It’s where he met his wife Mary Ann, where he proposed, where they got married and where their daughter, Eleanor, was baptized. Now, just down the street from these memories made at National Presbyterian Church on Nebraska Avenue, Jonathan Alger takes his new seat in the President’s Office Building.
Returning to the nation’s capital, this time as American University’s 16th president, Alger wants to champion a culture of civic engagement and show that “democracy is not a spectator sport.”
It’s a quest fueled by his extensive career in higher education and law. Before serving as James Madison University’s sixth president for 12 years, he was senior VP and general counsel at Rutgers University, assistant general counsel, where he worked on two landmark Supreme Court cases on diversity and admissions, at the University of Michigan and an attorney-advisor for the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights.
“You look back at your life, you think, ‘Gosh, all these pieces, it feels like they're all sort of coming together in an interesting way that I never would have predicted,’” Alger said in an interview with The Eagle. “I had no idea when I came to D.C. that I was going to end up in higher education, much less in administration, I thought I was going to be a lawyer my whole career.”
Since beginning his presidency in July, Alger launched The Civic Life, which aims to promote civic engagement through events, activities and learning opportunities.
The program held its kickoff on Oct. 21 and announced its 34 undergraduate, graduate and online student fellows, tasked with spreading the program’s message throughout the community. The program has also hosted Unity Dinners and the presidential speaker series.
The goal: prepare students, faculty and the University community with skills like debate and research to be “active and engaged citizens.”
“The Civic Life initiative is really meant to be a signature effort for all of AU” from students to faculty to alumni, Alger said.
It takes inspiration from the Center for Civic Engagement at JMU, which Alger led the creation of, to support nonpartisan civic engagement and voter education on campus. He wanted to weave civic education and engagement into “the fabric of the institution.”
“Those were lessons that I worked on at JMU, and really thought, ‘Gosh, at AU, we have the added benefit of being here in the nation’s capital, of having so many students and faculty and staff that have a real passion for these issues,’” Alger said.
Alger plans to weave The Civic Life’s goals in AU’s curriculum, including the AU core.
“One of the things I‘ve discovered is, I think a lot of people are hungry for this,” he added.
The Civic Life hosted a unity dinner to reflect, listen and connect on the anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks. Students sat down for their most recent Unity Dinner on Nov. 6, the day after the election, hosted with both AU College Democrats and AU College Republicans.
“One of the things I talk about a lot is not just what are our rights in a democratic society, but what are our responsibilities if we’re going to live and learn and work together in peace,” Alger said. “That doesn't mean everyone’s going to agree, but having some rules of engagement, right, about how we treat one another, making sure that everybody feels welcome and included, and that they have a seat at the table.”
The rights and responsibilities of democracy is a philosophy that helped guide Alger through the recent updates of the University’s expression policies. In August, Alger overturned the Jan. 25 directives put in place by his predecessor, President Sylvia Burwell, last semester that banned indoor protests.
“I had read the directives, and I understood that, look, this was meant to be temporary,” Alger said.
Alger came face-to-face with student sentiment over the speech policies during an April welcome reception for the then-incoming president, when AU Student Government and other students protested inside Katzen Arts Center over the Jan. 25 directives, particularly the banning of indoor protests. Reflecting on the moment, he said he understood it is a part of AU student culture to “express themselves in a variety of ways.”
The University revised Outdoor Chalking, Tabling and Posting Materials, Social Media and Facilities Use policies this fall.
Alger, who worked as an attorney-advisor in the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, often had to balance free speech while preventing racial discrimination as the point person on policy overseeing racial harassment.
“You have to have an environment that is free from discrimination, because if people feel that they can’t participate based on race or sex or some other characteristic, that defeats the idea of the educational environment, right, everybody has to feel they can fully participate,” he said.
Freedom of expression is critical to higher education, Alger said, as people should expect they will be faced with others who disagree with them and ideas that challenge the status quo.
Alger said he wanted to prioritize student feedback during the policy revisions. Online submissions were open for students to provide feedback for the draft policies and the administration hosted forums to discuss each proposed policy. With his policy and legal background, Alger strived to “do this right, and do it well, but also that it be an inclusive process.”
“I think it’s important that you have policies that are hopefully as clear as possible, that reflect the nuances of both of those requirements, that you provide a non discriminatory environment that is conducive to learning, and also that you protect freedom of expression and academic freedom,” he said.
Alger also hoped for student input in the process to build trust with the student body, part of a larger goal to include the community in his transition.
Whether it be eating in the Terrace Dining Room with his wife, Mary Ann, walking through the quad on his way home to see what students are up to or even performing with the AU Chamber Singers, Alger wants to “interact with students in a variety of ways.”
He launched a listening tour on campus to “hear the hopes and dreams and aspirations for the future of the community.” So far, he has held over 30 listening sessions on campus, similar to what he did when he started at JMU 12 years ago.
“We've got someone taking notes at every session, and we're going to try to pull together that feedback, and that will help us as we think about how we do our strategic planning and what should some of the priority areas and issues be,” Alger said.
Alger’s administration also announced a Week of Kindness before Thanksgiving from Nov. 10 to Nov. 16, falling over World Kindness Day on Nov. 13. Throughout the week, the University community can “acknowledge that there are people around you that you study with and learn from, and that are feeding us, and that are taking care of the facilities” through University events and acts of kindness, like a thankful wall in TDR and a food drive.
Alger said it’s part of a larger goal to create “joy and optimism” on campus, a message he shared with freshmen at this year’s convocation. JMU had a tradition of opening doors for each other, he said, which reminded students “you’re part of a learning community larger than yourself.”
“If you see first year students around campus opening doors, they've been encouraged to do that. And it’s something that we can all practice, but it seems like a really small thing, but if a lot of people are doing it, it starts to create a certain kind of environment that I think is very healthy and very positive,” he said.
Alger also hopes to connect with the University community by stepping back into the classroom. He co-taught a leadership seminar at JMU, and is speaking in various professor’s classes and the Civic Fellows course.
The classroom is just one component of the AU education he sees the University needing to blend together to “help lead in the conversation about how you approach what I call the grand challenges of the 21st century that don't fit neatly into one academic bucket.”
Alger also said that he was shocked by the first year students already securing their first internships, but wasn’t “sure we’re telling this story as well as we could about the experience at AU.”
He knows the University could do a better job at pulling together undergraduate research, study abroad, internships, capstone projects and more to tell a story about AU students that sets them apart in higher education and after. Core to telling this story of AU, is his goal of cultivating the next generation of civic leaders at the University, something he hopes will culminate in his efforts as president.
“That’s what’s exciting to me about being here right now, in the midst of all the political drama and the challenges around us that I think students that come here come here wanting to make a difference, and wanting to know how, and this to me, if we can really work on this set of skills together as a community, not just in isolation, that’s where I think American University can be an incredible beacon,” Alger said.
This story was edited by Olivia Wood, Samantha Skolnick and Tyler Davis. Copy editing done by Luna Jinks and Sabine Kanter-Huchting.
