In the year 2010, Labor Day means family get-togethers, picnics, and barbeque, the heralding of a new football season, and the last sweet bit of summer before really getting back into the school grind.

But as you munch on your barbecued chicken, take a minute and consider how Labor Day got to this point.

Peter J. McGuire, a union leader who founded the United Brotherhood of Carpenters in 1881, is generally attributed credit for the idea of Labor Day. (Though some accounts say that Matthew Maguire, a machinist, actually proposed the holiday while serving as secretary of the Central Labor Union of New York.) The CLU of New York were the ones out in force, though, on September 5th 1882. They organized a “parade” of 10,000 workers, under the sponsorship of the Knights of Labor. It was really a not-so-festive protest, with Union members required to march in support of the eight-hour workday.

In 1884, the Knights of Labor resolved that the first Monday in September should be annually recognized as the Labor Day holiday. The date was chosen as roughly the middle point between Independence Day and Thanksgiving.

Oregon was the first state to legally recognize the holiday in 1887. After a number of workers died at the hands of the authorities during the 1894 Pullman strike in Illinois, President Grover Cleveland rushed a bill to make Labor Day a national public holiday in an effort to defuse the situation.

So enjoy the unofficial end of summer, but be thankful for all the hard work by our ancestors that gained us this three day weekend. And remember—no white after Labor Day.

Photo: Library of Congress. A Labor Day crowd, Main St., Buffalo, N.Y. circa 1900.

Recent polls place incumbent Mayor Adrian Fenty in serious trouble. Not quite knocked out, the mayor who won every precinct in the city four years ago is on the ropes. The challenger, City Council Chairman Vincent Gray, is on a roll: picking up endorsements and up 17 points among “likely voters” in a recent Washington Post poll.

All of Gray’s newfound confidence was on display September 1^st when the two main candidates for mayor met to debate. The challenger was cool, collected, even telling a joke here and there. He sidestepped nearly every criticism that Fenty threw at him, and then threw it right back. To put it bluntly, Fenty just seemed off his game.

The criticisms each candidate lobbed at the other haven’t changed all summer. To summarize: Gray claims to be a unifier and a consensus builder (as opposed to the “decisive” and “arrogant” Fenty), who will end “cronyism and sweetheart deals for the mayor’s frat brothers” and bring new economic opportunities.

Fenty—while apologizing for not being a better communicator—claims that he is the mayor that has and will continue to bring results, and frequently ties his opponent to “the dark old days” of the early 1990s when the city faced a higher crime rate, serious financial perils, and when “bad manager” Vince Gray was in charge of the Department of Human Services.

Yet, while the candidates’ lines were predictable, the crowd’s response was not. Fenty frequently received boos, hisses, loud groans, and dismissive laughter. Gray on the other hand received cheers, applause, and even—I am not making this up—an “amen” from an adoring crowd. It was hard to not almost feel bad for Fenty.

After all, the Fenty Administration does have a concrete record of accomplishments to point to. Regardless of one’s political leanings, it is undeniable that test scores in the schools are indeed up, crime is down, and new recreation centers and affordable housing units have been constructed. On the other hand, while he has released an ambitious economic development plan, Gray hasn’t even articulated a full policy platform.

But perhaps the most consequential difference between the two candidates—and the reason that Gray may be the next mayor—became apparent when the topic of the debate turned to the District’s racial divide. Polling shows a major racial disparity in candidate support, with 64 percent of white voters supporting Fenty and 64 percent of black voters supporting Gray. When asked to explain the disparity, Fenty opened up a can of his usual apologies, promising to be more open and receptive to every single community in the city if he is re-elected, claiming that his hard drive to get results has led some to feel left out.

Gray, however, put a stake in the heart of the matter: “It’s not a racial issue. It’s an economic issue.” Bingo. Unemployment in Ward 8 is a shocking 30 percent, while citywide it hovers around 10 percent. In prosperous—and mostly white—Ward 3 it is a paltry three percent.

Why do most African-Americans in Wards 7 and 8 support Gray over Fenty?  Maybe because when the mayor talks about results, it doesn’t feel like he is talking to them. Add the degree of human misery that accompanies 30 percent unemployment, and Fenty’s talk about “results” seems almost insulting. It becomes easy to see why many voters find him arrogant and detached: His petty spats with the City Council over baseball tickets and the lack of attention he pays to many community leaders aren’t the primary causes for his unpopularity, they are simply insults added to economic injury. It seems like he just doesn’t care.

With just days to go until the September 14^th primary, the heat is squarely on the mayor. Followers of D.C. politics agree, for better or worse, that this election really is a referendum on Adrian Fenty. Hardcore supporters of the Fenty/Rhee education policy wouldn’t vote against the guy if he was arrested for smoking crack. They truly believe he is bringing the city into the 21^st century and that a Gray Administration would be a managerial disaster. On the other side stands a larger contingency that thinks the mayor is an arrogant and aloof jerk, unresponsive to the needs of the city’s poorest residence. They would vote for anybody-but-Fenty.

Can Fenty convince the remaining undecided voters that his mea culpa is sincere, that the results he brings is what they need? His political life certainly depends on it, but it may be too late.

Photo: Flickr / Wayan Vota

37th and T Streets, NW, this morning.

Panama Canal, 2009.

The building is visually impressive, and does incorporate numerous eco-friendly initiatives including solar panels on the roof, great use of natural light in the atrium, non-toxic building materials (take that McKinley!), and fixtures to reduce water use.

However, this AWOL blogger noticed something a bit ironic. While the men’s restroom does contain an environmentally friendly state-of-the-art water-less urinal (sorry for the level of detail), there are no electric hand-dryers, only paper towels.

Last time I was in there, the trashcan was literally overflowing with paper towels. Come to think of it, most of the facilities around campus seem to favor wasteful paper towels to hand dryers.

Now, I’m no expert, but according to treehugger.com, paper towels are worse for the environment than electric hand dryers when measured by almost any metric. All things considered, paper towels have a much larger carbon footprint, and have twice the global warning impact as hand dryers.

Personally, I’m a fan of shaking off the hands and letting your jeans do the rest, but if you must, hand dryers are nicer to nature than paper towels. It’s great to have a gold-certified LEED building on campus, but either LEED is not so green, or AU shirked on the contract. I presume the latter.

Three short weeks later, it has proven itself to be so much more.

Earlier this week AWOL reported that the Wonk campaign, a marketing plan to attract prospective students, will cost American University $675,000. That’s far from the drop in the bucket I had originally thought. It was the front page story on the websites of both AU and The Eagle for almost a week. The “Service Wonk” shirts I first saw have diversified: there are Green Wonks, Athletic Wonks, Greek Wonks–the list goes on. Wonk is unavoidable. It even has a promotional video.

One of the most glaring problems with the campaign is the word itself. The university defines “wonk” by citing urbandictionary.com:

Wonk: Noun – An expert in a field, typically someone who is fairly young and very intelligent.

According to materials provided by Terry Flannery, Executive Director of University Communications and Marketing, the Wonk marketing team considered implications of other definitions. The word is slang for the drug ketamine in the United Kingdom, and meant homosexual in 1940s Australia. Both of these variations can be found at urbandictionary.com.

The copy of Webster’s Dictionary sitting on my bookshelf adds another side to the story. It gives two definitions:

Wonk: n. (Slang) 1, an obsessive student; grind. 2, (Offensive) an unattractive person.

Shouldn’t AU’s hired marketing team, whose slogan is “Intelligent Marketing for Higher Education,” have checked a dictionary?

Then there’s the money. The wonk campaign will cost an estimated $675,000 over two fiscal years. That’s enough to send six students to AU free of charge for four years. Enough to buy every undergraduate student at AU a copy of Webster’s Classic Reference Library Dictionary at $110 each. Enough to adopt 2,700 pandas through the World Wildlife Fund’s most expensive ($250) panda adoption package and give the 2,700 included “Giant Plush Pandas” to disadvantaged DC children. Enough to donate $675,000 to District of Columbia public schools. Enough to pay for 460 students to take a plane trip around the world or to pay for even more students’ round trip study abroad plane tickets. Enough to ease the burdens of many students’ debts and pay off their college loans. I could go on. The list could be its own column. The point is, this cost a substantial amount of university money–money that could have been put to better use.

While railing on the campaign is easy, it is also easy to forget that there were many, many smart well-meaning people that put it together and still defend it wholeheartedly. People that truly believe that it was the right thing to do with $675,000 and that it will work. Watching the promotional video is difficult. Over and over, Wonk’s creators tell the camera about their earnest hard work over the past two years. They talk about the planning involved and the results they hope their idea will bring. It is as though they have invented a flying car. Yet somehow the result of all this hard work is simply, “Wonk.”

The promotional video quotes Sonya Grier, marketing professor in the Kogod School of Business. She says, “Universities are businesses that operate in increasingly competitive global markets.” Herein lies the campaign’s biggest misunderstanding. A university is an institute of higher education, not a fast food chain. A good university should sell itself on the basis of intelligent students, great professors, and outstanding learning environments, not its name recognition or four-letter catchphrase. AU is not hurting for applicants and I’m skeptical whether the Wonk campaign will improve the quality of the school’s applicant pool.

Despite myriad groaning around campus, it appears that wonk is here to stay, with an estimated $350,000 still to be spent in this fiscal year and seemingly no plans to stop anytime soon. In the words of the campaign’s promotional video, “Wonk? Really?”

Returning students arrived on campus this fall to three major new developments at American University. First, a big ol’ new building to house the School of International Service. Second, “American Wonks“–a high-powered marketing campaign designed to highlight the passionate intellectualism of AU students. And third, a campus community saturated with various objections to the “Wonk” campaign (go to the comments section of this article for a sampling) for its supposed folly or wastefulness.

We picked up on a rumor that American University had spent $4 million on costs associated with the Wonk campaign. AWOL’s Peter Harrison did some digging and found that the rumor, it seems, is not true. Teresa Flannery, AU’s Executive Director of Communications and Marketing, emailed us a breakdown of Wonk-related expenses, which are expected to total $675,000. Here’s what she sent:

To date:

FY09
225,000                Baseline stakeholder study with 12 different audiences to set baseline and identify positioning

FY10
100,000                For items including:

Additional copywriting capacity
Wonk characters and work by Nate Beeler commissioned for campaign and American magazine
Creative testing
Linguistics study (term or words that sound like it in the languages spoken in countries where our students and faculty come from)
Thirty-five trademark applications for variations in selected categories
urls in various forms
Grassroots activity by student teams
Campus launch – direct costs (less than one wash post ad) for t-shirts, tents, food, presentations and events (e.g., student presentations, luncheons, teas, Celebrate AU)

Still to come later this fiscal year:

200,000                Create 2011 Welcome Center/Experience that integrates the brand messages in the creative
150,000                Estimated cost KNOW/WONK in fall graduate student recruitment advertising

Then there are the hundreds of communications (colleges and schools, admissions (71 alone in that unit), alumni that will incorporate the concept into existing materials. No new costs, but our internal team will be dedicated to producing these in house.

It’s not $4 million, but $675,000 is a significant chunk of money nonetheless. So American University students, what do you think? Was your dough well-spent on “Wonk”? Give us your take in the comments.

Photo: A bunch of wonks-to-be at American University’s graduation in 2006. (Flickr/Laura Padgett)

Yesterday AWOL caught up with GODISHEUS lead singer Om V–better known in DC music circles as Head-Roc–for a peek at what this show has to offer the college crowd:

“Come to a great rock show, man. If they know about Jimi Hendrix, they need to come to this Chocolate City rock show. If they know about Fats Domino, they need to come to this rock show. If they know about Little Richard, they need to come to this rock show. Folks don’t know about the history of rock music. There’s a social message in rock that’s really devoid today. We’re a band in town that’s still following in those footsteps. That’s who we are.”

“DC is an indie rock town,” Om V says, and he invites listeners to experience another side of that scene. “We have a song called ‘Boot Liquor,’ and when we tear into that song, folks get a-jumpin’ and the floor gets a-bendin’, it’s ridiculous,” he says. “It’s not what you’d expect from the indie rock of today, which is much too melancholy. They’re just droning on, everyone’s doing the same thing…”

The cover for “Chocolate City Rocks” is $10, and doors open at 8:30. You can find GODISHEUS’s music at their homepage, or check out this video for a taste:

Dr. John DeGioia, president of Georgetown University. (Flickr/Center for American Progress)

This article on pay raises for DC area college presidents, posted last week by the Washington Examiner, made me uneasy for two reasons. For one, presidents of DC area universities are seeing their pay bumped up a cool 42 percent. Georgetown president John DeGioia is now raking in $911,613 a year, and some measures have cited our very own Cornelius Kerwin–although somewhat misleadingly–as the nation’s fifth highest paid president, with a $1.4 million paycheck in 2007-2008. (That year Kerwin received an $800,000 “lump sum” compensation which had been deferred for almost a decade. The Washington Post has a better explanation than we can provide here.) But the bottom line is local university presidents are making a pretty penny for an economic climate such as this one. When aspiring students can’t afford to attend college because their parents are out of work, it’s a bit worrisome to see university presidents making almost seven figures.

Which brings me to the next reason the Examiner article made me worry: how come they don’t ask why? Why do these guys make so much? What do they do with the money? Sure, the article mentions deferred benefits, which end up accruing to hundreds of thousands of dollars, making a president’s salary look a lot bigger than it actually is. But it also claims that “universities attributed presidential compensation increases to housing-value calculations and contract negotiations,” explaining, for instance, that the value of Catholic University president David O’Connell’s on-campus home has been rising in a hot real-estate market.

But do housing-value calculations and contract negotiations merit a 42 percent pay raise? I’m not convinced. Someone needs to ask: “what do you need that much money for?”

The Examiner doesn’t ask why, but we plan to. This is one of the big questions AWOL hopes to explore during the coming semester. Stay tuned for more.

Or: “A Failed Policy for A Failed State”

If anything will finally bring awareness to the flawed nature of US policy towards Somalia’s civil war, it will hopefully be the New York Times article earlier this week that detailed how our government has financially and logistically supported the arming, training, and use of child soldiers by Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government in its fight against Al-Qaida linked Islamist militias that control most of the country.

In the words of the Times:

“According to Somali human rights groups and United Nations officials, the Somali government, which relies on assistance from the West to survive, is fielding hundreds of children or more on the front lines, some as young as 9.”

The paper also depicts an inadequate US government response:

“But when asked how the American government could guarantee that American money was not being used to arm children, one of the officials said, ‘I don’t have a good answer for that.’”

What is more alarming, though, is that the aid to Somalia was approved despite the Somali government’s classification as a recruiter of child soldiers in a 2009 State Department report. This makes provision of military assistance illegal under the Child Soldier Prevention Act, an act that prohibits the United States from supporting militaries that use child soldiers.

The United States government funding a child soldier army? It’s symbolic of a broader policy that perpetuates civil war, gross human rights violations, and humanitarian tragedy. Somalia’s conflict has internally displaced 1.5 million people, made over 3 million dependent on outside humanitarian assistance, pushed thousands of children to the point of malnutrition, caused over 21,000 civilian deaths, and has led thousands of children to become child soldiers. And as if Somalia wasn’t bad enough, refugees can become victims of rape, torture, and detention once they reach countries like Kenya.

Amongst this, our government has been systematically restricting humanitarian aid to terrorist-linked Al Shabaab controlled areas (everything but a few blocks of Mogadishu), out of fear that some of the aid was being diverted to insurgents. But this policy has also cut off the desperate civilians who need the aid most. And yet our government has simultaneously increased the amount of armaments, training, and money provided to the Somali military, despite massive corruption that leads to many of those trained and armed deserting, defecting, or selling their weapons to the very terrorist-linked groups they’re supposed to be fighting.

There was a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing this past month on the Horn of Africa, which will hopefully put pressure on Congress and the Obama administration to account for a policy that is agitating a deepening civil war. If the best ideas we can come up with for fighting terrorism in a failed state like Somalia are using child soldiers, and arming terrorists but not feeding them, then perhaps its time to admit its really America that’s failing Somalia.

(Photo: Burundi peacekeepers head for Somalia. Flickr/US Army Africa)