A rich, energized campus

I have written before that about 6 AM each morning, the morning shift manager of CTE’s audio and video systems and services group calls me with a briefing of the days events on campus that require audiovisual services – which means most events. There are typically between 130 and 180 classes requiring AV services – 177 this morning, and events too numerous to mention. There are meetings of clubs, training sessions for employees, events with outside speakers, films, concerts and much, much more. One could fill up entire days, without leaving campus, just attending events.

When I was first hired by AU, the institution had a miniscule – almost nonexistent – endowment. Now, the level has risen from miniscule to modest. But Washington, D.C. might be viewed as a hidden endowment. If one pluck the institution from its Northwest Washington setting and moved it to the middle of Oklahoma (American University of Oklahoma) it would be a very different institution. Faculty and students arte drawn as much to the city as to the institution. With all the shortcomings in our governments – national and city - Washington DC remains, for some at least, one of the world’s best places to live. And it is home.

Notes often write themselves. I began writing about AU and wound up writing about Washington, though I rarely go downtown.

Time to wraqp up the day.