Two American University students, Lizzie Graff and Adah Nordan, are seeking seats on the 3E Advisory Neighborhood Commission, which represents AU Park, Tenleytown and Friendship Heights neighborhoods.
ANCs are a non-partisan, neighborhood body comprised of elected local representatives intended to be the neighborhood’s voice in advising the D.C. government. Established to bring the government closer to the people, the local D.C. government considers recommendations made by ANCs.
AU’s campus is divided into two districts: 3E07 and 3E08. Nordan is the candidate for 3E07, which includes students living in Hughes, McDowell, Nebraska, Federal, Letts and Constitution halls. Graff is the candidate for 3E08, which includes students living in Anderson, Centennial, Duber, Roper, Leonard and Cassell halls.
Graff, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences and the School of Education, did not expect she would ever become involved in local politics when she started at AU. However, her friend, Rohin Ghosh, a senior in CAS and the current 3E08 representative, encouraged Graff to run for the position in the 2024 election.
“[Ghosh] explained to me the importance of the position,” Graff said. “It deals with leasing issues, transportation, and student safety — all relevant issues that we’ve been talking about.”
Graff hopes to teach high school after graduating but she has always been “focused on grassroots, ground-level change.” Graff said she thinks the ANC seat will “give [her] the right amount of influence to make sure that the change students want to see happens.”
AU’s chapter of NO MORE, an organization dedicated to ending sexual and domestic violence, and Ghosh endorsed Graff.
Graff said if elected, she will focus on both on-campus and off-campus issues.
“There’s a crosswalk from [School of International Service] to East Campus and I know every student feels like that crosswalk is unsafe and unreasonable because it takes 70 seconds on one side and 20 on the other one,” Graff said. “So small things like that — I would focus on getting a longer time to walk across the street.”
Graff also highlighted “more serious concerns that have to do with off-campus issues,” specifically surrounding the “over-policing” of high school students at Jackson-Reed High School in Tenleytown.
“I would want to represent those students as well and create a program working alongside high school students to ensure their safety,” Graff said.
In the 2022 election, Ghosh ran unopposed and won with fewer than 14 votes to secure his seat, while Diego Carney, a junior in the School of Public Affairs and current 3E07 commissioner, won his seat by coin flip. Carney and his competitor Micah Rogers, a junior in SPA, both received only one vote, which according to the D.C. drawing of lots law leaves the election to a game of chance.
Low voter turnout is likely because many AU students are registered to vote in their hometowns rather than D.C.
Graff said 3E08 contains mostly freshman students so she has tried to appeal to them.
“I’ve been appealing to people who might not be in swing states to consider changing their voter registration to D.C.,” Graff said. “It's important that we not only vote in national elections but that we impact our local government where we live most of the time, which for students is D.C.”
Graff said she has also focused on reaching out to freshmen who did not request ballots from their home states in enough time and reminding them that they are still eligible to vote in D.C. for both the national election and the ANC elections.
Graff said she is not running for the ANC seat out of a desire to use the position as “a stepping stone to get into politics or for [her] own personal benefit.”
“I’m running because I genuinely care so much and I believe that I have the relationships built with people,” Graff said. “I want to build more relationships with people so that I can feel like I can represent their interests as well.”
When Nordan was a junior in high school, she took a trip with her Unitarian church to West Virginia. Entering a red state with “Trump flags everywhere” as a group of students from a Boston suburb, Nordan said the locals still welcomed her and her peers with open arms.
“They told us when the coal mining industry died, our country left them behind,” Nordan said. “I think that's true, and I think those people might be voting for Trump, but I have more in common with them than I ever will the rich people who are also here in D.C.”
The trip opened Nordan’s eyes to the importance of connecting with individuals on a personal level and the significance of conversation. It’s these values that Nordan is bringing with her in her campaign for the ANC.
A sophomore in the College of Arts of Sciences, Nordan is taking on her first-ever campaign in her election for ANC 3E07. Nordan said she is working to represent a group of people on campus who have not been heard.
“I think definitely what I stand for and what my values are a much different perspective,” Nordan said. “I want to be the least centered I can in what I do.”
Nordan has been endorsed by the AU’s chapters of Young Democratic Socialists of America and NO MORE. Campaigning with the support of clubs on campus has given her the opportunity to begin “connecting with students through conversations and hearing about all the pain and the trauma that we've gone through that connects back to the systems that we're in,” Nordan said.
Nordan and her friends first realized over the summer the 3E07 position would be open in the upcoming election with no one running to claim it.
“I thought it would be a really good opportunity to elevate the leftist student community,” Nordan said.
With the intent to focus on issues impacting the working class, students fighting for financial aid and workers at the school, Nordan has her hands full. Balancing campaign work and schoolwork can be complicated, yet Nordan has learned to embrace her efforts by bringing them into her everyday life. Nordan said she’s had many conversations inside the classroom that have helped her understand the importance of working together to meet goals.
“Someone came up to me the other night while I was out for Halloweekend and talked to me about how AU wants to build this completely new building, and why is that funding going there and not to all of these things that aren't done,” Nordan said. “That's the kind of power that I would have. If anyone has ideas that they want to be shared, I think the best thing I can do is just be a person who's open to that and actively seeking interactions like that.”
Amplifying her voice and the voice of University community members is extremely important to Nordan in her campaign, and she has also worked with Ghosh to help her navigate campaigning and the ANC.
“He's also helped me understand, like, how I can run for a political position and not do that in a way that has to fit within the system,” Nordan said.
As an ANC commissioner, Nordan hopes to introduce issues to the Committee that affect both the University and larger surrounding communities. Nordan said bringing perspective to an ANC that is sometimes composed of retirees would open the door to negotiation and solutions.
“I myself, as a queer person, as a woman, I don’t really feel safe in a lot of populations,” Nordan said. “ANC might be somewhere like that, I might face pushback, but I have confidence that connecting with people on a human level is the only way that we're ever going to be able to make a difference.”
To Nordan, issues pertaining to unhoused populations, advocacy for survivors of domestic and sexual violence and housing costs are some of the most pertinent.
“I've had so many friends who don't have access to affordable housing and I have friends who have had to switch colleges,” Nordan said. “Having a role in ANC, being able to elevate student voices that often go unheard, it's a really special opportunity.”
If she does assume the role of 3E07 commissioner, Nordan said she would first address the controversial arming of the AU Police Department, as the administration has shared they will announce a decision in Spring 2025.
Nordan described talking to people about the importance of local government as “wonderful” and helpful for students unaware of the power of voting in D.C. elections. After some conversations, Nordan said some people changed their voter registration to vote in D.C.
“Bringing people together and seeing that we are all affected by the system, we all perpetuate different inequalities in the system, we all have privilege in different ways,” Nordan said. “But I think a lot of the times we're all fighting for the same thing, it's just, who has education to understand that and who doesn't.”
This article was edited by Mackenzie Konjoyan, Payton Anderson, Tyler Davis and Abigail Turner. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks.
