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I'm Joy Thomas Moore and I am the class of CAS, actually, because School of Communication did not exist when I was here. So I was CAS 72 for my B.A. and 73 for my MA. So before that happened, okay, what is it that brought you to AU?

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Why did you decide to come to AU? Actually, it was almost by accident. The summer before, my dad, um, was my dad was a minister and there was a conference here in

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Washington, and it was at AU. And so he came home and said, this is like great school. You know, it's really pretty.

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And I wanted to go to school in DC. And so I applied and got in. So I had not unlike most people, I did not I didn't really look at what it did.

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I didn't, um, you know, visit it or any of that. I just. Okay, you like it? I like it so, so.

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But once I got here, I mean, like, totally, um, fell in love with you. Um, I also what I didn't know at the time was that it had its Methodist origins.

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And so I went into the financial aid office and he said, oh, your father is a methodist minister. Okay. You get half tuition.

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So, you know, so, um, so right off the bat, okay, I like this school. And so. Yeah. So that's how I, you know, I first my first introduction was the day

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I came on campus. So you described what was good about your coming here and that there were surprises to you. And thinking back, what would you say were your fondest memories.

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I think, in a word, my friendships. Um, I mean, there is this legendary story about how I met you, like, day one, as we were ready to go to, you know, campus, not knowing a soul and seeing you at the other end of the bus, you

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know, train and waved. And we like one of those slow motion things, you know, he says doo doo doo doo. And we've been connected ever since.

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Um, but it was, I think, a time of such. I mean, it's 68. It was such a time of such exploration and finding ourselves in that kind of thing, but which

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could not have happened in the way that it did had it not been for the friendships that were formed and proof positive that how important these things were was the fact that 50 plus years later, we're as close as we were that day when we saw each other on the bus

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and the days that we were at Mary Graydon Center and playing cards, talking mess, studying, you know, all those things, you know, black cultural flaw, all those things. Um, but that's that's what made

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it, I think all of my fondest memories, you know, revolve around the friendships that I made here. All these memories are always something that we want to think about.

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We also can learn a lot about what we thought was challenging, particularly experience as challenges. I want to ask you, what were some of your most difficult challenges during your time at AU and why? Well, I think I think what it did

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for me being here is that I wanted to test the limits, my own limits, to see what I could do and oftentimes overextended. I mean, I came here as an 18 year old, I think got engaged when I was maybe two months after I got here, um, got married as a junior.

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Um, had, uh, got pregnant when I was a senior and then started, um, I think I got, uh, graduated in May and had my daughter in July and then started grad school in September. So, I mean, I pushed the limits, but it also it was a challenge.

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But at the same time, I think it really helped. Uh, help me gain that sense of work life balance that was able to carry me through for. You know, for my years after AU.

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Um, you know, it's, uh, you know, trying to and I think that. You know, a lot of maybe college students face that, you know, you get all of a sudden you're. Here on your own.

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And then you, you may fall in love, and then you try to keep the grades going. At the same time. And you want to do the extracurricular.

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I mean, we did a lot of stuff. I mean, AU USADO. Um, the newspaper, the Uhuru, um, we did the, um, a Saturday breakfast program in Northeast Washington.

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All of that. And yet we made it through and and still got a sense of. I really got a sense of who we

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were and what we wanted to do and, um, and who we wanted to, who we wanted to be at the end of the day. So, um, I challenges became at the, you know, a blessing. You know, you've touched on this next question a little bit.

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Um, when we think about the notion of a changemaker legacy, and certainly we personify that. Um, could you share the specific role that you played in the creation of your individual

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Changemaker Legacy? I think AU then and I believe now, maybe even more so now than maybe recent, you know, years prior AU gave me the ability to set test limits. And be creative.

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Um, because we have the professors who were like, there for us, you know, 24/7, whatever we needed. Um, the late Ed Smith, for example, um, uh, Russell Williams and I went to him and said, you know what's wrong with journalism

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today? Folks don't know anything about the cities. So he helped us actually craft an interdisciplinary major.

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Now, looking back, we were really stupid because we just like we were going to be communications majors, but we were minored in education and urban planning and all these things that we said reporters didn't know.

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So, um, but if it were not for editor, we would not have had that opportunity. Um, and then I remember this. Like, I still I can see it, you know, in your mind's eye.

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I was on the steps of Mary Graydon Center, and one of my professors, Professor Wolfson. Um, I don't know. It's back when things were really hopping on campus and stuff, and

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he said, you know, Joy, you can either be a part of the problem or you can be a part of the solution, like, okay, that's not real, you know? You know, like, uh, but at the same time, I remember it and like, I and I can see his face and I can

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like almost, you know, sense sense the, um, like the I don't know if at that time there was, you know, still whiffs of, of smoke and, you know, all the things that were going on on campus at the time. But, um, you know, it just made an impression.

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I said, I will always, always want to be part of the solution no matter what it is. And so that sort of became my my mantra, my goal, my, um, and I think between the the

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relationships and the commitments of the professors and just being here on this campus historically, um, you know, I think it molded the person that I wanted to be. And, um, and always and I think

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it, I always wanted to make a difference no matter what I did. Um, I it had to I wanted to make a difference. So. So you talked to us about, you know, why you attended AU and your fondest memories.

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Talk about some of the challenges and some of the background to your changemaker legacy. How about what it is that you would want to impart or share with current students, or even current Alumni how they can prepare

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themselves to become change makers, either inside or outside of the university community. Well, I what I know what it gave me, um, which I hope that every student who walks through, you

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know, walks up mass Avenue or Nebraska. What they take back, um, is a sense of wherever you are in life, you belong there. Um, and that's what I've always

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tried to pass on to my kids. You know, you it's not. You're not an experiment. You are not.

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You know, they're from someone's benevolence. You are there because you belong there. And therefore, you take advantage of every single opportunity that can be afforded to you.

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Um, and also a sense of just listening. Um, there was so much going on on campus, but sort of perfecting that, that ability to listen even

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more than to talk. I think that has and I think a an example of how that helped me, you know, professionally going forward was, um, when I started working at a radio station at WMAL radio

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after I graduated, I was like the lowest on the totem pole. Like, I had to get there at 5:00 in the morning and, you know, feed, feed, coffee to the anchors and, you know, pull the at the time, the, the wire copy and all of that and, and then make calls

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every half hour. I had to call all the jurisdictions, you know, the police jurisdictions to find out if anything was going on.

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And so we just got to got to be friends, you know. Um, and they started talking about, you know, this, this sort of this new thing that seemed to

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be bubbling up, you know, getting a little bit more attention in their circles, this whole thing about sexual abuse of children. And so we just, you know, kept talking. I said, okay, there's a story here, right?

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And this is back in the 70s when no one was talking about it. And, um, and I approached my news director and I said, look, I'd like to do, you know, a documentary on it. And, uh, it was first a little bit of disbelief.

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I said, but, you know, I'm hearing it from these guys, you know, that I'm talking to every half hour. Um, and so they finally gave me the go ahead to do it.

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And, um, we did like a full hour long documentary eventually. And then, you know, little vignettes that we sprinkled throughout the day.

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And had it not been for that listening, you know, to them and, and really hearing them, um, you know, eventually got a Peabody and a lot of other awards because knowing, you know, it's because it was new and of course, now it's, you know, everyone talks about it.

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Um, unfortunately, it's not a problem that has gone away, but, um, but then it was it there wasn't a way I felt like I made a difference. I felt seen as a journalist.

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And I know that that seed was planted here at American Fantastic. I wonder if you can do this in one sentence.

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And of course, you don't have to do anything. But if you could describe where are you think AU has produced so many change makers in every walk

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of life? Um, we can begin to say American University is the place where or whatever feels spontaneous for you. Why is it with you so many change

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makers? American University is a place where you can be seen, where you can, you know, really, you can spread your wings, you can dream, you can visualize making a difference.

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Um, without someone saying no, you have to to, you know, fit into this box. This is where you need to go. No, you can create your own major.

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You can, you know, Visualize a different world, and I think that is what we so desperately need right now, you know? And so, you know, every time I talk to students, you know, here at ASU, it's about, you know, we've blown it.

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Our generation, you know, we're we're yeah we've messed it up. But it's up to them right now. It's up to them to to really, really say okay we're going to get this right because they're going

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to listen and they're going to do, do those things that, um, that are going to to make this really I mean, America at some point has to really find its promise. It has to realize, you know, um,

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what the the ancestors, you know, had hoped to be. And I think, um, the current, current and future students of AU can indeed become the the dream of the folks who, us and others who've preceded them.

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And so thinking about that or building on all of that, is there anything else that we haven't discussed. That you'd like us to hear that

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you'd like to have? Um. AU is not perfect. No. School is perfect. But when you can find an institution or an organization or, you know, or a Or partner that is

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willing to to grow with you, to allow you to be you. Um, then you know that that you've that you've succeeded in a, in a, you know, navigating a very, very difficult, you know, part of, of life.

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Right. Um, AU gives us that or gave me us. Um, and from what I'm hearing from students, you know, currently here have given them the opportunity to be seen and to, um, to see

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themselves in a way where they can make a difference going forward. And I think that's you can't ask for anything more than that.