Dave Noll, SOC/BA ’94, wasn’t looking for a life partner when he chose American University. He was in search of a communications program. 

On a campus tour in the early 1990s, he and his father wandered into a nondescript building topped with a broadcast antenna. Inside, students were preparing to tape a game show called The Roommate Game.  

“That’s why I went to AU,” Noll says. “And it’s crazy, because now I create game shows. It all ties back to that moment.” 

What he couldn’t have known was that the same campus that would launch his career would also introduce him to the person he’d share his life with for the next three decades. 

Jennifer, SPA/BA ’95, who grew up in New England, chose AU to pursue a degree in political science. “If you’re going to get a degree in political science, you need to go to DC,” she says. After touring several schools, she landed on AU for its campus and location. “The entire District is part of your campus when you’re a political science major. There are so many opportunities to get a job with a congressperson or lobbying firm to advance your education and career.” 

Dave and Jennifer’s love story began at the Tenleytown Metro. Dave was a junior living on the fourth floor of Hughes Hall. Jennifer was a freshman.  

“A group of people came down the escalator, and I noticed Jen right away,” Dave says. When he asked about her, friends told him she had a boyfriend back home. “I remember saying, ‘The boyfriend from home never lasts past Thanksgiving, so I think we’re fine.’” 

They started dating in January of Jennifer’s freshman year and quickly fell into the rhythms of campus life together, spending time in Hughes Hall and on campus. 

Their first date nearly didn’t happen. Dave waited for Jennifer at the Metro, while Jennifer got off the shuttle at a campus stop. Both wondered if they had been stood up before realizing the mix-up. They ended up going to the Cheesecake Factory and then to a movie that Dave had badly mis-timed, waiting nearly two hours before it started and chatting to pass the time.  

“I remember thinking that if we could just talk and enjoy each other’s company, maybe this could last,” Dave says. 

At the same time, both were finding their footing academically.  

For Dave, AU’s School of Communication became the foundation of his career. A film scriptwriting class with Professor John Douglas changed his sense of what was possible. Intimidated, Dave admitted he’d never written a script before. Douglas insisted he could. By Thanksgiving, he had finished one. “That stayed with me my entire career,” Dave says. “Even things that seem impossible often are not impossible.” 

He shot short films, worked on ATV News, helped with The Roommate Game, and, junior year, created his own talk show, Midnight with Dave Noll. “We did about 30 to 40 episodes,” he says. “That was the first show I ever created.” The experience became a template for everything that followed, from MTV and VH1 to Comedy Central and, eventually, creating and producing more than 70 shows, including the critically acclaimed Chopped. 

“Me and Cleve Keller, the woman I work with, come up with so many shows, and 99% of them never see the light of day,” Dave says. “But every once in a while, one of them takes off.” 

Today, the Food Network competition show has earned Dave recognition from the James Beard Foundation, the Culinary Hall of Fame, and the Broadcast Television Critics Association. 

Jennifer’s AU experience left a different but equally lasting impact. She remembers Professor Gregg Ivers inviting students to his home for a barbecue. “It really reinforced the idea of being welcoming, being hospitable, and that professors see AU not just as a career, but as a community,” she says.  

The exposure to global perspectives at AU also shaped her path. “You become a citizen of the world just being at AU,” she notes, a perspective that later fit naturally with her work in the global Catholic Church. 

They married in 1996, shortly after Jennifer graduated. She dropped a Russian minor to finish a semester early. “Someone convinced me that if I did that, we could get married sooner,” she recalls with a smile. “So that’s what we did.” They were 21 and 23 and soon started their family. Today, they have three daughters, Sarah, Sophia, and Rebecca, and are just beginning a new chapter as empty nesters. 

Looking back, Dave sees AU as the turning point for both his career and his personal life.  

“I created my first show there, and I met Jen there, all within a really short period of time,” he says. “Those two things shaped everything that came after.” 

They still return to campus when they can, standing outside Hughes Hall, where Jennifer kissed Dave on the cheek for the first time. “You look around, and even though some things have changed, a lot feels the same,” Dave says.  

For the Nolls, AU wasn’t just the place where their careers began. It was where their life together started, setting both on paths that neither could have predicted, but that remain closely tied to the campus where they first met.