Category: Articles.

GW, D.C. Leadership Remember Mark Plotkin

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Former mayors and prominent Washington, D.C., figures spoke about Mark Plotkin’s legacy in the District during a memorial service at GW.

The memorial service for journalist, political commentator and George Washington University alumnus Mark Plotkin, B.A. ’69, was planned out five years ago on a napkin.

Mr. Plotkin’s close friend, D.C. Councilmember Jack Evans (D), planned the service with Mr. Plotkin during a conversation at Morton’s Steakhouse in Georgetown where Mr. Evans asked Mr. Plotkin what he should do in the event of Mr. Plotkin’s death.

So, everything from the location (Mr. Plotkin wanted the memorial service to be at GW) to the songs played during Wednesday’s memorial service in Jack Morton Auditorium was requested by Mr. Plotkin himself. Mr. Evans described Mr. Plotkin as “a true friend but a real character.”

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Van Jones Talks Fighting for Justice

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Almost one year after President Trump signed the FIRST STEP Act, criminal justice reform advocate Van Jones discussed next steps with activists and formerly incarcerated individuals.

When Lonnie Jones initially learned of the FIRST STEP Act, he was serving a life sentence in federal prison.

So far, he had served 20 years of his sentence for a first-time, non-violent drug offense. He said his fellow inmates either believed that nothing was going to come from the FIRST STEP Act or that everything was going to change.

Among the many provisions in the bill, the federal prison and sentencing reform bill aimed to help people in Lonnie Jones’ exact situation—those given lengthy sentences for non-violent drug offences because of mandatory minimum sentencing—but he was convinced that the FIRST STEP Act didn’t apply to him despite people telling him that it did because the appeals he previously filed had been denied.

“I got a letter from the federal [public] defender’s office saying I might be eligible—I ripped it up,” Lonnie Jones said. “God’s honest truth, I ripped it up.”

It wasn’t until a lawyer contacted him directly and explained how the act does impact him that he started to believe it, and when he got a new court date, he started to feel some joy. Once a judge ruled that the life sentence he was given was excessive for a first-time, nonviolent drug offense, he said he began to understand why the other people in prison were so “jubilant” at the news of the FIRST STEP Act being signed into law.

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New App Brings Affordable, Global Lunches and Dinners to GW Students in Potomac Square

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A partnership with the D.C.-based TwentyTables app brings affordable food options to the GW community in Potomac Square beginning today—with launch giveaways on Wednesday.

Looking for new food options? A new George Washington University partnership with dining app TwentyTables will bring those options to the university community, including four food trucks daily in Potomac Square from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. for lunch and from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. for dinner.

To celebrate the partnership, GW and TwentyTables will host a kickoff event from 10:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Oct. 30 at Potomac Square with food and merchandise giveaways and a ribbon cutting with President Thomas LeBlanc. TwentyTables is also running a series of promotions for the kickoff, including the Golden Ticket giveaway where a student can win free meals for the semester.

At Potomac Square, which is an open area in the 2000 block of G Street across from Lisner Hall, food trucks will regularly be stationed throughout the year for lunch and dinner service. The Potomac Square initiative aimed to bring another community space to the university.

Mark Diaz, executive vice president and chief financial officer, said the recent renovation of Potomac Square to feature covered seating areas and an array of seating was part of this summer’s effort to direct $10 million toward dozens of projects in residential, academic and administrative spaces, improving the university community’s experience and enhancing GW’s culture.

“University leadership saw Potomac Square as a perfect opportunity to utilize a previously underused space to enhance the GW community by increasing on-campus areas to meet and socialize,” Mr. Diaz said. “Potomac Square has been transformed from an open-air meeting area into a vibrant and robust space where students, faculty and staff can eat, spend time together and relax.”

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Getting to Know the DMV: Adams Morgan

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This vibrant and culturally diverse D.C. neighborhood offers a bit of everything for lovers of food, art and history; its popular Adams Morgan Day festival is Sept. 8.

Adams Morgan blends a rich, diverse history from a legacy of immigrants, activists and revolutionaries with artistic and culinary expression that makes this neighborhood a must-see.

Originally known as simply “18th and Columbia,” which refers to its major crossroads in Northwest D.C., activists and urban planners in the 1950s sought to create a new identity for the neighborhood with a name that unified Washington, D.C., residents across racial lines.

Black and white families were fighting together for better education for all, even at a time when area schools were still segregated. To show their unity, parents from the whites-only Adams School (named for President John Quincy Adams) and the “colored” Morgan School (named for city Commissioner Thomas Morgan) organized as the Adams Morgan Better Neighborhood Conference, giving the area a new name.

In the 1960s as D.C.’s population expanded, Adams Morgan attracted younger and more diverse residents to the then-affordable residences. Artists and musicians gathered in the smaller neighborhood buildings, and the Black Panthers and anti-Vietnam War activists took up space along the 18th Street corridor.

Today, international shops and restaurants line the streets of Adams Morgan, and residents throughout the District take advantage of everything the neighborhood has to offer.

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Planned Parenthood President Discusses Need for Reproductive Healthcare Providers

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During the inaugural Health Workforce Equity Summit, Leana Wen said that it is a critical time to be part of the reproductive health workforce.

More than 300 bills seeking to restrict access to abortion care have been filed in 47 states in 2019, putting reproductive healthcare in crisis, Leana Wen, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said Wednesday.

Dr. Wen, who is also an adjunct associate professor of emergency medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine, said Planned Parenthood declared a state of emergency for women’s health on May 30 in response to controversial laws that ban abortion in Georgia and Alabama. The laws criminalize doctors who provide abortions, she said, and is part of a larger effort to challenge Roe v. Wade in the U.S. Supreme Court.

Dr. Wen delivered the keynote address at the inaugural Health Workforce Equity Summit, sponsored by the Fitzhugh Mullan Institute for Health Workforce Equity at GW’s Milken Institute School of Public Health.  The theme for this year’s summit was “Reproductive Health in Crisis: What Workforce Strategies are Needed?” and sought to address workforce pipeline and distribution issues as well as challenges with recruitment and retention in the reproductive healthcare sector.

Challenges to abortion access have been especially restrictive in Missouri, Dr. Wen added. The Planned Parenthood center there is the only abortion care provider remaining in the state. The state imposed a series of barriers to access, such as a 72-hour waiting period between a consultation and the procedure, she said, and “trap” regulations that forced the center to meet the standards of surgical centers even though abortion is an outpatient procedure.

She added that the state took “intimidation of physicians to a whole new level” by trying to require for the center’s license renewal that center doctors and trainees to be subject to interrogation that could result in the loss of medical licenses. A state court protected abortion access for the center, she said, but the legal battle is ongoing in Missouri as it is in states across the country.

“We are here, proudly, defiantly, because we need to be, because our patients depend on us,” Dr. Wen said.

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IMF Managing Director Discusses Global Economic Growth

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Christine Lagarde shared her thoughts on the world’s momentum for economic development during a George Talks Business event.

Despite decreasing its global economic growth forecast from 3.6 percent to 3.3. percent, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is not worried about the global economy.

Christine Lagarde, the fund’s managing director, said during a George Talks Business event on Thursday that even though the momentum for global economic growth has slowed more than expected, the second half of 2019 is expected to be better than the first half, and there is no recession.

There are still geopolitical risks to growth, she added, such as the result of the Brexit decisions. The fund also is concerned about trade tensions between the United States and China and the effect those tensions are having on global economic growth, and trade has historically been a source of global economic growth.

“We are still worried about tensions on trade because if you combine all the tariff increases, all the threats, all the not-yet-ratified or in-the-making agreements, we still have a lot of uncertainty on the trade front,” Ms. Lagarde said.

“It’s critically important that trade tensions be eliminated rather than resulting to tariff increases and threats,” she continued, “and that there will be a clear understanding of where and how trade is going to develop in the future and continue to fuel growth.”

Ms. Lagarde also said the IMF anticipates that the trade tension would be resolved.

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World Bank CEO Talks about Ending World Poverty

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Kristalina Georgieva shared her perspectives on the progress of the world’s economic development during a George Talks Business event.

There is a lot to celebrate in worldwide poverty eradication, World Bank CEO Kristalina Georgieva said during a George Talks Business event on Monday, but there is still a long way to go.

In 1990, 36 percent of the world lived in extreme poverty, Dr. Georgieva said, and 2018 estimates show the world poverty level at just over 8 percent.

“Well more than 1.1 billion people have pulled themselves out of poverty, and I am proud to be part of this journey.” Dr. Georgieva said. “If you happen to be one of the nearly 700 million people that still live in extreme poverty today, this success means nothing to you.”

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Beyoncé’s Nutritionist, Recycling CEO Discuss Sustainability Storytelling

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Planet Forward Summit speakers share how to use storytelling to persuade an audience to rethink waste and eat plant-based.

Marco Borges, the man behind Beyoncé’s plant-based eating challenge, knew that the interactive tool he created to quantify the environmental impact of a plant-based diet would not get enough media buzz on its own.

But once he showed The Greenprint Project tool to Beyoncé, she suggested sharing it on Instagram with her more than 126 million followers and attaching a sweepstakes for one participant to win concert tickets for life for her and/or her husband Jay-Z’s shows. National media outlets picked up the story immediately, and Mr. Borges was invited to talk about the project on multiple broadcast networks.

“The reality is that they were interested in the story because of how we wrapped the story,” Mr. Borges said. “It’s not just the subject of the story, it’s how you package the story…it is not just something you can create in a vacuum, it is something that you create with amazing people around you, but it has to be authentic.”

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Staff Focus: Erin Flanagan Helps Turn MSSC into a Home

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Erin Flanagan, the MSSC business operations manager, is a jack-of-all trades as she regularly jumps from spreadsheets to student engagement.

As an honorary big sister to all George Washington University students who visit the Multicultural Student Services Center (MSSC), Erin Flanagan does it all.

Officially, she is the business operations manager for the MSSC, but her day-to-day involves so much more. From putting out mini-fires such as finding a missing file or fixing a malfunctioning printer, to being a personal problem solver for the students who come into the MSSC, Ms. Flanagan has greatly contributed to making the MSSC a home away from home.

“People ask me like, what is it that you do—I can’t tell you,” Ms. Flanagan said. “Each day brings something different, and I think that, for me, I like working in that kind of ambiguous grey area of what’s happening because I feel like you discover possibilities when you don’t have something that’s set.”

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Scholar Michael Eric Dyson Encourages ‘Rooting for Everybody Black’

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During the keynote address for the 50th annual Black Heritage Celebration, Dr. Dyson explained why everyone should root for black people’s success.

Michael Eric Dyson, author and sociology professor at Georgetown University, used his keynote address at the George Washington University Black Heritage Celebration to tackle this year’s theme: “I’m Rooting for Everybody Black.”

The theme comes from a viral video of Issa Rae, actress and creator of HBO’s Insecure, who said during a red-carpet interview at the Emmys in 2017 that she was rooting for everybody black to take home awards that night.

Dr. Dyson took this idea a step further. As he explained during this keynote address, the reason we are rooting for black people is because “America has excluded the participation of black people in so many arenas.

“The reason we’ve got to root for people by color at all is because America has denied opportunity systemically and systematically to so many peoples, including peoples of color, but especially black people,” Dr. Dyson said.

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