Authentically AU: News and Views from the President

I am thinking about summer today. Memorial Day weekend is only hours away. For many of us, this holiday marks the beginning of summer — at least symbolically. In my small hometown, Memorial Day began with a parade to the cemetery, where the high school band played their final notes of the...

Sadly, though America often is described as a “nation of immigrants,” the real stories are too often painful to recount. For Chinese Americans this has been especially true. In the mid-1850s, natural disasters in China and news of the Gold Rush in California triggered the first major...

Two of our greatest American presidents were born in February. During my rural Illinois childhood, we celebrated Abraham Lincoln and George Washington by making silhouettes of the two leaders. Today I sat for a few moments and tried to remember exactly how this annual art project progressed. To...

I don’t “pull all-nighters” anymore. But last night was an exception as I watched the United States Congress complete the task of certifying the Electoral College outcome. Now we await the inauguration of a new President with shocking images from yesterday burned into our...

For centuries, scholars, believers and skeptics alike have studied the Bethlehem story. Tonight — and for days thereafter — we will have an opportunity to see firsthand what some think may have been the star that guided the shepherds to the manger. I write about the Great Conjunction,...