SOE announces that it will provide an independent analysis of DC Public School’s IMPACT teacher performance evaluation system as part of the school’s commitment to the DC community and excellence and equity in education. A study by SPA’s Women and Politics Institute finds that women of all ages and political affiliations—particularly millennials and women of color—have become more politically engaged since 2016. Steve Munson is named AU’s new vice president and chief information officer.

Sa’eed Nelson scores 30 points on February 26 to become the all-time leading scorer in American men’s basketball history with 2,085 career points. President Sylvia Burwell announces Joseph Riquelme as vice provost and chief online officer—the first person to hold this position—to coordinate all aspects of the university’s online and digital education offerings. Twenty-four students visit New Hampshire and 19 visit South Carolina to cover their primary elections as part of Presidential Primaries, a course SOC and SPA offers every four years.

NASPA designates AU a First-gen Forward institution, allowing select faculty and staff to engage with peer and aspirational institutions who are also creating environments that improve the experiences and outcomes of first-generation students. About 7 percent of AU’s full-time undergraduates are first-generation. U.S. News and World Report ranks SPA among the country’s top public affairs institutions at no. 13 for 2021; the school has 7 specialty programs ranked in the Top 15. WCL has five law specialty programs ranked in the Top 10.

On the 50th anniversary of Earth Day, AU announces complete divestment of public fossil fuel investments from its endowment. The AU Museum launches AU Museum at Home to engage the museum community and its patrons after the museum closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Literature professor Rachel Louise Snyder is awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her book, No Visible Bruises: What We Don’t Know About Domestic Violence Can Kill Us receives widespread international praise. AU’s Symphonic Band and Orchestra virtually performs AU’s Alma Mater—a composition that had been lost for decades. Mitchell Lenneville, SPA/BA ’20, is AU’s 16th Truman Scholar since 2000.

SIS professor Amitav Acharya, 2020 Scholar-Teacher of the Year, calls on the Class of 2024 to “make our world safer for diversity” as one of several AU dignitaries to speak remotely in a convocation video that welcomes first-year students to AU. More than 130 members of the WCL community—including incoming 1Ls—participate in a virtual and remote In My Backyard week-long service event, many cleaning up local parks, collecting canned goods for a local shelter, or volunteering online with an organization in need. To commemorate the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage in the US, SIS dean Christine BN Chin, five faculty members, and an ambassador discuss the impact of women’s representation and participation in activism and policy making in the context of global women’s rights movements.

The Antiracist Research and Policy Center and the White House Historical Association announces that Mia Owens, a public history master’s student, will be the inaugural recipient of their Graduate Fellowship in the History of Slavery and Its Legacies in Washington. The AU Museum virtually presents Contested Space, a series of exhibitions that address the most heavily contested issues ahead of the presidential election. The University Library holds Request a Ballot Week, where students request information about the presidential election through online chat, receive information about voter registration, verify they are registered to vote, and request mail-in ballots.

The new state-of-the-art Hall of Science is completed. With classrooms, teaching labs, and the Gary and Pennie Abramson Discovery Hall, it houses biology, environmental science, chemistry, and neuroscience. Over 30 alumni volunteer for the Complex Problems program for first-year students including Daniel Leon-Davis, SIS/BA ’13, who speaks of his journey from undocumented immigrant to successful creative strategist in the Immigrant America seminar. The National Council on Teacher Quality rates SOE’s elementary teacher preparation program an “A” for strong clinical practice. SOC professor Sherri Williams’s students students publish stories in the Nation as part of the Vision 2020 Election Stories from the Next Generation project.

Five AU alumni are reelected to their seats in the United States Congress, another eight are elected or reelected to state legislatures, and many more to local government posts. The Sine Institute of Policy and Politics welcomes US and global experts in national security, social justice, business, and the media as its third class of spring fellows to the forum for the study and discussion of the urgent challenges of the 21st century. The institute celebrated its second anniversary in September. About a hundred students and staff receive hot meals on Thanksgiving Day from volunteers and workers coordinated by the Office of Campus Life, AU Alumni Association’s Pride Alumni Alliance, and Residential Hall Association.

Andrea Mitchell, NBC News’s chief foreign affairs correspondent and host of MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports, addresses summer and fall graduates at AU’s virtual 140th Commencement. AU files its 2021 Campus Plan with the DC Zoning Commission. The Alumni on the Front Lines video series honors five for combating coronavirus, racial injustice, and economic hardship. Interim SOC dean Laura DeNardis lands on Wired’s Smart List of 2021. Washington Post editors praise five graduate students who tracked and reported on hundreds of presidential election legal challenges while supervised by SOC’s John Sullivan. The Washington College of Law receives a $3.8 million grant from the Arcadia Fund to promote international right to research in copyright law.