from the Board: CAS Board of Advisors Member Shai Waisman ’93 Shares Life Lessons

Thirty-six years ago, a stroke of fate and a serendipitous taxi ride guided CAS Advisory Board member Shai Waisman (BA Public Science and Government '93) to American University for the first time.

Waisman was a senior in high school in New York City when he was invited to visit a cousin for Homecoming Weekend at the University of Maryland. He was a first generation American, the child of immigrants, and this was his first-ever college visit. That Sunday morning, on his way back to DC's National Airport, Waisman asked his taxi driver if it would be possible to drive past local DC-area universities, knowing that this would likely be his only opportunity to see these (or any) schools. The driver obliged.