Dear AU Community, 

We are writing today to invite you to join us, the Airlie team, Professor Gemma Puglisi, and the students at the School of Communication’s Public Relations Portfolio class, from April 19 to 21 for our inaugural Earth Day at Airlie weekend! This weekend was planned to embrace Airlie’s historic role in Earth Day and celebrate the 55th anniversary of Earth Day.

The weekend will be filled with a variety of ticketed and no-charge events designed to help our community members enjoy Airlie. There will be something for everyone including sunrise yoga, brunch, wine tasting, face painting, photography tours, and more. You can view all the events and register at our website here. AU community members also can take advantage of our AU rates ($119/night plus taxes and fees, subject to availability) by using the promo code CLAWED when booking online at www.airlie.com.

Airlie was donated to AU in 2016 and was featured recently on The Today Show as an outstanding weekend getaway destination. The historic hotel and farm are in Warrenton, VA, just a short drive outside of the Washington, DC area. Part of Airlie’s history includes that it was the birthplace of what later became Earth Day when Senator Gaylord Nelson visited the property in 1969. Senator Nelson returned to Airlie on Earth Day in 1993 to commemorate Airlie’s role in Earth Day by planting a tree. This tree, now known as the Earth Day tree, has been enjoyed by many guests of the property since its planting.

Over the past two years, many AU and Airlie team members have been a part of our efforts to ensure Airlie’s long-term viability as a differentiator for AU. Their efforts have significantly improved Airlie’s integration with AU’s educational and student life mission. The creation of the Earth Day Weekend was a result of Airlie’s work with the incredible student team from the Public Relations Portfolio Class. Please join us in thanking these talented students for their work on this project: Sera Bunca, Lucia Carson, Beining Dai, Hannah Mahoney, Sarah McDonald, Jordan Mitchell, Rachel Sturm, and Cady Tran.

This class is the latest in six class project engagements over the past two years that demonstrate Airlie’s utility as a living-learning lab for the university community. Other class projects have included serving as the capstone strategic advisory project for the spring 2023 MBA class; a rate setting case study for the fall 2023 honors data analytics class; a post-pandemic human resource practice case study for the fall 2023 management and organizational behavior class; a rebranding and visual identity improvement semester-long project for the fall 2023 visual literacy class; and this semester, as the subject matter for a graduate bias in the workplace case study, and subject matter for a graduate student’s independent study documentary film development project.

We are incredibly grateful for the engagement, hard work, dedication, and planning by these classes and want to acknowledge all their incredible efforts.

Onward, we go together.

Bronté Burleigh-Jones
Chief Financial Officer, Vice President, and Treasurer

Michael Scher
Assistant Vice President, Campus Auxiliaries and Airlie