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Cornerstone Team
Cornerstone Staff
Brad KnightSenior Director, AU Core and University College
Brad G. Knight serves as the Director of the AU Core and University College at American University. He provides leadership, direction, and oversight for a wide spectrum of initiatives related to undergraduate education, including the university-wide general education program, AU Core, and residential living-learning programs, University College, AU Cornerstone, and Sophomore Living-Learning Communities. In this role, he focuses on curriculum design, student experience, institutional assessment and continuous improvement, and faculty development programs and events. Brad has also taught as an Adjunct Instructor at The George Washington University.
Luke WatersAU Cornerstone Program Coordinator
Luke Waters (he/him) graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University (OWU) with a B.A. in International Relations and Politics and Government. Luke began his professional career working as an Americorps Facilitator at BRIDGES, USA in his hometown of Memphis guiding hundreds of students through social justice and youth leadership workshops. After finishing his service year, Luke was passionate about continuing to work with youth, so he moved to New York City to serve as a Service Learning Coordinator at buildOn, Inc. While there, Luke engaged hundreds of Bronx students in community service activities and started the organization’s first ever regional Student Leadership Team. After leaving buildOn, Luke worked as an Admissions Counselor at two different universities in Memphis. Luke is currently living in Washington D.C. pursuing a Master of Political Communication at SPA. Luke has joined the AU Cornerstone staff as the Coordinator and is incredibly excited about working with students to further their personal and professional goals.
Baba Zak KondoCornerstone Part-time Coordinator, Internships & Employer Relations
Baba Zak A. Kondo holds the rank of a Full Professor of History at Baltimore City Community College (BCCC). He has spent more than 34 years teaching History and Black Studies on the college level, full-time. He is in his 19th year at Baltimore City Community College and his 15th year teaching History and Black Studies full-time at Bowie State University (BSU). Baba founded and coordinated BSU's Pan African Studies program and coordinated International Studies and the Social Studies Teaching certification program. In his coordinator posts at BSU, he supervised interns as well as student teachers. Baba has also taught Black Studies at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania, American History at Trinity-Washington University in D.C., Interdisciplinary Disciplines at Goddard College in Vermont, and African American History and Culture at Thomas Edison State College in Trenton, New Jersey. He is author of the most authoritative work on Malcolm X’s assassination (currently being revised) and other works and has served as a consultant on and/or was featured in seven films focusing on Malcolm X and/or the Black Panthers, including Spike Lee’s motion picture, “Malcolm X,” the award-winning documentary “41st and Central” (on the LA Black Panthers), and the Netflix documentary, “Who Killed Malcolm X?” He has spoken at more than 45 colleges and universities in the U.S. and did a five-day speaking tour in the UK in 2016. During his UK tour, he spoke at the University of Birmingham. He is happily married for the past few decades and has seven adult children (the youngest is a sophomore at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore) and eleven grand-children.
Courtney Pollack
Associate Director, AU Centers Abroad
Courtney began her international adventure on a summer study abroad program while she was in high school in Annecy, France. After that experience, she decided to pursue her love of French language and history in her undergraduate and graduate studies and went on to spend a semester in Paris, France. After finishing her M.A. in French Studies from New York University, she worked as an advisor at an international secondary school before joining American University as the Program Advisor for World Languages and Cultures in August of 2012. In December 2015, she happily combined her passions of advising students and promoting international education and exchange by joining the AU Abroad team. As Associate Director of the AU Abroad Centers, Courtney manages the overall operations of AU Madrid, AU Nairobi, and AU Brussels. She also serves as the AU Abroad liaison for the AU Cornerstone Abroad program.