century the media and journalism in general. It is the problem. It used to be there was right now, because it’s brutal with what’s was mostly from the right for a generation. a competition for ideas. Now we have a happening. We’ve got to prove—those of us Basically, it’s what I grew up with. My entire competition for facts, and I think we have that care about keeping this Fourth Estate lifetime has seen this. It started at the end such a fear of losing that competition that it held up a little here—I think we have to prove of the Nixon era when I was born, and you has changed almost how some people engage that we can cover this honestly and fairly and could argue that it’s culminated today in this in journalism. This is our biggest challenge aggressively and knowledgeably. modern conservative echo chamber. But it yet. Just the fact that there’s a competition We covered the campaign as a referendum has successfully, I think, put the press more for the truth—for facts right now. In a way, on Donald Trump when it was a referendum in the crosshairs. that sounds alarmist when I say it out loud, on Hillary Clinton. We should’ve framed There have been other times when the you repeating it back, but what else do you the election the way the voters framed the press has been caught in the middle of plenty call it? How would you round that edge? election. We were framing the election in of political disputes and plenty of issues, but But it does feel like that’s where we our point of view. We had dealt with Donald I do think with partisanship so acute, there’s are right now, and you have a group of Trump. We realized what we were getting in this idea that information itself is part of the consumers who have made a decision on Donald Trump because I think we all knew warfare. It’s just made a unique challenge. what to believe based on what culturally him better than the public did, especially I wish I could fall back on some historical makes them comfortable, not on the merits those of us who had covered him for a long context to know how another generation of of whether that news organization has been period of time. But that wasn’t what the journalists dealt with similar situations, but right or wrong more often than not. It’s, “Oh, voters were doing. In political journalism, I don’t think we’ve had a similar situation. I no, no, no, no, no, but they get me, so I believe you can’t tell the voters how to think. You think we’re all just feeling our way around that.” gotta, at times, also report what they’re right now, but it is definitely changed. I think thinking, too. who watches and engages with political Voters were having a different media has changed and I think we’re still conversation. For them, it was a referendum trying to figure out what journalism is going Have you made adjustments? on Clinton, but it was a referendum on to look like in the next decade. Have you seen adjustments Clinton for even different reasons than we thought. It was a referendum on the in the field? establishment. It was a referendum on the politics of the last 25 years. It was a We’re so much more combative in some referendum on that. We were framing it ways with people today, and I think people another way than the voters were framing it. think we’re not combative enough. But I think that Trump’s personality so I think in some ways we’re much more consumed the press corps that we missed antagonistic collectively as a press than we that big of a reminder. And the fact is is that were just five years ago, and you know what? clues were all over the place. Bernie Sanders That, I think, is kind of healthy. crushed Clinton in places like Michigan I came to my own sort of philosophical zen and Wisconsin, so then we’re surprised that about this a few years ago, at the beginning she can’t cover places like Michigan and of the Trump administration. It was like, Wisconsin. You know what I mean? It’s not as look, you’ve got to make a decision. You can if it wasn’t staring us in the face. do your job, and you realize when you do your EXCLUSIVE ME WAYS WITH PEOPLE TODAY, AND I THINK PEOPLE THINK WE’RE NOT COMBATIVE ENOUGH. // YOU HAVE TO MAKE ADJUSTMENTS AND ACCEPT THE FACT THAT YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE PEOPLE MAD. // I THINK THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM AS WE KNOW IT IS

34 / gw magazine / Summer 2019 Do you have any thoughts on You talked about facts. It Democratic Party starts to have splintering 2020 and how it’s going to go used to be, at least the way I aspects to it that say, “You know what? for the media? thought about it, that people Maybe we’ve got to start fighting fire with fire,” and we start to see tactics that we were afraid to look bad or condemn today being embraced. I want to be careful, in that I think it’s get caught lying, and that Whoever is winning, somebody is trying pretty consequential. Meaning, I think offered some recourse for to copy how they did it and do it again. That ISTOCK.COM/ POPPYPIXELS the future of journalism as we know it is to me is what makes 2020 so consequential, actually at stake in some ways. Look, in the journalists because their because the fallout for the losing side has 19th century, our media was very partisan. subjects’ reputations held major implications for my industry but There’s a reason why there are all these them accountable. also major implications for how politics is legacy newspapers that have Democrat practiced and how honorable politics is or and Republican in their name. Some isn’t over the next decade. communities were three newspaper towns. That’s right. What was our ability to get There were the Whigs, the Republicans and results? We shamed people. What happened? the Democrats. That was the primary means What did Trump hack? How did he hack the of political communication then, and I think system? By being shameless. If you don’t feel Where would journalists fit there’s a chance that we’re going to go much shame for your actions, and the bad press in that? To me, it seems like deeper down that road, depending on which doesn’t bother you or you can live with it or direction things go. explain it away—that is Trump’s superpower. there’s very little good faith Here’s what I do know: The losing party I don’t know if another politician can pull left. Even the spokespeople is going to go through a set of recriminations it off. Every other politician that has tried they put out, while they’re that we have never seen before. The internal to be as aggressive as he can be sometimes, fighting in that party—it will drag the press denying what is obvious, it has not gone well on TV, you could show video into it in some ways—but the losing party is for them. of them saying something just going to have, an epic, epic civil war. Now, politics is a copycat industry. And contradictory, and it if Trump succeeds a second time—one wouldn’t faze them. term is an anomaly, but two terms would be: You’ve got to emulate. There are two things that will make the next four years, My concern about all this is that you’ll see 2021 through 2025. I can’t fully envision more and more journalistic organizations how it’s going to work but I know it’s going pick a side. So you might be really good at to be nuts. Either Trump loses and as an reporting on the Democratic or Republican ex-president constantly backseat tweets party civil war from liberal or conservative America and basically stays the general of points of view, but trying to cover their policy his army, completely keeping the Republican proposals more honestly, your own point of Party at odds with itself, or he wins and the view might get in the way. That is, I think,

IT USED TO BE THERE WAS A COMPETITION FOR IDEAS.

ME WAYS WITH PEOPLE TODAY, AND I THINK PEOPLE THINK WE’RE NOT COMBATIVE ENOUGH. // YOU HAVE TO MAKE ADJUSTMENTS AND ACCEPT THE FACT THAT YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE PEOPLE MAD. // I THINK THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM AS WE KNOW IT IS

gwmagazine.com / 35 where you run into some problems—where Do you think that politicians worth trying to step on and which ones are policy coverage can look very propagandist and political operatives have worth avoiding? very quickly if it doesn’t look like you’re exploited the “both sides” challenging it at all. My concern is that more journalists and idea? more organizations decide it’s financially Has anyone been better to go down a partisan road because Oh god, yes, I do. Look, I think the blacklisted? At some point, you have a built-in audience. My concern is politicians have done more to exploit division that the financial incentives for journalists here than anybody, not the voter, not the you’re watching and it’s over the next 10 years may pull them in press. They know exactly what they’re doing like, why are you even a more partisan or a more ideological whenever they play the game of going on Fox putting this person on TV? It direction, and that is just going to make it [News] to do one thing. It is a bit exploitive. where everybody asks, “Are you a journalist You’re caught in a bind because on one hand, seems like it becomes more on my side? Or are you one of those you can sit here and say it’s totally obvious damaging to interview them journalists who covers the other side?” and what they’re doing. And you can say on the than it does to not. where everything becomes an antagonistic other hand, there’s a part of me, as a person relationship—and it isn’t clear where legacy who’s working for the public airwaves, media fall in this. who feels obligated at the same time to let Here’s the thing: The answer is yes. We’re the ones that end up looking like this person have their say—it’s like you’re There are people who have been on a “we’re dinosaurs because, at the end of the day, our exploiting my goodwill. You’re exploiting my not booking them anymore”—or “we’re business incentive is still to have a broad aspiration that I believe Sunday morning is not booking them for a while” list. But I audience. But if your incentive is to have supposed to be a certain type of thing. So would never tell you who they were and I a niche audience, which of course is what I get frustrated by this. And I do think the would never tell you they were permanently social media and cable have created, then worst actors are the politicians who know banned, because at the end of the day, I think that moves you down a certain road and what’s happening and are taking advantage about two things. No. 1: the public airwaves. especially if the politicians decide that’s how in order to deflect criticism. They’re just I do technically work for broadcast airwaves, they want to roll. Then you can see how this taking advantage of the fact that they know right? becomes radically different in a decade. Not how to provoke. Second: If there are people who regularly to say it will. mislead, but they are the only people with I think that there is a silent middle, and information perhaps that you want to share that’s who I believe my audience is on Sunday with your viewers on a particular Sunday, morning. The Sunday morning audience I imagine that that must be you can’t [ban them]. So the fact of the matter is a lot different than the cable audience, incredibly annoying—the is, yeah, it matters. We don’t keep bringing and I think your Sunday morning audience people back that are regularly disrespectful is people who generally care about being good faith/bad faith thing. to the viewer or disrespectful of us. I’ll just citizens but also worry about their mortgage, Is there a way to make that leave it at that. worry about their kids going to school, worry better? It just seems so futile I would never publicly say it. I think it’s about basic safety in their neighborhoods, been a mistake by some of my friends and things like that, and they watch once a week sometimes. colleagues who have publicly said it because to just sort of keep up. They probably have a I just think, Why draw attention to yourself? traditional lean that they vote, but they’re not It’s funny you put it that way. That does I know the counterargument would be, real hard-charging idealogues or partisans. get frustrating. At the end of the day, I’m well, how are you going to teach a lesson They’re just trying to get along. pretty cynical, but I don’t like to be as to the others if they know that? Yes, I take I still think there’s an audience that wants cynical on TV as I am because I know there your point, but we are in a very hot-take a certain type of coverage, but they don’t are genuinely people who believe what that atmosphere, and it’s like, you know what, I do watch TV all day and they don’t go on social person is saying and they take it to heart. So I want to avoid being the story if we don’t have media all day. I think another thing that is try not to be that cynical, and yet, you’re like, to be the story. happening is that you end up writing for who They’re totally playing you. is reading, and the more you write for who is But do I have the credibility to say it, or reading, the more it’s likely to go deeper and say it that way if I’m actually defeating the deeper down rabbit holes. purpose of what I’m trying to point out? If I pointed it out, oh, well, you get some cheers from one side going, “Yeah, way to call them out!” But what have I accomplished? I’ve instead played into this narrative of what they want to say, which is the media is hostile toward the right. These are the landmines that I think about: Which landmines are EXCLUSIVE // I THINK THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM AS WE KNOW IT IS ACTUALLY AT STAKE IN SOME WAYS. // AT THE END OF THE DAY, I’M PRETTY CYNICAL, BUT I DON’T LIKE TO BE AS CYNICAL ON TV.

36 / gw magazine / Summer 2019 NBCUNIVERSAL

What I was building toward That’s where you found it if you were looking talk radio, they back into primetime on Fox with that is the journalist’s for crazy ideas. Or maybe a newsletter and then seep their way onto the news side role to act as a filter. Certain you subscribed to or you also got a certain of Fox. That’s how it moves. There isn’t a magazine or something. And then the similar place on the left that can move it as things in the past were just internet came, and the example he used was efficiently as the right does. so nuts, they wouldn’t get the 9/11 truthers. I’m sure there were Pearl covered, like some flat- Harbor truthers back in the day. You laugh Earther yelling. That sort but I’m— I was building back toward of thing would get filtered the idea of there being no out. But today with so common reality. If you’re many outlets, something It’s a gallows laugh because arguing with or debating or that is a fringe and wrong I’m sure you’re right. interviewing, for example, idea can very quickly go a flat-Earther, it’s going to mainstream. That’s where I I’m sure they existed but we didn’t know inevitably end at: “The world was going with the certain about it, and you know, my god, if you think about every major event that’s happened in is flat.” “No, it’s not.” And people you wouldn’t book, our history, the more people that have access there’s just nothing you can or you wouldn’t quote if to media, the more conspiracy theories have do about that. And when I’ve you’re a print journalist. I’m gotten mainstreamed, if you think about it— whether it’s the Kennedy assassination or the seen interviews on TV and wondering if the mechanism moon landing. read them in the newspapers, of acting as a filter for bad The point is that the internet allows that seems to be the ideas has been damaged. people to think and social media allows people to think and Reddit allows people to problem. If you can’t agree think—you name it, you can find like-minded the world is round, there’s You know who first discovered this individuals no matter how cuckoo you are, nowhere else to go. So you’re problem was Eli Pariser. He wrote a book and it makes your cuckoo seem less cuckoo [The Filter Bubble] about seven years ago when you get to hang out in the community of fighting the ultimate uphill sort of warning of this siloed news culture like-minded individuals. And then, who are battle. that we were all about to head into. It’s just a the cuckoo people? small book but it was just really thoughtful So I do think it is that much easier. And There is a dystopian future that it sounds on this issue. He was the first person to get it’s funny. I’ve seen, particularly in the like you’re concerned about—that I’m at this problem. He said to get the fringe, conservative echo chamber, the way these concerned about—that I’d like to think isn’t crazy ideas before the internet, you had to conspiracy theories start to creep in. They going to happen, but it’s more possible than I go basically to the high end of AM radio. almost all back their way in. They start in think we realize.

// I THINK THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM AS WE KNOW IT IS ACTUALLY AT STAKE IN SOME WAYS. // AT THE END OF THE DAY, I’M PRETTY CYNICAL, BUT I DON’T LIKE TO BE AS CYNICAL ON TV.

gwmagazine.com / 37

ILLUSTRATION: HEATHER OESTERLING Noche Mexicana, a WBC event that celebrates Mexican culture, in the 1940s

Since 1898, border town and busiest For more than a century, a U.S. U.S. inland port Laredo, Texas, and its twin city across a curlicue in the Rio Grande, border town and its Mexican Nuevo Laredo, have thrown a joint party for George Washington’s birthday. Born out of efforts to Americanize a counterpart have thrown historically Mexican area, the Washington’s Birthday Celebration has grown from a two- a festival to mark George day event to a February-long festival. Now it fetes the southern border’s binational culture as much as our founding-est of Founding Washington’s birthday. Fathers, if not more. It is, to an outlander, a strange occurrence—it can even be strange GW professor Elaine Peña went to the initiated. home to understand why, and what it GW American studies associate professor Elaine Peña grew up in Laredo, and the says about people and dividing lines. bizarre to-do—it stews together July the 4th, Mardi Gras and a very large county fair—has Story puzzled the 40-year-old her whole life. Matthew Stoss The WBC itinerary is as vast as it is incongruous. There are about 30 Illustrations events every year. Among them are the Heather Oesterling expected and obvious (George and Martha impersonators, a carnival, a parade), the less

expected but understandable (a jalape�o WEBB COUNTY HERITAGE FOUNDATION

40 / gw magazine / Summer 2019 eating contest, a classic car show, an air Thirteen years later, after $11,000 in show, two debutante balls, a 5K) and the not seven grants—notably she was awarded a at all expected and also very weird (a comedy National Endowment for the Humanities jam, Pocahontas being given a key to the city grant and a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral in a ceremony that kicks off the parade). Fellowship—$20,000 from GW and quite Peña has been around the WBC since she a chunk of her own money, Peña’s got her was a kid. She and her three siblings moved second book. around a lot but never seemed to live more In fall 2020, University of Texas Press than a few blocks from the parade, during will publish the tentatively titled The which Peña would sometimes sell soda and Festive Border: Ritual, Infrastructure, and bottled water to make extra money. As she Cooperation at the Port-of-Laredo. got older, Peña found the WBC more and “It took me 10 years to figure out that I more confusing, especially its bedizened didn’t know what I thought I knew,” says portrayal of Native Americans. Peña, whose first book, Performing Piety: “I felt uncomfortable watching the Making Space Sacred with the Virgin of pageant,” Peña says by phone from Scotland, Guadalupe, spun out of her PhD dissertation. where she spent the spring semester as She got her doctorate in 2006 from “An efficient a visiting scholar at the University of Northwestern. Postdoctoral fellowships at Edinburgh. “I had questions about it and I Illinois and Yale followed. “It’s not just one border—a border didn’t know who to talk to because everybody thing or the other. It’s not just caricature. It’s without a wall— seemed to take its content for granted. It was not just class. It’s not just citizenship. Those something that I wanted to understand, and two cities, although they’re on different sides is a win-win for then it was something that ended up being of an international boundary line, they’re extremely complicated.” connected in deeper ways. It may seem like everyone and An anthropologist who specializes in these kind of performances undermine that religion and ritual, Peña has researched bond, but the thing is, that bond is actually it doesn’t have professionally the origins, implications linked to both of the cities as a port of entry.” to undermine and form of the Washington’s Birthday The halcyon moment of the WBC is the Celebration for more than a decade. She’s abrazo (embrace) ceremony in the middle national identity. explored Laredo’s and Nuevo Laredo’s town of the Juárez-Lincoln International Bridge. archives and those of local organizations like There, officials and children share a few I think that’s the the Webb County Heritage Foundation— hugs in the name of amity between abutting Laredo is the county seat of Webb County— countries that in 1848 exchanged custody point of the book and the Washington’s Birthday Celebration of Laredo after the United States won the and that’s why it Association, even helping the WBCA Mexican-American War. catalogue some of its old-timey photos along “What the book figures out is, yes, on the was so important the way. surface and even deep into these traditions, Peña is the first person to academically as misguided as they seem, there is a logic for me to work on and so exhaustively study the WBC, to it—an economic logic to it,” Peña says. becoming perhaps the expert on the event. “But then there’s another part of it which and develop the Along the way, she broke news about the is, yeah, it may seem bizarre to celebrate story in a way to fraternal order that founded the WBC and, George Washington’s birthday, but for me most notably, the beginnings of paso libre, a that became more a question of not, ‘What’s cover all my bases now retired tradition that from the 1950s to wrong with it?’ but, ‛How is this related more the 1970s allowed people to move between to our general thinking about patriotism? and leave no the United States and Mexico without a Proper geography? About where American passport. history thrives? The proper place for stone untouched Peña’s also attended several WBCs in American history?’ as best I could.” an ethnographic capacity, most recently in “In other words, you can find America 2017. She wanted to see if the festival would everywhere, in theory, but where do you be different in a world where noted wall expect to find it in a way that persists in its enthusiast Donald Trump is president of the proper place?” United States. “Everything went just the same, even with all of this anti-border politicking that had really informed the campaign,” Peña says. “It The 2019 Washington’s Birthday Celebration, just went on as usual.” officially the 123rd—Peña discovered proto Peña says her research started with her versions as early as the 1870s—attracted trying to figure out how and why the WBC’s House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She is the less than politically correct depiction of highest ranking U.S. official to attend a WBC, Native Americans had persisted into more which always has drawn local and state enlightened times. But the research morphed poobahs while their national equivalents to become a more encompassing study of the essentially have standing invites. Two sitting Elaine Peña COURTESY ELAINE PEÑA festival. presidents, Dwight Eisenhower and Jimmy

gwmagazine.com / 41 Carter, flirted with a pop-in. Neither made and thoroughly partied, drawing about one. 400,000 people each year and generating Pelosi’s appearance was overtly political. tens of millions of dollars for Laredo while With the Trump administration’s focus on replenishing and sustaining the old and the U.S. southern border and its walling off, commodious relationship between two the once largely anonymous—at least beyond countries and two Laredos, for which the the Texas borderlands—and innocuous WBC border has always been the most invisible of Washington's is drawing national glances. lines. “Even with everything going on, it hasn’t “It’s like everything goes into [high Birthday affected the celebration,” says U.S. Rep. definition],” Peña says of the festival. “All of Henry Cuellar, a Laredo native who’s been a sudden, everything becomes sparkly, and Celebration his hometown’s congressman since 2005. the things that are being done on a day-to-day BY THE NUMBERS A Democrat, he serves Texas’ 28th District. basis, they’re done in a more perfect way. … A look at some He also years ago played the baritone and It’s the best version of the port.” facts and figures marched with his high school’s band in the The Improved Order of Red Men, a still- WBC parade. “In fact, it’s still very strong. extant fraternal society founded in 1834 and This rhetoric—it’s just the wrong rhetoric. modeled on the Sons of Liberty, invented the People who live further away from the border WBC in 1898. The idea was to use a birthday 400,000 are usually the ones who don’t understand party for Washington, whose birthday The average attendees a year the border.” became a federal holiday in 1879, as a fun Trump visited Laredo in July 2015 while way to nudge Laredo’s Mexican residents campaigning for president and he met with toward a more alacritous Americanization. local officials, including Mayor Pete Saenz, a (A George Washington birthday party, Pe�a $150,000 Laredo native and Democrat elected in 2014. discovered, was something the Baltimore- What the Washington's Birthday “We took it as an opportunity,” Saenz says, founded Red Men tried to institute wherever Celebration Association spends “to visit with him and tell him how we live it had chapters.) to advertise the festival, including about here and how we do business here and how As they did for their then-64-year-old important commerce and trade is and about organization, the Red Men again co- $73,000 our relationship with Mexico.” opted Native American imagery, devising in out-of-town markets Trump got 22.8 percent of Webb County’s facsimiles of Native American rites, rituals such as Austin, Dallas vote in the 2016 presidential election. Hillary and terms and inserting them into the and San Antonio as well as Clinton got 74.3 percent. budding WBC. The Red Men believed the border cities in Mexico Laredo, a town regularly immortalized Indian motif to be uniquely American (and $30,000 in cowboy fiction and country song, is therefore non-European because Europe had The annual amount Laredo about 150 miles south of the closest major no Indians), which made it useful to a group spends in hotel expenses for American city, San Antonio, and it’s one half of people claiming patriotic urges trying to participants and dignitaries of an international metro area. Combined, sell another group of people on Americanism. Laredo and Nuevo Laredo have a population The original Laredoan observing of of more than 630,000, only about 70,000 George Washington’s birthday included people fewer than Washington, D.C. Laredo’s a reenactment of the Boston Tea Party— population is about 260,700, 95 percent of it another time in history when white people Latino. “played Indian”—and a staged Native 11–15% The city is home to the second busiest American raid on city hall. It ended with The percentage of parade of the United States’ 328 ports, 29 of which the townsfolk surrendering, turning their participants who are are in Texas. In 2018, Laredo handled $235 other cheeks and giving Pocahontas a key to from out of town billion in trade, 98 percent of it with Mexico, Laredo. and accounted for 5.6 percent of all U.S.- So, to review: A group of (mostly) white international trade. Los Angeles, the busiest guys calling themselves the Improved Order U.S. port, saw $299 billion in trade, 7.1 of Red Men decided that to make a Mexican percent of all U.S.-international trade. town more American, they would dress up More than 11 million pedestrians, cars like Indians and invoke Pocahontas in the and trucks move from Mexico to the United deified name of George Washington. But then $15 States through Laredo every year, and the the festival got subsumed by the Mexican port of Laredo is responsible for more than influence it was meant to dilute and today the million 360,000 jobs and contributes more than $52 WBC above all else promotes multicultural The approximate annual revenue billion to Texas’ GDP. Mexican tourism alone goodwill and positive international relations. for Laredo generated by the WBC accounts for up to 50 percent of Laredo’s You can kind of see why all this took Peña retail sales. In 2017, the most recent year for more than a decade. which complete figures are available, that “There a lot of disparate parts about this amounted to about $1.7 billion. that don’t really make any chronological sense—or geographical or historical sense,” says Margarita Araiza, who for 23 The Washington’s Birthday Celebration years has been the executive director of

remains vital. It continues to be well the Webb County Heritage Foundation. OPPOSITE: WEBB COUNTY HERITAGE FOUNDATION

42 / gw magazine / Summer 2019 This 1910s photo shows a woman dressed as Pocahontas as part of a ceremony during the Washington’s Birthday Celebration in Laredo, Texas.

gwmagazine.com / 43 CREDIT TEEKAY CREDIT

44 / gw magazine / Summer 2019 toll dispute.) Unofficially, paso libre ended because there was too much immigration- related political pressure to continue the tradition. Years before all that, the WBC planners canceled the bullfight. They long ago abolished the Boston Tea Party reenactment and the Indian raid. But the Native American imagery endures, albeit more befitting a Vegas residency than living history, and Pocahontas retains her starring role. One of the debutante balls is named for her (the other for Martha Washington), even though Pocahontas never went anywhere near Laredo, which the Spanish founded in 1755 as a ferry crossing. The Powhatan princess—the Lipan are the Native American tribe natural to the region—died 138 years earlier. George Washington, born Feb. 22, 1732, never visited Laredo, either, but he was nevertheless made an agitprop in its service. The WBC planners marketed Washington as a kind of syncretic demigod—the “only white man in Indian heaven”— to make him, the most American of Americans, as saleable as possible to the most people. Pan-Americanism’s popularity in the late 19th century made this easier. Ostensibly the Washington’s Birthday Celebration is still about celebrating George Washington’s birthday, but it’s evolved to be more. “It’s kind of hard to “But that’s what you get when you have a have a purely, I suppose people desperately trying to create a holiday you’d say, Anglo American- that doesn’t fit. What had been celebrated type celebration without it prior to that were all the Mexican holidays morphing into a Mexican because everybody here was ethnically American celebration,” Araiza Mexican and still felt that way.” says. S BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION ASSOCIATION CELEBRATION BIRTHDAY S ’ The WBC has been adjusted and audited “The Hispanic population since its inaugural throwing to fit the wants has always been dominant and times of its celebrants. Starting in 1957, economically, socially, it featured the aforementioned paso libre— politically, like other parts the “free pass.” For four days in February, of Texas, and so it was not a Americans and Mexicans could, without rebellion by any means. At that paperwork or the haranguing of Customs, point, the immigrants were move at their festal leisure between Mexico Northern Europeans, so they and the United States. The two governments were the ones who wanted ended that in 1976. Officially, it was for oppposite An aerial view of the to create the American holiday, but [the saftey reasons. In 1977, they opened a new, parade in the late 1940s, early relationship] was always very friendly. Interstate 35-feeding and pedestrian- 1950s 1. A car decorated for the The, shall we say, ‘social elite’ were always unfriendly bridge, the Juárez-Lincoln, and parade in the 1920s 2. A dancer dominated by ethnic Mexicans, so they the governments wanted to use their shiny at Noche Mexicana in 1939 3. A were always included in the whole planning new thing for all WBC-related ceremonies. woman and man in Martha and and execution of the celebration, and after (Formerly the Gateway to the Americas George Washington costumes a couple of years, George Washington International Bridge had been used. It was at a Colonial ball in 1964 was ethnic Hispanic as well as Anglo pedestrian friendly, and the Mexican and American—whoever portrayed George U.S. governments, Pe�a found, started paso Washington [in the WBC].”

PARADE, 1, 3: WEBB COUNTY HERITAGE FOUNDATION / 2: WASHINGTON libre to promote goodwill after a years-long Now the WBC dominates Februaries

gwmagazine.com / 45 1. Laredo Mayor Pete Saenz gives the in Laredo. Formerly it reached not much frontier and that the key to the city to the woman portraying outside the vicinage of Texas. Once in Rio Grande might as Pocahontas in the 2016 parade a while, though, a curious media outlet well be the Acheron. 2. Children embrace during the 2014 will mosey down for a story about the On one side of this line is America, where abrazo bridge ceremony 3. Children festival’s grab bag origins and how George things are American, and on the other side is A

dressed in traditional Colonial attire ride Washington came to be commemorated Mexico, where things are not American. Ñ a float during the 2018 parade 4. A woman so ebulliently so far from where it seemed This, Elaine Peña says, mustering the dances during the 2018 parade ethnographically eloquent. Araiza says the might of a lifetime’s study, is very, very not point is often missed. true. “They kind of come toward it with a “It wasn’t necessarily like, ‘Oh, this is patronizing attitude—‘What would a bunch what Anglo Americans do and this is what of Mexicans want to have to do with George Mexican Americans do and this is what Washington?’” Araiza says. “Most people Mexicans do,’” Peña says. “In a border realize, ‘Oh yeah, I get it,’ after they hear environment, mostly everyone is bilingual. about it, but sometimes they try to spin it as Before Sept. 11, it was way easier just to cross if it were an Anglo versus Mexican thing, back and forth—or at least for someone with and the Anglos were all in charge and the a U.S. passport or a border crossing card. It Mexicans were somehow subservient or wasn’t really like, ‘Well, this is America and oppressed, but that’s historically inaccurate. this is Mexico. America is white and Mexico And I just hope that with the exposures of the is brown.’ It wasn’t really like that, ever. But I

whole thing and through Elaine’s book and was just fascinated by how these things that S BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION ASSOCIATION / 3: ELAINE PE ’ everything else, that that comes through.” were American could be American and echo Mexico in the same conversation.” “One of the points of this book,” Peña continues, “is that you can have Some in the United States would like us to these regional expectations. But the fact

believe that the southern border is hell’s of the matter is that we are absolutely 1, 3, 4: WASHINGTON

46 / gw magazine / Summer 2019 perplexing. expectation about the celebration that it “An efficient transcends whether something is politically interconnected. border—a border correct or not or whether something is in its When you think without a wall—is a proper place or not, whether patriotism is in about trade, when win-win for everyone its proper geography. It’s something that is you think about and it doesn’t have to so deeply entrenched in the families, in the the things that we undermine national leisure time activities, in the character of the take for granted— identity. I think that’s port of entry. Too many things will be lost if the price systems. the point of the book and something comes undone.” All of that is made possible by efficient that’s why it was so important for me to work The WBC now honors Mexican identity borders that take care of trade while taking on and develop the story in a way to cover all and culture alongside George Washington care of security. Immigration in the larger my bases and leave no stone untouched as and American history. It in recent decades scheme of things is not the border’s first and best I could.” added a Miguel Hidalgo stand-in to the foremost problem. Immigration always takes When Peña started officially researching bridge ceremony. He joined the traditional center stage—or illegal immigration, I may the Washington’s Birthday Celebration, it arrangement of four children—an American say—but that is part of the dysfunction of was to assuage a childhood bewilderment. boy and girl in Colonial clothes, and a American politics and it has been for a very The festival didn’t make sense, and she Mexican boy and girl in traditional Mexican long time.” found its lingering use of Native American clothes—hugging at the bridge’s midpoint. Too many nuanced issues, Peña says, are imagery antiquated and discomfiting. But Borders, in a cultural sense, are imaginary, debased to talking points. like everything else about the WBC, it’s a and if they aren’t, they’re made more of air “It allows them to get into the story of blending of almost a century and a quarter than steel. the border without having to manage the of customs from new and older eras. It’s a “Even if they wanted to separate the way the rhetoric around immigration has natural agglomeration of two familiar sides United States and Mexico,” Peña says, “they been weaponized for centuries,” she says. in an isolated place. It’s as organic as it is never really figured out how to do that.” “Then once they get into the story, maybe unavoidable. they’ll be able to see the economics of it, “It goes on because there’s so much to that the economics of it aren’t actually that celebrate,” Peña says. “There’s so much

gwmagazine.com / 47 Any Place Worshipof

48 / gw magazine / Summer 2019 As a Muslim, Sana Ullah, MA ’17, is required to pray five times a day. That can be hard, for example, in a 9-to-5. In 2015, Ullah started photographing Muslims praying, like her, wherever they could. Now that project—“Places You’ll Pray”—has become so much more.

&

Sana Ullah

gwmagazine.com / 49

50 / gw magazine / Summer 2019 In 2015, alumna Sana Ullah, a multimedia journalist from Davie, Fla., who has worked for the Smithsonian, PBS and Discovery, started the Instagram account @placesyoullpray, posting photos she took of Muslims at prayer. The second of the Five Pillars of Islam requires adherents to pray five times a day, a difficult feat when you have to work, shop, travel—just live in the world. So Muslims, Ullah included, have to not only be creative but also navigate potentially unaccepting environments. “Places You’ll Pray” now has nearly 25,000 followers, its photography largely crowdsourced and submitted from Muslims all over the world. Below, Ullah tells GW Magazine’s Julyssa Lopez about how the project started, what it means and where it’s going.

gwmagazine.com / 51 There are five main pillars that are central to Muslim faith. Because it’s the second, “salat”—which is the Arabic term for prayer—is one of the most important. It’s required practice for Muslims to pray at least five times a day, and those five prayers come at different times. About two or three happen during a regular, full-time schedule, from about 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and there are different ways of doing them. You could go home or pray at work if you have the luxury of doing that, or you could pray in public. My friends and I have talked about this, and if you’re lucky and your boss is cool with it, they might say, “Sure, take a break.” For me, it’s always just depended on where I am. If I know the area is a safe space and that no one is going to give me issues, I pray where I am. Lately, with everything going on politically, it doesn’t feel like the safest time for Muslims. I live in a small town, so normally I pray at home or I find a private area—like, if I’m at the mall, I go into a dressing room. But I don’t think anyone has figured out how to pray during that window of time, which is one of the main reasons I started the “Places You’ll Pray” photo series. The project originally started as something I was doing on the side. I began taking photos of people praying in 2015, and it was more of a personal thing for myself, just to see if I was alone when it came to finding private places to pray or if other people were doing the same thing. I think the first image I took was at a local basketball court in Florida where I’d seen young Muslims praying. I started posting on Instagram and using my photos to get other people to share images. I didn’t even have my name attached to the account at the time. The first person to submit a photo was from Indonesia, and I thought, “Whoa!” In my mind, the places I featured were going to all be in the U.S., but seeing someone in a Muslim country sharing from miles away was pretty exciting, especially for someone like me, who was living in a small place called Davie in Florida. There were so many stories that made me realize that the project was a lot bigger than something just for me. I had this one man share his experience from 1970, when he was just learning how to pray. He went to the roof of his building because he thought that was the most private space for him and there was a security check right at the same time in the building. They saw him, and it became a whole alert. I had been wondering a lot about the misconceptions about prayer and people’s fears of praying in public and I thought, Is it because of post-9/11 anxiety? Is it a post-Trump thing? But this man said, “These feelings were here before that.” Once I started at GW in the fall of 2016, one of our first assignments was to share some examples of past work we’d done, so I scattered a few of the prayer images in my portfolio. The minute one of them slid onto the projector in my class, my professor was like, “Wait, stop. Talk to us about that.” Throughout my time in graduate school,

52 / gw magazine / Summer 2019 gwmagazine.com / 53

56 / gw magazine / Summer 2019 people kept telling me over and over that I should make the work my thesis project, and suddenly, what started as a small, silent effort became bigger. At first, I thought the focus of the project was mainly to have conversations with people who aren’t Muslim and show them different portrayals of prayer. But I started getting messages from Muslims themselves, and they were starting their own dialogues. It made me realize there was a big discussion that the Muslim community was having, and the social media aspect of it broadened the ideas out even more. There was one point where the project had reached France, and a lot of French Muslims messaged to say, “This is inspiring. Where we live, we’re not even allowed to wear [face-covering] hijabs.” For me, it was a moment where I saw people around the world connecting and feeling more comfortable talking about prayer. There have also been people who have seen places on Instagram and left comments like, “Oh, I’ve prayed there before!” Or they'll see people praying in the library and they’ll say, “I’ve done that so many times at school!” With the basketball image, all of the Muslim bros on Instagram were like, “I know this! I do it all the time.” The project has definitely changed my relationship to prayer. It inspires me to pray, and it’s created a community that I can reach out to when I travel. It’s also been a huge educational experience: I definitely had ideas of certain countries that are not what these images have shown. I remember a while ago, an image that shook me was of a man praying in the mountains of Pakistan. In my head, Pakistan was a super-busy place, filled with cars, like New Delhi, but this looked so serene and the shot was full of these beautiful, snow-capped mountains. There are moments like these when what you see in these pictures feels really incredible. I still take my own images, and I’ve shot Muslims praying in places like Cuba—friends have told me that I should make a photo book, so I’m playing with that idea. But as far as sharing them on social media, I’ve taken a step back. I have kind of let social media users take over the space, and I’ve just been watching to see where this goes.

For more of Sana Ullah’s photos and those she features, visit: instagram.com/ placesyoullpray Sana Ullah PHOTO BY DELANEY BETH

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in-State Wealth Advisors” in in New Jersey for “Best-in-State Washington state for 2019 by Wealth Advisors” by Forbes in CLASS Forbes and one of “America’s Top 2019. Kugel is a managing director 1,200 Financial Advisors” for the of investments at Merrill Lynch in 11th consecutive year by Barron’s. Bridgewater, N.J., and resides in NOTES He is the president and founder of Skillman, N.J. the Paul R. Ried Financial Group LLC in Bellevue, Wash. David Samuels, MBA ’84, // 1960s AND EARLIER Bayh’s influence on landmark received the National legislation, including Title IX, the Outstanding Eagle Scout Award Sidney O. Dewberry, BS ’51, 25th and 26th Amendments, the // ’80s from the National Eagle Scout founder and chairman emeritus Civil Rights of Institutionalized Association. The reception was of Dewberry, served as editor- Persons Act and the Bayh-Dole Robin Stein Bernstein, held in March at the Army Navy in-chief of and contributor to Act. MBA ’81, was sworn in as the U.S. Country Club in Arlington, Va. the fourth edition of the Land ambassador to the Dominican Development Handbook (McGraw- J. Phillip London, DBA ’71, Republic in July 2018. Luis J. Fujimoto, BS ’85, Hill, May 2019), a widely used received the U.S. Naval Academy’s She currently resides was elected president of reference for design professionals, 2019 Distinguished Graduate in Santo Domingo the Academy of Dentistry students, and private and public Award at ceremonies held with her husband, International. He is currently land developers. March 22 in Annapolis, Md., Richard, and daughter, the president of the American in recognition of his lifetime Julia. Association of Dental Howard S. Yager, BA ’63, MD commitment to service, personal Boards and has a private ’66, was named “Best General/ character and distinguished Paul D’Ambrosio, practice in New York City. Family Doctor” in My Buckhead contributions to the nation. BA ’81, and his team won magazine’s Readers’ Choice an Edward R. Murrow Michael La Place, BA ’85, Awards. He has a private practice Peter W. Zinober, LLM ’71, of Award for investigative MURP ’89, was named the in Atlanta, which he founded in Greenberg Traurig LLP in Miami, reporting at the Asbury planning director for Princeton, 1977. was recognized in the 2019 guide Park Press. The 19-part series, N.J. He was previously the of Who’s Who Legal: Labour & “Protecting the Shield,” helped director of planning and economic William Gralnick, BA ’65, MA ’68, Employment. change New Jersey law after development for 12 years in authored The War of the Itchy Balls exposing the secret agreements Passaic County, N.J. and Other Tales from Brooklyn Samuel Joseph Biondo, MEA ’75, that allowed violent cops to (Barringer, 2019), a memoir of his DSc ’88, authored How to Lose remain on local police forces until Jill Liberman, BA ’85, co- childhood in Brooklyn during the Weight and Sustain Weight Loss: they maimed or killed innocent authored Success Factor X: 1950s and ’60s. The book’s title An Autonomous Set Point Diet people. He is currently the Inspiration, Wisdom, and Advice references a group of middle- Guide (Independently published, executive editor at APP and was from 50 of America's Best class Jewish kids’ ill-fated faceoff May 2019). the investigations editor during (Cedar Fort, May 2019), which against a neighborhood gang. the development of the series. investigates the elusive quality They weaponized “itchy balls”— Scott Kingdon, JD ’76, authored that makes some people wildly the street name for the rock-hard Negotiating: The Art And Science Sharon Armstrong, MEd ’82, successful. The book features American sycamore tree’s seed Of Making A Deal (Powerlines co-authored The Essential HR tips, stories and advice from, pods. Press, May 2019), which offers Handbook, 10th Anniversary among others: billionaire Mark a non-technical, practical Edition: A Quick and Handy Cuban, actress Susan Lucci, TV guide to negotiating business Resource for Any Manager or host Jerry Springer and rapper // ’70s contracts and resolving employee HR Professional (Career Press, Darryl McDaniels of Run-DMC. disagreements. January 2019). William H. Shawn, BA ’70, JD George F. Indest III, LLM ’86, was ’73, is the first American to Gary Kirkbride, MURP ’76, Lynne Buchanan, MA ’83, selected to the 2019 Florida Super be appointed to the executive served as a reviewer on the fourth authored and photographed Lawyers list for the 11th year. committee of Germany’s World edition of the Land Development Florida’s Changing Waters: A Economic Council. Handbook (McGraw-Hill, May Beautiful World In Peril (George Sandra G. Sheets, JD ’87, was 2019), a widely used reference for F Thompson Publishing, April elected to the GiveWell board of Leonard Benade, MPH ’71, PhD design professionals, students, 2019), which chronicles the directors for a one-year term, ’71, received the Albert Nelson and private and public land environmental damage being which began in July. Marquis Lifetime Achievement developers. done to Florida’s waterways and Award by Marquis Who's Who for the devastating plight of her Paul Muessig, MBA ’87, was his professional achievements in Lee Hurwitz, BA ’78, MBA ’82, home state. named vice president of Long & biomedicine and law. co-authored with Tim Treanor Foster Real Estate’s commercial Capital City (Astor+Blue, Elliott Kugel, MS ’83, was property management division. Robert Blaemire, BA ’71, MA November 2016), a Washington, recognized on Financial Times’ He’s been a commercial real ’75, authored Birch Bayh: D.C.-set novel about a vice-loving, “Top 400 Financial Advisers” list. estate professional for more than Making a Difference (Indiana corrupt mayor’s fall from grace. He was also listed in Barron’s as 40 years. University Press, April 2019), one of the “Top 1200 Advisors in which chronicles the life and Paul R. Ried, MBA ’78, was America” and was ranked No. 15 in David A. Goldstein, BA ’88, co- career of the late senator. It covers named as one of the “Best- New Jersey. He was ranked fourth authored the article, “Changing

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the Paradigm: Creating Scale // ’90s Jonathan “Johnny” Friedman, Andrew McNeill, MFS ’96, and Keeping Local Expertise in BA ’92, was named to the 2019 list retired from the Monroe County Nonprofit Affordable Housing Amy Chazkel, BA ’91, a historian of Georgia Super Lawyers. (N.Y.) Sheriff’s Office after a Development—How to Stop of Brazil, was appointed as the 20-year career in crime scene Competing with Fellow CDCs Bernard Hirschhorn Associate Michael Rekstad, MS ’93, investigation and collision and Embrace a Joint Ownership Professor of Urban Studies in the authored Cadat Decoded (Barnes reconstruction. He is now the Structure,” in the Journal Columbia University Department & Noble Press, January 2019), director of forensic education for of Affordable Housing and of History. which follows how a small, L-Tron Corporation, a technology Community Development Law. mysterious red device left in the company in Victor, N.Y., where he He is also a co-founder and Ron Fricker, MA ’91, was named woods of the Rocky Mountains teaches forensic photography managing partner at the real associate dean for faculty affairs brings together the vacationing and provides training and support estate law firm Goldstein Hall in and administration in the Virginia Chris Lewis and otherworldly, for the company’s OSCR360 New York. Tech College of Science. Earth-stranded propulsion spherical photography system. engineer Tag. Robert Carter, BA ’89, joined Shelley Sharp, MBA ’91, is the Christopher Atkinson, BA ’98, Deforche Construct—which chief executive officer of the Ryan Susan Davis, MPH ’96, was MPA ’00, authored his second develops and sells scientific and Nece Foundation, an organization welcomed as the new global book, Semiotic Analysis and large commercial greenhouses— focused on developing the next coordinator for Agenda for Public Policy: Connecting Theory as its regional account manager generation of community leaders Change, an international and Practice (Routledge, March for Canada and the east coast of in Tampa, Fla. collaboration between 2019). The book, drawing on the the United States. organizations working for work of Saussure, Peirce and Thomas Dardarian, BA ’92, was universal water, sanitation and others, evaluates key areas of Peter M. Wendzel, BA ’89, joined inaugurated as the 2019-’20 hygiene services around the public policy that are dependent Jackson Lewis, P.C., as a principal president of the American College world. on narrative, naming, sign and in the firm’s Orlando office. of Osteopathic Obstetricians & branding to create meaning. He Gynecologists. was also appointed in 2018 as

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an assistant professor in public Story of Surviving Cancer (Opus Respect (Winding Pathway dark forces and powerful administration at the University of Self-Publishing, 2019). Through Books, June 2019), which magic. West Florida. a compilation of emails sent to includes advice on how to friends and family, she documents clarify goals and values and Jim Walther, EdD ’03, was Michael Price, EdD ’99, authored her life after being diagnosed with how to deal with everyday named the executive director Murder on the Disoriented inflammatory breast cancer in challenges in the workplace. of the Tampa Bay Library Express: How Laity May Be Killing 2008, expressing how moments Consortium. Previously, he Their Congregation (IndigoSea otherwise daunting were filled Brett A. Berman, BBA ’03, a was an assistant professor at Press). The book investigates with love and joy thanks to her partner in the Philadelphia Emporia State University in the potential reasons for the friends and caregivers. Having office of Fox Rothschild LLP, School of Library and Information decline in membership of The beat her cancer, she has since was named to the Philadelphia Management and the director of Christian Church (Disciples of returned to landscaping, teaching Business Journal’s “40 Under 40” staff development at the New York Christ), which has lost half of its yoga and enjoying life. list. Public Library. membership over two decades. Price offers a comprehensive Melissa E. Scott, BA ’01, was Malena Crawford, BA ’03, Tania Ali, BA ’04, was named list of programs to assist promoted to partner at the Exton, was recognized in June at the general counsel and corporate churches of all sizes, settings Pa., office of Fox Rothschild LLP. Next Generation Indie Book secretary for Travelex North and denominations to better Awards for her novel, A Fistful America. manage this trend affecting Christine Tarr, JD ’01, was of Honey (Independently nearly every mainline Protestant appointed the senior assistant Published, February 2017). Just Kou Moore, CPH ’04, joined denomination. director in career services at as protagonist Alena Ford’s life is the German Development Southwestern Law School. falling apart and traumas begin Cooperation as a technical to resurface, she is expected to adviser. Previously, she worked as Jennifer Wisdom, PhD ’01, save humanity when a neighbor’s the director of strategic alignment // ’00s authored Millennials’ Guide to stunning amethyst necklace and at Liberia’s Ministry of Health and Mary Gill, CERT ’00, authored Work: What No One Ever Told You Black Madonna painting draw her as a technical adviser to Liberia's Angel in the Basket: A Personal About How to Achieve Success and into a world of ancient secrets, Minister of Health.

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[Q&A] had not followed through on any bank that I used in Atlanta. Someone had GW Alumni of the scholarship or financial aid found the money order, brought it in, and Association information. I just went to GW, they sent it back. Executive A Chat with quite honestly, on faith, and I had Committee New GWAA enough money saved up to pay for That’s incredible. William Alexander the first semester. President III, BS ’04, I had put all my money in It was. Totally unexpected. MBA ’06 a money order, and I went Richard Fort Washington, to register [for classes] and What interested you in this Md. somehow lost the money order. opportunity to lead the alumni Jones, JD ’84 I searched everywhere—the association? Kristen Barnes, Richard Jones seems to be at home car, the shrubbery and the BA ’16 landscaping. It had to have blown It was a combination of things. I really in, or at least breezily unperturbed New York by, outsized organizations. The away somewhere. I explained my do owe a lot to GW. I haven’t shared story to the dean and told him that story with many people. It’s a very Atlanta native is No. 10 of a dozen Christine Brown- that I was going to just continue personal story. I think about it, and I siblings, has four children of his own Quinn, MBA ’92 (“We have to rent recreation centers London to go to class and do the work think about feelings I had as a result of to have our family get together,” he until something came through. the school extending an open door to says), and since 2000, he’s helped Barbara Callahan, And about two weeks later I me when I needed it, and I don’t think run the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank of BA ’67 received a letter informing me I had done anything that unique as an Atlanta, which monitors the banking Palm Beach, Fla. that I had been given a full-tuition undergrad to get accepted at the school. system in six Southeastern states, scholarship for the three years of So I feel I owe an incredible debt to as its senior vice president and Somender law school. the university and to the alumni. That general counsel. Chaudhary, was one of the reasons why I’d wanted This spring, Jones, JD ’84, also MBA ’04, MS ’10 Wow. Were you surprised? to stay involved in the law school and became president of the GW Alumni Arlington, Va. was serving on a law school advisory Association, which counts more It was astounding. My wife committee. Peak Sen Chua, than 290,000 members. and I were thrilled. We were Four decades after he arrived at BS ’19 basically just floating on a Are there initiatives you’d like to GW Law—a new Morehouse College Washington, D.C. wing and a prayer, without any see happen? grad who showed up to pay tuition expectation—didn’t even know and realized he’d misplaced his Amanda Fugazy, entire savings—Jones spoke with GW BA ’95 that that was in the cards, that I’m very motivated by the listening tour [a Magazine about his dubious start at Glen Cove, NY it was a consideration. I never series of online GWAA events in August GW and his outlook for the GWAA. even completed a financial aid and early September]. Any initiatives Frances Hassun, —Danny Freedman, BA ’01 application. To this day, I don’t would benefit from understanding BA ’10 even know what happened, how it what alumni look to the university for, Coral Gables, Fla. came about. and that’s the purpose that the alumni How did you end up at GW? I had [a partial scholarship] to association serves: to reinforce that Vikram Kuriyan, go to Georgetown; I chose GW connection, enrich it, make it stronger. I BA ’05 I wanted to go to law school in New York instead based on the feeling I think that ends up making the university Washington. I had gotten married had for it. I’d had this pretty sad stronger and giving people more reason the summer before my senior year, Darren Menaker, experience with my mother, and to appreciate the GW community and the and my wife was already attending BA ’00 I had two younger brothers at value of a GW education. Howard Law School, and there Los Angeles home, and I just wasn’t altogether I want to turn the involvement up a had been a long line of Morehouse sure that this was notch—the enthusiasm, the graduates who had gone to GW, Michelle Rubin, supposed to be, or what pride in the university and so I had a good feeling about the BA ’91 was supposed to happen support. I also want to find university. Los Angeles at this time. Getting out in what ways alumni can that scholarship in spite be inspired and enthused that John Sirek, MA ’89 And you were here on a of everything that had would benefit the cause of Chicago scholarship? happened with losing the university, the goals and Mallory Staub, the money order, it was objectives that the president Yes, but I didn’t get the scholarship BA ’10 confirmation that I was, has. That is a way to create till after I got there. I had saved New York in fact, in the right place some cohesion behind the some money because I worked at the right time. vision for the university, and through college at UPS. My mother For more on And the strangest the closer we are to that, the passed away in the summer after I the GWAA, visit: thing happened: About more we feel a part of it—part graduated from undergrad, and I alumni.gwu.edu/ two months later, I get of the progress, part of the had gotten tied up with her illness about-gw-alumni- another little package growth—and it all makes for a Richard Jones ALUMNI RELATIONSALUMNI and being a newlywed, so I really association in the mail from the stronger GW community.

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Adam Chandler, BA ’05, Gift.” Trained as a painter, Hubbs Marianne Olaniran, MS ’11, and a 2019 Virginia Super Lawyers authored Drive-Thru Dreams will experiment with complex her husband, Kabir Olaniran, in “Rising Star.” (Flatiron Books, June 2019). sculpture-casting methods as December 2018 welcomed their Exploring the link between fast well as new methods of viewer second child, Jeremiah. Michael Maglio, MPS ’14, was food and American life for the engagement. named by ProSales Magazine as past century, the book tells an Amanda N. Pickens-Ewell, one of the “Four Under 40” for intimate and contemporary story Meredith Ralls, BA ’08, JD ’11, an JD ’11, joined Blank Rome LLP’s his work in the lumber building of America—its humble beginning, attorney at S&R Law Firm PLLC Los Angeles office as an associate materials industry. He is the vice its innovations and failures, its in Fairfax, Va., was selected as in the labor and employment president of NuStar Building international charisma, and its a 2019 Virginia Super Lawyers group. Materials in Lantana, Fla. regional identities—through its “Rising Star.” beloved roadside fare. Julia B. Gordon, JD ’12, was Barbara Mica, CERT ’14, MPS ’15, Gary Kraiss Jr., BA ’09, married promoted to supervisor of the joined Brownstein Hyatt Farber Stephen Fuller, BBA ’05, was his best friend, Torrey Ford Criminal Enterprise Bureau of the Schreck in Denver as its chief promoted to partner at Ernst Shallcross, on Feb. 9 at Holy Bronx County District Attorney’s operating officer. & Young in its People Advisory Trinity Catholic Church in Office. She’s responsible for Services Practice. He works in Washington, D.C. overseeing firearms-trafficking Anthony Glosson, JD ’15, joined Ernst & Young’s Tysons, Va., investigations and prosecutions. Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton office. Ivie Guobadia Serioux, BA ’09, In December 2018, she and her LLP as an associate at the firm’s was selected as a 2019 Super husband, Arthur G. Prystowsky, Atlanta office. Meg Little Reilly, MA ’06, Lawyers “Rising Star” and 2019 JD ’12, welcomed their second authored her third novel, The New York City Bar Associate child, Audrey Sam Prystowsky. Benjamin Katz, MA ’15, was Misfortunes of Family (MIRA, Leadership Institute Fellow. presented with the 2018 Hugh February 2020). When a Timothy Savoy, BS ’12, MPH Morton Photographer of the Year documentary crew comes to film ’14, was named one of the “30 Award for weekly newspapers at a retired senator’s family reunion // ’10s Under 30” realtors by the National the annual North Carolina Press at a lake house, jealousies and Frederico Bartels, MA ’11, Association of Realtors and was Association convention in March. secrets arise and the seemingly graduated from the yearlong the only Washington, D.C., realtor He is a staff photographer for The perfect image of the Brights Public Policy Fellowship, which to make the list. His profile was Cherokee Scout, a community begins to shift. Reilly previously is sponsored by The Fund for published in the May-June 2019 newspaper in Cherokee County, authored Everything That Follows American Studies. The fellowship issue of REALTOR Magazine. N.C. (MIRA, May 2018) and We Are allows young professionals to Unprepared (MIRA, August 2016). foster connections with peers Timothy Caron, BA ’13, JD ’16, Ethan Lee Rosenfeld, JD ’15, She is a writer at Bennington working in public policy while attorney by day, musician and joined Ulmer & Berne LLP College, an essayist, public building an understanding of the actor by other days, created a rock in its Cleveland office as an radio commentator and outdoor principles of government through musical, The Knights of Salisbury, associate for the firm’s business enthusiast. deliberation and debate. which debuted at Washington, department. D.C.’s Capital Fringe Festival in Ashley Spillane, BA ’06, Cameron Brenchley, MPS ’11, July. Set along the North Shore co-authored the Harvard founded Final Draft Strategies, of Massachusetts in the 1960s, Mark Dang, BA ’16, was promoted University case study an Alexandria, Va.-based public it follows a teenage rock band to software engineer II at Twitter. “Civic Responsibility: affairs and marketing strategy as they take on the local music The Power of firm focused on customer scene with the help of their Companies to Increase experience. straightlaced, married neighbors. Jasmine Jaros, BS ’16, graduated Voter Turnout,” which with a Master of Science degree analyzes eight companies that Anthony Crisafio, BA ’11, was Sloan Dickey, BA ’13, and Travis in computer science and was participated in voter-engagement awarded the Clouston Memorial Jordan, MPS ’10, JD ’16, climbed promoted to data scientist II at programs in 2018, including Trust Award by the Royal College Mount Moran, the Teton’s second Instagram. Gap, Target, Twitter and Spotify, of Physicians of Edinburgh largest mountain, in August. and found that these programs for his essay focusing on the Although they now live in different John R. Brophy, MSHS ’17, joined were effective in increasing mortality gap in patients with states, the pair met through the faculty of Saginaw Valley voter turnout while also creating schizophrenia. His essay built on connections in Washington, D.C., State University. He was also additional business value. She his experience volunteering at GW and formed a friendship based recently named a fellow in the spoke about the findings at a Hospital. on camping and hiking, bonding American College of Paramedic panel discussion, which was over a shared appreciation for Executives. moderated by Kerry Washington, Brianna Kilcullen, BBA ’11, nature and their lives beyond the BA ’98, in Washington, D.C., in founder of Anact, developed a beltway. Sloan currently is an Cameron Swann, MA ’17, joined June. 55-percent hemp, 45-percent anchor for K2 News in Wyoming, the Institute for Defense Analyses organic cotton bath towel as a and Travis is an associate attorney as a research associate in its Joint Sara Hubbs, MFA ’08, was sustainable alternative to towels at Faegre Baker Daniels LLP in Advanced Warfighting Division. awarded a research and that use conventional cotton, Denver. development grant by the Arizona which depletes the Earth’s Emily N. Catron, JD ’18, Commission on the Arts that water supply. She’s launching a Ryan Rambudhan, JD ’13, an joined Fox Rothschild LLP in will support her work on a series Kickstarter campaign on Sept. 3. attorney at S&R Law Firm PLLC Washington, D.C., as an associate of three sculptures called “The in Fairfax, Va., was selected as in the litigation department.

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IN MEMORIAM He also enjoyed his appointment as a community-based faculty member in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University. He was a devoted family man and is survived by his beloved wife of 56 years, Ellen; son Michael; daughters Julie and Jennifer; and four adoring grandchildren.

Harry R. Hughes, JD ’52, (March 13, 2019, Denton, Md., 92), was the 57th Anita Gutnick Greenwald, BA ’67, (May 8, 2019, Macon, Ga., 73), focused governor of Maryland and served in the U.S. Navy Air Corps during World her career on helping children with severe learning disorders while serving War II. Pledging to restore integrity to the state following the scandal-ridden on the faculty of Thomas Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia and while administrations of two of his predecessors, he was elected governor in 1978 living in Georgia. She was active in many professional, educational, and after a huge upset in the Democratic primary and a landslide victory in the charitable organizations throughout the years. general election. During his lifelong tenure in public service, he advocated for Jerry L. Coffey, PhD ’71, (Dec. 30, 2018, Winchester, Va., 76), was, until the protection of the Chesapeake Bay and helped develop the state’s modern his retirement, a senior mathematical statistician in the U.S. Office of tax code that replaced the flat tax with a progressive tax structure. Management and Budget in the executive office of the president. He served on John Lester Chaney, Jr., BA ’53, LLB ’57, (April 7, 2019, Tomball, Texas, the board of the American Statistical Association and as the chairman of the 92), served in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War and in the reserves House Committee on Government Reform, analyzing the census. Jerry loved until 1965. He went on to serve 40 years in the U.S. government, retiring his children, Laurel and Jay, and his wife of 51 years, Gretchen. as chief attorney of the Office of Compliance and Consumer Assistance in Jeffrey Haskins, MD ’79, (April 16, 2018, Tappahannock, Va., 64), was a 1994. He also served for many years on the Board of the General Alumni urologist for Riverside Health Systems in Virginia. He loved University of Association of GW, starting in 1982. This included a stint as president, and North Carolina basketball and was passionate about golf, sailing, cars and in 1987, he received a Distinguished Service Award. He also was a gifted history. Despite a series of personal tragedies, he is remembered for his zest artist—preferring pencil and charcoal—and drew many beautiful portraits for life, positivity, generosity and his loving soul. for family and friends. Charles E. Freeman, MS ’80, (Jan. 10, 2019, Greenwood, S.C., 86), served William “Bill” Ferguson, MD ’53, (April 25, 2019, Flagler Beach, Fla., in the 1st Cavalry Division of the U.S. Army as a sergeant during the Korean 91), served as a flight surgeon based at Warner Robins Air Force Base War and was a recipient of the Purple Heart. Throughout his life, he was near Savannah, Ga., and later opened his own ophthalmology office in a an active member of the Trinity Episcopal Church, the American Legion pre-Disney Orlando, Fla., where he practiced for 30 years. A man of many Post 2 and Korean War Veterans. Soft-spoken, loyal and forgiving, he is interests, he loved telescope building, birdwatching, beekeeping and amateur remembered for his awareness of the good in everyone and his assistance to ham radio—he was a licensed amateur extra ham operator with the call his community. sign W4DSR. He was also a fan of woodworking, having crafted grandfather clocks, a catamaran sailboat, and customized workbenches; he even enrolled Robert Scott Hauser, JD ’95, (Oct. 8, 2018, San Francisco, 54), served in at the University of New Hampshire to study violin-making. the U.S. Air Force and later made his home in San Francisco, specializing in intellectual property law and working for companies such as Sun Lawrence E. Lerner, BS ’54, (Feb. 27, 2019, Boca Raton, Fla., 86), Microsystems, Fitbit and Google Nest. Born in Illinois, Scott grew up a developed real estate for over 30 years in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, military brat moving from base to base in the United States but found his way building hundreds of homes, thousands of apartments and two regional back to California to study computer engineering (before it was a thing). He shopping centers. He later founded BankAnnapolis, a community bank was an avid sailor, spending many days sailing around the San Francisco Bay serving the state capital and central Maryland. He served on its board of and hanging out at the South Beach Yacht Club. He was a self-professed super directors for more than 20 years. He was married to Iris Cohen Lerner, BA tech geek, but he also enjoyed traveling abroad, baking and Burning Man. He ’57, for 60 years, and together they had three children and two grandchildren. is survived by his parents, Robert and Judith Hauser, and his partner of 13 He was a friend and loyal supporter of many charitable causes. In his younger years, Austin Wallace. years, he enjoyed playing basketball, baseball and football and was always an avid sports fan, but his true passion in life was golf, which he was content to practice and play for hours on end. Frances Burka, BA ’56, (Feb. 24, 2019, Chevy Chase, Md., 84), an advocate FACULTY AND STAFF for the arts, was a Friend of the Brady Art Gallery and with her late husband Doris Elsie Baker, (Jan. 16, 2019, Annapolis, Md., 93), began working at established the Frances and Leonard Burka Fund for the Arts at GW. They GW in 1980 and eventually became the director of the Office of Fellowships also established the Frances and Leonard Burka Social Action Fund at Adas and Scholarship in the GW School of Business and Public Management until Israel Congregation in D.C. her retirement in 1994. After marrying U.S. Army Captain John W. Baker in Barbara Wolin Sincoff, BA ’56, (Dec. 17, 2018, Potomac, Md., 84), 1954, she frequently moved around, setting up 13 homes in three countries dedicated her life to her community, having served as an elementary school and four states while raising four children. During this time, she learned teacher in Silver Spring, Md., the office manager and principal assistant for German, Arabic and Thai. She is remembered for her love of mystery novels, a member of the city council of Montgomery County, and a human resources crosswords, puns, music and, of course, travel. She had a notorious sense of specialist for the county. She also taught in and led nursery schools, taught direction (or lack thereof). While living in Germany, she got lost for hours Sunday school and was active at The Arc Montgomery County for 55 years. while driving around Berlin, never once finding the wall that then enclosed She founded the Arc's nursery school and established the first Girl Scout the western half of the city. troop for developmentally handicapped girls in the Washington, D.C., area. Janne E. Nolan, (June 26, 2019, Washington, D.C., 67), was a research She also was president and a board member of the sisterhood of Har Shalom professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs and chair of the synagogue in Potomac. She met her husband, Richard, at GW, and had three Nuclear Security Working Group. Though she was pragmatic and urged daughters and two granddaughters. bipartisan cooperation, she also lamented the tendency of officials to avoid Herbert Suesserman, MD ’64, (Aug. 30, 2018, 80), had a lengthy and voicing concerns about policies once they had been adopted by the general successful career practicing obstetrics and gynecology in the New Haven, public. She called this the “tyranny of consensus.” She believed that decisions Conn., area after completing a residency at Yale New Haven Hospital. One of made without regard for morality and ethics were likely to be disastrous. She his greatest joys was his work, and he saw patients as recently as July 2018. is remembered for her intelligence, wit and humanity.

gwmagazine.com / 63 Epilogue Wear a hat! Institutional It was not only fashionable Know your fabric. to wear a hat outdoors in Knowledge The most common fabrics in Elizabethan Elizabethan England, it was England were wool, linen and silk as solid the law. Consider your modern fabrics or woven in a damask pattern. Wisdom and How-Tos hairstyle and color when from Experts in the I frequently use synthetic alternatives choosing headwear. If you GW Community to silk damask because they are more have bangs, choose a style affordable. When shopping for synthetic that allows you to pin them fabrics, be wary of what I call the back underneath your hair “synthetic shine”—a crisp, bright shine covering. One side of my head that is too perfect to be natural. When is shaved, so I wear a hood or shopping online, order swatches first. Getting caul under my hat that covers the shaved side of my head. I wouldn’t want the populace A Faire to think my head had been shaved to treat lice! Look for patterns. There are many historical Look patterns commercially available. Check out Costume designer Margo Anderson, Lynn and Renaissance McMasters and The Tudor fair veteran Stacey Tailor. Books by Janet Hamilton, MFA ’19, Find your Arnold and the Modern Maker can guide you tells us how to dress like actual waistline. Put your hand on your through making your own an Elizabethan. hip and bend like you’re patterns. There’s also a little teapot. The ElizabethanCostume.net. Alumna Stacey Hamilton point where your waist has played Queen Elizabeth creases is your natural I of England at the Virginia waistline and is usually Renaissance Faire since 2013. your narrowest point. She also just completed her That’s where the waist master’s at GW in costume of your period garment design. Here, she offers seven should sit. Ladies, tips for making your own you want a narrow authentically Elizabethan waist. Gentlemen, you Avoid modern styles era (1558-1603) costumes for want long, lean legs. and conveniences. your next—or first—trip to a Both were fetching in Elizabethan England. Sunglasses or purses will Renaissance fair. Stacey Hamilton instantly push your outfit dressed as a from the 16th century to 30-something the 21st. Instead, wear Research primary sources. Queen Elizabeth The first step toward building an Elizabethan a hat with a wide brim at the Virginia to shade your eyes, and costume is research. I like to study the Renaissance Faire portraiture of the period, and museum websites carry your belongings in are my favorite sources. Many provide high- a pouch or your pockets. quality digital scans so you can zoom in. Artists (Yep, they had pockets to look for: Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder and the back then.) Don’t forget Younger, Lucas de Heere, and Pieter Bruegel shoes are a part of your the Elder and the Younger. Their work has varied ensemble, too. Simple, depictions of every societal class. leather ankle boots or Mary Jane-style shoes are period-appropriate Mind your proportions. and widely available. Pay attention to proportions. Perhaps the most egregious mistake I see amateur costumers make is layering modern proportions on a period silhouette. Become familiar with period proportions. If you feel your garment doesn’t look quite right, try adjusting your proportions. KEVIN HEDGECOCK

64 / gw magazine / Summer 2019 There’s still time to give 110% to GW!

The 2019 GW Legacy Challenge provides an immediate cash match for donors who document new or increased planned gift commitments to the George Washington University, such as gifts by will, trust, or IRA beneficiary designation. As a planned giving donor, you can direct matching funds to your area of interest (equal to 10% of the value of your planned gift, up to $10,000).

The GW Legacy Challenge will end on either December 31 or when the unrestricted matching funds have been depleted, whichever comes first. Half of the matching funds have already been distributed, so act today to help our students tomorrow and beyond.

Include GW in your estate plan and the university will match a portion of your future gift today – to the department, program, or area of your choice!

+ = x

You document your 10% Legacy Challenge Immediate Future planned gift using the Match Funds impact to your impact Legacy Challenge Gift are directed where area of interest with your Confirmation Form you specify at GW planned gift

Visit go.gwu.edu/give110 to learn more.

DAR3682 "SOMETIMES I THINK WHEN YOU’RE IN THE MIDDLE OF IT, YOU “We’re DON’T FULLY APPRECIATE so much “YOU HAVE more combative THE MASSIVE CHANGES TO MAKE in some ways with THAT ARE TAKING PLACE.” people ADJUSTMENTS today, and “I wish I could fall back on some I think historical context to know how people another generation of journalists AND ACCEPT THE think The George Washington University we’re not dealt with similar situations, but Washington, D.C. 20052 FACT THAT YOU’RE combative Change Service Requested enough.”“At the end “I THINK THE FUTURE GOING TO MAKE of the day, I’m pretty OF JOURNALISM AS WE cynical, but KNOW IT IS ACTUALLY PEOPLE MAD.” I don’t like to be as AT STAKE IN SOME cynical on T V.”