A no-smoking policy is in effective throughout the AU community. Photo by Stephanie Flocks
American University, like 1,400 other universities, has a no-smoking policy. But “the policy is not as effective as it could be,” said Maria Eckrich, originally from South Dakota but now a graduate student at AU. People still smoke or chew tobacco around campus, she said.
Another student, Sydney Ling, says that some of her friends are smokers, and they do not like the system, which hasn’t help them quit, she said. The policy has angered the smokers and some try to get away with smoking on campus, Ling said.
However, Sarah Menke-Fish, an assistant professor at the School Of Communication, said that, overall, the policy was effective because the campus is much cleaner. “There used to be a wave of smoke when I walked outside,” Menke-Fish said. But the university has not always been smoke-free.
The no-smoking policy began in 2013 and received mixed reactions. Kirstin Gebhart, assistant field hockey coach, graduated in 2011. When she was a student at AU she would see people smoking on the quad and in front of building entrances, she said. But now, she no longer sees cigarette butts on the ground and smoke in the air, she said.
However the policy must be policed by the AU community.
Students in the Tobacco Free Ambassadors organization walk around campus until 8 p.m. to make sure it is tobacco-free, said Michelle Espinosa, associate dean of students. If a student or staff member is found smoking, a tobacco-free ambassador collects his or her name and American University ID number. Students caught three times will be referred to a disciplinary panel and will have to defend their actions, Espinosa said.
Resident advisers must check rooms three times a year — but not just for tobacco. They must also check that students don’t have hotplates or coffee makers in their rooms, and to make sure all smoke detectors are working, Espinosa said. Having cigarettes in your room is not against the policy, but if the advisers know a student has been smoking in their dorm room, they will take the cigarettes from students.
“Freshman have been less influenced to smoke,” and may change the future of AU, said Menke-Fish.
Susan Akman explains the process of creating viable compost. Photos by Meagan Pruitt
WASHINGTON — There’s still a two-year wait list, but 190 gardeners have become increasingly involved at Newark Street Community Garden and Park in this Northwest neighborhood near the National Cathedral.
Since its creation on National Food Day in 1975, the garden and park have expanded to four acres and grown to encompass all families in the District. The environment includes 200 plots to grow flowers or vegetables, and also a dog park, children’s playground and tennis courts.
Newark Street, the largest of the District’s 26 urban gardens, still dominates the four-acre park and offers what many members found in the first place — a respite and an opportunity to give back to the community.
Stephanie Cope, a sophomore at nearby American University, works as a nanny and visits the playground three times each day.
“It has a lot of different activities for different ages,” Cope said. “And it’s safe.”
The garden offers a free children’s program, in which kids are taught about the fundamentals and learn about different types of worms. They harvest and water plants in a separate area by the playground. Susan Akman, coordinator of the program, doesn’t recall families being so involved in the gardens when her children were young, and said she is glad that kids are learning the importance of growing food and flowers alongside their parents.
The park, open to the public, gives families a spot to grill and picnic, too.
And even if a member is too elderly to perform certain tasks, others help them so they don’t lose their plot.
“We invite people in because we feel like we’re an education source,” Akman said. “It’s to be an inviting, pretty park.”
Elwood Gautier plants vegetables in orderly rows.
Elwood Gautier, 76, maintains a neat garden. He washes and packages his vegetables and plants and donates them to Miram’s Kitchen, Akman said. Other gardeners donate to So Others Can Eat (SOME) in the District. And those at St. Alban’s Senior Citizen Centre come to the gardens to collect produce as well.
And when times are difficult, some members of the community came to the gardens for refuge. After the 9/11 attacks, Akman recalled one woman coming here before she went anywhere else.
“The first place she came was the gardens because she found such solace in it,” Akman said.
Washington Framers' Workroom has six employees with Master Picture Framer certificates.
Photo by Emma Goetz
The store also offers a do-it-yourself framing service, seen here is the station that patrons can use to frame their own pictures.
Photo by Emma Goetz
Art hangs on the walls all around the store, much of it made by some of the store's eight employees.
Photo by Emma Goetz
The interior of Washington Framers' Workroom, one of five framing stores in the Tenleytown area.
Photo by Nadav Pais-Greenapple
Gana Browning, one of the founding members and now the sole proprietor of Washington Framers' Workroom.
Photo by Nadav Pais-Greenapple
Washington Framers' Workroom has many different varieties of frame. Intricately detailed wood and metal frames are displayed throughout the store.
Photo by Nadav Pais-Greenapple
Customers can also choose between three different types of glass to showcase their art.
Photo by Nadav Pais-Greenapple
Washington Framers' Workroom keeps over 250 kinds of molding in stock.
Photo by Nadav Pais-Greenapple
In the back of the store, small samples of each variety of molding help the employees craft each frame.
Photo by Nadav Pais-Greenapple
WASHINGTON– She has met Jane Fonda, worked on commission from the White House and has been entrusted with the care and safety of priceless works of art by famous artists such as Marc Chagall and Rembrandt. Who is she? Not a celebrity, but instead the friendly owner of Washington Framers’ Workroom, a mainstay of the Tenleytown community for more than 30 years.
Gana Browning has been working at the shop since its opening in July 1981. Browning said three friends from Philadelphia, who owned and operated framing stores there, approached another one of her close friends, who recently left a job in the Carter administration, about starting a framing store in the Washington area. The interior design and construction was all done by Thomas Morris, who continues to work, and as the original owners and friends retired or passed away, Browning became the sole proprietor.
Browning said that since the Tenleytown-AU Metro station opened in 1984, development in the neighborhood has been slow but steady. Although interest in building high-rises and large construction projects exists, the neighborhood association has made a strong effort to slow development.
But through all this change, Browning says that “the community has supported us.” Although four other framing stores have since opened in Tenleytown, the competition is friendly. “We support each other,” said Browning.
One special service that Washington Framer’s Workroom provides is a do-it-yourself framing service. “Customers feel like they can accomplish something,” said Browning. With a wide variety of materials for the customers to use, from the Wizard computerized mat cutter that cuts a multitude of shapes to the 250 moldings of wood and metal, the possibilities are endless.
Map by Laris Karklis, reprinted with permission
With a staff of eight, we have a “much bigger staff than most frame shops,” Browning said. Each employee has the ability to do every responsibility, from operating the cash register to working with the Wizard and the touch-up counter.
The frame shop itself evokes a familiar feeling of home, with the walls covered in personal art, and wicker chairs in the front with houseplants as accents. Personal wall art is displayed up and down the walls of the frame shop. “Almost every single one of [our employees] are artists,” says Browning.
There are six certified Master Picture Framers within the business, which makes them the only frame shop on the East Coast with this specialized training, she said. She herself is a former master, but had to cut back because of arthritis.
Throughout the years, Browning said that she has framed unusual items. A customer came in with “a bun from the head of somebody’s mother and we made a shadowbox,” a display box for items too large to put in a traditional picture frame, Browning recalled. “Nobody wanted to touch it.” Other oddities include Turkish daggers and a gun in a shadowbox on display in the shop.
And the famous customers? Browning smiled and began vividly describing what Jane Fonda looked like the day she walked into their small store: 4-inch heels, skinny jeans, perfect hair. “Her daughter, Vanessa Vadim, went to American University,” said Browning.
The shop frequently has customers of political significance, as well as visitors in newscasting professions, including James G. Watt and Arch Campbell.
Despite these famous customers, most of Browning’s business comes from the community. “We’ve had two or three generations of repeat customers,” Browning said. With the store’s 34th anniversary coming up next month, Washington Framers’ Workroom is poised to be a staple of the neighborhood for years to come.
