American University Make Our Schools Safe (AU MOSS) is a non-profit organization dedicated to enhancing the safety measures in place to protect students, faculty and staff at American University and aims to educate this community regarding sound practices to prevent and respond to incidents of violence on school campuses.
The founder, Mike Tauber, explains his motivation to create this campus based club for our national non-profit organization:
My quest to create American University Make Our Schools Safe (AU MOSS) started last summer, after I spoke with Lori Alhadeff at a camp where I was working, and her two sons were attending. There she spoke about her new non-profit and her goals for keeping schools safe. When she told me about Make Our Schools Safe, I was inspired by her vision.
Over the summer I started visiting the MOSS website and I read about the Dream Team. After learning about their cause I knew that I wanted to become a part of this movement.
For the next few months, I assembled a team of activists at AU who had participated in the D.C. March for Our Lives. Together, we began the process of establishing a local chapter at AU. We created a constitution based on our shared values with MOSS. After speaking with Marc and Lori, we submitted our application at AU and were brought in for a presentation by the Student Activities Department at AU. After a meaningful meeting our organization was approved.
We are the first student-based safety organization at AU campus and we are proud to be the front line for innovation on our campus. Over the course of our first semester at AU, we will create a communication bridge with University Police & Emergency Management to consider important strategies that can be openly addressed to ensure that all persons feel safe. We also plan to build partnerships with other DC metropolitan area organizations like March for Our Lives Georgetown and March For Our Lives GW to help create plans to keep all of our college homes away from homes safe.
Follow AU MOSS on Facebook HERE.