American University

See also the American University in Cairo and American University of Beirut

AU Trivia

• During the 1963 spring commencement ceremonies, President John F. Kennedy addressed the university. Given in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy used the speech to call on the Soviet Union to work with the United States to achieve a nuclear test ban treaty and help reduce the considerable international tensions and the specter of nuclear war at that juncture of the Cold War. The speech is depicted in Oliver Stone's 1991 film JFK.
• Ten U.S. presidents have either served on the AU Board of Trustees or spoken on campus.
• AU?s School of Communication trained the cast and crew of MTV?s Road Rules and the Real World in public speaking.
• Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed New York City?s Central Park, was AU?s first architect.
• AU chancellor Charles C. McCabe taught "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" to Union POWs in the South early in the Civil War and was later invited to the Lincoln White House because of his actions.
• The X-Files? Agent Scully found she had an alien virus in AU?s Paleoclimatology Lab in the fall 1997 season premiere. No such laboratory exists at AU.
• Benjamin Ladner, AU president, was suspended on August 24, 2005, pending an investigation into possible misuse of university funds for his personal expenses. University faculty passed votes of no confidence in President Ladner September 26, 2005.