Qualla: American University

American University: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Duane Lempke, CC0. On June 10, 1963, John F. Kennedy stood at a commencement lectern at American University and proposed peace with the Soviet Union. He had been President for less than two and a half years. The Cuban Missile Crisis was eight months in the past. The speech he delivered that morning - calling for a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty and a fundamental reconsideration of the Cold War - was one of the most significant of his presidency. It came to be known simply as the American University Speech. He was assassinated five months later. The treaty he proposed was signed within months. The campus where he stood still teaches international relations as if it were the family business. American University has been, since its founding, an idea about what the United States could be in the world - and a sometimes awkward host to what the United States actually was.

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Image: Duane Lempke | CC0

American University: The Methodist Idea

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. American University was chartered by an Act of Congress, approved on February 24, 1893, almost entirely because of the persistence of one man - John Fletcher Hurst, Methodist bishop, abolitionist, and scholar, who wanted a national Methodist university in the capital that would e...

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Image: Public domain

American University: Camp American University

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Class of 2006, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 1917, with the United States newly entered into the First World War, the U.S. military took over a large portion of the AU campus and divided it into two installations. Camp Leach housed advanced research on camouflage. Camp American University - on the same hilltop where stud...

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Image: Class of 2006 | CC BY-SA 4.0

American University: The American University Speech

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cecil Stoughton, Public domain. On June 10, 1963, John F. Kennedy delivered the commencement address on the AU quadrangle. The speech, written largely by Theodore Sorensen with input from Kennedy himself, broke from Cold War convention in several specific ways. Kennedy called for an end to what he called the pr...

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Image: Cecil Stoughton | Public domain

American University: Eight Schools and a Radio Station

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit The artworks was created by American University Rationalists and Atheists, CC0. American University today consists of eight schools and colleges, including the School of International Service, the School of Public Affairs, the Washington College of Law - the first law school in the United States founded by women, in 1896, and absorbed by AU in 1949 - and the...

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Image: The artworks was created by American University Rationalists and Atheists | CC0