Paige Jones / The Eagle

This newsletter covers news from Dec. 5 to Dec. 9. To read any of this week’s stories and more, check out our website for the latest from The Eagle.

The following is The Eagle’s final newsletter of the semester. Thank you for supporting our work, and we hope to see you in the new year!

By: Eliza Schloss (eschloss@theeagleonline.com) and Rebecca Oss (ross@theeagleonline.com)

The following column is abridged from its original version that appeared in The Eagle’s fall 2022 print edition. You can read the full piece here.  

If you’re reading this, you know how valuable The Eagle is to the American University community. But if we can’t pay AU’s student journalists for their work, we can’t create a newsroom reflecting the diversity of the campus community. Every year, we make it a goal to expand the diversity of our newsroom. The reality is, this won’t happen until we can compensate our staff for their work. That’s why we need you. 

The Eagle Innovation Fund, established in 2018, was founded after staff and alumni from The Eagle came together to create a $50,000 endowment to help support our journalism. Each year, we are allowed to spend the interest from this fund, which supplements our funding from student fees, not replaces it. While the interest we can spend is typically a small amount, growing the fund would help expand our ability to support our staff.

Thanks to the support of donors, our Eagle Innovation Fund has been able to compensate managing editors for the past few semesters with stipends ranging from $100-200 per semester. I hope you’ll consider donating to The Eagle Innovation Fund and help make expanding these stipends a reality. Managing editors work at least 20 hours a week, often more, to keep their sections running. And that doesn’t account for the rest of our staff, from reporters to designers, copy editors and more.

Many AU students may be pushed away from the opportunity to join The Eagle because they cannot afford to work in a job that does not pay. Student journalism shouldn’t just be for those who can afford to work for free. With your help, it doesn’t have to be. Staff at The Eagle work hard to keep the AU community informed. We do it because we love it and believe so strongly in the value of the work we do.

• Construction has begun on a $295 million Wisconsin Avenue development called Upton Place, which will bring 689 apartments and 100,000 feet of retail space.

• Food safety inspection reports obtained by The Eagle show additional recent health code violations in the Mary Graydon Center and the campus Starbucks. Reports show violations that had been previously fixed were again out of compliance.

• AU Pride held a Queer American Sign Language Night to encourage discourse surrounding the intersection between LGBTQ+ identities and the Deaf community.

Life:

• The Eagle's Marina Zaczkiewicz compiles a list of five local food pantries to get involved in to combat food insecurity this holiday season. 

• District of Cinema: In this week's episode, our hosts discuss the tough questions surrounding Olivia Wilde's "Don't Worry Darling."

• The Washington National Cathedral honored Matthew Shepard, a young gay man murdered in 1998 in an anti-gay hate crime in Laramie, Wyoming, with a newly dedicated portrait. The portrait was presented in the Cathedral’s Crypt as part of a day of events reflecting his life.

• AU Body Neutrality Coalition welcomed Alex Raymond, who specializes in eating disorder treatment, to discuss challenges with navigating body negativity and diet culture during the holiday season at a Nov. 14 event.

• AU's Symphonic Band held a fall concert on Nov. 20, featuring "a sense of camaraderie and friendship" among instrumentalists.

El Águila:

• American University Women in Audio está creando un espacio seguro para mujeres de todo el mundo, donde puedan unirse para disfrutar de su pasión por la producción musical.

Sports:

• Column: Caroline O’Connor has become the second woman to become president of an MLB franchise. The Eagle's Hannah Newlon-Trujillo discusses what this might mean in the fight to break gender barriers in the sports industry.

Opinion:

• Staff Editorial: The Eagle Editorial Board overwhelmingly supports the list of demands presented at the Nov. 14 walkout and calls for a direct response and apology from the Title IX office, Housing and Residence Life and AU administration. 

• Staff Editorial: In reflection of our coverage in the past semester, there was a common theme among the stories: dissatisfaction of institutional action and values. In The Eagle's final editorial before break, we look at AU’s semester as a whole.

• Opinion: “AU claims its services condemn discrimination and work towards established goals, yet fails to provide evidence of widespread action and administrative change.” 

• Opinion: "Optional masks are a segregationist policy, dictating what bodies are safely allowed in a space. In a protest setting, that means excluding the most impacted from fighting for their own rights."

• Opinion: "At every point in my career here at AU, I have been disgusted by the University’s response — or lack thereof — to sexual violence on campus."