American University history

The American University open air amphitheatre (Woods-Brown Amphitheatre) (Winter 1916)

Undergraduate programs (College of Liberal Arts) began in 1925, to train young people for public service.

The post-war period saw considerable growth and restructuring of AU. In 1947, the Washington Semester Program was established, pioneering the concept of semester-long internships in the nation's capital.

American University owns and operates WAMU-FM, a not-for-profit public radio station, which was licensed to the university, in 1961.

The university bought the Immaculata Campus in 1986 to alleviate space problems.

In 1988, the College of Public and International Affairs was reorganized to create two free-standing schools: the School of International Service and the School of Public Affairs, incorporating the School of Government and Public Administration and the School of Justice.

Benjamin Ladner was suspended from his position as president of the university on August 24, 2005, pending an investigation into possible misuse of university funds for his personal expenses.

Doctor Cornelius M. Kerwin, a long-time AU administrator, served as interim president and was appointed to the position permanently on September 1, 2007, after two outsiders declined an offer from the board of trustees.

Following a student referendum in favor of divestment, the AU board of trustees voted against divesting the endowment in 2014.

In 2015, American began to offer an accredited, accelerated online MBA program.

Neil Kerwin retired as AU's president at the end of May 2017.

The university considered the incident to be racist, and then-president Neil Kerwin called it a "cowardly, despicable act." In May 2018, the school said it had exhausted "all credible leads" about who had perpetrated the incident.