This column is a part of a series of alums reflecting on their time at The Eagle in celebration of our 100th anniversary. If you would like to submit a column, visit this page. The Eagle is also fundraising to support its future. If you’d like to give a donation to support The Eagle, please consider doing so here.
I’m a pretty small person — just over 5 feet tall and quiet. I don’t like loud parties or big gatherings. Most people aren’t going to pay much attention to me. I came to American University to study international politics, but I had always liked to write and I was curious.
So, I went to a meeting for new students at The Eagle. I’m sure I didn’t talk to anyone — at least until I had a notebook and pen in hand. The magic of those two items soon became apparent.
With those two items, I could ask anyone anything. And then I could tell the community about it. I didn’t have to be loud because I had a pen. As I became more comfortable with my tools, I also became more comfortable as a person, and then as a leader.
Leading takes listening and understanding. It takes working toward a common goal. I became the first junior to be editor in chief, and, as far as I knew, the first who wasn’t a communications major.
It wasn’t without controversy. I learned how to stand up for myself and my team.
I also learned how to talk to anyone — U.S. presidents, school presidents, former school presidents. I learned how to ask hard questions, how to follow up, how to persist.
We won the Society of Professional Journalists College Newspaper of the Year for a Weekly Newspaper the year I was editor. It’s still an achievement I look back on with wonder and appreciation. I wonder if that plaque is still around the office somewhere? I hope it is.
When I think about my time at AU, it’s all about the office in Mary Graydon and the little hallway across the way where we would physically cut out the articles (we bought a broadsheet printer to make it easier) and used literal line tape to make the pages.
It was very late nights, music, pizza and an occasional beer. Relationships that were close and crazy and still make me smile. I kept my international relations degree but added one in communications. In graduate school, I combined them to work at a newspaper in South Africa.
I can trace every step of my career to my time at The Eagle. Ten years reporting on national and California state politics for the San Francisco Chronicle. Years as a press secretary for then-Attorney General Kamala Harris and other state officials. Now I am the leader of a state department of 250 people making sure the work we do helps the people we are trying to serve. I still carry a pen and notebook every day, and to me, they still hold magic.
Lynda Gledhill SIS/B.A. ‘93 was editor-in-chief of The Eagle.
