April 6, 2006

GW President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg’s announcement of retirement Tuesday means he will step down before some of his major goals are accomplished. Three of Trachtenberg’s major goals include getting the endowment to pass the billion-dollar mark, embarking on a 20-year campus development plan and creating a degree-seeking language translation program. Vice President for Advancement Laurel […]

Quentin Tarantino has ruined the cinema. Yes, with his wildly popular 1994 crime opus “Pulp Fiction” he blew open the floodgates for independent filmmakers in the mid-90s and jump-started an otherwise torpid American film market. But as with all messiahs and revolutionaries, the great leader brought with him lesser followers – filmmakers satisfied only to […]

Former GW geography professor Thomas Abercrombie, 75, died Monday afternoon after being in a coma because of a blood clot. The clot developed in Abercrombie’s lung after he had open-heart surgery in mid-March. Abercrombie taught geography of the Middle East for four years, but he hadn’t taught for the past few years, Geography Department Interim […]

Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, the erudite Brooklynite who has left his imprint on every facet of The George Washington University, announced Tuesday night his retirement effective July 2007, when his contract expires. By that time he will have been president for 19 years, making him the third-longest-serving leader in the University’s history. “I just felt like […]

Monday night marked the conclusion of a men’s college basketball season that witnessed arguably the greatest wire-to-wire performance by a GW team in school history. There was much to savor, and GW fans will for some time. But inevitably, the dialog among fans turns to the topic of how the school can maintain this level […]

Stephen Joel Trachtenberg will step down as someone who put GW on the map institutionally. But others see him more as someone who altered the Foggy Bottom map detrimentally. In the 18 years that Trachtenberg has stood at the helm of GW, he has transformed Foggy Bottom from a primarily quiet residential area to a […]

In a Feb. 27 Hatchet editorial essay, Adam Connor wrote about a personal catastrophe that probably sent chills right into the very bones of most students at GW. His iPod died (“iSolated: iPods and an alternate reality,” p. 4). Worse, his old iPod also died. For 10 long days, Adam had to walk the streets […]

Cermignano out GW women’s basketball team assistant coach Lisa Cermignano accepted the same position at Vanderbilt University, Director of Athletics Jack Kvancz said Wednesday. Cermignano, a graduate of the GW class of 1997, joined the coaching staff in 2001 as an administrative assistant and had served as assistant coach since 2002. She was an assistant […]

While many will look ahead toward new leadership at GW with about a year left of a Stephen Joel Trachtenberg presidency, some will find themselves looking back, examining who exactly this man was who reshaped the character and reputation of the University – and how he got to where he did. Anyone asking Trachtenberg about […]

During the spring semester of 2002, the Palestinian Intifada was at its height. Multiple suicide bombings occurred every week in Israeli caf?s and on buses. Israel reoccupied Palestinian population centers, bulldozing houses and launching missiles aimed at top figures in Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The Israeli military had just undertaken its controversial raid into Jenin, […]