Jacqueline Routier ’94

For Jacqueline, it was the student body, which she describes as “a really diverse group of people from all over the world,” that made classroom dialogue so engaging and extracurricular activities so lively. She cites The Planet (a student publication active between the 1980s and 2000s), for which she was the Circulation Director and subsequently Managing Editor, as a place where students could passionately debate current global issues, which at the time included the Berlin Wall coming down and the fall of former President of Romania Nicolae Ceaușescu. “Especially as an American from the Midwest, these are things that captured your imagination.” AUP's location in Paris meant that Jacqueline and her classmates were able to experience these events first hand. “The fact that we were there meant we could participate in that moment.”

She looks back on the cultural negotiation in the classroom, and how she spent her time on campus getting to know students from other countries: “Some of the classes allowed me to question my own ideas, to give me perspective on things I didn’t know. They showed me that nothing I previously knew was concrete.” She believes such exposure to other cultures helps develop empathy – a quality she sees as lacking in the world today. “I feel that’s where a lot of our discord comes from – our inability to recognize others and value them for who they are.” She draws a line between this lack of empathy and some of today’s biggest issues, from climate change to racial injustice. 

Today, through her career in marketing, she aims to help people learn to walk in another person’s shoes. At Facebook, she adapts international content for the German consumer. Her work lets her focus on the important issues of the moment including Covid-19 and fostering integration in Germany. She wants to help Facebook “show up in a moment that is so charged” by directing consumers’ attention and telling meaningful stories through marketing. She also enjoys watching her stories play out on the big screen. “Sitting in a movie theater and having your ad come on and listening to the crowd go quiet as they watch and then elbowing your friend and going ‘not bad, no?’ is a really cool feeling.”

Jacqueline has also shown up in a big way for the AUP community. During the past several years, she has served on the President’s Alumni Advisory Council – an alumni body that regularly meets to support and advise President Celeste Schenck on various University issues. Starting this year, she will also be lending her leadership and vision to the University as she joins the AUP Board of Trustees.