AU PM AGA ZI N E The alumni magazine of The American University of Paris
ANNIVERSARY EDITION
spring 2013
50th
We thank Lanc么me for their generous support of the 50th Anniversary Global Alumni Weekend.
Contents
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From the President 50 Years of History The Founders The Vital Years: 1969-1971 The 1960s and the CBS News Report The Last Tango in Paris: ACP in the 1970s A Temporary Shelter: ACP Circa 1980 Dining at the Same Table: AUP in the 1990s Epilogue 007 Facts and Figures from AUP’s Archives
Featured on our cover and below: AUP’s inaugural class travelled to France’s Loire Valley in 1962 as part of a Cultural Program trip. For 50 years, the Cultural Program has been a hallmark of the AUP student experience, bringing students to destinations such as Normandy, Rome, Vienna, Fez, and Auroville.
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AUP Today Student Life The Bright Future of AUP Student Media Alumni Going Places – Results of the Alumni Survey 50 Events Around the World for the 50th Au Courant In Memoriam Gifts to AUP
Then & Now The Amex Café 50 Years of Games: Sports at AUP AUP’s Student Government Association The Maintenance Team
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AUPMAGAZINE The alumni magazine of The American University of Paris • 50th Anniversary Edition
Spring 2013
{Letter from the editor}
On the cover: Cultural Program Trip 1962 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Kristina Keenan ’08 EDITING TEAM
How does one condense 50 years of stories, facts, historical documents, publications, photographs, and memories into a 48-page magazine? The seemingly impossible task brought me deep into the University’s archives. Over the last nine months I worked my way through each file and photo, reading each yearbook and catalog, discovering the ins and outs of my alma mater. There was no way to include everything. I simply wanted to give a taste of the five decades, starting with the creation of the American College in Paris in 1962, through its transformation into The American University of Paris of today. Many of the stories come from alumni. And what I find remarkable is that the experiences are quite similar. What students, faculty, and staff alike seem to have experienced at AUP was a period of self-discovery, the freedom to create and grow, learning inside the classroom from engaging professors as well as fellow classmates, gaining new perspectives, and of course, discovering French culture in the beautiful City of Light. While this 50th Anniversary edition of AUP Magazine carries the nostalgia of the past, it is also a tribute to many of the hardworking people who kept the school running for so many years. This edition celebrates the anniversary of a unique educational institution with a community that has truly gone global.
Vera Baker Symonne Torpy ’14 Kristina Ver Foley CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Emmeline Butler ’13 Amber Cooper-Jorez ’09 Christopher Frechette ’85 Bruce Hager ’72 Raeesa Hamid Kristina Keenan ’08 Brian Kelly ’80 Distinguished Professor Emeritus David Pike Danielle Savage President Celeste Schenck Hans Sperling ’91 Sebastian Tamas ’07 Tania Varela ’14 Kristina Ver Foley Anya VerKamp ’15 PHOTOGRAPHY
AUP Archives Jana Lahitova ’14 Ford Leland ’13 Katelyn Perry Luke Shepard ’13 DESIGN
Julie Hammill PRINTING
Happy 50th AUP!
Tanghe
Kristina Keenan ’08 Manager of Outreach Communications and Editor-in-Chief of AUP Magazine
AUP Magazine is a publication of The American University of Paris. AUP Magazine is published twice a year by: The Office of University Outreach and Advancement 118 rue Saint Dominique 75007 Paris, France
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MAGAZINE We thank Veuve Clicquot for their generous support of the 50th Anniversary GlobalAUP Alumni Weekend. 3
{from the president} Celeste Schenck
Dear Members of the AUP Community, Anniversaries are always occasions upon which to look backward, gather around us our various histories, assess the road traveled, claim our beloved ancestry, and then forge ahead, imagine, set goals and plan for the future. In this letter I will do a little bit of that looking backward and forward in order to position AUP squarely within its own history, yet poised for flight, right into her much-deserved, second half century. Perhaps the most moving thing to me about this year has been the force and power of the alumni return to their alma mater, the force of alumni interest in the University, the power of alumni participation in the life of the institution, and the sheer numbers of those who have returned to campus, hosted an event, attended an alumni reunion (one of the 50 we held around the world), reached out a hand to a student, mentored a graduate, offered an internship or a job, made a donation, or simply received me in their home to talk about the difference AUP made in their lives. You are now—officially, in my view—the stewards of your University, along with its faculty and staff, and the extended family of AUP trustees, parents, and friends. How has AUP become the global university it is today? Dr. Delamater had a vision that went far beyond the founding years. He had a passionate stake in the importance of international education, a vision that had not yet had its time when he embarked on the founding of the College. Posing the important question “how might one bridge the gap of narrow nationalism,” Delamater defined a mission that defines us still. He also saw beyond the founding moment to the day when the ACP would be a “complete university and even have centers in Rome, London, and Madrid.” He reasoned even then that that our world would require increasing numbers of international exchanges in all fields, ranging from the diplomacy and business to science and even tourism. I would argue that in words different from the ones we use today Dr. DeLamater was envisioning the rapid globalization that has overtaken our world and the pressing need for cultural translators who can bridge
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cultures and value systems with ease and aplomb. He had a clear-eyed vision even then of where the world, and consequently the College, would be going. In fact, our founder’s vision has come to be. AUP is likely the most international university on the planet. We have created a consortium of 26 American universities across Europe, Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa in 19 countries speaking 15 languages. We have evolved from a college to a four-year comprehensive university to what Carnegie classifies as a small Master’s university. We welcome students from over a hundred different nationalities, have taken our assise in eight buildings across the 7th arrondissement, are about to launch renovations on a new one, and have a mission and student and faculty constituencies that are unique in the world. To make matters more complex, most of the individuals making up our community think of themselves as bi- and tri-cultural, holding several different passports rather than identifying themselves with a single nationality. In this interesting “third place,” where accented English often reigns, everyone starts on a level playing field. Not only do we receive students from all over the world, we also increasingly send them forth as well, to Cape Town, Ghana, Buenos Aires, New York, Fez, Tunis, Pondicherry and Shanghai, and soon, perhaps, to Central Asia and the Gulf. Our alumni live and work in 141 countries worldwide. In short, at 50, The American University of Paris graduates students every year who return to transform the communities from which they have come or new ones to which they have emigrated. The model of sending and receiving American students that inspired Dr. DeLamater has been replaced today by the diverse demography that he envisioned and we have become. As President during this fiftieth anniversary year, it is my great honor, with my colleagues, to take Dr. Delamater’s vision forward. I hope he would be proud that today we have 20 majors, 37 minors and 11 graduate programs, a growing reputation
President Lloyd DeLameter, Graduation Ceremony, 1965
for interdisciplinary faculty research and international academic convocation. As fervently as then, The American University of Paris aspires to offer the finest American-style education in Europe to students of all nationalities, cultures, languages and beliefs. As our second fifty years dawn, we still have much to accomplish. Paramount amongst our goals is continued devotion to the quality of our academic product, the rigor of our academic conversations and exchanges, and the excellence of our curricular vision of global sustainability, conflict resolution, cultural translation, deep liberal arts learning, the enabling, empowering, hands-on applications of such knowledge, cross-cultural scholarship and understanding, and the address of social injustice by any means at our disposal. Also at the top of our list is the purchase and renovation of a Student Life and Learning Center to bring together ARC and the AUP Library into a new state-of-the-art Learning Commons, to create dedicated student space for rehearsals, clubs, government, and media and publishing functions, and to provide a new home for the AMEX. Finally, and perhaps most important, is our commitment to tell AUP’s story in a way that draws to us just those students, who, like our alumni, will feel at home in the exceptional
laboratory of our particular learning community— students who select AUP because this is the only university in the world where they could become their best and most adventurous selves. These are ambitious plans, but the fierce work of accomplishing them is worth it. Because even though we celebrate our past, universities, unlike other cultural institutions, are inevitably and always about the future—their own, that of their students, indeed, that of the world. Despite our ritual celebration of traditions and anniversaries, universities have a mission to educate the leaders of the future, those who, in our view at AUP, will be the most attuned to and fluent in global conversations. We teach students values—the capacity to negotiate difference or to challenge entrenched ideas, or better yet give up their own entrenched ideas – that will ensure a better future for men and women of this planet. Universities, ours right at the head of them, are out in front, beacons of what is to be.
Taking AUP higher every day with your belief and support,
Celeste Schenck, President
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of history The American University of Paris (known in its early years as the American College in Paris) has its foundations strongly rooted in the vibrant city it calls home. Founder Lloyd Delamater’s vision focused on creating an environment where cosmopolitan students could be exposed to the inspirational educational and cultural landscape of the City of Light. Dr. Delamater’s wife Marie, was the passionate face behind student housing and welfare, while his partners Walter J. Brennan, Raymond Flowers and Col. Cate played instrumental roles in establishing a university not only inspired by academic excellence, but also in celebration of history, diversity, culture and life.
Barbara Williams at the Eiffel Tower, 1964
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The Founders By Symonne Torpy ’14
Get to know the people who launched the original American College in Paris. Dr. Lloyd DeLamater Founder of the American College in Paris and First Dean of the College
Dr. Lloyd Arthur DeLamater was born in New York State in 1922. His Irish immigrant family had been impoverished by the Depression, but his every creative pursuit was nevertheless encouraged. Attending college, then the Maritime Academy, and later Columbia University, he eventually pursued his Doctorate in Economics in Paris. After passionate stints teaching, studying and serving the military, Dr. DeLamater founded the American College in Paris. He was its first Dean, President and Vice Chairman for Development from September 6, 1962 through 1972. He then became a fundraising and educational consultant in higher education in the U.S. and Europe. Nearly 88 years old, Dr. Lloyd passed away on February 10, 2010, surrounded by loved ones including his wife Marie, at home in Nice, France. Marie-Louise Viborel DeLamater Contributor to the founding years of ACP, wife of founder, First Director of Housing and Women’s Counselor
Marie-Louise Viborel DeLamater was born in 1925. Having traveled, studied, and married the love of her life, she took on a central role when her husband, Dr. DeLamater founded the American College in Paris. Housing students was Marie’s passion. As most students did not speak French, she communicated with landlords on their behalf and counseled them on life in Paris. Marie retired after thirty years at ACP, most of which she spent as Director of the Cultural Program. She has been pursuing her thirst for knowledge at the Ecoles Pratiques des Hautes Etudes, the Sorbonne and the Fine Art School of the Ville de Paris, traveling, life-drawing at the Grande Chaumière, and rekindling her love for the piano. Col. Karl S. Cate Founding Chairman
Born in 1887, Karl Springer Cate hailed from Ivy League lineage and was himself a Harvard alumnus. In 1900, his family had a six-month sojourn in Paris and his love affair with the city began. Col. Cate became one of the most prominent figures in the Parisian American community of his time, serving on the boards
of almost every American institution in Paris, including The American Cathedral of Paris, the Cercle Interallié and the Chamber of Commerce. In 1962, when Dr. Delamater was looking for an influential ally in Paris’ American community to help start the college, there was no better candidate. Col. Karl Cate was essential to providing the access to a reliable health care system, key amenities for incoming students and gathering support for the university. He was declared Founding Chairman of the Board in 1967, and passed away on November 2nd of the same year. Although a reputable workaholic, Col. Cate was a family man who preferred a simple life in the French countryside and enjoyed playing the piano well into his old age. Raymond D. Flowers First Registrar, Director of Admissions, and the College’s Business Manager
Born in Toledo, Ohio on August 6, 1923 to a working class family, Raymond Flowers felt a contrary calling to the world of academia. He dove into his life’s work without hesitation, teaching high school classes in business after graduating. By the time he met Lloyd Delamater in May 1961, Ray already had an established position in the community of American high school administrators in Europe, making him an indispensable addition to Delamater’s team. He worked at ACP until in April of 1965 when he suffered a devastating stroke. Ray was never to speak or write again and lived the rest of his days in Toledo, finally passing away in February 1999. Walter J. Brennan First Director of the Cultural Program
Walter Brennan was born September 8, 1927 in Troy, New York. A concert pianist, he arrived on the ACP scene during the College’s founding phase. Dr. Delamater and Col. Cate were immediately impressed by his wide range of culture générale. Throughout the first five years, Brennan remained responsible for the college catalog and other formal correspondence. Importantly, he was as the College’s Cultural Program founder, in collaboration with Marie DeLamter. More than just a tour guide, Brennan also taught musical theory and appreciation. Walter J. Brennan died in his Paris home on Friday, November 30, 2012. To read their full biographies, visit 50years.aup.edu.
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19691971
Dean Maddison with students
1968 Paris Riots
The student lounge at the American College in Paris
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The Vital YearS By David Wingeate Pike,
Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Contemporary History and Politics
It might be supposed that the hardest years of a university are its very first. This was not the case at ACP, and curiously it was not the case at Stanford, from where the present writer came to Paris. The hardest years, for both, as for many universities, were 1969-1971. This triennium of agony was marked by two assaults on the idea of university, the first coming from the student movement and the second springing from opposition to the war in Vietnam. Those supporting the student movement automatically opposed the war. The converse, however, was not necessarily true, and it is in that category, of total opposition to the war and equally to the excesses of the student movement, that this writer belonged.
I was still at Stanford when the wind swept through Morningside Heights. At Harvard, President Pusey found his office invaded, with a student militant seated in the big chair. Then a month later, the wind swept into Paris, already the cradle of four revolutions, and the upheaval in Paris far surpassed anything in America. The Odéon was turned into a fortress, and barricades sprouted throughout the 5th and 6th arrondissements. It would be decades before the Métro station at Cluny was reopened. Not three miles away, at the American Church in Paris on the Quai d’Orsay, where ACP was housed in the basement, the fledgling college went about its business as if nothing had changed. Students came to class as usual. So did the professors, with a few notable exceptions. Otherwise, at ACP, life remained normal. The students were well dressed, the males in jackets and ties while the ladies all wore skirts. Jeans were never seen. The ACP student of that era, in portrait composite, tended to be American, white, and the son or daughter of an American diplomat, military officer, or businessman based in Europe. And so I arrived from an academic program at sea to the American College in Paris. I was interviewed by Carol Maddison, who was head of Humanities. A Canadian and a classical scholar of brilliant intellect, Carol would have stayed the rest of her life at ACP had she not in 1977 married an English Queen’s
Counsel and moved to England. She would produce four historical works that were widely acclaimed, in addition to a remarkable history of the early years of ACP. I missed meeting the Registrar, Ray Flowers, but through Carol’s recommendation I met the president Lloyd Delamater. Lloyd was always in a rush, so I was interviewed in a taxi. After visiting Paris, I returned to Stanford, but felt more and more tempted to try my luck with ACP, and so, in September 1968, I returned to Paris again. ACP was still largely confined to its premises in the Church, with two classrooms in the basement, the Thurber Room upstairs, and the gymnasium for examinations. It also rented space on the ground floor of the American Cathedral, which is where I taught, though on occasion in the Cathedral’s catacombs. No one complained about that, not I certainly, having taught in a typhoon in the South China Sea.
We felt like pioneers. Our salaries reduced us to the most modest of life-styles, but we did not dwell on what we did not have. We had Paris, and for the happiest among us, our research. And ACP was fun. The ACP administration seemed like family. Lloyd ran the show, selecting his faculty with the help of Carol Maddison, now his dean. Lloyd’s wife
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Marie ran the Housing Office and the Cultural Program. The student body numbered 300, and remained at that point over several years. The faculty totaled some 30, all but six part-time. Relations were cordial. Many of the early faculty were on sabbatical in Europe. Others came from the French academic world. Among them was Clélia Hutt, who was indeed present at the creation in 1962. She headed the French Department, and when she retired she was the first to receive the title of Emeritus. She was ably assisted by Jean Canu, a scholar of particular refinement who had taught at Chicago, Georgetown and Princeton. Père Guillaume de Bertier de Sauvigny, president of the Société d’histoire moderne, taught French history. Equally eminent, in chemistry, was Ralph Delbourgo, a director of research at CNRS. Another stalwart of these early days was Edmund Pendleton, organist of the Church and our Composer in Residence. As an American he had continued to live in the Church under German occupation, hiding fugitives in the loft until, with America’s entry into the war, he was forced to leave.
Then came may 1969. Nothing happened on American campuses that did not reach ACP the very next day. At Berkeley, students were marching in the thousands, despite an emergency edict that made it illegal. A helicopter sprayed CS tear gas over People’s Park. It drifted into the campus hospital. Picnicking women and children tried to flee; gas-masked Guardsmen blocked the exits, and some youngsters became hysterical. Berkeley actually fell under military rule. Sheriff Madigan ordered in over 2,000 troops. Berkeley professors went to Sacramento to ask Governor Ronald Reagan to pull out the troops. He refused, sticking out his long forefinger at the professors and telling them, “once the dogs of war have been unleashed, you must expect things will happen.” Across the world, the news ignited even the students at ACP, who now took aim at the college Administration. The Board of Trustees included the Pastor of the Church, the Rev. Clayton S. Williams. An impromptu meeting took place in the Church basement between Williams and three members of the Faculty Council, which I then chaired. We were all moderates, but not in the Reverend’s eyes. “If you continue on,” he said, ‘I shall close this College down.” “A man of the cloth,” Lloyd commented to me with withering contempt. Under pressure from all sides, the Board ultimately decided to appoint John McNary, an ACP professor of biology, to take our founding president’s place. President McNary did his best to repair our dented
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morale. The College now moved into the rented Bosquet building. But ACP’s fortunes went down, not up, especially in May 1970 after the killings at Kent State. From the steps of the American Church, ACP students spilled their protest into the street. That brought in the Paris police. Some ACP students acted as if they were in Berkeley. Edmund Pendleton was standing on the steps of the Church when an ACP girl squirted liquid into his face. A moment of horror during which Edmund feared he was blinded. So did we, standing beside him. It turned out to be water, but the Paris police would have none of it, especially when the student who had doused him shook her banner at the police. “Vous êtes en France!” roared the police chief at the ACP girl, putting a quick end to the charade. Throughout these vital years, the protests took on two forms. There was the war, and there was the student movement itself. Even then, ACP hosted debates on the state of current events. Two spokesmen were dispatched by the Embassy to speak in favor of the War, and both debates were audio-recorded. All that the Embassy succeeded in doing, however, in its attempts to sell the virtues of the war to ACP students who knew they could die in it, was to incense them even further. The first of the spokesmen came to the Church a few days after the disclosure (12 November 1969) of the massacre at My Lai (perpetrated long before, on 16 March 1968) and spoke predictably, of turning the corner and of light visible at the end of the tunnel, of the need for patience and restraint. ACP’s student and faculty questioning fell on deaf ears. The second visitor from the Embassy was LieutenantGeneral Vernon A. Walters, who had recently served President Nixon both as interpreter (in French and Portuguese) and as point man in the establishment of military dictatorship in Brazil. Before the debate could start, two ACP students came up to the table with a large bundle wrapped in newspaper. “With our compliments, General!” Walters stood up, but did not move to open the bundle, so the students did it for him. The remains inside the newspaper looked for all the world like a child roasted in Vietnam. It was in fact a fetal pig. Walters recoiled at the sight of it, then recovered his composure as a man loyal to his commander in chief. He then delivered his speech. “The domino theory,” he cried. “All Southeast Asia will fall, piece by piece. Beware of appeasement, beware of repeating history. Before World War II, here and everywhere those on the Left were crying ‘Why die for Dantzig?’” Walters had it back to front. The appeasers of the 1930s crying “Why die for Dantzig?” were not on the Left, but on the Right. Nothing deterred Walters: “Vietnam is moral, and we can win it if we have the guts.”
Between the visits of the Embassy’s two best men, ACP received another from the American novelist Mary McCarthy, who had traveled in both North and South Vietnam and had emerged as an arch-critic of the war. She spoke in the Church on 12 December 1969, at a time when ACP students had followed the pattern in America and created a “moratorium committee.” All normal business was “postponed for the duration.” It had become very difficult to teach, and impossible to give exams. The visit of Mary McCarthy was a game-changer because it revealed a split within the faculty. A woman of refinement, she came in carrying no burning torch to hurl at the Administration, and her audience took note of it. A student told her she was off-track and mocked her for the low turnout. She replied with dignity that she had spoken against the war to audiences smaller than this. The cold encounter showed which way the wind was blowing. At ACP, as at Stanford and everywhere else, there were two separate issues. It was possible and necessary, but very difficult, to support the one (opposition to the war) and to recoil from the other (the student – and some faculty – attacks on universities themselves). I was known at ACP as a visceral opponent of the war. Now that I sided against the student movement I was seen as a false prophet. I had been popular, and I ceased to be so. The ACP faculty was in fact split down the middle on the question of the student demands. The traditionalists among us saw the need to speak out in our own clear terms. The dramatic events that ACP saw then are hard to imagine now. In the spring of 1971, ACP was never more fragile. President McNary’s office in Bosquet was occupied, and students barred him from entering the building. The dénouement took place at Orly Airport, where John McNary was returning from a business trip. He was met by a rebel partnership of two faculty members who handed him an ultimatum, demanding his immediate resignation, with one to be appointed president and one dean. Immediately after the attempted coup at Orly, a copy of the ultimatum fell into my hands, and as chairman of the Faculty Council I distributed it to an emergency meeting of the Faculty Assembly.
A Board meeting was now held to vote on the question: to close or not to close? How close were we to closure? Such a decision required all 33 Board members to vote, including those who were not at the meeting or even in France. For many days, as John McNary told me privately, the vote stood at 16-16. The 35th member of the Board finally arrived in Paris and cast his vote. He voted not to close.
In the meantime Schiller College in Germany had heard of the Board’s vote and took rented premises on the rue Dupont des Loges, virtually opposite the Bosquet building. Its invitation went out to the ACP Faculty to be the first to switch, and some ACP professors responded. No sooner had the ACP Board announced its decision than Schiller abandoned its premises. We were, in fact, that close to closing. The result was a Board decision to replace the president, and to part ways with most of the faculty agitators. Damon Smith came in as the new president, stayed for 12 years, and brought stability and growth to campus, as well as much-awaited US accreditation. ACP could enter Fall 1971 with new hope. President Nixon’s Commission on Campus Unrest reported at the time that 50 percent of all those at universities and colleges now belonged to an “alienated culture, hostile to science and technology, and growing fast.” In the US, the universities were still wracked with radicals, professors as well as students, who would tear down virtually all existing institutions. In New York, students burned books, heedless of what Heine had said about the burning of books, how it is always followed, sooner or later, by the burning of bodies. During the struggle for the future of ACP, the most fundamental principles of liberal education were being challenged. A new form of learning was introduced. All was to be judged in terms of “relevance.” The humanities took the brunt of the attack. They were not “useful.” They did not guarantee a job. Shakespeare was declared irrelevant, except perhaps for the opening scene in Love’s Labours Lost. History was reduced to the “usable past.” Philosophy was no longer search, it was statement. Learning was now a matter of selecting facts, cherry-picked, to support whatever argument. At the root of it all, what liberal education sets out to do is liberate, just as the Humanities seek to humanize, all taking place in what H. G. Wells called “a race between education and catastrophe.” Liberal education seeks to liberate from stupidity, from the ignorant, meaningless life. And surely from inhumanity as well. Just before Bobby Kennedy was murdered, which added to the student sense of hopelessness, he had quoted from Aeschylus: “Let us seek to tame the savageness in man, and make gentle the life of the world.” We the moderates on the ACP faculty that saw education in these terms had to make our case, point by point. We had to restate what we took to be selfevident truths. We had to teach that to be ignorant of the past is to be intellectually defenseless. We quoted from Cicero: “He who knows nothing of the past remains always a child.” Enough students, fortunately,
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began to listen to what we said. The liberal arts teach freedom of the mind. Freedom to think, clearly and logically, and this freedom is best found in a general education as opposed to a merely specialized education. Schola in Greek means leisure, or freeing the mind, the proper use of free time. Freedom to build a personal sense of values, so that we cannot be manipulated. Of academic unrest, we would say, again and again, we understand the causes. But unrest can never be antiintellectual. A university must reject everything that limits its freedom to inquire. It cannot accept dogma, nor can it impose its own. It cannot accept dogma even when that dogma is supported by the popular will or by the national need. It must reject everything that limits its freedom to inquire. The university, we insisted to our students, is not the servant of its time and place. The university can never replace its academic goal of learning. It cannot reshape that academic goal to goals of political action, however worthy those political goals may be. And however “corrupt� a university may seem to angry students, it remains the least corrupt of all our
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institutions, and at the same time, the easiest to destroy. Out of the struggle of those vital years, came the recognition at ACP of the true function of the university: to increase the number of people who can judge for themselves. The dramatist Sheridan lamented in 1779 that the number of those who undergo the fatigue of judging for themselves is very small indeed. Yet without an informed citizenry every democracy is precarious. ACP in its microcosmic way had shown that truth can be manipulated by clever politicians or by eloquent demagogues. It also showed that the same liberal arts that had been so repudiated were now offering rescue from the chaos. The tenets had not changed: keep an open mind, and yet be ready to decide, and act; develop a respect for evidence and for contrary opinion; foster a quality of mind that can resist the brutal simplifications of the demagogue, the bigot, and the fanatic. With a final injunction: be ready for the unexpected, because the best weapon you can carry to meet crisis, if it comes your way, is a versatile, questioning, adaptable mind.
The 1960s and The CBS News Report By Emmeline Butler ’13
1960s
“ Paris is a nice place to visit, but can a young American actually study there?” begins a March 1963 CBS News report on the American College in Paris. The broadcast, framed by accordion music and archival footage of Paris in the 1920s, introduced television audiences across the United States to this example of “typically American community spirit and private enterprise” – the first independent American college in Europe, founded by Dr. Lloyd DeLamater. In the piece, a group of students from the College’s first class described life on “the most beautiful campus in the world.” Topics ranged from what the French think of American girls, to the students’ views on the Cuban Missile Crisis from abroad, to what it is like to make small talk with a French communist over the mustard pot in the dining hall. One of the students in the video was Russell Lee, then 24 years old. During the CBS interview, students commented on the lack of gender equality in France compared to that in the U.S. Lee said, “The French like to say that there has only been one feminist in French history…[and] that after Madame de Staël, the thing just died out. And she died about 1820.” Fifty years later, Lee watched the CBS News report and smiled while pointing out the other students in the video as they appeared: Thomas “Dean” Lucas, Leigh Agniel, Jan Kennedy, and Alexander Chodakowski. Even in the early 1960s, the College’s students hailed from many countries, though they were almost all the sons and daughters of American diplomats, service and businessmen temporarily living in Europe. “Tamara Conyers, for example, arrived at the College with some conversational Japanese, Pakistani, Urdu, and Portuguese from her father’s assignments to projects in those countries,” recalled Lee. “She was also fluent in Spanish from a university program for foreigners in Madrid …
something similar to the Cours de Civilisation Française at the Sorbonne. For a student like her, learning French was a piece of cake – she had already been picking up foreign languages by ear since childhood.” Lee never considered himself to have been a typical ACP student. He enrolled just after his military service and then quickly decided that college wasn’t for him. Instead, he was hired by the College as an assistant to the administration and was deeply invested in the College. He explained, “I was handy because I lived close to the College and as a single male I could go trooping off to do whatever at odd hours. I changed from being one of the entering students into the office’s all-purpose assistant within the first two months that the College was opened, and basically never looked back.” In the early years of the American College in Paris, classes were held at the American Church, located on the Quai d’Orsay, and at the American Cathedral just across the Seine. The Church established a strict Code of Conduct which students were expected to follow. As Lee remembered, “There was no smoking. Certain church restrooms and the elevator were off-limits to the students. As the assistant, if word came to the College office that there was some boy waiting in the hallway for class to begin and he hadn’t bothered to put on a tie that day, I would have to get that guy out of the building before someone in the church saw him.” Fifty years later, Lee still remembers all of the excitement, set-backs, and struggles experienced by the American College in Paris during its early years. Its survival and adaptation to now serve so many nationalities, he said, is a “remarkable achievement.”
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1970s Computer Center, 1976
The Last Tango in Paris: ACP in the 1970s By BRUCE HAGER ’72
The American College in Paris (ACP) of the ’70s was a two-year liberal arts college of about 300 students from the US, Europe and the Middle East (particularly Iran). ACP’s intimate community allowed its students to develop relationships with the faculty that were simply impossible at larger institutions. Many of my fellow students were American servicemen and women who either served in the military in France, at one of the cultural institutions, or had completed assignments in Vietnam and were looking to begin college in a cosmopolitan European city. Although Paris was, as ever, known for its wide boulevards, picturesque cafés, and nighttime illumination, the city was not as we know it today. As one student recalled, “Paris in 1970 was nearly a Third World country to most Americans – I mean, we were there when the first McDonald’s opened.” The city was also on constant alert in the aftermath of the 1968 student riots. ACP administrators reminded students to be in possession of their identity papers (carte de séjour, student ID, and passport). As the carbine-armed State Police – known as the CRS – could request these at a moment’s notice. It was new practice for many American students. Classes were held at 31 Avenue Bosquet, and at the American Church along the Left Bank. Lunch was served in a church cafeteria overlooking Rue de Grenelle and often included a meat dish such as pork, chicken, or biftek as well as gratin potatoes and French
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delicacies such carottes rapées. We realized only later that biftek was often horsemeat. Faculty members came from all walks of life. Dr. Lee Samuelson (Economics) worked at UNESCO, Dr. Mitchell Strohl, (International Law and International Relations), was also ACP’s Dean of Studies and an ex-Naval officer. Dr. James Latham (Introduction to Philosophy) enjoyed conducting his classes in cafés, and Claire Colletti-Brawley (English) actively encouraged students who showed promise to become writers. Jean Bardot (a cousin of Brigitte), ran the cultural program and organized trips around France as well to Russia, England, and Italy. The elderly statesman of the faculty, Dr. Claude Jones, revealed that he had once boxed Ernest Hemingway. Robin Robin (Photography) encouraged many to pursue photography – not difficult, when he brought in lithe models to pose nude for the class. Anthony Stewart (Drama), with his aura of stardom from his appearance in the movie The Day of the Jackal, gave students much needed confidence and helped mount theater productions such as A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Perhaps one of the most significant contemporaries was a former ACP student who had transferred to Columbia University and then returned to become Dean of Students. His name was Steve Plummer – a man with a gargantuan presence, both physical and metaphysical. He wrote a student guide to Paris that served as a practical manual to navigating the
complexities of living in the city, and fostered the familial ambiance many of us remember. He was our smart, at times indulgent, big brother. Although we were a tight community, we were far from isolated from the political and cultural forces at play outside the 7th – the sting of tear gas in a Latin Quarter demonstration, a television taping of William Buckley’s Firing Line with Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, then French Finance Minister. And when the U.S. experienced a streaking phenomenon, several ACPers decided not to be outdone and ran naked down the Champs-Elysées. Many of us enjoyed Paris’ culinary offerings and cultural attractions. We gathered in cafés to discuss classes and politics (with Nixon as President, many of us felt that it was an excellent time to be expatriates). We enjoyed mimicking French experiences. Last Tango in Paris (1972), starring Marlon Brando and Maria Schneider, included a tango scene performed at the Salle Wagram near L’Etoile and the Student Council hustled sufficient funding to rent the Salle for a
ACP Dormitory, 1973
memorable spring 1974 party that attracted almost the whole college, including faculty. With spirits flowing, one professor headed to the restroom. Slipping a bit on the tile, he excused himself to his mirror reflection, before disappearing into the stall. Indeed, while we had fun, we never forgot the civility and decorum necessary to live in Paris in the 1970s.
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For more information on your perfect stay in Paris visit Paris Perfect at www.ParisPerfect.com AUP MAGAZINE
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1980s A doorman hosing down the icy sidewalk. A proud artisan who’s not in it for the money. Croissants done right. Dinners with Persian friends that include rice, pistachios, pomegranates, blackberries and gold coins.
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A Temporary Shelter: ACP Circa 1980 By Brian Kelly ’80
Like the chairs in Tuileries Gardens, my memories of Paris and ACP are scattered, but always welcome. Lucky to find one, I sit with it. ACP brought me to Paris in 1980, just after the Shah of Iran was overthrown, and ACP was a temporary shelter to many Persian students fleeing the chaos. This lent our Paris experience extra dramatic flair. We learned about a bewildering number of Iranian factions along with our irregular French verbs. The College’s students were diverse: Americans seeking something more, like-minded foreign expats, polyglots from Africa and beyond. Some were Francophiles. Some, like me, had the audacity to arrive without speaking the language but knew in their gut that Paris was the right place. It may be true that education is what’s left after all we learn in school has been forgotten. The marks of certain professors stay with me: Dr. Marc M. Pelen In no other classroom were students so clearly outgunned as in Dr. Pelen’s ‘Medieval Literature’. His lectures were a mix of Christian theology and ‘The Story of O’. Questions were few. The speed of his brain and precision of his language rendered most student challenges risky business. It was peashooters against a bazooka — an entertaining bazooka. His thoughts were long and logical, and if he ran out of blackboard space, he’d keep writing on the wall. To make his point he’d stand on desks and show you his shoe leather. From Canterbury Tales we learned that ‘Filth is merely matter out of place’. Dr. Mitchell P. Strohl His Political Geography course was as surprising and quirky as the man himself. I paraphrase: ‘The track gauge of Russian and US railroads are the same (1500 mm) because us Yanks helped them build it while we were still friends’. He wanted you to think on your feet. A big chunk of his final exam included a subject we’d never discussed in class: ‘Name 3 isthmuses and explain their geo-political importance’. I still don’t know what an ‘isthmus’ is.
Dr. Terence Murphy He taught us how ‘technological innovation guided human history’. He truly loved learning and was always prepared. He had a moustache made for root beer commercials. Dr. Avraam Koen (Greek Philosophy) He taught us that ‘most of Western civilization is based on Greek ideas grounded in Roman organization.’ Dr. Paul J. Godt He imparted us with the importance of attribution. There was no Internet in the ’80s to make that easy. He took the high road and I am better for it. Godt gave me my only F. The building at 31Avenue Bosquet was our matriarch – old, constant and elegant. But the meandering flow of this staid hôtel particulier confirmed a more playful side. Heave the carriage doors open and follow the muted chatter back to the covered courtyard. Check for friends. Part the mud flaps. Check for mail. The glass office that housed Student Affairs was hidden but not hiding. Steve Plummer, Connie Nicholson, Carol Harrington, Julian Bivins and others were always ready to engage, translate, or demystify something about French life. Hobble up the spiral staircase and arrive at the mirrored grand ballroom. Friday night dances feature DJ Luis Feliz playing cassettes by the Cars and Michael Jackson’s ‘Bad’. Balconies overlooked the sycamore trees that lined the dappled sidewalks below. Wind your way downstairs past a stained-glass coat of arms and you’re back where you started. My brief days at ACP were an indelible episode of cultural camaraderie and shared values. I have more in common with the college friends I see once every few years than I have with the people I see every day in my own town. Must be the memories.
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Dining at the Same Table: AUP in the 1990s By Hans Sperling ’91
I was conscious from the day I arrived in Paris to attend AUP, that the possibilities for the future were limitless. There were several paths I imagined my life might take, and then there was the mysterious “unimagined.”
1990s
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That sense of infinite opportunity, even today remains a huge part of the feeling of being in Paris. Here was a city that amplified whatever was going on in your soul. If you were happy, Paris made you exuberant. If you were blue, Paris made you distraught. If you were content, Paris made you deeply so. It was no wonder so many artists and writers called it home. And culture was taken seriously. Becoming a philosopher or an artist was a noble pursuit, one that a person could make a living in (just not necessarily a materially abundant one). Ideas mattered. Thinking had value. Paris changed your taste. I started drinking coffee —to wake myself up for an afternoon class. I started drinking wine after I asked a waiter to choose a nice, full red for me. He presented a Haut Médoc, which I’d never heard of, and I took a sip. “Ah, so THIS is why people drink wine,” I thought. When I arrived in Paris, I liked Hollywood studio movies, mostly thrillers. By the time I left, I preferred European character-based dramas with a literary aesthetic. The demographics of AUP reflected history. When I arrived, students were mostly American, French and of other Western European roots, or Lebanese. By the time I matriculated, more and more new students were coming from Eastern Europe and Africa. I remember walking the streets of Paris with a new freshman from Romania, who looked around with wide eyes exclaiming, “everything is so beautiful!” We all had these kinds of experiences and felt these sensations. We all learned essentially the same lessons. We all dined at the same table. We all lived in Paris.
2000s Epilogue 007 By Sebastien Tamas ’07
Similis simili gaudet, The years have rushed by like a Corvette! What were those years like Double-O-7even? Here’s some memories shaken not stirred then:
Jack Russell Terriers, bulldogs, and more, Of all the buildings Bosquet won le décor; Lions and tigers and bears oh my, Franprix is closed on Sundays oh why!?;
How it all started like a game of Battleship: G-34, C-13, B-31, Registrar’s Office--Battleship sunk.
Fashionably late gossip along Grenelle catwalk, Cigarette breaks and then its small talk; Quick handshakes, Long kisses, A case of beer goggles—who’s the Misses?
Grueling metro herding before the beep, Cool days—hot nights, What you would have given for sleep tights. Busy bustling boulevards budding our youth’s bloom, Sorry IKEA, my apartment’s only one room. Bewildered taste buds baguettes are so yummy, Am I an adult now? ‘Cuz I seem to have overlooked this tummy. Ile-de-France no way—Ile de la Tentation! This is truly one peculiar strike Nation: Dodging dog poo and tourists, Flying rats and blind scooters, A feeling like having arrived at Hooters; Endless hunt for Saturday night taxis, Trade you my park chair—I’ll do your taxes; Maison Blanche tables and sweet talking bouncers, Cobblestones paving the way for careers as announcers; The bitter taste of 9 AM classes, Long lost loves, Or taunting your chances; Fashion week parties, Doing homework with smart tease;
Neighbors and loud music, Les flics and loud neighbors, The Amex before no smoking, But we thought they were joking; Spontaneous Amsterdam trips, Nostalgia through these comic strips! Windshield dirtier than the rearview mirror, But our memories could not be any clearer. Our dedication to Knowledge, Perspective, and Understanding did not age, Life is but a book, And those who don’t travel, Remain on one single page. The glass half full with a demi-decade, Some the Van Wilder—we should have stayed! And so, Let’s raise our glasses to these memories, Onward for the next centuries!
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By the Numbers
By Kristina Keenan ’08
1 the number of four-year, accredited, degree-
4 the number of staff employed at ACP upon its
granting American universities in France opening in 1962
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Facts and Figures from AUP’s Archives
12 the number of years in which ACP was a two-year
13 the number of official University logos to date
35 the current age of the AMEX Café
40 Dr. Lloyd DeLamater’s age when ACP opened
42 the number of years that AUP has occupied 31
50 the percentage of non-US ACP students by 1975
college (1962-1974)
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62 the number of countries represented in AUP’s Fall 2012 incoming class
103 the number of students in ACP’s inaugural class (largely Americans)
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1977 the founding year of The Planet, AUP’s
1989 the year that ACP changed its name to The
ACP tuition in dollars in 1970 student newspaper
American University of Paris
13,814 the number of AUP alumni in 2013
1,000,000 the largest gift given to AUP in its 50 years – received in 2013
THEN&NOW A look back at some of the people and places that created a sense of unity at AUP throughout the years.
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{THEN & NOW} THE AMEX CAFÉ: AUP’s Heartbeat and hub By Raeesa Hamid
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’79 The AMEX Café has unanimously been deemed the heart of The American University of Paris. It is home to a multicultural mélange of students and faculty. Here, you can choose from a selection of pastries, munch on a good ‘ole American hamburger and fries, or unwind with a glass of rosé – all for student-friendly prices. The comforting deep purple walls, plush sofas and hand-made wooden tables engender a sense of deep familiarity – the feeling of being completely at home. It’s for this reason that the AMEX is always full of students – studying, listening to music, watching a football game, sipping a beer, or simply people-watching. Although it has evolved over the years, the AMEX remains firmly ensconced in AUP’s student culture. The ’80s: Humble Beginnings for L’American Express Café
In 1979, the AMEX, then known as L’American Express Café, was born. Originally a school-run project, Dan Sherry ’79 managed alongside AUP (then ACP) students looking for some hands-on business experience and course credits. Student co-managers George Aucoin ’80 and Miriam Twaalfhoven ’81, bookkeeper turned bartender Andrew Batinovich ’80, faculty advisor Ravi Kurian-Joseph, and Dean of Students Stephen Plummer ’68 brought together a uniquely ACP spirit, which would define the life of the café to come. Students were involved in every facet of the business: daily operations, contacting vendors, hiring and firing,
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bookkeeping, and reporting to the Student Council. At the time, L’American Express Café was fondly termed ‘The Coffee House Without Coffee’, but had an abundance of snacks, sandwiches, and beers, and a DJ playing the hottest hits on cassette. During the café’s first year, beer was only served on Friday night and everything was locked up and shut down on the weekends. Students petitioned the administration to end the injustice, and ACPers soon had a place to party, seven days a week. The ’90s: Protest, Beer and Rock ‘n’ Roll
In the spring of 1990, President Catherine Ingold made the decision to move the café, referred to as the AMEX, from the Bosquet building to the St. Dominique building. According to the 1992 yearbook, L’Esprit, Ingold’s reasoning was that “it would mean less noise for classes in the building, and that there would be space for a new ‘freestanding’ student center.” Students who felt that relocating the Amex would change its identity and ambiance, organized a demonstration. The yearbook text continues, “More than 100 students and professors crammed into the Café demanding that Dean of Students John Nissen, Dean of Academics William Cipolla, and President Ingold come down to explain.” The following day, an ad hoc committee was formed with representatives from the administration, faculty, and student body, ending with a reversal of President Ingold’s decision.
“It’s not about the location, it’s about the legacy. the story behind the Amex will follow it wherever it goes.”
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The following years witnessed a frenzy of parties as the AUP heartland defined the pulse of student life in the septième. 1993 welcomed beer baptisms for new café staff members and condom dispensers. The next three years completed the transformation, with foosball, pool, and chess matches that enjoyed a campus-wide following. In 1999, the AMEX threw a bash for every major holiday and every occasion in between. AUP yearbooks are a testament to the wild energy of Reggae nights, Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Eve and countless other events. This Decade and The Next: The AMEX
The 2000s saw a change in the organization of the AMEX. Financial mismanagement and out of control parties caused the AUP administration to end the studentrun system and opt to hire external management. Raul Hernandez took over the AMEX management in early 2008, offering the space for student events, speech nights, and fundraisers. With a large variety of food and drinks added to the menu, visitors found the AMEX’s burgers to be some of the best in Paris. In April 2012, a devastating fire in the basement kitchen of the AMEX caused the café to close through
Raul Hernandez, current manager of the AmeX
the summer and beginning of the fall semester. During this time, Hernandez completely revamped the space – rebuilding, redecorating and reconfiguring the menu to make it better than ever. Later that same year, AUP’s Board of Trustees voted to sell the Bosquet building in an effort to secure funds towards the purchase of a new Student Life and Learning Center. As Chair of the Board of Trustee’s Real Estate Committee, Andrew Batinovich ’80 (part of the original AMEX staff and major donor towards the initial purchase of Bosquet) helped to guide the sale and two-year lease back, while the administration sought a new place for the students to call home. The decision continues to be disputed by alumni, students and faculty members, as Bosquet has been an integral part of AUP since 1969. Will the move to a new building be as seamless a transition as walking from one room to the next? President Schenck, Andrew Batinovich ’80, and Raul Hernandez are optimistic. In the meantime, Hernandez hopes to fortify the AMEX’s reputation as a destination for eclectic food, music and art.
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{THEN & NOW} 50 YEARS OF GAMES: SPORTS AT AUP By Raeesa Hamid
Sport is a staple of American college culture. Training gets us out of the library and onto the field to breathe the fresh air, with our best friends hustling beside us. Playing fields are a stage for making valuable memories, stomping over hard losses and celebrating exuberant victories.
Still, it’s difficult to imagine a sporty college campus in the middle of Haussmanian Paris. Despite spatial challenges, sport at AUP has continued to attract students of different backgrounds and pursuits. “March 1963 saw the founding of the American College in Paris’ athletic tradition,” appears on the first sports page of the College’s first yearbook. It all started with an enigmatic basketball team, practicing in the basement of the American Church, led by coach and student Russell Lee. This remained the sole organized team sport at ACP for several years. It was in the mid-70s when the profile of physical activities at ACP opened up. The program was still centered on men’s and women’s basketball, volleyball and football teams, but students took charge of creating less “traditional” opportunities. Student Affairs assisted interested students in finding places in the sprawling city to practice fencing, martial arts, tennis, swimming, and even ping-pong.
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The next decade kicked off with a football team, affectionately called ‘The Tourists,’ achieving success in the French University League. Franklin Craig ’81 recalled the diversity of The Tourists at AUP’s 50th Anniversary Convocation Ceremony last fall, saying “there were at least 12 different nationalities on the team and usually 5 to 6 languages spoken on the pitch.” A ski team emerged, with students taking advantage of the proximity of the French Alps, and finding a competitive edge in the biting cold. The next year, ACP introduced a squash team and more variation in less structured physical activities such as skating, yoga, sailing, body building and cycling. Equestrian was introduced in 1989 – a sport that remains particularly popular at AUP. Like the ski team, it offered the possibility to get outside of Paris for a little while, to enjoy the greener side of France. Teams at AUP went through another image change in the 90s. The basketball, football, volleyball and rugby teams all called themselves “The Expats,” proudly representing their status as foreigners in another land. Martial arts remained a skilled alternative to team sports, allowing individual training in personal defense. Bungee jumping appeared for thrill seekers, and cheerleaders groups fed the team spirit. Students remained the motivators behind organizing sports around complicated diverse schedules and a crowded urban environment. The student-led policy toward sports at the College for decades challenged the stability of teams. Franklin
Craig remembered that the rugby team had trouble finding 15 experienced players. Even with enthusiasm, the lack of proper training kept victory out of reach. Teams often popped in and out of existence as years passed and interested students came and went. The school was in need of a stable coordinator. Hence, the Sports Coordinator role emerged. Ashkan Shalbaf has been the driving force behind AUP sports since 2009. He has reintroduced and revamped several team sports that had grown lax without proper leadership. Since structure has been implemented for team practice, games and teams, a more regular sports following has grown. Sports now make up the largest community identifier at AUP, with over 70 participating students. A search for a team mascot has been underway, igniting much enthusiasm within the student body to create ideas and designs. AUP’s location and diverse community pose complications – expensive and limited access to space, and an international student body with different definitions of competition, levels of skill and expectations. These challenges only serve to underline the value of sports at AUP, serving as a unifying influence for passionate people who still identify with the word “expat.” Ultimately, we are all cheering for our AUP friends, if not running, jumping or diving beside them.
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{THEN & NOW} AUP’s Student government association By Anya VerKamp ’15
Since the opening of the American College in Paris in 1962, student involvement has manifested itself in the formation of dedicated student leadership teams year after year. Today’s Student Government Association opens the door to interactive learning through investment in undergraduate and graduate projects. Read on to learn a little about how the SGA has evolved over the years.
1962-1963: In the fall of 1962, ACP’s first students created a Student
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Union, the first student organization at the College. A Student Council was created and Jim Overton was voted as the first president.
1968-1969: In May 1968, Paris was caught in a whirlwind of civil unrest
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and student protests. Inspired ACP students wanted a greater voice in the College’s governance with assistance from Head of Student Services, Stephen Plummer, committees were born, the By Laws formalized, and a new Constitution published.
1985: The Student Council displayed its influence through a sit-in held at ACP’s library, eventually resulting in an agreement to extend opening hours until midnight.
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1990: The now Student Government Association, or SGA, helped organize a demonstration at the AMEX Café to thwart plans for the Café’s relocation to the building at Rue Saint Dominique. Students felt the move would threaten the unique ambiance of the Café, and the AMEX Café remained at Bosquet.
2007: Restructuring of the SGA allowed Master’s students more representation and they were given their own part in the Executive Branch.
2008: The SGA refocused the environmental committee’s duties and brought sustainability to the campus through the recycling program and studies on how to reduce AUP’s footprint.
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2010: With the growing need for class presidents and representatives from both graduate and undergraduate cohorts, the SGA split into two, almost separate organizations: the SGA and the GSC (Graduate Student Council).
2013: Recognizing the need for greater cooperation between undergraduate and graduate student councils, the SGA was reformed as an umbrella organization consisting of an Undergraduate Student Council (USC) and Graduate Student Council (GSC). Each has its own president, vice president, communications director and social director, while both councils rely on one treasurer.
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{THEN & NOW} THE MAintenance team
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By Anya VerKamp ’15
There is a group of dedicated AUP staff members whose quiet presence behind the scenes should not be overlooked in a university retrospective. Campus facilities wouldn’t have functioned over the past 50 years without the support of these individuals – the Maintenance Team. I sat down with Herminio Aldehuelo, employed for the last 30 years as an AUP maintenance worker. When he first arrived, at age 21, Herminio could have been mistaken for a student. He too had an international background. Born in Paris to Spanish parents, he spent his youth moving between the two countries. By the end of Franco’s dictatorship, he had decided to settle in France. While working for an elementary school in Paris, one of Herminio’s coworkers told him about a promising job at the American College in Paris (ACP). This coworker was the brother-in-law of the infamous Bautista Gonzalez – head of the maintenance department at ACP since 1966 – where he started out as the handyman for the College’s rented rooms in the American Church. Once ACP secured the Bosquet building, Bautista moved into an office in the basement just below the AMEX Café – the same office from which Herminio works today. Each morning, Herminio passed through the AMEX and students tried to enlist him for a game of foosball or pool. If he refused, they’d joke, “Hey, the University pays you,
and we pay the university, so come take a break!” He came to know many students and thrived on their tales from varied walks of life. The array of perspectives broadened his understanding and his own view of the world. Herminio remains in contact with many AUP friends and he boasts that there isn’t a country where he isn’t welcome. After 30 years, he regards taking this job as one of his best life decisions. Herminio treasures the community he joined. Bautista Gonzalez’s wife, Aucilia, and her sister, also worked at AUP and they treated young Herminio like a son. He recalls that Aucilia would even make paella once a year for the whole staff and faculty (a tradition which AUP still honors today). The maintenance team was also close with faculty members, who depended on its members for the smooth running of classes. Herminio laughs as he remembers a moment when he was playing foosball at the AMEX and a professor asked apologetically if he could please come and help her on the second floor – only after he’d finished his game. His most prized possession is a clay bowl left to him by Professor Francesca Weinmann,
’86 after her passing in March 2011. Herminio has only missed one day of work in his 30 years at AUP, for surgery. Over the years, the University has needed more extensive repairs, which require long working hours or weekends. It has been a requirement that Herminio has never refused. He recalls working one weekend in the President’s office with Bautista Gonzalez. The phone rang and Bautista answered it, only to say, “Nobody’s here!” Herminio burst out laughing, asking, “Who’s going to believe you when you just answered the phone?” Bautista Gonzalez, now in his 90s, has retired and is living in Spain. His legacy remains at AUP in the memories of faculty and staff members, but also because his granddaughter now attends AUP, as did his son and the son of another long term maintenance staff member, Manuel Perez. It is due to the commitment of the maintenance team that AUP’s campus has operated successfully over the years. For their dedication to the University, and for serving as trusted sources of stability through years, they are dear friends to AUP on duty, as off.
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{AUP Today} Student Life photos by jana lahitova ’14
student studies in the Bosquet Building
AUP Wine Club
the Campusea student dormitories
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World’s Fair
the Mac Computer Lab
Macaron Day
World’s Fair
the Amex Café
a Fashion Communications master’s course
student at a Paris restaurant
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{ALUMNI} 50 Events for the 50th During the 2012-2013 academic year, we celebrated AUP’s 50th Anniversary with 50 events around the world.
21 May 2012: Paris. The AUP Board of Trustees, President Celeste Schenck, the Graduate Student Council and the Office of University Outreach & Advancement welcomed 2012 graduates into the alumni community with a celebratory soiree in the Grand Salon. The evening also honored Professor Terence Murphy on his retirement after 37 years of service. 6 September 2012: Paris. To kick off AUP’s 50th anniversary, an official convocation was held at the American Church in Paris, the University’s first home. Speakers included President Celeste Schenck; Chair of the Board Judith Hermanson Ogilvie ’65; Distinguished Professor Emeritus David Pike; Trustee Franklin Craig ’81; SGA President Patrick McDermott; GSC President Eileen Weinstein; Student Sven Van Mourik; Kristina Keenan ’08; and Ramsey Ben-Achour ’07. 8 September 2012: Washington DC. President Celeste Schenck joined the AUPDC Chapter and the alumni community at Petits Plats restaurant in Washington DC. 13 September 2012: Monaco. Our gracious host, Mark Sandel ’89, AUP Trustee Franklin Craig ’81 and Director of University Outreach and Advancement, Kristina Ver Foley, joined those in the local community for drinks at the Yacht Club de Monaco. 12 October 2012: Munich. While traveling in Munich, Kristina Ver Foley met with alumni in the area for drinks at the newly renovated Rilano Bar. 18 October 2012: Paris. Ambassador of the United States to France, Charles H. Rivkin, and his wife, AUP Trustee Susan Tolson, hosted AUP Trustees, faculty, friends, and parents from throughout the decades to celebrate the University’s 50th anniversary at the Residence of the U.S. Ambassador to France.
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19 October 2012: Paris. To celebrate AUP’s 50th Anniversary and the Arts Arena’s 5th Anniversary, a jointly sponsored Vernissage Fundraiser was held at Door Studios in Paris. Paris-based artist Stephen McClymont offered a large series of paintings and lithographs created over a time span of 25 years, for sale at this charity event. Proceeds of the event benefitted AUP student scholarships and programs of the Arts Arena at AUP. 20 October 2012: Paris. Current, former and Emeritus Trustees joined for a cocktail dinatoire at the home of AUP Trustee Corinne Mentzelopoulos and her husband, Hubert Leven (Parent ’15). Trustee Emeritus Jacques Setton ’66 co-hosted the event. 26 October 2012: Barcelona. Organized by our gracious host, Christoph Endros ’82, President Celeste Schenck and Kristina Ver Foley enjoyed the evening with those in the local community at Christoph’s beautiful home in Bellaterra. 27 October 2012: Madrid. President Celeste Schenck, Kristina Ver Foley, and Professor Roy Rosenstein celebrated with those in the area at the Marmo Bar at Hotel Silken. 12 November 2012: Boston. Celebrating with alumni from around the globe, President Celeste Schenck and Kristina Ver Foley raised a glass with the local AUP community at Eastern Standard. 14 November 2012: Cairo. Local alumni met with Professor Waddick Doyle at Ahwak Salon de Thé for a cup of hot tea and news from campus.
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1. Istanbul; 2. Washington, D.C.; 3. New York City; 4. Los Angeles; 5. Convocation; 6. San Francisco; 7. Belgrade; 8. Paris; 9. Barcelona
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To see photos from all our alumni events, visit 50years.aup.edu.
27 November 2012: Paris. AUP Music and Recording (AMR), in cooperation with the Office of Alumni Affairs, presented the 50th Anniversary Alumni Open Mic. Local AUP alumni artists showcased their musical talents at the AMEX Cafe.
13 March 2013: Belgrade. Professor Waddick Doyle and a group of current students traveled through Belgrade and met alumni for a casual gathering at Restoran Public. Almost every AUP alum living in Serbia attended.
28 November 2012: Paris. AUP Trustee Franklin Craig ’81 hosted the third annual Student and Alumni Leadership dinner at his home. The gathering of students and alumni shared their visions for the role of the AUP alumni community.
13 March 2013: Doha. President Celeste Schenck lunched with AUP parents and alumni in Doha during her visit to Qatar.
5 December 2012: Toronto. Organized by Max Nohkrin ’08, local alumni in Toronto gathered for a pre-holiday dinner at Loire Restaurant. 6 December 2012: Paris. Student Affairs and Alumni Affairs teamed up to host the 50th Anniversary AUP Holiday Bash. The event included holiday music, food, and presentations by numerous student organizations, including ASM, 7th Dimension, The Planet, The Peacock, The7eme, SGA, GSC, AUP Darkroom, Wine Association, Roots and Shoots and AMR. 14 December 2012: Dubai. President Celeste Schenck and our generous host, Sultan Al Qassemi ’98, met with local alumni for an anniversary dinner in Dubai. 24 January 2013: Atlanta. President Celeste Schenck and Dean Neil Gordon met with alumni in the Atlanta area for drinks at the Park Tavern. 27 January 2013: Miami. Cynthia and John Junkin, parents of AUP alumna Marjorie Junkin ’11, graciously opened their home to President Celeste Schenck and the local AUP community to celebrate the University’s 50th anniversary in Florida. 8 February 2013: San Francisco. President Celeste Schenck, local trustees, alumni, parents, friends, accepted and prospective students and guests gathered at the residence of the Consul General of France in San Francisco to celebrate 50 years of AUP. Trustee Andy Batinovich ’80 and Sharon Faccinto ’87 organized the event – the largest ever in the Bay area. 9 March 2013: Istanbul. Alumnus Max Macoro ’84 and his wife, Vivet, graciously opened their home to President Celeste Schenck and the local community for an evening of celebration.
4 April 2013: New York. Former Trustee Bill Jacobi hosted the largest ever gathering of AUP alumni (outside of Paris) at the House at 7 East 95th Street. President Celeste Schenck joined in the celebrations. 7 April 2013: Los Angeles. Trustee Mahvash Yazdi and her husband, Farrok, generously hosted an event with President Celeste Schenck and the local community in honor of the 50th. Mahvash made special 50th anniversary cupcakes! 10 April 2013: Oslo. Randy Vener Deputy Director of Admissions and Financial Aid met with area alumni at Hotel Bristol in Oslo. 11 April 2013: Hong Kong. Former Trustee David Richter ’88 and his wife, Michelle, hosted an alumni get together at their home in Hong Kong. 25 April 2013: Paris. AUP celebrated its 50th anniversary by unveiling two monumental sculptures donated by AUP Professor of Fine Arts Jonathan Shimony, well-known contemporary painter and sculptor Rafael Mahdavi, and AUP professor and curator of the Combes Art Gallery Ralph Petty. Shimony and Mahdavi collaborated on Gateway, a 3m high sculpture that was dedicated to AUP. Gateway, which stands proudly in the Combes courtyard, represents an open book of learning and a new beginning for students who unite in Paris from over a hundred different nationalities. Petty sculpted a granite structure called Listening which features a man and woman with ears touching symbolizing the unique transformation that occurs at AUP through knowledge, connection, and learning. 24-27 May 2013: Paris. The University’s 50th anniversary celebrations culminate during the 2013 Global Alumni Weekend, four days filled with twenty-two individual events, attended by over 300 AUP alumni and ending with the 2013 Commencement Exercises.
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{AUP Today} The Bright Future of AUP Student Media By Tania Varela ’14
Over the past year, AUP Student Media (ASM) has undergone sweeping and positive changes thanks to the enthusiasm and drive of the students leading the transformation. Three notable shifts are: 1. The redesign of the AUP Student Media (ASM) office 2. The implementation of production classes 3. The birth of the 7eme.com, which alongside the new ASM website, establishes a fresh online presence for students
Today, ASM proudly encompasses: • The Planet: newspaper, published monthly • The Peacock: magazine, published quarterly • The7eme.com: online magazine, published daily • The 7th Dimension: radio show, broadcast weekly • Paris/Atlantic: Academic Journal of Arts & Humanities, published yearly • The Lutetian: Academic Journal of Business & Social Sciences, published yearly • L’Espirit: AUP’s yearbook
Since spring of 2012, ASM production classes have been made available to both graduate and undergraduate students. There are currently three different programs that correspond to three forms of media. The print media production class, shared by The Planet and The Peacock, has renowned journalists and authors as overseers. These include Professor Peter Gumble and Professor Craig Copetas, advising for each publication respectively. Editors in Chiefs Maritza Lacayo (The Planet) and Rachel Nielsen (The Peacock) assist in the learning process. The radio production class is led by Professor David Blanc, an experienced member of Le Syndicat National des Radios, with student Mary Anne Fehmi working as the Executive Producer of the show. Awarding 2-4 elective credits per semester, the courses can be added to a normal course load for no additional tuition cost. Greater student involvement in AUP Student Media is largely attributable to this change. The7eme.com was founded during the summer of 2012, with the goal of effectively incorporating web journalism into AUP Student Media. Although still in its nascent stages, it has grown rapidly during the academic year. Web developer and blog curator Professor Marc Feustel teaches the associated class, and student Loraine Ong works as
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the Editor in Chief. Having completely internships at two online magazines, Loraine was immediately attracted to web communications at AUP. She emphasizes the importance of a portal like the7eme.com, developed by students for the students, and points out how it can mean a world of difference to incoming and prospective students, providing them with a first-hand perspective on what it’s like to attend The American University of Paris. Ford Leland, current Executive Director of ASM Publishing and founder of The Peacock and the7eme. com, is one of the key figures involved in the recent ASM transformation. The7eme.com, he says, was created to solidify the AUP student image and provide the student body with a more interactive platform for communication. He underlines the importance of achieving a balance between the theory taught in class and the experience that will be useful on entering the workforce after graduation. Leland, driven by the desire to establish a brand that represents AUP, not only on campus but beyond, introduced the name ‘ASM Publishing. This change has already begun to bear fruit; during Paris Fashion Week, ten ASM writers had the opportunity to be actively involved. “The accreditation for ASM to participate,” says Leland, “is due to the fact that it now comes across as a professional organization.” Student involvement has increased considerably during the past year and is expected to continue doing so. Future plans concentrate on video production and are currently being thoughtfully developed in order to achieve a quality program. ASM is determined to become more involved with the academic community, and to connect with the different departments within the school, as well as to establish external partnerships that will help ASM grow and thrive.
{ALUMNI} Going Places – Results of the Alumni Survey By DANIELLE SAVAGE
For most alumni, “global” was a way of life long before it became a media buzzword. Thanks to a Fall 2012 alumni survey facilitated by graduating senior Ashkhen Zakarian, we now know for certain: AUP grads have exceptionally cosmopolitan lifestyles. Over 800 alumni and former students spanning multiple generations responded to the survey, and a whopping 80% of alums indicate that they have an international element to their careers, of which 70% routinely interact with foreign coworkers, clients, or suppliers. Over 65% work or have worked in a country other than their own; and more than 40% travel or have traveled abroad for professional purposes. Predictably, AUP grads work in a wide variety of sectors, from multinational business (‘I always looked for employers who had interests abroad, and now international management is my key skill’), to medicine (‘I see patients from many countries and plan to do some international doctoring’), to art (‘I sell my art to people all over the world’), to education (‘[I am currently]teaching foreign students, in a university foreign languages department, and comparative literature as well as administering study abroad’). Jobs in translation, entrepreneurship, travel and hospitality, media, NGOs, nonprofits and foreign service also feature prominently in AUP alumni career choices.
“With my skills, I can do business anywhere in the world, because I can appreciate and respect people and their cultures and backgrounds.” Overall, the use of one or several foreign languages, the experience of travel, and awareness of various cultures, has shaped our grads in fundamental ways.
“I use different foreign languages every day for personal and professional purposes.” A far cry from many quick-fix study abroad programs that pepper the academic landscape, AUP seems to nurture deep change. An astonishing 96% of respondents felt that their experience at AUP was helpful to their international career path and 80% agreed that the preparation they received at AUP for their current career was fairly good to very good.
“My time at ACP prepared me for life in a global environment. It opened my mind to differing outlooks on life and to the benefits of diversity.” In response to the question, “How long did it take you to find a job after graduating from AUP?” 60% answered from 0 to 6 months and just shy of 20% said from 6-12 months. Close to 40% pursued one or several internships while at AUP, and of those, 65% believe that it was helpful to launch or progress in their careers. The AUP network is alive and well – 75% of respondents say that an AUP connection helped them at some point during their careers (including fellow students, alumni, faculty members, and AUP job postings). All in all, 90% of respondents think very highly of their alma mater and close to 85% of alumni would recommend AUP to family and friends.
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{ALUMNI} Au Courant 60s Caroline Brooks ’64 Like many retired ladies in my 55+ community, I have learned to love mah jongg! I spent all but three weeks of my working life in non-profit organizations. Started and ended my working life with the Red Cross, doing a variety jobs in Viet Nam, Puerto Rico, California. I enjoyed coming to AUP’s 40th reunion, but won’t make it to the 50th. Hortense (Lannie) Cannon Spoor ’64 I was part of the first group of students at what was then called ACP in 1964. I was lucky enough to stay 2 years and to have my credits transfer to Mills College, where I got my B.A. After doing a Master’s in Research Psychology, I worked briefly for private industry before joining the National Institute for Mental Health (part of the NIH), where I remained for close to 40 years. I was initially involved in research on schizophrenia at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Washington, then moved to the main NIH campus in Bethesda and did research in Alzheimer’s Disease and depression. I have been married to John Spoor for 37 years. Fortunately, he loves France as much as I do and we return at least every other year. I retired 4 years ago and spend time now as a docent at the Corcoran Museum (about as far from statistics and research design as you can get). We have 2 daughters (step-daughters for me) and six grandchildren, plus a very spoiled English bulldog, who unfortunately isn’t a good candidate for air travel to Paris for the reunion this spring. My husband and I plan to attend and I hope to see some of the original ACP bunch there. Clifford Mahler ’64 I attended ACP from 1963 to 1964, graduated from Penn in 1967, and received a Ph.D. in clinical psychology at SUNY/Buffalo in 1972. I have been married to Ronnie Mahler for the past 43 years. I have two kids—Adam who is in Montreal and Liz who is married and living in New York. I recently retired from VA after his 38-year career as a psychologist working with the seriously mentally ill. I continue to have a parttime, private psychotherapy practice
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in my home office. Retirement is great. I have been able to start Tai Chi and Yoga in addition to continuing my passions for squash racquets and tai kwon do (3rd degree black belt). But perhaps the most fun recently has been to join a weekly French conversation group on Thursday mornings in a local restaurant sponsored by the Buffalo L’Alliance Française. C’est un grand exercice pour le cerveau pour cet homme âgé! Best regards to all.
s Grant Plemons ’64 I continue in my private practice as a Psychologist. Donna and I enjoy our travels around the world, making French and Spanish style wines, and spending time with friends at our home on the San Lorenzo River in Felton, California (La Casita del Rio). We have four children, two grandchildren and one granddog. Whitney Burnett Macleod ’65 Whitney is finally stepping down in June after 14 years as Executive Director of the National Foundation for Facial Reconstruction in New York. She will miss working with children with facial difference but is excited to indulge in lazy moments, become a “Gray Panther” for other causes and spend time with her sons, husband and grandkids.
s Pat Pierard ’65 I thoroughly enjoyed my two “pioneering” years at ACP, graduating in 1965. I transferred to San Francisco
State and graduated in 1967 with a BA in English Literature and a minor in Biology. My first careers were in journalism and PR working as a newspaper reporter on a Tampa daily and as a PR officer at UCSF Medical Center and a San Diego hospital. My second career lasted 30 years, in medical research in field management and regulatory affairs as a federal contractor and for major hospital groups. In late 2011, I retired from Banner Health in Phoenix. I have traveled extensively in the U.S. and Europe. I also lived overseas in the Seychelles Islands and in Kenya. I am currently loving retirement and happily pursuing my passions for gardening, painting and cooking. I am widowed, no kids, and own one fabulous rescue dog. Dianne Cheseldine ’66 Dianne attended AUP from 19641966, earned her Master’s degree in French from the University of Oklahoma, worked in Washington, D.C for four years, and then began her teaching career. Since 1986 she has been a professor of French, Spanish, and Humanities at Truckee Meadows Community College in Reno, Nevada. She is the Founder of the Distinguished Speaker Series at her college. Among the speakers hosted by the series have been Dr. Zahi Hawass, Philippe Cousteau, and Mme. Sadat. A highlight in 2012 was the presentation given by Dr. Donald Johanson, who discovered “Lucy” in Ethiopia in 1974. Dianne dedicated this event to the work of her parents in Ethiopia in the 1960s, during which years she attended school in Kenya and Lausanne, Switzerland, followed by her two wonderful years in Paris at AUP. She also enjoys photography and is working on her memoir containing old photographs from the 1960s in Ethiopia and more recent ones taken when she returned there seven years ago. She is planning on returning to Ethiopia once again to complete this project. Ted Gorton ’67 (Staff member summer ’68) Ted is still living in London, enjoying retirement which at last gives him the time to write and sail his sailboat Moira in the Ionian Sea. He just published his fourth book, which was launched on May 1st at Daunt Books Holland Park (London). Renaissance
Ted Gorton ’67
Emir is a biography of a Levantine prince who, uniquely at the time of the Inquisition in Europe, came from Lebanon to spend 5 years in Italy—and not just anywhere, but at the courts of the Medici in Florence, then that of the Spanish Viceroy in Sicily. More details about this book and Ted’s previous ones can be consulted at: http://tjgorton.wordpress.com/.
s Jalaledin Ebrahim ’68 Jalaledin defended his doctoral dissertation in Depth Psychology with an emphasis in Psychotherapy on August 13, 2012 at Pacifica Graduate Institute (www.pacifica.edu). The title of his dissertation is “Towards an Integral Psychology of Islam from Al-Fatiha, the Opening to the Gardens of Paradise.” He is still working as a wraparound family facilitator in a community-based mental health program in Santa Barbara. While he is waiting to hear from Princeton and Georgetown in Qatar regarding his post-doctoral fellowship applications, he is writing his first book on Community Psychology. Jalaledin would love to teach the Psychology of Islam and courses in Sufism at The American University of Paris! Love, light and shadow.
s Bob Hertzka ’68 After AUP, I got my Bachelor’s Degree from NYU and then started a real estate brokerage business in New
York. After more than 30 years and a desire to travel more, I launched an Internet site called Resorts Online (www.resortsonline.com) designed to bring together all the top luxury hotels, resorts and lodges from around the world grouped by what makes them unique: golf, spa, beach, safari/wildlife, skiing, diving, fishing, riding, marina, casino, chateau/ castle/palace, lakefront, city/town and islands. ROL recently surpasse d the 10,000 property level and we launched a new site adding many additional features. The idea is to be a sort of Google/You Tube/Trip Advisor for the luxury hotel market. In addition, I am actively involved and on the board of a program my wife, Linda Lockhart, started in Kenya called the Global Give Back Circle (www. globalgivebackcircle.org) designed to help mentor and empower girls through high school and then college or university as well as the gap period in between. The program has been featured as a progress report in the opening ceremony of the Clinton Global Initiative and is now expanding into Rwanda and hopefully other countries. My roommate from AUP, Jim Harrell ’67, was instrumental in helping us launch this project thorough his own program, World Giving. I can be reached at bob@resortsonline.com or bob@globalgivebackcircle.org. Silver Miller ’68 Silver attended AUP with great enthusiasm from 1967-1968. Afterwards, he completed a Diplom-Ingenieur Bergbau degree at the Technische Universität Berlin (West), while there still was a wall, and subsequently a Ph.D. in Mineral Economics at the Colorado School of Mines. Before and in between educational engagements, Silver made a minor vocation of hitch-hiking across East and West Europe, North Africa, and parts of the Middle East, the US and Mexico. Those were the days. Then he got married and settled down. After moving up to flying around the world for numerous years in the telecommunications/internet business, Silver now has returned to his roots with a global mining and minerals consultancy, where old bones are at a premium, travelling to some of the more remote attractions on the map. He lives in a suburb between Ft. Worth and Dallas, Texas, close to the airport, and still speaks passable French.
s Paul Cain, Ph.D. ’69 After completing my A.A. requirements, concluding my duties as Student Body President and leaving ACP (as I remember the two year version of AUP) and Paris at the end of the “Merry Month of May” of 1969 (cf. James Jones’ Novel about that month in Paris), I went on to the University of Heidelberg and earned my M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy. I taught for Schiller College, the University of Maryland and for Heidelberg to support myself during those years and then returned to the US in the summer of 1977 with the intention of continuing my teaching career. My idea at the time was to launch a new life from my office in the winter rental I found on Cape Cod. When my plans did not work out, I took up carpentry and commercial lobster fishing to make do. During the second of the five years I spent on the Cape, I started mixing up herbal skincare products in the kitchen with the idea of selling them out of my VW bus to health food stores. One thing - as they say - led to another and a large customer encouraged me to move to Dallas, Texas in 1982. I married, had two children, learned how to fly and grew a manufacturing operation that employed over 250 people before selling the company in 1996 to a Fortune 500 multi-national. Since then I have started other businesses and am now semi-retired and living between Florida and Cape Cod while pursuing various interests and teaching Philosophy part-time for a local College during the winter months. ACP and Paris will always be near and dear to me, and I send my greetings to all those late-sixties knuckleheads I knew back then in the basement of the church on Le Quai d’Orsay!
70s Maurice Bruet ’70 Throughout my life I have looked back fondly on my sophomore year at what was then, the American College in Paris. I attended the 1969-1970 academic year. Paris was splendid, still cloaked in the grime of the ages,
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Maurice Bruet ’70
and filled with music and art and society. Every single day I delighted in my walk to school from where I lived at 9 Rue Treilhard, in the 8ème. That was a year of joy and discovery for me. I returned to George Washington University for my junior year and left after a semester to pursue a Bachelors of Landscape Architecture at Michigan State University. In the summer of 1973, I returned to France to attend the Ecole des Beaux Arts at Fontainebleau. Paris was again a revelation as its state buildings were being scrubbed and emerging to be re-discovered. I graduated from MSU in 1974 and was sent to Togo by the Peace Corps. I returned and had my own Landscape Architecture business in Syracuse, New York until I decided to head for New York City. It has now been almost 32 years that I have lived and worked in the City, and I am preparing, after 25 years, to retire from the New York City Department of Transportation where I will finish my career in April as the Deputy Borough Commissioner of Manhattan. I will then relocate to Wilton Manors, a small, incorporated town within Fort Lauderdale, Florida. I look forward to learning an entirely new classification of plants, to grow orchids, to golf, to sail, and do one hundred other things I don’t ever know yet. I attended, I think it was the 15th Anniversary Party of the American College in Paris, held at the home of the parents of the then President of the College, in Sayville, Connecticut, and I enjoyed the 50th Anniversary party in New York this year. I’ve only been in touch with one of my classmates, Elliot (Eddie) Burdette ’70 from Dallas, and I’m very interested in hearing from other fellow classmates, so please don’t hesitate to contact me at maurice.bruet@ gmail.com. Dr. Michelle Mika DeAtley ’71 After obtaining my A.A. from the American College in Paris, I completed by Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Boston University, College of Education. I taught Secondary Level, Special Education for the Department of De-
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fense School System in Naples, Italy and Madrid, Spain (where I met my future husband), Florida, and Texas. I obtained my doctorate in Counseling and Human Resource Management; worked in educational nonprofit organizations, such as an education lobbyist; and became a trainer and Director of Human Resource Services. I am a Nationally Certified Counselor and a Board Certified Coach. In my personal life, it has been equally memorable. In October 1979, I married James H. DeAtley, former US Attorney for the Western and Southern District of Texas, Department of Justice, and, after obtaining my doctorate, brought our twins, Tavia and Tavish, into this world in 1988. Although we lost their father, and my love, in 2001 to pancreatic cancer, we remain committed to living life to its fullest. 2013 will be another phenomenal year for us. My daughter, Tavia, a former Special Education teacher and Teacher of the Year nominee in Texas, who is currently a preschool teacher in Washington DC, is getting married. My son, Tavish, who is serving as an Assistant Corporation Counsel in the Special Federal Litigation Division of the New York City Law Department will be sworn into the New York Bar. And after 35 years in education, I will be retiring in August to return abroad with both my parents to visit our friends and family. This is our circle of life. Jeannette Lopera ’72 I have lived in New York, Florida, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Norway since I left Paris in the early 1970s. I had one of the best times in my life living in Paris, and when I look back at those years, I only long for them. But just for a fleeting moment. After ACP, I attended Richmond College, a small town college and majored in psychology. I am owner of a small company that closes residential loans for banks, as well as recently I have undertaken working part-time as a
Melinda Cumming ’73
real estate agent for Coldwell Banker. My husband and I have raised our 3 amazing children (ages 25 to 33), our beautiful GSD, and life is good. Melinda Cumming ’73 Everyone has defining memories and ACP and Paris are twined as such for me. I worked overseas early on with the U.S. Department of Defense, explored a career in computer science with IBM, and returned to biology and basic sciences. I ended up happily over educated and now own my own business in Seattle as a small animal veterinarian. I got married five years ago, discovered triathlons, and will return to France to cycle through the Loire Valley and Brittany in 2013, and introduce my husband to the wonders of Paris. Lalena (Porro) Goard ’73 I live in San Francisco, California. I spent two years in Paris while ACP was still a two year college (though, I would have stayed more!). Transferred to Georgetown University and studied Linguistics and Portugese Literature. Currently a Real Estate Broker/ Developer in San Francisco. Love oil painting, and lots of travelling and hiking in the bounty of the California countryside. Karen Mason Fitzgerald ’73 Although I was only at ACP for one year, I remember a number of my classmates with whom I’d love to reconnect. One of them is Mansour Ojjeh ’72. If anyone is in touch with him, I’d love to hear from them. I am living in Los Angeles, am married to a screenwriter, and have three daughters. I am a professional private chef, though I trained as an interpreter a thousand years ago!
s Margaret Cassilly ’74 After living in Europe for ten years and completing the two-year program ACP then offered, I reluctantly returned to the U.S. Re-entry was a challenge and I was very conflicted about
where I wanted to continue living in my 20s. After much thought of New York, Washington, D.C., Hamburg, and Paris, Washington, D.C. won and I continue to live and work here. My passion for all things international has continued to grow, and currently I am Vice President of International Programs for a large D.C.-based trade association and love what I do. My job takes me to international destinations four to five times a year as I encourage and assist U.S. companies with international business opportunities and global branding in the digital media and entertainment industry. Amazingly, there is a rather large group of us from ’72-’74 splattered across the country who stay in touch on a fairly regular basis. The AUP bond remains remarkably strong, supportive, and rewarding. Merci beaucoup, AUP!
s George Polgar ’74 For more than 30 years I have worked as a writer, producer and media specialist in publishing, TV, radio, public relations and marketing, as well as specialized print design and production, web development and full scale publishing projects. After an early career as a newspaper reporter and creative manager at CBS Publishing Group in the 1980s, I became publisher of a small monthly newspaper and built it into a successful chain of six regional business magazines -- Business Digest -- which I sold in 1987. Over the years I have been an editorial contributor on automotive and travel topics for a variety of regional newspapers and national outlets, including Philadelphia Style, Inked Magazine, Bucks Magazine, Successful Meetings, Travel Agent Magazine, The Legal Intelligencer, Lawyer’s Digest and many more. I am an on-air auto industry and product news commentator on CBS Radio, and over the last 20 years appear regularly as the “Car Guy” on FOX Good Day Philadelphia TV29, Comcast shows, Money Matters Today, and Your Morning. My company GT Marketing works behind the scenes arranging special media placements and features for
select clients with great stories to tell! Along with my business and life partner of nearly 32 years, Tyler Anne Ward, we are avid sailors, organizing annual month-long sailing charter adventures throughout the Caribbean from the British Virgin Islands down the Leeward and Windward islands with up 8 passengers per cruise. We also sail our modest but fast Catalina 27’ on the waters of the Delaware River. As an accredited automotive journalist, with Tyler as my navigator and photo and videographer, we are road-trip and competitive driving enthusiasts, regularly doing driving tours, rally and track events throughout the United States, South Africa and the islands of Barbados, Dominica, St. Barts, St Maarten/St. Martin, Anguilla, Nevis, Antigua, Guadeloupe, Puerto Rico and many others. In my spare time I am involved in the management of the historic ACE Speedway, 4/10 of mile stock car short track Altamahaw, North Carolina.
s Mike Giese ’75 Since the last time I checked in: Still living in the Turks and Caicos Islands (since 1985), both kids graduated from university AND have jobs. Life is good. I have been continuing to do my road trips with the old Citroen Tractions Avants. In the last 5 years, I have done road trips to Russia, Namibia, Australia, and Africa, and just got back from a road trip in Africa to Benin and Burkino Faso (our group has started a school there) and believe it or not, it costs 3 dollars a year to put a kid in school there. My sister Karen is still in Oregon, and my brother Doug is in Manhattan Beach, California. I still have the house in Aix en Provence and manage to get over there a cou-
ple of times a year. A couple of web sites here: work – http://www.sunshinenurserytci.com and fun – http:// mikegiese.wordpress.com. David Aasen ’76 David Aasen has been enjoying his UN assignment in Iraq where he has been advising the Electoral Communication on public outreach and media relations. He’s looking forward to returning to Kenya’s Swahili coast this spring for some serious beach time and sport fishing: catch and release, to monitor and protect the Indian Ocean. Gulgun (Erdogan) Dokuz ’79 Gulgun has been working in the cement industry for the last 24 years, living in Singapore since 2000. Besides her frequent business trips to many destinations around the world, she visits her home country Turkey twice a year. She is still in touch with some of her friends who attended AUP between 1977 and 1982, but has lost contact with many friends from the Philippines, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Germany who left AUP in 1979. She would be very happy to hear from them.
80s s Leslie Reed ’80 After leaving Paris with a B.A. in International Affairs, I somehow found myself moving into the tech world and ended up going for an MS in Information Systems. I’ve been firmly planted in the world of user interface design and user assistance at IBM for over 20 years, with no regrets. I live with my partner in Fairfax, Virginia, where we share interests in wine, dogs, motorcycling, and all the museums and outdoor activities that Washington, DC has to offer. I’m active in the AUPDC,
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the AUP alumni chapter for the greater Washington, DC area. Check us out at our website (www.aupdc.org), on Facebook (AUPDC, The AUP Alumni Chapter of Greater Washington, DC), YouTube (AlumniAUPDC), and follow us on Twitter (@AlumniAUPDC). Andrew Erickson ’81 I attended AUP because it was such an exciting time to be in Paris then. I’d left high school in Massachusetts put off by the idea of a college in the US when I’d finished. I had the great good fortune to attend AUP’s then intensive French language class in the basement of the American Church, and although it was brutal – several hours each morning, as I recall – I did indeed learn to read French. I had some truly fantastic professors, whose names unfortunately escape me now, but there was a professor of classics who was world class, and of course the Spanish Civil War history I learned. I remember attending the Solidarnosc demonstrations on the Place des Invalides, and ceaselessly wandering the city learning its history and art, which of course is maybe the best thing about The American University of Paris – its host city! (This I say with all due respect to the wonderful professors I had, who were teaching there because they also wanted to be in Paris.) Anyway, I’ve been with the State Department for the last twenty three years, and the French I learned did well by me – I married a French citizen from Nice and have served in Francophone Switzerland, Luxembourg, and Brussels. I would happily have sent either of our two Franco-American children to AUP, but one is now at Oxford in the UK and the other is at CETYS University in Tijuana, Mexico, where I am currently US Consul General. If any old alumni friends read this and look for me I can be found on LinkedIn under Andrew S.E. Erickson. I’ve had a good career with the State Department. Don’t know how long I will remain aboard but it’s always been interesting. My academic year at AUP really put me on the right footing to get started. I’ve fallen out of touch with old friends from back then and there. If anybody reads this in Au Courant they should get back in touch! Jorge (Jay) Alvarez ’82 I attended ACP for four years but all in all spent about 8 years in Europe. I have been in New York for about 15 years where I am a bi-coastal actor. A few years ago I wrote a one man show
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titled, “Be Careful! The Sharks Will Eat You!” It is a story based on a recording left behind by my father recounting how he planned and executed the escape of 28 people from Cuba in a boat. I have been performing it in New York and around the country for close to three years where it was honored with several awards. The most exciting development is that Paquito D’Rivera, the multi Grammy award-winner, Presidential Medal of Honor in the Arts recipient, and Kennedy Center Living Jazz legend Honoree, is now on board to compose the music for a full cast version of the show aiming for Broadway. On May 10th we held a big event in New York to present it to backers and producers. The show also featured three of the newly composed songs, which were sung by Tony-nominated performers. Finally, I’d like to add that in my heart, my years at ACP and living in France continue to resonate deeply, it is part of who I am and I can’t imagine what my life would have been without it. How very lucky I was… www.sharkswilleatyou.com.
s Joan Brookbank ’82 My years in Paris and at ACP led to a fulfilling professional life – primarily in book publishing in New York (during the founding years of the French Publishers Agency; later starting up and directing the U.S branch of the French Book Export Center; then years publishing art books and museum co-editions as head of U.S. operations for international publishers). In 2008, ready for a break, I took time off to travel, develop independent book projects, and earn my yoga teaching certification. In 2009 and 2010, I lived in Cambodia, serving as a volunteer advisor and teacher. Now in the States again, I still handle publishing projects, while engaging in all that New York’s Columbia County coun-
tryside has to offer including growing garlic and making maple syrup! I also write and occasionally teach yoga. My time in Paris and at ACP has, indeed, shaped my life in myriad wonderful ways. For invaluable academic and life lessons, I remain grateful to my challenging and generous professors and mentors, most especially, and unforgettably, Dr. Clélia Hutt, Herr Wolfgang Schröder, Dean Leonard Baskin, Dr. Sandra Lanto, and Madame Marie Delamater. I also cherish lasting friendships with fellow ACP students Vivian and Thierry Chaunu and Barbara McQuown Tucker. As we celebrate AUP’s 50th anniversary, I send warm greetings to the class of 2013 and to everyone who has helped create this dynamic institution that has made such a profound mark on so many of us! Dr. Roberta Grossi ’82 Happy 50th ACP! For me it’s a Happy 30th since graduating. Since I graduated from ACP, I have lived in many countries working and studying, but eventually decided to make Paris my home. To me Paris is the most beautiful city in the world AND easy to fly anywhere. It’s my world trampoline, just like ACP was. Since I left ACP 30 years ago, I studied in the US, earned several Master’s degrees and a PhD which has led me today to a ’double’ professional life: I am an international consultant in leadership and international communications; to date I have worked for over 150 multinationals. Also I founded an international university based in Paris but operating around the globe, offering online and on-campus degree programs: Horizons University. The aim is to bring high quality education to those who cannot afford expensive private universities or who cannot access higher education where they live. Our slogan is “education for everyone everywhere.” On the leisure side I am always committed to sports, namely martial arts, and recently earned my Second Dan black belt in Karate which I also teach and I wish to motivate people to keep healthy, at any age, in their minds and body. I can be reached at robertagrossi@me.com. Charles “Chas” A. Miller III ’82 Chas lives in Bristol Rhode Island overlooking Narragansett Bay, just to the north of the famous seaside town of Newport. He and his partner moved there in 2010, and 2012 marked the move of his fund raising consulting and special events firm as well. While
Charles Miller III ’82
relocating from Connecticut, he still maintains ties to New York City where his clients are based. His principal client is Sir John Soane’s Museum Foundation, a worldwide friend’s group working to support the famous museum in London. Additionally, he consults with the Institute of Historical Research at the University of London plus private individuals on events. Chas continues his enjoyment of travel for work (leading donor trips) and travels for pleasure, venturing in the last three years to China, Thailand, Singapore, Cambodia, Wales, England, France, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Italy, Finland, Istanbul, Cuba (three trips to-date, with maybe two more ahead in the coming months) and Bermuda. www.ChasMiller.com and www.ForwardMiller.com. Graeme Wright ’82 I’m working in commercial real estate in Washington, D.C. with a firm goal of relocating back to Europe. I’m married to my wife Andrea and our son Halston is now four years old. My children Jackson and Sophie live in Florida.
Christiane Badgley ’83
Christiane Badgley ’83 My years at ACP/AUP are now distant memories, but they certainly changed my life – and in the most unexpected ways. Paris was part of it, of course, but looking back I think it was the mix of people from around the world studying together in a small space that really made the ACP/AUP experience so special. I left ACP for the London School of Economics, dropped out, and then went on to graduate school at UC Berkeley. For the past 20+ years I’ve been producing and editing documentary films and media, with much of my work based in Africa. I’m working now in Cameroon and the Congo Basin region (www. palmwatchafrica.org) and have recently received a production grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a feature documentary portrait of the dynamic African community of Guangzhou, China. I would love to hear from ACP friends. Reach me via www.pipelinedreams.org. Ruth Fruehauf ’83 I graduated from AUP back in 1983 and have kept up with some of my classmates, such as Franklin Craig ’81. I’ve turned a fun hobby, which focuses on tourism in Yosemite National Park for French speaking guests, into my official business this year: www. yosemitefrogs.com. Sandra Bramwell ’84 Sandra is and remains an avid Educational Consultant at Versan Educational Services, (www.versan.org) for students in China, India, the Caribbean and South America for boarding school, college and graduate placement. She is on schedule for a PhD in Education from Vanderbilt University and will publish a memoir on “How to Receive an International Education on a Shoestring.” A member of the
Gail Koblernicki-Bailing ’84
Independent Educational Consultant’s Association, Small Boarding School Association as well as Overseas College Counseling, she continues to be an agent of change on the Jamaican educational scene. Read her blog every Wednesday and stay au courant! Gail Kobiernicki-Balling ’84 I am living in between Florida and France, now working as an International Specialist with Keller Williams Realty in Jupiter and Palm Beach Gardens.
s Karine Bakhoum ’85 Karine Bakhoum, known in the industry as the “Iron Palate” for her million dollar Lloyds of London insured taste buds, continues to expand and diversify her hospitality and lifestyle firm in New York City, KB Network News, with an office soon to open in Los Angeles. Among her illustrious clients are the iconic New York restaurant and institution the 21 Club, Bedford Post Inn owned by Richard Gere and Carrie Lowell, Armani Ristorante 5th Avenue and the world-renowned luxury Belgian Chocolatier Neuhaus, to name only a few. Bakhoum, or “KB” as she is called, has worked with countless culinary visionaries and celebrity chefs such as Iron Chefs Bobby Flay and Geoffrey Zakarian as well as internationally acclaimed chef restaurateurs Alain Ducasse and Jean-Georges Vongerichten. An avid and acclaimed cook herself, her signature recipes have appeared in several media publications including a number of Alan “Battman” Batt’s reputable food photography books, and in two editions of Costco’s Home Cooking cookbooks. KB was recently named the official food editor and restaurant critic for DOWNTOWN Magazine and she is regular contributor to the Huffington Post. She was the on air talent for Dan’s Taste of Two Forks Hampton’s culinary charity event last summer, hosted by her good friend Jean Georges Vongerichten, and she
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continues to maintain her position as the female judge with the most appearances on Food Network’s Iron Chef America, having judged some of the world’s best chefs with the likes of Henry “The Fonz” Winkler, Bravo reality stars, Broadway personalities, and other culinary heavy hitters. This past June, KB appeared on The Today Show (NBC) with her two beautiful children, preparing health friendly Father’s Day dishes with hosts Kathie Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb. She has made two trips to Washington, D.C., to meet President Obama, one with her family and again last year with a client who cooked for a private reception. She was recently commissioned for a culinary consulting tour in Moscow for one of Russia’s leading restaurant groups. She continues to enjoy working with international clients and considers herself lucky to have many French clients, in addition to a French husband, so that she may speak French on a daily basis. Catch up with the Iron Palate on Food Network’s Iron Chef America and Cooking Channel’s Unique Eats. Follow her on twitter @ kbironpalate and Facebook Karine Bakhoum Iron Palate. Keep up to date with her Huffington Post blogs at www. huffingtonpost.com/karine-bakhoum and www.kbnetworknews.com.
s Christina Sandel de Labouchere ’86 Christina is involved in the arts (classical music and contemporary art) and humanitarian causes. She is interested in architecture and restoring homes of cultural value. She loves to climb mountains, sail, and horseback ride around the world. She lives happily with her husband in Switzerland. Gregg Tate ’87 First, Happy 50th Anniversary AUP (or ACP as I knew it)! My lovely wife, Susan, and I are still in Arlington, Virginia enjoying our lives without
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children living at our house. Our oldest daughter is a kindergarten teacher, our middle daughter is a social worker, and the youngest in is her last year of college. My wife and I have both quit smoking, we’re enjoying cooking, eating (followed by the gym) when not working, and retirement is now a small light at the end of the tunnel, at least I can see it now! Our four-legged feline children would be angry if I didn’t mention them: Venus, Patrick, SpongeBob, Madonna, and Larry Tate. Best to everybody! gregg@greggtate.com.
John Keating ’88 shaking hands with President Hollande
s John Keating ’88 John Keating, a former editor of “Scripta Politica”, has been working in journalism since graduating in 1988 and is now Head of Local News Services and the Chief Correspondent at Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) in Paris. He has worked during the past 25 years with U.S., British, Anglo-Norwegian, French and German publications and media services, both locally and around Europe. He is a regular commentator and contributor to French and international TV and radio and he is also very active among press associations, having served in 2004 as President of the Foreign Press Association here in Paris and later as its Treasurer. He is currently President of the Anglo-American Press Association (www.aapafrance. org) and a member of other media organizations. Bilal Ghaziri ’89 Bilal Ghaziri now lives in Beirut and is running the Makassed General Hospital. A 200-bed hospital, it has a humanitarian mission which helps the poorest and is part of the Makassed Association (which has hundreds of schools and social activities). Bilal is enjoying helping others, which brings enrichment to his career.
90s Jennifer Kerns ’93 I am currently living in Al Ain, in the United Arab Emirates with my husband (who is a teacher) and two
children who are now 9 and 11. I finished a Master’s degree in Social Work in the US before coming here, but have been unable to use it in the UAE, where mental health work is not abundant. I became a kindergarten teacher in October which was kind of surprise, but it is going all right most days. I teacher 5 year old Emirati children Goldilocks and the Three Bears and The Gingerbread Man. It is certainly not what I expected to be doing twenty years ago at AUP! But maybe the Comp Lit degree really is coming into its own! Caroline (Köser) Stever ’93 Lives in Luxembourg since 2011 and enjoys settling American gospel music in this country by organizing gospel workshops with the American Latonius J.Earl and his team. For those who are interested in joining one of the workshops dedicated to contemporary American gospel, an experience worth to be lived, feel invited to send an email to gospel4luxembourg@pt.lu. See you sometime in Luxembourg! Nathalie El-Rayes ’94 I am working now as a supervisor for Teavana in the new city center mall in Lebanon. Hope to meet at the 50th reunion this year.
s Alexis Kalmanovitz ’94 After graduating from AUP, Alexis went to Montreal and earned a Master’s degree at McGill University, moved to London to start a career as an investment banker, joined Reuters in 2004 where he ran strategic planning for two financial technology divisions, crossed the pond again in 2007 to settle down in New York, and has recently created a consulting and investment banking firm called Zelig
Associates with operations in New York and London. Alexis is on tour and will soon be near your home, please consult your local listings!
s Serena Massis ’94 After graduating in 1994, I was in client strategic marketing for Kimberly Clark, Intersnack, PepsicoPI, until 3 years ago. I felt that I needed to get into something involving more personal interaction and creativity. I launched a prêt-à porter line in the Middle East and I went to the London Image Institute to get certified as an image consultant and personal branding strategist. I am enjoying every second of it. I’m also working on my certification as a metasystem coach. I’m based in Paris, not far from AUP, and I get to pass by Avenue Bosquet often which is always refreshing. Stephanie Friedman ’95 After living in the south of France for 3 years, we moved back to Alpharetta (near Atlanta). I founded a compensa-
Children of Stephanie Friedman ’95
tion and benefits consulting company, Compensation Management Advisors. My husband Robert Friedman ’95 and I have three children: Madeleine is nine years old, Henri is five, and Alexandre is 7 months. Anna Nelson ’95 Since graduating from AUP in 1995, Anna Nelson has continued to live in Europe, working as a journalist for CBS News and the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation until 2006. (She also spent two years as AUP’s Alumni Director from 1996 to 1998.) Anna currently works for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Switzerland, but will be moving to Washington DC in 2013 to become the ICRC’s Spokeswoman for North America. After 22 years abroad, which have taken her from Paris to Pakistan and from the Gaza Strip to Geneva (and beyond!), Anna is looking forward to returning to the U.S. and spending more time with family and friends there.
s Dwight H. Simon Day ’96 I cannot believe AUP was so many years ago. I can still see myself in Professor Schenck’s English class and hear her telling us to take ownership of our thoughts and to avoid the passive voice. I can still see Professor Morgan dressed in black and always happy to grade my papers. I can still see Professor Navarro encouraging me and delighted to give me good grades. I can see Professor Pike who commented on my first history paper. I can remember becoming Editor-in-Chief of the Planet and the controversial topics we covered. I can still remember my internship at World Media Network. All this was a lot for the young man from Jamaica. I graduated in May 1996 with a BA in International Affairs and International Economics. Back then a double major was a big deal. Today, seventeen years later, I am an attorney with my own
practice based in Newark, New Jersey. I was admitted to practice in December 2004. As a general practitioner, I have handled quite a variety of cases from murder to traffic violations. My practice also includes real estate, immigration, tax, personal injury, estate matters and family law. I can remember asking Professor Susan Perry and Professor Hall Gardner to write my recommendations for law school. I also remember Dr. Paul Marcille, the Dean of Students, wondering if law school was for me because of my reserved personality. But, after AUP and clearing up my debt with the Bursar’s office, and after doing a stint at Coopers and Lybrand (now Price Waterhouse Coopers) and Deutsche Bank in New York City, I applied to law school. I was accepted to about five law schools but chose to attend New York Law School because it would be extremely convenient. After passing the bar exam, I immediately set up my own shingle and the rest is history. I have been employed at the Law Office of Dwight H. Simon Day, LLC for the last nine years and I have had no regrets. Every day comes with different challenges but I do my best to rise to the occasion. I aim to achieve a fair result for my clients and to obtain a win-win situation for the parties involved. Who knows, maybe one day I will return to AUP to teach a law class. Jelena Grujic ’96 I am a screenwriter with a diploma from the UCLA Film School, presently finishing a master’s degree in PR and marketing. I am looking to get back in contact with AUP friends from the class of 1995-1996. Dev Nainani ’98 After completing my degree in IBA, I returned back to Hong Kong in 1998 and got into the export business. I currently deal with consumer products manufactured in China for export into Europe, Middle East, India and other areas. My products include gifts, gadgets, promotional and premiums, household items, electronics, health, gardening and sundries. I also deal in customized projects of specially designed items for OEM/ODM, as well as retail products for chain stores, web shops, mail order catalogues and TV shopping; and promotional items for companies wanting to advertise their brand. Our offices and teams are located in Hong Kong, China and India as well as distribution arrangements with partners in the EU and Middle East. I got married in 2004 to Verina
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Nainani who also grew up in Hong Kong. I travel a lot around mainland China as well as frequent trips to Europe and India.
s Cammie McDaris Black ’99 Cammie lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband, Adam, and two and a half year old son, Zeke. She has been working full-time as a Grant Writer at The Fortune Society since October 2011. Andrea Primm ’99 I finally arrived where I always wanted to be: Drama, drama, drama. It has always been my favorite way of living and finally I am able to make a living off of it. Since October 2011, I worked for the Luxembourgish Theater Federation as a communications manager. (www.theater.lu) Professionally I am settled, but still no family of my own so far.
00s Naomi McCormick ’00 I am currently a full time mommy to Soleil Renée who is almost two years old, living back in my native city of Las Vegas, Nevada. Since leaving AUP I’ve moved around from Las Vegas to California and back. I have held many jobs and traveled much. My time at AUP, while only a stint in the grand scheme of 38 adventuresome years, will always be a top memory and growing experience. Paris, je t’aime. Matt Ruppert ’00 I went to AUP in the spring of 2000 as a William and Mary exchange student. Just though I’d let y’all know I got my Masters in French literature in 2005, then, in a move completely unrelated to my degree, I opened an Italian restaurant called “Noni’s” named after my grandmother. We’ve been open for almost 5 years and doing well. You can check us out at www.nonisdeli.
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com or friend us on Facebook under “Nonis Deli.”
s Ann Gire ’01 After spending a few years in International Affairs, I decided to follow my heart and passion for motorcycle racing. I now run Communications and PR for a French Superbike Pilot. I am responsible for handling his image, gathering partners, and developing communications for Brice Nunnari, who has recently been in focus in “Ducati Panigale 1199 & Wolf,” an original ad designed to thank his actual sponsors and recruit audacious new ones. Join the pack! Keep in touch with our news at www.bricenunnari.com. My AUP years are not so far behind, and I must confess that I think about them every day! Every skill developed through AUP helps me in my professional activity, which is quite original though. Poppers, the little puppy I adopted thanks to Philipa Nevis and who was an AUP fan, passed away. My heart is full of mourning, as I lost my best companion ever. My personal life is entirely connected and dedicated to my professional life. What I enjoy most? The freedom to work into the field. Always follow your dreams. If you really believe in it, they can come true! Catalina Jose Rodriguez ’01 I’m scheduled for graduation for the M.F.A. Creative Writing Program at San Francisco State University in May 2013. One of my short plays Recession Dialogue, was staged in the Fringe Festival in San Francisco, at the University, for five nights in March. My graduate thesis is a three act play called The Chain of Command, which has already been approved by the Creative writing department and
the Graduate Studies Department, of which I am currently polishing the last drafts. In addition to that, one of my shorter plays, The Silence (a two act play), is being translated to Spanish, for production in Mexico. I am also sending off work to different directors, editors, magazines and agents in California as well as New York. I am currently working on polishing my first short novel The Venezuelan Story, under the guidance of professor, poet and novelist Maxine Chernoff; as well as on my first feature screenplay alongside Cannes award-winning director and screenwriter Michael Rowe.
s Clint Branam ’03 Clint is excited to marry his fiancée, Sheila, this spring in Washington, D.C. The two are bound for West Africa for Clint’s first tour as a Foreign Service Officer with U.S. Agency for International Development. Andrea ’Dre’ Huntley (Formerly Andrea Nieves) ’03 It’s hard to believe that ten years have passed since graduation. So much has been done, and yet memories of Paris still feel like they were made just yesterday. I am sure that most AUP alumni would agree. In these ten years since graduation, I have lived in five different countries, and moved 21 times; at any given time I was working as a barista, a waitress, an English teacher, an academic director, a freelance designer, or a secretary. Punctuating that timeline I furthered my education with a TESOL teaching certification from Trinity in Madrid, and a degree in Graphic Design from Parsons in New York. Now settled in England, I recently opened Wintergarden Presse, publishing home to the print production of illustrated works and the Secret Writers Society. Whilst holding the post of Managing Director, I am also carrying the responsibilities as Lead Designer for The Snohaus, a web-design company that my web-developer husband and I founded back in 2010. Life is wonderful and so far
it has been fun, but no matter what I am doing, and no matter where I am, there will always be a part of me that is still sitting on the Champ de Mars, surrounded by my friends, enjoying the sunset, and eating a baguette. Lucas Lai ’03 After having completed 10 months as an artist-in-residence at La Porte Peinte Centre Pour Les Arts in Noyers Sur Serein in Burgundy, I returned home to New York City to work with Martha Rosler on her performance installation Meta Monumental Garage Sale at the Museum of Modern Art. It has been quite the adjustment to say the least, from walking the cobblestone medieval streets of my arts village to pounding the concrete pavement back in the Big Apple. I›ve settled in Brooklyn, set up an art studio, and am managing a design company with a friend called DIRT (www.allthingsdirt.com), which specializes in interior design. Looking forward to growing this company and doing more projects abroad! Cynthia Bouvier ’04 San Francisco native Cynthia Bouvier, graduated in 2004 with a degree in Global Communications. Since graduating, Cynthia has been working in Brand Advertising and Digital Strategy for Capital One in Richmond, Virginia. Along with working in advertising, Cynthia is also a jewelry designer. Her work is featured in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and in various boutiques along the East Coast. She also has a website on Etsy.
s Ashlee E. Connett (formerly Ashlee June-Wells) ’04 Ashlee graduated from AUP in 2004 with a BS in Applied International Finance and International Economics. She attended law school and graduated from Rutgers University School of Law in May 2008. Upon graduating,
Ashlee began her legal career working for KPMG, LLP. At KPMG, Ashlee specialized in Mergers & Acquisitions, with an emphasis on state and local tax exposure. She worked in the New York City office and helped grow this very specialized practice group from three employees to ten and she assisted in developing a national network of state and local tax specialists prior to leaving in 2011. In 2011, Ashlee accepted a position as an attorney with the Securities and Exchange Commission. In this position, she provides advice and guidance on difficult and complex legal issues that arise under federal securities laws and regulations, including insider trading. In regards to her personal life, Ashlee was married on December 31, 2012, to Robert Allen Connett, who serves in the US Army. They are moving to Belgium in June 2013 and are extremely excited. Ashlee is currently seeking employment in Belgium.
s Maya Freelon Asante ’04 Maya is an award-winning artist. She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally including Paris, Ghana, and US Embassies in Madagascar, Italy, Jamaica, and Swaziland. She has been a professor of art at Towson University and Morgan State University. Maya has attended numerous residencies including Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, the Korobitey Institute and Brandywine Workshop. After attending AUP, she earned her BA from Lafayette College and an MFA from the School of Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Nathalie (Krönig) Knauf ’04 Nathalie Knauf is the founder and CEO of PNK-Jewels (est. 2011), a jewelry design company specialized in handmade pieces that maintain “the smart balance between individual charm and selective elegance. From a small gem to the complete Jewellery Suite - it is a magical play of colours and forms!” PNK-Jewels presents six
new jewellery lines; La Follie Russe, Love Beats, Scents of the World, Molecules of Life, Classical Japanese Theatre and Tokyo Punk. http://www. pnk-jewels.com Victor de Witt ’05 Since graduating from AUP, I have started a career in the financial sector first as a Private Banker, then as an independent advisor and private-equity investor. I am specialized in new technologies and luxury investments for ultra-high and high-net-worth individuals. It is very challenging but interesting work that allows me to travel a lot and meet interesting people and entrepreneurs world-wide. I am now living in Luxembourg where I enjoy the international setting and the beautiful green valleys. AUP was a life changing experience for me and it is with great pleasure that I think back on those good times.
s Dina Nasar ’05 I graduated from AUP with a double major in International Business Administration and International Economics. Then I started working at Cushman and Wakefield, a global commercial real estate company. I worked as a Consultant in the Investment department and I was specialized in Retail Investment. It was a very interesting job and I experienced it in the good years since I started end of 2005 and this sector was booming, as well as in the bad years after the subprime crisis. After 5 years, I decided to leave and take a year off and travel, something I wanted to do after graduation but I couldn’t leave the opportunity of working at Cushman and Wakefield. It was a great year, but it passed by very quickly though. Now I work in Luxury Real Estate at East and West Real Estate Group. I still
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live in the 7th and pass by AUP quite often and all the cafés on rue Cler that remind me of the amazing 4 years I spent there. Dana Bancesco ’06 Since graduating from AUP, Dana has worked for various international nonprofits along the East Coast. After a year of travel and deciding on next moves, she settled in New York and began working with the International Rescue Committee as a Human Resource Partner covering Francophone Africa and Haiti. Dana completed a number field missions for IRC and after almost four years with the organization decided to make the move to Washington, DC. She is now working as the Senior Manager for International Human Resources at Search for Common Ground, an international peace-building organization operating in over 30 countries. Kathleen “Kat” Horn ’06 Since graduating from AUP in 2006, I have not stopped moving! My first year consisted of wanting to explore my American roots again after being in Europe for about 10 years. I got a job working for the National Youth Leadership Council out of D.C. and traveled to different US cities every week running leadership conferences out of hotels for high achieving 8th and 9th graders. I finally found a state I wanted to put some roots down in and moved to Colorado in 2007. I spent the first year working in Human Resources for Copper Mountain Ski Resort, being a ski bum was pretty awesome but the small town feel wasn’t for me. So the following year I moved to Denver and have been here for about 4.5 years now. I love it! I started a career in International Education working for EF Educational Tours, then Globalinks Learning Abroad. I completed my MA in International Education from SIT Graduate School in Brattleboro, VT (distance learning course) and did an internship with Semester at Sea in the spring of 2012 and got the chance to sail all the way around the world stopping in 11 different countries. I’m back in Denver now working for The University of Denver as a Study Abroad Advisor and while the travel bug still gets me, I love being in Colorado for now. I also have a new roommate in Denver, Liz Mott ’06 who was in my First Bridge with me back in 2002. Love the AUP connections.
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Shandy Lemperlé (née Schied) ’06 After graduating from AUP in 2006 with a B.A. in Art History, I completed master’s degrees in both Art History and French Literature at the University of Montana. I worked as an adjunct in both departments, teaching introductory level classes. In 2012, I moved to Monterey, California where I teach French at the Defense Language Institute. I have also continued teaching art history classes for the University of Montana online.
cation and emergency management, and I began working for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as a policy analyst. I got married in 2009 and our son was born in 2011. Like many others, however, I got the itch to move abroad again! I joined the Foreign Service in 2012 and am currently serving at my first post in Hyderabad, India after seven months of Telugu language training. I am a Consular Officer and am responsible for the safety of Americans travelling abroad as well as for the fair adjudication of visas for those visiting the United States. AUP gave me a perspective that is truly invaluable and I hope to make a career out of allowing others the same opportunity to see the world and experience different cultures.
s Nathalie Margi ’06 I am currently working in Lebanon as Country Representative for an international NGO called Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Human Rights. I develop programs on Syrian and other refugee protection, including children and gender-based violence survivors. I also work on trainings of human rights lawyers and programs to strengthen Lebanese women’s political participation and leadership. I am getting married this summer in my fiancés’ hometown in upstate New York and planning to move back to Brooklyn and look for work in New York afterwards.
s Mitch Conquer ’07 and Zack Sinkler ’07 Mitch and Zack got engaged last September, and will get married on August 10th, 2013 in Mitch’s hometown of Warren, PA. They currently reside in Shanghai, where Mitch manages sales for Eriez Magnetics in Southeast Asia, Korea, and Mongolia; Zack is a producer for Kung Fu Komedy (www. kungfukomedy.com).
s Sage Moon (formerly Sage Emry-Smith) ’06 After graduation in 2006, I moved back to the United States and pursued a Master’s of Public Administration degree from the University of Washington. Throughout my graduate studies I became interested in risk communi-
s Alhan Keser ’07 As the Chief Marketing Officer of Blue Fountain Media (www.bluefountainmedia.com), Alhan has helped increase the agency’s year-over-year revenue by an average of 90% for 5 years, making it one of the top 30 fastest growing companies in New York City. Gaelle Watson ’07 Gaelle really enjoyed her years at AUP. She currently lives in the suburbs of Paris. She worked in a bilingual Kin-
dergarten for 4 years, and now is an “auto entrepreneur” as an English tutor for children and adults. She loves to travel and is looking forward to her next visit to Australia. Michael Crayne ’09 After graduating from the MAIA program, I took an internship in Nairobi, Kenya which led to a job with Frankfurt School of Finance and Management in Kinshasa, DRC. I was responsible for the monitoring and evaluation of microfinance technical assistance projects throughout the country, with the Fonds de Promotion de la Microfinance, a challenge fund aimed at offering expertise and loans to microfinance institutions. We helped some 4,000 people access loans better fitted to their micro-enterprises, at reduced cost. I was there until last August, when I was posted in Frankfurt, at my request, so that my Colombian wife and I could live together in a calmer environment, at least for a time. I am now a project coordinator, focusing on social performance and responsible finance projects in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East. Though I miss the heat of Congo, I don’t miss the power cuts! Carey Kluttz ’09 Since September 2012, Carey has worked as a Consultant with the World Bank in the World Bank Institute’s Open Government Practice, which works on some of the most challenging areas of governance reform. She is part of WBIOG’s Procurement Team, currently focused on the Open Contracting initiative to promote transparency and accountability in public contracting. Carey has also stayed on at Bridges of Understanding, a nonprofit dedicated to fostering understanding between the people of the United States and the Arab world, where she has worked as Executive Director since completing her MA in Middle East and Islamic Studies in 2009. Bridges’ most popular program, Youth Talk, connects Arab and American high school students for monthly videoconferences and dialogue - and is organized in partnership with Global Nomads Group, an NGO co-founded by four AUP alums. Carey also currently serves as the President of AUPDC, the Washington Alumni Chapter of The American University of Paris. Heather Price ’09 I graduated from AUP with a BA in International and Comparative Politics, and was the first undergraduate
to participate in the Master of Arts in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies graduate-level intensive Arabic language program. After graduation I moved to Washington, D.C. to pursue my master’s in US Foreign and Defense Policy, where I concentrated on military-civilian transition in post-combat operations. During my time in Washington, I have worked at the U.S. Department of State’s Office of Iraq, the Institute for the Study of War, and the Heritage Foundation. I am currently the Business and Industry Specialist for the Iraq and Afghanistan Reconstruction Task Force at US Department of Commerce, where I serve as Department coordinator for the US-Afghanistan Trade and Investment Framework Agreement Council meeting, liaison to the Embassy of Afghanistan, and Department of Commerce representative to the interagency working group on Afghanistan World Trade Organization accession. I am honored to be part of the US Government’s mission to protect the homeland by committing to the security and stabilization of Iraq and Afghanistan via private sector engagement. I am weighing private defense sector opportunities in Iraq while awaiting word on the Foreign Service Officer selection process and continuing Dari language study. My experience at AUP has pushed me to places I never thought possible, and I look forward to returning to Paris soon.
s Julie Tran ’09 I’m back in Sweden where I grew up. After graduating I got more and more interested into Swedish politics. I even ended up joining a political party and was soon recruited as the campaign leader for the local Centre Party and later their political advisor at the regional level. Thus, the Swedish
election in 2010 went well and our party regained power in all three levels, national, regional and local. Who would have known that I would one day join a political party and end up working as a political advisor for a Swedish county council commissioner? I know I didn’t! It was unexpected because I thought my first job after graduation would be in a NGO in Paris, Geneva or Brussels. I miss Paris a lot but I know I brought the best part of it: my fiancé Samuel who moved to Sweden with me. I hope to move back to Paris someday when the time is right. For the moment, I’m juggling work-study-life. I’m on the last semester of my Master program at the Linköping University. It’s thesis time and my topic is European migration policies. Jordan Land ’10 Immediately after graduating from AUP in May of 2010 with an MA in Middle Eastern Studies, I returned home to Kentucky where I spent the next year working for the University of Kentucky men’s basketball team. My responsibilities were to film every practice during the season, all of the games, and maintain a scouting video database of all our opponents that year. In the summer of 2011, I accepted a position with the U.S. Military to be an Education Counselor for U.S. Forces in Kuwait. That was one of the most unique experiences of my life, being on a military base in the middle of the desert and living through the Iraq War draw-down, as well as experiencing the local culture in a country not often visited by foreigners. Since August of 2012 I have moved to Afghanistan where I am now, counseling U.S. Service Members and NATO Forces (including French soldiers!) in education-related matters. Since the Afghanistan War is scheduled to end soon, I don’t yet know what is in store for my future but I have a few exciting opportunities on the table!
s Jessica Pettus ’10 Jessica and her boyfriend Greg Vose currently live in their hometown of San Francisco, CA where Jessica is employed as a Senior Manager of
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Global Marketing & Communications at Oracle and Greg is now a full-time student pursuing a Master’s degree in Ecology. In their spare time they practice making cheese (a skill they picked up on an organic dairy farm in Auvergne during their time in France), tend their urban garden, and do their best to enjoy the general richness of what California has to offer. Noah Pfoh ’10 After completing his Bachelor’s course work in December 2009, Noah went on to travel and do volunteer work until starting his Master’s degree at the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich, Germany in the Fall of 2010. Now finished with the international master’s program, Psychology of Excellence in Business and Education, Noah is a consultant at one of the leading Software as a Service consultancies, serving German-speaking countries. He currently resides in Munich, Germany. Fares Alatassi ’11 I graduated in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in International Business Administration. Following my graduation, I was hired as a Management Consultant by Pricewaterhouse Coopers. I have been a Consultant for over a year working with diverse clients all over the Middle East. I will be promoted to Senior Consultant at the end of my second year with the firm, which I found to be the perfect time for me to continue my education. I have recently been accepted to a Master’s program at Hult International Business School where I’ll be pursuing a Masters in International Business at Hult’s San Francisco campus. Mounira Al Hmoud ’11 Upon graduating from AUP in 2011, Mounira Al Hmoud started a Master of Science in Political Reporting at Boston University. After spending a semester reporting from the U.S. Congress for the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus in Vermont, Mounira fell in love with Washington D.C. and decided to stay a little longer. She is currently interning at the National Law Journal and will be graduating in May 2013 from Boston University. She is hoping to stay in D.C. and work as a print, multimedia, and broadcast reporter for francophone publications. Her portfolio can be accessed at: http:// mouniraalhmoud.com/.
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s Anne de Linde ’11 After graduating from AUP with a master’s in Middle East and Islamic Studies I went back to Denmark to do a master’s in Social and Organizational Psychology. I’m currently writing my thesis on discrimination against minorities and international integration of diversity with a focus on Muslims in Denmark. I founded a non-profit organization with some fellow students, working with immigrants in need of social and psychological support. Mary Einbinder ’11 Mary graduated from AUP with a BA in History. She then moved to New York to pursue a MA in International Relations and Cultural Studies at NYU. Currently, she is living in the East Village, writing a thesis on the importance of Musical Diplomacy to promote international cooperation and is enjoying every day in the concrete jungle. Born and raised in Paris, she misses the beauty of the City of Light yet she chose the Chrysler building as her home over the Eiffel Tower. She is actually interning at the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) located in the Chrysler building. The UNAOC is an initiative of the UN created in 2005 to promote intercultural and interfaith dialogue worldwide.
s Carolyn Englar ’12 After a brief stint as an intern for Stella McCartney in Paris during my spring semester at AUP, I was offered a
full-time position on their PR team in New York City, which I began in May 2011. After an extremely exciting year in the fashion world, I returned to AUP to complete my Master’s degree, by enrolling in the six-week summer session. After getting to travel to the Jura, pet some cows and learning everything there is to know about Comté cheese, I returned home to Brooklyn to continue my work in the communications field. I currently work as the Community Manager for Noodle Education, a life-long education search engine started by the founder of the Princeton Review. In this position, I get to work on a variety of communications platforms, including social media, content development, public relations and overall internal/ external company marketing and communications. Rieke Weel ’12 I officially graduated from AUP in January 2012 with a Master of Art in Global Communications. My time at AUP was inspiring and I feel lucky to have gotten so much advice and support from fellow students and professors. Before I came to Paris I went through Art School in the Netherlands and graduated with a Bachelor’s of Design in Advertising and Photography from Willem the Kooning Academy. Knowing I wanted to use my knowledge of communication for social good, I packed my bags and moved to Paris. Since then I have lived in different parts of India where I did participatory photography projects with street children, and later became operations and community communications manager of a local NGO. Currently, I am a resident of Rwanda. I initially came here for a three month training to help IFDC (www.ifdc.org), an international organization specialized in fertilizer, agricultural production, food security and value chains, set up a clear development communication strategy for a four year project in the region. After a four-month extension I got my first official contract in November 2012. I am now the regional communications officer for two projects in Rwanda, Burundi and the DRC. I work on the implementation of a strategy that focuses on getting project messages to farmers and agro-dealers in the field, research how mobile technology can assist in reaching a larger crowd, develop interactive community radio broadcasts, and I go into the field to launch mobile cinema events.
{ALUMNI} In Memoriam We are sad to announce the loss of these members of the AUP family. Contact us at alumni@aup.edu if you would like to send condolences to their loved ones.
Zineb Benhamida ’91 We are sad to announce that alumna Zineb Benhamida passed away on January 5, 2013 after her plane returning to France from Morocco crashed suddenly. Her husband Farid, who was piloting the small aircraft, and their three children Yto, Driss and Amine were also victims of the crash. Walter J. Brennan We are sad to bring you news of the passing of a former AUP staff member and one of the key individuals who helped found the University in 1962. Walter J. Brennan, a concert pianist from New York, was the first Director of Cultural Programs at the American College in Paris (AUP’s name in its early years). In his role, he took students out of the classroom and brought them into another kind of learning environment - that of cultural awareness and understanding which alumni from the early years remember as one of the most memorable of their time at the College. Walter passed away in his Paris home on Friday, November 30, 2012. Willy Cellucci ’73 The Class of 1973 sadly reports the passing of Willy Cellucci, a cherished fellow alumnus and bon vivant whose gravelly-voiced mixture of bonhomie, camaraderie, and loquacious storytelling amused classmates and professors alike while the school was known as The American College in Paris (ACP). Willy died on February 17th in Atlanta, Georgia. During his two years in Paris, Willy served as class president, was editor of the school newspaper, The Contact, and won ACP’s first pinball tournament. He infused the College with his rambunctious enthusiasm and served as an untitled cultural ambassador for Los Angeles, where he had lived prior to his stint in
Paris. A lifelong devotee of food, wine, and golf, Willy served for many years with distinction as general manager for The Palm Steakhouse at the Buckhead Westin hotel in Atlanta, where he grew the business through sheer diligence and the force of his colorful personality. He is survived by his wife, Jonelle, sons Danny and Jack, and the innumerable friends and relatives whose lives he touched immeasurably. Ed Frieman Ed Frieman, beloved member of the AUP Board of Trustees and friend, passed away in April in La Jolla, California, surrounded by his wife, Joy, their children, and their grandchildren. On our Board, Ed Frieman played a very special role. As both an academic, a Princeton physicist, and an administrator, Vice Chancellor of Scripps Oceanographic, as well as a formidable researcher and writer, he brought the broadest possible perspective to our decision making, reminding us always that what needs to be front and center in our work is what we teach our students and how we equip our graduates to take responsibility for the world. We have lost a great man and a true friend of the University. Jennifer Locke ’05 We are sad to announce the passing of alumna Jennifer Locke. She passed away suddenly on Saturday, August 11th in New York City. She had just been discharged on Friday afternoon from the Sloan Kettering Memorial Hospital after treatment for a stomach bacteria, and then died in her sleep less than twelve hours later. She had been on the road to recovery from GIST cancer, which was under control. The cause of death is unknown at this time. According to her friends, her spirits were high and she was looking forward to more improvement in the
months ahead. She was 29 years old. Jen had graduated from the Masters School in Dobbs Ferry, NY in 2001, and The American University of Paris in 2005. She worked at Fox News in New York City for three years. More recently, she was the marketing director for iAttachments.com, a digital media website. Dimitri Makansi Student Dimitri Makansi, a freshman from the fall 2012 incoming class, passed away on January 9, 2013. Although he had not been with us for a very long time, Dimitri had already made many friends and become an important part of our community. AUP organized a memorial service in Dimitri’s honor on January 22 in the Grand Salon. Russell M. Porter, Jr. We are sad to announce the passing of a longtime member of AUP’s Board of Trustees, Russell M. Porter, Jr. A former pilot in the Royal Air Force during World War II, Mr. Porter was a member AUP’s Board from 1970 to 1998. In addition to serving on AUP’s Board, he also founded the Mona Bismarck Foundation in Paris. Thamer Saeed Salman ’98 We are sad to announce the loss of alumnus Thamer Saeed Salman. An educator, businessman, philanthropist, and father of three, Thamer died tragically on February 8th in an accident in Al Ain, United Arab Emirates. He was 35 years old. He will be awarded the AUP Distinguished Alumni Award posthumously at the 50th Anniversary Commencement Exercises.
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Gifts to AUP
Fiscal Year 2011-2012
The American University of Paris gratefully acknowledges the following contributors, each of whom made generous financial or in-kind gifts to AUP between August 1, 2011 and July 31, 2012. Although we are unable to include lifetime and cumulative giving in this list, we remain grateful for steadfast support in all prior years. 100,000€ and above Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Corinne Mentzelopoulos 25,000€ - 49,999€ Eugene Glaser Karen Slosberg MA’11 Anonymous 15,000€ - 24,999€ Elizabeth Ballantine James Bittermann Franklin Craig ’81 Mel Croner The Alfred and Jane Ross Foundation 10,000€ - 14 999€ Richard Asthalter Edward & Joy Frieman Marc Groothaert ’68 Raymond F. Henze David T. McGovern Judith Ogilvie ’65 Pierre Sauvagnat ’83 Lizbeth Schiff ’66 5,000€€ - 9,999€ Martin S. Avidan ’80 Dominique Bach Andrew Batinovich ’80 Peter de Castro ’68 Valerie Gille Omid & Gisel Hiscock Kordestani ’96 Lee & Berna Huebner Dr. Alix Marduel & Tom Lockard Susan Tolson 1,000€ - 4,999€ Anonymous Arent Charitable Foundation Julian Bivins ’80 Dominique & Connie Borde Elliott Burdette ’70 Charles Delmar Foundation Joseph Dickerson ’00 George Elder & Jo Ann Engelhardt Gretchen Handwerger
Thank you for your loyal support. We have made every effort to reproduce an accurate list of contributions to the University. Your gifts are very important to us. If your name has been inadvertently omitted or incorrectly spelled, please contact the Advancement office by email at advancement@aup.edu.
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Michèle Hensley James H. Landon Nancy Lassalle Philippe and Patricia Lemoine Carlos A. Mestre Chuck Muckenfuss Richard Peyster Axel Roehm Josef Karl Ruth ’65 Rita Fredricks Salzman Celeste Schenck Elizabeth and Eric Schwartz Jacques Setton ’66 The Jerome Robbins Foundation, Inc. 500€ - 999€ Paula Al-Sabah Ruth Altshuler Eric & Cheryl Baranes Michael Bauers Kostia Belkin ’86 Elizabeth Bernardaud David Andre Brewster ’66 D. Grant Calder ’92 Roger Cruise Doris & Ed Daughney Sebastien de la Selle Jeffrey F. Durgee ’64 Alexandra Hughes Lynn Kelley Donald Morrison Zakiya Powell Ann L. Reed ’80 Alan Riding Stephen K. Scher R.T. Vanderbilt Trust Davis Weinstock 200€ - 499€ Angelica Baird Michael V. Buddy Tom Byrne Jean Pierre d’Estienne d’Orves Jacqueline Duclos Sharon Faccinto ’87 Reid Feldman Robert Fitzpatrick
Ronald Freeman Thomas Horgan ’79 Youmna-Laure Kamel ’87 Inga Khavkina Constance Leisure Michelle C. Markham ’98 Michael McCaskey Mendes Wood Michael Miller ’95 Cynthia Mitchell Jimmy Nahra ’11 Catherine Nolan Virginie-Alvine Perrette Gabriella Plimpton Ressler Jill Kathryn Sargent ’67 Gyneth Schenck Eric and Elizabeth Schwartz Richard Scott Andrew Seid ’71 Leon M. Selig Joseph Smallhoover Douglas Sonntag ’74 Mary Louise Stott Ellen Strain Anne Swardson Helen Tange James Teeple ’78 Cassie Toulouse Charles Trueheart Marshall Wais Just Ward Carolyn Wheatley 199€€ Andrew Bartnik ’91 James Bednar ’74 Caroline H. Benzaria Joan Bieder Irena Bilic Max Blumberg Marie Bonail Adrian B. Burke ’96 Kathleen Chanliau-Finnerty ’80 Nicholas Chriss John Cochran Tanya de Villiers ’05 Marianne Dise
Barry L. Douglass ’64 Jean Pierre Duclos Elizabeth Dudley ’66 Bernard and Rosemary Duhaime Camilla Field ’94 Javier Franco ’10 Jaron Gandelman MA’11 Suzanne Garzon ’68 Lawrence K. Grossman Ashley R. Hahn ’10 Cheryl Kaetzel Childers ’66 Robert M. Kaye Rahma Khazam Nathela Kipiani Paula K. Klein Carey Kluttz MA’07 Eugene Lang Anna Lascar Henri le Sellier de Chezelles Joseph B. Leader Jill Royce Loomis ’82 Elise S. Marafioti ’03 Peggy Montgomery ’75 Diane Murray Timothy Newman Connie Nicholson ’83 Joumana ’04 and Sebastian Ordelheide ’07 Susan Owens Liam Purdon ’70 Douglass & Katherine Raff Frank Ray Jane Roberts David Rubin Margery A. Safir Van Gordon Sauter ’97 Josette Sayers Robert and Susan Sloan Gordon Sorlini Linda Steiner Schaller ’77 Mary Stillman Grace Teshima Nancy Vermes Vivienne Walt Mary Rebecca Weary ’68 Karen Marie Wellford ’64
A Historic Gift at a Historic Moment With an unrestricted gift of $1 million, Gisel (Hiscock) Kordestani ’96 and her husband, Omid Kordestani have made the largest gift in the University’s history during AUP’s 50th anniversary year. The Kordestanis’ generosity will be recognized by naming the Academic Resource Center – a combined study, tutoring, research, and writing space – within the new Student Life and Learning Center building the Kordestani Academic Resource Center, or ARC, as it is called on campus. The motivation behind the Kordestanis’ gift is to recognize AUP for its excellence in promoting an international perspective in education.
Stay in touch
with us to be part of AUP’s future 50 years! alumni@aup.edu
Office of University Outreach and Advancement 118 rue Saint Dominique 75007 Paris France alumni@aup.edu www.aup.edu