WUSTL Business & Law News

Leading change from the middle

2014-04-16 00:00:00

With a message today’s management gurus embrace, Benjamin Franklin once wrote, “When you’re finished changing, you’re finished.” But despite the necessity of organizational change, managing for a successful outcome is as tricky as harnessing electricity via kite.

“There are many books on leading change; every consulting firm has a practice on leading change,” said Jackson Nickerson, PhD, the Frahm Family Professor of Organization & Strategy in Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis.

“But when efforts to lead change fail 60 to 90 percent of the time, then something is not working. While many books exist on change management, none are positioned for either the special challenges of midlevel leadership or for building extraordinary capabilities,” he said.

Nickerson’s latest book, "Leading Change From the Middle: A Practical Guide to Building Extraordinary Capabilities" (April 24, from Brookings Institution Press), addresses the gap between the desire for change and the ability to pull it off with academic research and practical advice for implementation.

“The point of this book series is to convert the ‘know why’ into the ‘know how,’” said Nickerson, who is also director of Brookings Executive Education and a Brookings nonresident senior scholar in governance studies.

In "Leading Change from the Middle," Nickerson introduces a new way to think about leading change without authority. His framework employs a unique toolkit and approach to leading organizational change — an approach that has been tested with government executives and professional managers in real organizations.

Nickerson

In presenting this material in a concise, accessible and applicable format that translates theory to practice, Nickerson provides an important service for leaders trying to build extraordinary capabilities for their organizations.

Nickerson shared his thoughts on midlevel leaders, strategies for change and success:

I wrote about midlevel leaders because they often are the ones in the hot seat. While much of the change-management literature focuses on those at the apex of an organization, a lot of change efforts, especially around building new capabilities, are undertaken by those sandwiched in the middle, and there is very little research to guide them.

If you are a midlevel leader, then you are at the crossroads of change, surrounded by four kinds of stakeholders. Above are your superordinates, from whom you must find out how far you can go before you lose their support. Below you are subordinates with whom you must find a way to engage so they feel empowered. With internal and external customers, you must help them understand that the new capability you’re creating adds more value than it costs them to use it. Finally, you must find ways to gain support from complementors and potential blockers, those people who are gatekeepers to resources vital to building the new capability. Leading each stakeholder group requires different communications, strategies, tactics and sequencing — what I refer to as CoSTS — all of which are presented and discussed in the book.

Success in building capabilities is measured not only in getting them up and running but also in doing so without complaints to your manager about your leadership ability. That’s extraordinary.

Editor’s note: Nickerson is available for taped and live-remote radio and television interviews via the university’s broadcast studio, which is equipped with high-definition, broadcast-quality audio (ISDN) and video (vyvx) transmission lines.

Board diversity a significant opportunity for corporations

2014-04-17 00:00:00

Sale

The number of women and minorities on corporate boards has remained static in the last 10 years, despite an increasing amount of data supporting the argument that board diversity is related to good business outcomes.

"Businesses have a significant opportunity to improve performance through increasing the diversity – in many forms – of their board,” said Hillary Sale, JD, corporate governance expert and professor of law and management at Washington University in St. Louis.

“There are many great board member candidates out there," she said. "These people have to come forward, build their networks and make themselves known. At the same time, companies have to broaden their board search networks and insist that search firms, when in use, develop a diverse candidate pool.”

Sale holds a leadership role with DirectWomen, a national program designed to develop and position an elite group of exceptional senior women lawyers for service as directors of major U.S. Corporations. Her thoughts on increasing board diversity follow.

Candidates: Build your network

Sale notes that most people get on a board of directors through an informal “buddy” network.

“Networks influence jobs and careers across contexts,” she said. “Corporate boards are no different. People interested in being on a corporate board need to thoughtfully build their connections to people who influence and shape corporate boards, like CEOs, directors, and other members of corporate leadership.

“Mentoring programs and organizations like DirectWomen can connect talented and qualified candidates with people in a position to influence board searches."

Companies: Expand and look beyond your network

“When companies make an effort to build the diversity of their board, corporate leadership is generally surprised by the depth and quality of candidates available that are out of their typical networks,” Sale says. “There is lots of evidence to support the argument that diverse teams produce better outcomes.”

“Impressive candidates are out there, but they may not be part of your immediate group of friends and colleagues,” she said. Expanding the network of people corporate leadership looks to for candidate recommendations is essential, Sale said.

The need for corporate board diversity has been addressed in countries such as France and Norway by instituting quotas. “There is no doubt that quotas work,” Sale said. “Quotas are also contrary to American business notions and legally tricky in the United States.”

U.S. companies can, however, take inspiration from the quotas.

“One of the outcomes of the changes overseas is that many international corporations have expanded their networks and director pools have broadened,” Sale said.

Board directorship and diversity were key topics at the recent ‘Becoming an Effective Public Company Director’ at Washington University School of Law. The panel, moderated by Sale, featured CEOs and directors of public companies (video available).

Annual innovation competition winners named

Neil Schoenherr — 2014-04-11 00:00:00

Sid Hastings/WUSTL Photos

Freshman Allen Osgood (in glasses), founder of STEMs For Youth, is congratulated by his teammates following the Youthbridge Social Enterprise and Innovation Competition awards presentation April 10. Osgood and his team won $25,000 for their program, which encourages underprivileged middle school students to pursue science and engineering through mentoring and use of Lego robotic applications.

The ninth annual YouthBridge Social Enterprise and Innovation Competition (SEIC) has named this year's winners and its $155,000 in awards.

Winning teams represented both community and Washington University in St. Louis social entrepreneurs. Their social venture ideas ranged widely, covering youth, teens, education, science and more.

The awardees are:

Bridge Bread received a $30,000 Daughters of Charity Foundation of St. Louis award. Bridge Bread provides supportive employment opportunities for homeless and at-risk people to guide them on the path to self-sufficiency.
Girls in the Know received the $25,000 Lutheran Foundation of St Louis award. Girls in the Know inspires and empowers girls to make healthy and confident decisions through an educational four-week mother/caregiver and preteen daughter speaker series led by female professionals.
Playing for the Cause received a $25,000 YouthBridge award. Playing for the Cause leverages the unique relationship between musicians and their fans to increase funding for local nonprofit organizations.
STEMs for Youth received a $10,000 YouthBridge award and a $5,000 Brentmoor Foundation award. STEMs For Youth encourages underprivileged middle school students to pursue science and engineering through mentoring and the creative use of Lego robotics applications.
Made for Freedom received a $25,000 Brentmoor Foundation award. Made for Freedom aims to increase women's quality of life through fashion-forward apparel.
Girls Dreaming Big received the $25,000 Skandalaris award. Girls Dreaming Big provides services, products and resources to help high school and college-age girls build self-esteem and confidence, create positive networks and achieve their dreams.
The student award of $5,000 went to STEMs for Youth, founded by WUSTL freshman Allen Osgood. All on the team are WUSTL students.
The Skandalaris Social Value award of $5,000 also went to STEMs for Youth, as the team received the highest total score in the social value measurement in the business plan and final presentations.

The YouthBridge SEIC began in 2005 as a partnership between WUSTL's Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and the YouthBridge Community Foundation. Since its inception, the competition has awarded more than $1 million in cash and in-kind prizes to more than 40 social ventures, including an annual $5,000 student prize. More than 85 percent of ventures that have won awards still are operating.

The YouthBridge Community Foundation partners with donors to help charities, especially those focused on children, become financially sound through leadership, grants and donor services.

The Skandalaris Center is a cross-campus and communitywide initiative serving students in all schools and degree programs at the university and the St. Louis region. Sponsors of the Skandalaris Center include accounting firm RubinBrown; the St. Louis Regional Chamber; the Polsinelli law firm; accounting firm Lopata, Flegel & Co.; the Brentmoor Foundation; the Daughters of Charity Foundation of St. Louis; Lutheran Foundation of St. Louis; and the St. Louis Regional Arts Commission.

Brookings descendant visits campus

2014-04-08 00:00:00

Jerry Naunheim Jr./WUSTL Photos

John Wallace, great-grandnephew of Robert S. Brookings, and his wife, Ellen (right), talk with Tenille Washburn (JD '01), a student in the Brookings Executive Education (BEE) program, before a dinner at the Charles F. Knight Executive Education and Conference Center March 31. The Wallaces were in town for a BEE conference on "Daring to Lead." Brookings was president of the Washington University in St. Louis Board of Trustees from 1895 to 1928. In 1927, he established the present-day Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. Brookings Executive Education, a partnership between the university and the Brookings Institution, is a premier provider of executive education for those engaged in government. For more information, visit here. For more on Brookings and his role in the history of WUSTL, visit here.

Time to celebrate

2014-04-03 00:00:00

Whitney Curtis/WUSTL Photos

Nate Quest, administrative coordinator in Specialized Masters Programs at Olin Business School, gets a serving of Pappy's Smokehouse barbecue March 28 during the celebration of the school's 97th birthday. The event, which also featured a free video game arcade, was held in the school's newly opened Knight and Bauer halls on Washington University in St. Louis' Danforth Campus. More than 400 people were served lunch.

SCOTUS decision dooms campaign finance regulation as we know it

2014-04-02 00:00:00

Margarian

The U.S. Supreme Court, in the McCutcheon v. FEC decision, removed the cap on the number and amount of donations a person can give during political campaigns. Gregory Magarian, JD, election law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, says that this decision will have a major impact on campaigns – a much bigger impact than the earlier Citizens United campaign finance decision. This decision “marks then end of campaign finance regulation as we know it,” says Magarian.

Magarian’s comments follow:

For four years I've told anyone who would listen that the most important line in the notorious Citizens United decision was this:

"When [Buckley v. Valeo] identified a sufficiently important governmental interest in preventing corruption or the appearance of corruption, that interest was limited to quid pro quo corruption."

Today, the Supreme Court made good on that line. The decision in McCutcheon v. FEC strikes down the aggregate federal contribution limits because they don't serve the anti-corruption interest, as the Court defined that interest in Citizens United.

I think this is the Court's most important campaign finance decision since Buckley. I think it marks the end of campaign finance regulation as we know it.

Let's back up. Buckley v. Valeo is the case in which the Supreme Court first held that the First Amendment limits the government's power to regulate money in the political process. The Buckley Court held that limits on campaign expenditures -- a candidate's or other person's use of money to buy advertising time, stage a rally, etc. -- will almost always violate the First Amendment.

However, the Buckley Court held that the government may, within certain limits, regulate political contributions -- a person's direct payment to a candidate or political committee to use as the candidate or committee sees fit -- without violating the First Amendment. The Court explained that the government has an important interest in preventing political corruption. Contribution limits can serve that interest. Therefore, the Buckley Court held, the government may regulate contributions.

The contribution-expenditure distinction in Buckley is the atom-splitting moment of campaign finance law. You could call the distinction logical, or you could call it Solomonic justice. Very few people like the distinction, because most of us want to go all the way in one direction or another on campaign finance, either barring or allowing all regulations. Nonetheless, the distinction has survived almost 40 years of campaign finance battles. Because the distinction has survived, Congress and most states have maintained major limits on how much money people may contribute to candidates or campaigns.

Federal law has two kinds of contribution limits: base limits and aggregate limits. The base limit is a restriction on how much money you may contribute to a particular federal candidate or committee in any two-year election cycle. The base limit for a contribution to a candidate for federal office, for example, is $2,600 (you can give $2,600 in both the primary and general election, for a total of $5,200.) The aggregate limit -- the amount you can give to all candidates, total, in a cycle -- is $48,600. Larger base and aggregate limits cap your contributions to national political parties and political committees.

McCutcheon strikes down the federal aggregate limits. The main basis for the Court's holding is that the aggregate limits don't do anything to prevent quid pro quo corruption -- corruption as the Court defined it in Citizens United.

"Corruption" in the political process can mean different things. "Corruption" might include any exchange of money for influence over, or access to, a candidate. We could call that definition "influence corruption." On the other hand, "corruption" might mean something narrower. It might just mean a direct exchange of money for a particular legislative vote or other action or decision. That narrower definition is "quid pro quo corruption" -- one thing for another. The broader influence definition provides a much more secure constitutional grounding for contribution limits than the narrower quid pro quo definition.

Buckley v. Valeo, in allowing the government’s anti-corruption interest to justify contribution limits, didn't specify a particular meaning of "corruption." Over the years, most people and courts have assumed that the definition of "corruption" goes at least some distance beyond quid pro quo corruption, because the Supreme Court never imposed a narrower definition. The best reading of the Court’s decisions was that "corruption" included "influence corruption."

Until Citizens United. That case was about expenditure limits, so the question of defining "corruption" wasn't the main issue in the case. The media said almost nothing about the line in the opinion, which I quoted above, that limited "corruption" to quid pro quo corruption. But that line was an IED, and it just blew up.

Chief Justice Roberts wrote McCutcheon, and he's a master strategist. The case only presented a challenge to the aggregate limits. The Chief Justice says, basically, that the aggregate limits don't survive First Amendment review because (a) "corruption" means only quid pro quo corruption, and (b) the aggregate limits don't really add anything to what the base limits (and other, incidental campaign finance laws) do to stem quid pro quo corruption.

This reasoning has two huge consequences -- the first immediate and obvious, the second less immediate and obvious but even more important.

The immediate and obvious effect of McCutcheon is that the federal aggregate limits are gone. Indeed, I think the Court's reasoning is broad enough to invalidate all aggregate limits, state and federal. That means George Soros or the Koch Brothers or anybody can give $2,600 to every federal candidate in the country. Big contributors get to influence more elections, perhaps in a relatively minor way. But by bundling contributions from individuals -- employees, say -- a big contributor can have major influence. Even without bundling, a big contributor can court influence with a party, and its elected officials, by giving money to many or all of the party's candidates.

The less immediate and obvious, but even bigger, effect of McCutcheon lies in what Chief Justice Roberts doesn't say. He assumes the base contribution limits are constitutional, and he judges the aggregate limits in comparison to the base limits. But he never says the base limits are constitutional. Now, there's no need for him to say that, because the base limits aren't at issue in this case.

But the limitation of "corruption" to quid pro quo corruption sets up and pre-determines the next case. The next case, which will come down within the next few years, will strike down the base limits, and thus all contribution limits. It will strike down the base limits because, the Court will tell us, quid pro quo corruption is a very narrow phenomenon; bribery laws and other regulations suffice to deal with quid pro quo corruption; and contributors' First Amendment rights outweigh whatever minimal effect the base limits have in fighting quid pro quo corruption.

At that point, the federal and state governments will have no power to restrict money in elections. None.

Nothing in McCutcheon comes out and says "contribution limits of all kinds are dead." The Chief Justice's opinion appears to take the base limits for granted. But while he's smiling at the base limits, he slides a knife between their ribs. He's done this, in different ways, with the Citizens United issue, with Obamacare, with voting rights. He doesn't shoot squarely for the big, prominent target. Instead, he quietly dismantles the base that was holding the target up.

People are going to call this case a sequel to Citizens United. That's just the kind of relatively benign account Chief Justice Roberts wants. Don't be fooled. Citizens United is a pod; McCutcheon is the mothership. Citizens United killed one particular (certainly important) regulation of money in politics. McCutcheon effectively kills all regulation of money in politics.

Law alumna’s gift will fund new prosecution law clinic

2014-04-02 00:00:00

John Pa

Pictured are (from left) Jennifer Joyce, St. Louis circuit attorney, and Alicia McDonnell, School of Law alumna (JD '95).

The Washington University School of Law will establish a Prosecution Law Clinic in partnership with the City of St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office. The new clinic joins 17 other clinical opportunities within the law school’s long-standing Clinical Education Program.

The clinic will be funded by a generous gift from former prosecutor and Washington University School of Law alumna Alicia McDonnell (JD ’95), who hopes to strengthen the ranks of criminal prosecutors by creating opportunities for talented law students to gain hands-on experience essential to a career in criminal justice.

“Prosecutors are a different breed,” McDonnell said. “They don’t do their work for the title, salary or prestige. They believe in public service and are passionate about seeking justice.”

McDonnell, who previously served as an assistant district attorney for Suffolk County, Mass., has a wealth of experience prosecuting tough cases related to firearms, narcotics, domestic violence and child abuse in one of the most crime-ridden areas in Boston.

The new Prosecution Law Clinic builds on McDonnell’s passion and her experience in Boston, where she also supervised student interns. The Washington University clinic will open in fall 2014 and will be based in the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office, located downtown in the Carnahan Courthouse. Co-directing the clinic will be Jane Darst, JD, first assistant circuit attorney, and alumna Rachel Smith (JD ’92), chief prosecutor in the Community Affairs Bureau of the Circuit Attorney's Office.

Daniel Keating, JD, law school dean and the Tyrrell Williams Professor of Law, expressed his appreciation for McDonnell’s vision and generosity.

“We are grateful for Alicia McDonnell’s generous gift to establish the clinic, which will help our students sharpen their problem-solving and legal-reasoning skills while being exposed to the prosecutors’ unique responsibilities. We are pleased to partner with the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office, under the strong leadership of Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce, as the new clinic addresses a growing student interest in professional experience from prosecutor-mentors.”

“We are extremely excited to embark on this important partnership with Washington University’s Clinical Education Program,” said Joyce, JD. “We hope many of these students will learn vital lessons from our office so they, in turn, can work to support a safe and strong community.”

Supervising attorneys in Joyce’s office also will supervise students and help teach a weekly seminar for the clinic’s students, covering key issues prosecutors face, such as probable cause standards and constitutional review; preparing and working with victims and witnesses; strategies for drug task forces; and thorny ethical issues that young prosecutors may encounter on the job.

In addition to expanding experiential learning opportunities for students interested in careers as prosecutors, McDonnell’s gift will support summer stipends for second-year students who want to work in federal, state or local prosecutors’ offices. Exposure to professionals in the field will assist students in directly applying the lessons learned in the classroom to actual prosecutorial cases.

“The prosecutors in this office will be the best teachers for what really happens in a trial,” McDonnell said. “They’ll demonstrate how to introduce exhibits into evidence, cross-examine a witness, indict a case and sort out the ethical issues. It doesn’t get more real than this — until students become attorneys themselves.

Looking to enjoy March Madness? Don't bet on it

Neil Schoenherr — 2014-03-19 00:00:00

Placing a bet with a few friends on the NCAA basketball tournament this year? You might not enjoy the experience as much as if you hadn’t laid down any money.

“Predictions do fact have a negative effect on enjoyment when the outcome is relatively uncertain,” as in the upcoming basketball tournament, says Stephen M. Nowlis, PhD, the August A. Busch, Jr. Distinguished Professor in Marketing at Olin Business School.

Nowlis is co-author of a 2008 paper in the Journal of Consumer Research titled “The Effect of Making a Prediction About the Outcome of a Consumption Experience on the Enjoyment of That Experience.”

In a series of four experiments, Nowlis found that consumers who make predictions about uncertain events experience significantly less enjoyment while observing the events than those who don’t make predictions.

The study found that participants incorrectly believed predictions would have a positive effect on expected enjoyment.

“In hypothetical scenarios, the consumer is apt to focus on the potential excitement resulting from being right and to underestimate the effect of anticipated regret resulting from being wrong,” Nowlis writes in the paper.

“We thought the opposite would be true,” Nowlis says. “We explain our results in terms of anticipated regret. In fact, removing the source of anticipated regret eliminates the negative effect of prediction on enjoyment.”

Olin launches customer analytics master's degree

Neil Schoenherr — 2014-03-18 00:00:00

Big data is everywhere – from our smartphones to business to government. Studies have indicated that data production will be 44 times greater in 2020 than it was in 2009.

However, The McKinsey Global Institute has estimated U.S. demand for analytic specialists will exceed the number of qualified experts by 1.5 million.

As big data moves to the forefront of the boardroom, how do businesses keep up and find qualified people to manage it all?

Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School aims to help solve this problem with the launch of its Master of Science in Customer Analytics (MSCA) degree, offered in partnership with IBM.

“The MSCA program will train students to become analytics-driven business managers,” said Seethu Seetharaman, PhD, the W. Patrick McGinnis Professor of Marketing and director of the program. “Graduates will be well equipped to successfully participate in the emerging business era of big data. The program is ideal for applicants whose undergraduate training is in a technical field who want to build on their abilities and develop the skills to manage strategic business issues using advanced analytical methods.”

The MSCA will prep students to use relevant big data to forcefully guide an organization toward greater profit margins and more revenue.

Students will benefit from the expertise of IBM, which has opened six analytic centers worldwide, as well as insights and knowledge from WUSTL computer science and political science professors and from business practitioner guest speakers.

“Our graduates will be able to seek job opportunities with any organization that has embraced the value of big data, including companies marketing the world’s most respected and recognizable brands,” Seetharaman said. “Additional opportunities exist at consultant companies with a heavy reliance on customer analytics. Organizations across the board will be searching for applicants trained in social media analytics.”

The program can be completed in a 10- or 18-month format, including foundations coursework in August.

The MSCA program holds a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) designation.

For more information, visit olin.wustl.edu/msca.

Staudt named dean of the School of Law at Washington University in St. Louis

Jessica Martin — 2014-03-17 00:00:00

Staudt

Nancy Staudt, JD, PhD, vice dean for faculty and academic affairs at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, has been named dean of the School of Law at Washington University in St. Louis, effective May 15, Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton announced. She also will become the Howard and Caroline Cayne Professor of Law as well as a professor at the Brown School.

“Nancy Staudt is a great addition to the academic leadership team at Washington University, and our School of Law will be able to enhance its quality, impact and stature under her leadership. I am thrilled she has accepted our invitation to join us as dean of law," Wrighton said. “This process has been led by Provost Holden Thorp, assisted by an excellent advisory committee chaired by Dean Edward F. Lawlor of the Brown School. I am grateful to all who brought our process to such a successful outcome.”

Staudt is excited about returning to the Washington University law school, where she served as professor from 2000-06.

“This is a wonderful moment in time to rejoin Washington University – one of the most thriving and exciting academic communities in the country today,” Staudt said.

“Both the university and the School of Law have enjoyed great success in recent years, and I am thrilled to be a part of this incredible momentum. I look forward to many years of collaboration with our fabulous students and faculty, and to connecting with the impressive legal community in St. Louis and beyond.”

Edward F. Lawlor, PhD, dean and the William E. Gordon Distinguished Professor at the Brown School, was chair of the advisory committee that recommended Staudt.

Advisory Committee

Edward F. Lawlor, PhD - chair - dean and the William E. Gordon Distinguished Professor at the Brown School

Howard Cayne, JD - law school alumnus, member of the WUSTL Board of Trustees and the School of Law’s National Council

John N. Drobak, JD - the George Alexander Madill Professor of Real Property & Equity Jurisprudence

Matthew Gabel, PhD - professor of political science in Arts & Sciences

Pauline Kim, JD - the Charles Nagel Professor of Law

Hillary Sale, JD - the Walter D. Coles Professor of Law

Peggie Smith, JD - the Charles F. Nagel Professor of Employment and Labor Law

Cort VanOstran - third-year law student

“Our committee interviewed an amazing group of candidates for the dean’s position,” Lawlor said. “Nancy Staudt impressed every constituency – faculty, staff, students, alumni, Washington University administrators – with her vision, energy, and knowledge of legal education.”

Provost Holden Thorp, PhD, noted that Washington University School of Law is at an exciting point in its history.

“Placed among the top-tier schools in the nation, the law school offers students increasingly innovative experiences in and outside the classroom while facing significant changes in legal education. The successful dean in this environment will be someone who is an outstanding scholar in an area of importance to our students with significant administrative acumen, a love of great teaching, and a strong sense of the pulse of American legal education. Nancy Staudt brings all of these qualities to Washington University.”

Thorp also announced that Nancy Staudt’s partner, Lee Epstein, PhD, Provost Professor of Law and Public Policy at USC, also will rejoin WUSTL as a university professor.

“Dr. Epstein’s scholarly work and teaching at Washington University will add significantly to our academic strength, and we are delighted that she is returning to Washington University to continue her distinguished career with us," Wrighton added.

Daniel L. Keating, JD, the Tyrrell Williams Professor of Law, will continue serving as interim dean until Staudt assumes the role in May.

“I am grateful to Dan for his leadership and undying devotion to Washington University,” Thorp said. “His continued service to the school is invaluable.”

About Nancy Staudt

Staudt is a nationally renowned scholar in tax, tax policy and empirical legal studies. In addition to serving as vice dean, she is the inaugural holder of the Edward G. Lewis Chair in Law and Public Policy at the USC Gould School of Law.

Staudt also holds an appointment as a professor of law and public policy at the USC Price School of Public Policy. In August 2012, Staudt was appointed academic director of the newly established Schwarzenegger Institute for State and Global Policy.

Staudt is a popular teacher in both the Law School and School of Public Policy, where her courses focus on the intersection of empirical legal studies, tax, politics and policy. Both she and her students have been featured in the media, including on CNN’s “The Next List,” which documents up-and-coming visionaries across the country. She is the author or co-author of nearly 40 articles and two books. Her work has been published in the country’s leading journals and university presses, and she has given more than 100 speeches and keynote addresses to national and international audiences on a range of tax, law and public policy topics.

In addition to her extensive list of publications and speaking activities, Staudt has served as an advisory panel and board member to renowned organizations such as the National Science Foundation, the Association of American Law Schools’ Tax Section and the Law and Society Association. She is also the recipient of several grants and awards that helped facilitate her interdisciplinary work.

Staudt earned a bachelor’s degree from Ohio State University, a law degree from the University of Minnesota Law School, and a doctorate in public policy from the University of Chicago.

Prior to joining the USC faculty in 2011, Staudt was the Class of 1940 Research Professor of Law at Northwestern University. In addition to her time as law professor at WUSTL, Staudt was on the faculty at the University of Buffalo School of Law.

She has held visiting professorships at Vanderbilt University, Boston University, and the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel; she has been a visiting scholar at Stanford University.

Prior to her academic appointments, she was a tax associate at Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco; she clerked for the Honorable John T. Noonan on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco; and she provided free legal services to both battered women and organizations seeking tax-exempt status from the federal government.

The price is right: price helps consumers stay committed to their long-term product preferences

2014-03-13 00:00:00

From a product’s ease of use to its number of overall features, consumers often make tradeoffs in choosing a product. Although consumers tend to prefer higher functionality in the long-term, they often prefer no-hassle convenience in the short-term.

Lee

A new study by lead author, Kelly Lee, Ph.D., a post-doctoral research scholar at Olin Business School of the Washington University in St. Louis finds that highlighting the price of a product helps consumers stick to their long-term preferences by nudging them to think about value for the money that they need to pay. And the long-term preferences tend to value higher functionality than higher convenience.

“We propose that highlighting price information makes consumers choose higher functionality products even when they make choices in the short-term because consumers believe that products with more features and functions represent higher value,” writes Kelly Lee, PhD.

The study, “The Effect of Price on Preference Consistency Over Time,” will be published in the June 2014 issue of the Journal of Consumer Research and is co-authored with Min Zhao, PhD, associate professor of marketing at University of Toronto.

For example, the pair writes, consider a consumer who is looking for photo-editing software to create a photo album in two days. The available software choices include either a software program with a full range of image-editing features that is difficult to learn and use or a software program that provides a simple user-interface and easy installation but has limited image-editing features.

Because the software will be used in the near future, the consumer tends to focus on the ease of using the software, ignoring what features are available. However, when the time to actually create the photo album arrives, this consumer may regret her choice and wish that the software had more features that she would like.

Over four experiments involving tradeoffs between the functionality and convenience of products, the researchers observed the effect price had on participants’ product selections over time. After seeing price information, participants valued functionality over ease of use and they preferred products with more features despite their low convenience.

“Brands offering products with a salient price tag can help consumers choose products that provide long-term satisfaction and decrease buyer’s remorse by helping consumers stay committed to their long-term preferences,” the authors conclude.

Grad, professional students present research while honing communication skills during annual event

Susan Killenberg McGinn — 2014-03-17 00:00:00

Sid Hastings/WUSTL Photos

Anna Hood (right), a Chancellor’s Graduate Fellow in psychology in Arts & Sciences, explains her work to judge Taryn Marashi, a graduate student in Islamic studies, also in Arts & Sciences. Hood’s research examines Phenylketonuria (PKU), a metabolic genetic disorder, and how variability (fluctuations) in Phenylalanine (Phe), an essential amino acid, predicts lower intelligence and poorer executive abilities in children with PKU.

With topics ranging from African-American women survivors of breast cancer to transgender experiences, more than 55 graduate and professional students from all Washington University in St. Louis disciplines participated in the 19th Annual Graduate Student Research Symposium, held Feb. 22 in Whitaker Hall.

The event provides graduate and professional students the opportunity to present their work to a broad audience of students, faculty and community members from diverse backgrounds, while allowing them to practice and hone their communication skills.

The Graduate Student Senate (GSS) holds the event in collaboration with the  Association of Graduate Engineering Students and the Graduate Professional Council. The Graduate School of Arts & Sciences lends extensive support.

“The ability to describe one’s work to a variety of people is a valuable and critical skill needed to succeed in any academic or professional discipline,” said Jeff Pobst, GSS co-president and a doctoral candidate in physics in Arts & Sciences.

He and GSS co-president Shankar Parajuli said the symposium also creates a unique forum for dialogue among students and faculty from across the university by encouraging discussion, networking, and interdisciplinary collaboration and communication about ongoing research.

Monetary prizes were awarded to the top three presenters in each of five categories — humanities, sciences, social sciences, engineering and professional programs. For a list of the winning research projects, visit here.

Richard J. Smith, PhD, dean of the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, Parajuli and Pobst were among those speaking during the awards ceremony that followed the two-hour poster presentations.

Mark Conradi, PhD, a physics professor and a WUSTL alumnus, was the guest speaker.

GSS partnered with WUSTL's Speaking Studio, a service of The Writing Center, to offer workshops in preparation for the symposium.

Held Jan. 23 in the Liberman Graduate Center, the workshops focused on writing an abstract, presenting one’s research to a broad academic audience and creating a compelling research poster.

All three event co-sponsors are celebrating their 20th anniversaries this academic year. GSS commemorated its milestone by debuting a new GSS logo at the symposium after holding a university-wide logo contest.

Chen Po-Jung, a graduate student studying architecture and urban design, won for his logo design. Parajuli and Pobst said the research symposium has become a model for similar events at colleges and universities across the country.

"Events such as this become particularly important as we enter a new world of data and expertise sharing between what we traditionally called ‘different backgrounds,’” said Parajuli, a doctoral candidate in the Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences at the Medical Campus working in cell biology and biochemistry.

“As we are discovering, one cannot get a complete grasp of the world by only being an expert in one field. One field's expertise needs that of the other.”

Washington University is big player in St. Louis’ booming central corridor

Diane Toroian Keaggy — 2014-03-07 00:00:00

Good coffee, promising jobs.

Cities need both, and St. Louis is starting to deliver, said Hank Webber, executive vice chancellor for administration at Washington University in St. Louis.

Webber

“Cities must create an attractive environment where people want to live and an environment where people have good economic opportunities,” said Webber, an expert in urban planning. “It’s like good pitching and good hitting in baseball — they are both essential ingredients.”

St. Louis’ central corridor, the 8-mile stretch from the Gateway Arch to Clayton, is growing fast.

There’s new construction on the riverfront and at the Gateway Arch, new nightlife downtown, new attractions in Grand Center and new housing near Saint Louis University and in the Central West End.

And don’t forget Ikea. The Swedish retailer, which typically locates its megastores in the suburbs, plans to build in the CORTEX innovation district on Forest Park Avenue.

The CORTEX innovation district expects to be home to 4,000 jobs within 18 months. The district was formed in 2002 by Washington University in St. Louis, BJC HealthCare, University of Missouri–St. Louis, Saint Louis University and the Missouri Botanical Garden.

“You also have Forest Park, one of the great urban parks in the world, and a strong transportation system,” Webber said. “Add those all together, and you have an extraordinary collection of quality-of-life assets you can’t get anywhere else in the region.”

Washington University is a major contributor to the corridor’s growth. In addition to development on the Danforth Campus, the Washington University Medical Center, composed of the School of Medicine, Barnes-Jewish Hospital, St. Louis Children’s Hospital and other health-care partners, continues to bring new projects and jobs to the area.

The medical center currently is undergoing the initial phases of a transformation, which primarily will feature expansions of St. Louis Children’s Hospital, Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Siteman Cancer Center, more space for Washington University Physicians clinics and diagnostics, and new facilities for women and infants, oncology and surgical services. The campus is also the site of construction of a new Shriner’s Hospital for Children and new facilities for the St. Louis College of Pharmacy.

And, as a founding member of the 12-year-old CORTEX district, WUSTL has helped develop state-of-the-art facilities for bioscience and technology companies. CORTEX projects that some $2.1 billion will be invested in new research, office, clinical, residential, hotel and retail construction. Other CORTEX members include BJC HealthCare, University of Missouri-St. Louis, SLU and the Missouri Botanical Garden.

Among the new occupants in the district are employees of Washington University’s Office of Technology Management and other functions involved in supporting the university’s research efforts.

“The lesson of CORTEX, which will have more than 4,000 jobs within 18 months and likely far more a few years after, is that efforts like this grow slowly until they hit takeoff,” said Webber, who serves as vice chairman of the CORTEX board. “It takes a long-term effort from public and private entities and a diverse array of strategies.”

CORTEX serves two complementary goals, said John Hoal, PhD, chair of the Master of Urban Design Program at the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. It provides opportunities for WUSTL students and faculty, and it helps create a new economy that will sustain the region for years to come.

“Washington University and the other universities are huge importers of talent. We are attracting some of the best brains in the world,” said Hoal, founding principal of the design and planning firm H3 Studio. “The challenge is: How do we get these people to stay? It can’t just be about affordable neighborhoods. You have to believe you can contribute. CORTEX is about that effort. It’s about fostering St. Louis as a place of opportunity.”

In the past, some urban universities have been reluctant to join such efforts, Hoal said. Not anymore.

“Universities used to wall themselves from their community,” Hoal said. “Today, universities have to be part of a much broader community. One reason is that students demand it. More than ever, they want to be involved in the community.”

James Byard/WUSTL Photos

The $80 million Lofts of Washington University complex is an example of a win-win development by WUSTL. The project, which includes student apartments, a grocery store and a 24-hour diner, provides needed housing for WUSTL students and generates tax revenue and foot traffic for the Delmar Loop.

The trick, stressed Webber, is to support projects that are win-win for both the university and region. The $80 million Lofts of Washington University complex in the Delmar Loop serves as an example. The project provides housing for students, but it also will bring a grocery store and a 24-hour diner — and hence, more foot traffic and tax revenue — to one of the region’s most vital neighborhoods.

“The environment our students and faculty want requires that tens of thousands of non-university people chose to live here too,” Webber said. “The Loop isn’t supported entirely by us. The Pageant isn’t there just because of our students. We have to meet an interest that is larger than the university’s.”

Although St. Louis and the university can be proud of the central corridor’s success, much work is left to do to improve the region. Stretches of vacant buildings, especially between Tucker Boulevard and Grand Center, undermine the core’s strength. The corridor also is too narrow and short, Hoal said. Next steps, he said, are to widen the corridor to include neighborhoods to the north and south and to extend it east into Illinois.

Hoal

The greatest challenge, however, remains in North St. Louis city and county, where residents need more jobs and better schools. Hoal urged local leaders to find a regional solution.

It can be done. In 1972, leaders established the Metropolitan Zoological Park and Museum District, which oversees St. Louis’ world-class cultural institutions. And in 2000, voters approved the Great Rivers Greenway District, which has created miles of trails connecting the region’s communities.

“We can’t leave people behind,” Hoal said. “Where we have chosen to act more regionally, we have been successful. That needs to be elevated if St. Louis is to be a growing, innovative place that attracts people.

“Take, for example, education. We are watching school districts go down in a spiral. We are not going to solve our educational dilemma unless we have a broader strategy for regional issues. If we could come up with that common vision, our track record shows we can outperform any city.”

Civil rights champion Chai Feldblum to commemorate Title VII and the Civil Rights Act of 1964

Barbara Rea — 2014-03-06 00:00:00

Feldblum

Civil rights champion and Equal Employment Opportunity Commission member Chai Feldblum, JD, will visit Washington University in St. Louis on March 17 and 18 to participate in programs commemorating the passing of Title VII, a key piece of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well as to celebrate International Women’s Day.

Assembly Series lecture on Tuesday, March 18

Feldblum will deliver an Assembly Series address on “The 50th Anniversary of Title VII and the 1964 Civil Rights Act: The Legal and Social Change Implications.” The lecture, which is free and open to the public, will be at noon Tuesday, March 18, in Anheuser-Busch Hall’s Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom (Room 310).

Appointed to the EEOC by President Barack Obama, Feldblum has dedicated her career to securing legal rights for society’s minorities and the marginalized.

Highlights of her professional accomplishments include serving as legislative counsel to the AIDS Project of the American Civil Liberties Union and as lead attorney on the team that drafted the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 as well as the ADA Amendments Act of 2008.

Furthermore, Feldblum served as legal director for the Campaign for Military Service, an initiative to overturn policies forbidding gay and bisexual people from serving openly in the U.S. armed forces. More recently, she was the lead drafter of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would prohibit employment discrimination based on someone’s real or perceived sexual orientation.

Feldblum is a former law clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun and a former professor of law at Georgetown University.

Karen Tokarz, the Charles Nagel Professor of Public Interest Law & Public Service, and director of the Negotiation and Dispute Resolution Program in the School of Law, said Feldblum is a brilliant, charismatic speaker.

“She gave a stirring speech at the School of Law in October 2012 when she spoke on disability and LGBT rights, and how laws, policies and social norms can create social change,” she said.

 International Women’s Day panel and reception on Monday, March 17

To recognize International Women’s Day, Feldblum will join law school alumni in a panel discussion on “Career Opportunities and New Directions in Employment and Labor Practice” from 3:30-5 p.m. Monday, March 17, in ANheuser-Busch Hall, Room 309. Peggie Smith, JD, professor of law at WUSTL, will moderate.

A reception will follow the panel discussion in the Charles F. Knight Center dining room, with introductory remarks by Feldblum. In addition to others, the event will honor law school alumnae who graduated 50-plus years ago.

This event is co-sponsored by the Woman’s Club of Washington University, the Gephardt Institute for Public Service, the School of Law Center for Interdisciplinary Study of Work & Social Capital, and the Women’s Law Caucus. Additional partners include the following WUSTL student groups: Labor & Employment Society, Public Service Advisory Board, Law & Social Work Society, and OUTLaw.

All events listed here are free and open to the public. For information on Assembly Series programs, visit the Assembly Series website or call 314-935-4620.

Reducing rule-breaking in clinical trials

Dylan Kickham — 2014-03-03 00:00:00

The way that most scientific reports are presented seems to suggest that clinical trials have controlled for flaws or deviations, but some test subjects secretly break study rules that conflict with their own personal interests. These “subversive subjects” undermine the research endeavor.

Dresser

Rebecca Dresser, JD, biomedical ethics expert and professor of law and of medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, describes the existence of subversive subjects and ways in which to address the problem in the latest issue of the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics.

“No one, including members of the research community, should be shocked that many — perhaps most — subjects care more about their personal needs and circumstances than about the knowledge-seeking objectives of research,” Dresser writes.

From lying about medical histories to drug-sharing in placebo trials to deviating from set drug administration times to sneaking food and drinks not allowed by study protocols, Dresser lists several reported instances of subversive subject behavior. Some study participants exaggerate their compliance in order to please the researchers.

That said, Dresser also acknowledges that the research model can contribute to this subversion. Sometimes, subjects will break the rules of a study due to mistreatment by the research team. Substandard research unit conditions, dishonest researchers or the need to rebel against perceived authority all contribute to subjects’ noncompliance with the rules.

Dresser describes three general approaches researchers can adopt to combat the problem of subversive subjects: “more vigilant policing of subjects’ behavior; intensified efforts to guide subjects towards compliance; and increased collaboration with subjects to develop mutually acceptable research conditions.”

Of these approaches, only the collaboration method treats subjects as full partners in research. "Policing and guidance strategies can be conducted in ethical ways, but constant surveillance and patronizing communication are demeaning to research subjects,” she said.

Dresser asserts that our best chance at reducing subversive behavior is for researchers to work with subjects to create “subject-friendly studies.”

Legal expert Sepper: If religious expression applies to corporations in Hobby Lobby challenge, other exemptions will follow

2014-02-28 00:00:00

This spring, the Supreme Court will consider whether freedom of religious expression applies to for-profit businesses, as well as individuals, in Hobby Lobby’s challenge to the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate.

Elizabeth Sepper

Elizabeth Sepper, JD, associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, discusses the case, saying that discrimination based on a person’s religious or sexual preferences is a serious harm to society.

For more from Sepper on this topic, including a video, go to news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/26499.aspx.

“If the Court decides that commercial businesses can indeed exercise religious freedom, in the name of that freedom businesses will demand exemptions from laws protecting consumers and employees from sex, race, and sexual orientation discrimination.”

“These anti-gay bills don’t protect conscience. They promote a single religious perspective. They ignore the many people of faith who support equality. What about the conscience of the employee who wants to follow the biblical injunction to ‘love your neighbor as yourself’ and is now told to deny services by his employer? What about the pro-equality business that has to accommodate employees who refuse to do their jobs when it comes to same-sex couples?”

“Proponents say allowing businesses to discriminate is actually good for gays, but acceptance of gay families comes from recognizing their equality under the law—not religious exemptions.”

“Discrimination based on a person’s sex or sexual orientation is a serious harm. It’s not just an inconvenience—whether we’re talking about wedding cakes or 401Ks."

"Antidiscrimination law applies to theaters and restaurants, not because movies and dinners out are essential, but because our society recognizes that discrimination based on race, sex, religion, and increasingly sexual orientation is wrong.”

Students offer ideas for increasing locally grown food on campus

Neil Schoenherr — 2014-02-26 00:00:00

Could Washington University in St. Louis strengthen the local economy and limit its carbon footprint by sourcing more locally grown food, while still providing nutritionally balanced and diverse food options?

That was the question posed in the year’s Olin Sustainability Case Competition (OSCC), which began during the 2009-10 academic year as a way to increase awareness and expand educational opportunities about sustainable business practices at Olin Business School.

Junior business administration student Marc Bernstein and junior architecture student Miriam Alexandroff won the top prize of $5,000 for their proposal. They suggest using local greenhouses to grow food during the winter months and creating a virtual farmers' auction in an effort to make local produce available all year on campus.

“This is the first time I competed in a business competition, and it was exciting to see how my skills as an architecture student applied to a different set of problems,” Alexandroff said. “I also really enjoyed the opportunity to collaborate with Marc, who is in a different school than me and therefore can approach the same problem through a completely different lens.

"Sustainability is something that is important to me, so having the opportunity to share my passion and ideas concerning the subject was very meaningful.”

“It's so rewarding to see practical problems solved with business solutions,” Bernstein said. “I'm so glad that we were able to show that business has a unique soft side, where the whole goal is to maximize the value for everyone involved. In this case, we had to consider our impact on students, farmers, the university administration, the university community, local contractors, and of course, the planet.”

Open to all WUSTL students in both undergraduate and graduate programs, the case competition gives participants a chance to learn about practical, real-world applications of corporate responsibility and sustainability concepts so they can make an impact in the world.

“Continuing to increase the amount of food we are able to buy locally is a priority for Washington University Dining Services,” said Steve Hoffner, associate vice chancellor for operations. “These students gave us a number of suggestions to help us achieve this goal, and I look forward to implementing as many of their ideas as possible.”

The OSCC is presented by the Olin MBA Programs office, in conjunction with the Olin Strategy and Consulting Association and the WUSTL chapter of Net Impact.

Designed as a traditional business case study, the competition is based on a current business problem and prepared with the assistance of leading sustainability experts and Olin faculty.

Sponsors for this year’s competition were Novus, Edward Jones and WUSTL Dining Services.

Fox named president of MBA Roundtable

2014-02-25 00:00:00

Joe Fox, associate dean and director of MBA programs at Olin Business School, has been named president of the MBA Roundtable.

Joe Fox

A collaborative, nonprofit organization, founded in 1995, the MBA Roundtable facilitates the exchange of information and resources on MBA curricular innovation. More than 170 business schools from across the world are members.

“It is with gratitude and enthusiasm that I accept the position of president of the MBA Roundtable,” Fox said. “I firmly believe that the work of the MBAR is essential to our industry. Going forward, we will continue to work closely with strategic partners and serve as catalyst for industry-wide understanding, improvement and innovation.”

Fox has been at the university since 1998. He has comprehensive management responsibility for the full-time MBA program, the evening professional MBA (PMBA) program, as well as specialized masters programs.

Olin Cup finalists to participate in high performance entrepreneurship program

Neil Schoenherr — 2014-02-21 00:00:00

Cohen

Two WUSTL students, both past winners of the university’s Olin Cup, have been chosen to participate in a nationally recognized year long program designed to accelerate the growth of high performance entrepreneurs.

Tom Cohen, PhD, post-doctoral research scholar at the School of Medicine and co-founder and CEO of Nanopore Diagnostics, and Amos Danielli, PhD, post-doctoral research scholar in biomedical engineering at the School of Engineering & Applied Science and founder of MagBiosense, are among this year’s class of Pipeline Fellows, as is WUSTL alumnus Alicia Herald (EMBA ’11), founder and CEO of myEDmatch.

Danielli

Pipeline, based in Kansas City and founded by WUSTL alumnus Joni Cobb (JD ‘91), is an exclusive community of high-potential entrepreneurial leaders building high-growth companies throughout the Midwest region. Each year, approximately 12 new members representing the region’s top entrepreneurial companies are invited to join Pipeline after an extensive selection process.

New members from Kansas, Nebraska and Missouri participate in a yearlong business leadership development program focused on accelerating the growth of their companies. Pipeline blends workshop modules, advice from national experts and a deepening of the relationships among new and current Pipeline members.

“I’m honored and thrilled to have been chosen for this elite fellowship program,” said Cohen. “Pipeline has proven success in accelerating the growth of entrepreneurial companies. I’m looking forward to developing as an entrepreneur in the program this year and becoming a member of the Pipeline family.”

About MagBiosense

MagBiosense (LLC) is a medical device company developing a diagnostic device that can help emergency room clinicians reduce the time required to diagnose heart attacks by up to 70 percent. MagBiosense, then known as MMBiosensing, won the 2013 Olin Cup, sponsored by the Skandlaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies.

About Nanopore Diagnostics

Nanopore Diagnostics is a molecular diagnostics company developing products that provide immediate, on-site, lab-quality molecular diagnostic testing. The microbial diagnostic test Nanopore Diagnostics is developing will help fight the spread of resistance by preventing the misuse of antibiotics. Nanopore Diagnostics won the 2014 Olin Cup.

STL To Do: Cultural Connections at Portfolio Gallery

2014-02-18 00:00:00

"Cultural Connections, a 25th anniversary celebration at Portfolio Gallery and Education Center, will offer information and inspiration. St. Louis authors, artists and collectors will present (and offer for sale) African-American art, books, stamps, wood sculptures, hand-woven baskets, poetry and photographs of a historical project with Tillie's Corner grocery store.

In addition, my colleague Kim Norwood, professor of law, will be signing her book, 'Color Matters: Skin Tone Bias and the Myth of a Postracial America,' a fascinating work that changed how I think about race."

— Adrienne Davis, JD, vice provost and the William M. Van Cleve Professor of Law

Event Details:

What: Cultural Connections

When: 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 22

Where: Portfolio Gallery, 3514 Delmar Blvd.

More info: portfoliogallerystl.org

Moot court program prepares lawyers for landmark Supreme Court case

2014-02-12 00:00:00

mary butkus/WUSTL Photos

St. Louis attorney Rudy Telscher argues before a panel of Washington University in St. Louis School of Law faculty during a special moot court program Jan. 29 in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom of Anheuser-Busch Hall. The program provided Telscher, an attorney with Harness, Dickey & Pierce, an opportunity to prepare for a landmark intellectual property case, Octane Fitness LLC v. Icon Health & Fitness Inc., which the U.S. Supreme Court will hear in late February. Students who attended were able to learn more about intellectual property law, the appellate process and the preparation needed to argue before the Supreme Court. “We are honored to have been asked to help Harness, Dickey & Pierce prepare to argue this important case before the U.S. Supreme Court,” said Daniel Keating, dean and the Tyrrell Williams Professor of Law. “It demonstrates the law school’s expertise in both intellectual property issues and the workings of the country’s highest court.” Read more about the case and the moot court program here.

Could obstacles to lethal injection lead to an end to the death penalty?

Dylan Kickham — 2014-02-12 00:00:00

Access to required anesthetic agents for lethal injection is quickly disappearing, leaving the future of the death penalty in the United States in question.

Dresser

“Because the European Union opposes the death penalty, it prohibits the export of goods for executions [and] requires a time-consuming preauthorization review for every shipment of a potential ‘dual use’ pharmaceutical,” said Rebecca Dresser, JD, biomedical ethics expert and Daniel Noyes Kirby Professor of Law and professor of ethics in medicine at Washington University in St. Louis.

This blockage makes it particularly difficult for states that use the death penalty to obtain anesthetic agents required in the three-drug protocol for lethal injections. This protocol involves an anesthetic to induce unconsciousness, a paralytic to induce a sustained paralysis of muscles and potassium chloride to stop the heart. Without the anesthetic, the injection would cause extreme and prolonged pain that could violate the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

Dresser discussed the impact of the limited access to lethal injection drugs in a recent issue of The Hastings Center Report.

“Although the death penalty still has significant support, public support for alternatives to the death penalty is increasing,” Dresser wrote.

“Capital cases are expensive, and state budgets are tight. High costs and concern about erroneous convictions have led a few states to abolish the death penalty in recent years. Barriers to obtaining lethal injection drugs could lead more states to do away with the death penalty altogether.”

Missouri is a prime example of a state dealing with limited access to lethal injection drugs. The state recently scrapped a plan to execute a convicted murderer using propofol as the anesthetic after receiving significant pressure from drug companies. And the state’s attorney general has suggested restoring the state’s gas chamber to bypass the hurdles associated with lethal injection.

New SCOTUS brief argues Hobby Lobby's request is unconstitutional

Dylan Kickham — 2014-02-10 00:00:00

The popular arts and crafts store Hobby Lobby is seeking a religious exemption from covering certain forms of contraception it would be required to provide under the contraception mandate of the Affordable Care Act. The case is headed to the U.S. Supreme Court, with oral arguments set to begin this spring.

“Granting the exemption would shift the cost of accommodating Hobby Lobby’s religious exercise to employees who do not share its beliefs,” argued Elizabeth Sepper, JD, associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “Such cost shifting violates the Establishment Clause.” The Establishment Clause of the First Amendment “prohibits the government from shifting the costs of accommodating a religion from those who practice it to those who do not,” she said.

Sepper is one of several experts who authored an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief to the Supreme Court arguing that Hobby Lobby’s request is unconstitutional.

The legal brief states that a religious exemption for Hobby Lobby would mean that a “business owner in the United States will be empowered to reject insurance coverage for contraception or any other medical prescription, procedure, treatment, or health service it finds religiously objectionable.”

Read the full brief here.

Related video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFlxuS39Fy0

Students in CELect course make impact on local startups

Neil Schoenherr — 2014-02-06 00:00:00

St. Louis is becoming widely recognized as a successful hub for startup businesses, with a wide range of groups and services that provide a support network for budding entrepreneurs.

Washington University in St. Louis students are getting a firsthand look at one of those resources this semester as they help formulate pricing strategies, marketing plans and competitive analysis for businesses working at T-REX, a tech incubator that offers startup companies affordable office space at 611 Olive in downtown St. Louis.

The CELect (Center for Experiential Learning entrepreneur consulting team) course is open to undergraduate and graduate students in the university’s business, engineering and law schools.

Clifford Holekamp, senior lecturer in entrepreneurship at Olin Business School, teaches the course at the school’s office/classroom space at T-REX. This is the second year it has been offered through the school’s Center for Experiential Learning, led by Ron King, PhD, the Myron Northrop Professor of Accounting.

“Students retain more knowledge when they have the opportunity to apply the concepts they are learning,” Holekamp said about the course format. “Our driving principle in the CELect course is impact. We want to impact the depth of our students’ learning, while at the same time helping our students make a positive impact on the trajectory of these startup businesses.”

T‐REX provides startup entrepreneurs with low cost and flexible enterprise space, while serving the region with quality programming and an inspiring community. Two years after its inception, T-REX occupies 80,000 square feet and growing. It is now home to more than 80 startups, including iTEN, Capital Innovators, Cultivation Capital, SixThirty and Arch Grants, and is home to many other entrepreneurial activities, including Startup Weekend and StartLouis.

“My experience before business school is somewhat unconventional, so having tangible success stories in the business world is immensely helpful in my career search,” said MBA student David Heller, explaining his decision to take the course. “The general concept of business development can translate into a number of roles, so even though CELect works with startups, the results apply to the broader business world.”

Sean Morris, CEO of Pulse Therapeutics Inc., said his company chose to participate in the course because of a need for good analytics that lead to good data.

“Washington University is full of bright students, and my interactions with them thus far have not disappointed,” Morris said.

“We are a St. Louis-based startup enterprise. My mantra is that it takes an entire village to raise a child. While I need the help and support now, I intend to give it back exponentially as we succeed,” Morris said.

“We need to build a talent pool here, and by interacting with the university and exposing young adults to the exciting world of health-care innovation, we really serve to have a positive impact by building a strong ecosystem that will be sustainable for decades to come.”

The course will conclude with final project presentations in late April.

“The CELect course provides a unique learning experience for students by embedding them in the real-time challenge of a startup, yet under the supervision of a faculty mentor,” King said. “In addition, the impact to the startup firm is substantial and allows new objective insights for the entrepreneur.”

Campus Author: New Book Explores Boundaries of Colorism

Timothy Fox — 2014-02-05 00:00:00

Norwood

For Kimberly Jade Norwood, Washington University professor of law and African & African American studies, the topic of her newly released book, Color Matters: Skin Tone Bias and the Myth of a Postracial America (Routledge, 2013), strikes close to home.

“One day, my youngest daughter came home from school and said that she ‘wished she had the cool skin,’” Norwood recalls. “When I asked what she meant by ‘the cool skin,’ she said, ‘More pink.’”

What her daughter was expressing was “colorism”—not racism that exists between blacks and whites, but something even more insidious, pervasive, and difficult to overcome: the preference, even among people of color, for lighter skin, Norwood recalls.

“Even my oldest daughter, who was then in high school, used to lament about the preference among African American males her age for fairer and lighter-skinned girls, especially those who also have long and flowing hair,” she says.

However, it wasn’t until she visited China that Norwood decided to dedicate herself to studying colorism.

“My first day in Shanghai, I noticed that on beautiful sunny days many people, particularly women, were walking around carrying umbrellas,” she says. “When I asked my Fudan University chaperones about this, one of them told me that the purpose of the umbrellas was to block the sun. After all, the student added, ‘Who wants to be dark?’”

As the two locked eyes with each other in the stunned silence that followed—Norwood has a chocolate colored skin tone—Norwood realized that she wanted to formally contribute to exposing the harm of colorism. From that moment on, her “antennae were even more sharply perked.” Throughout her time in China, she noticed that the working classes there appeared to have darker skin tones, while the more well-to-do people and professionals were lighter in skin tone. Virtually every image of females on television, on billboards, and in advertising portrayed Asian women with barely a hint of their Asianness. From the color of their skin to the shape of their noses, eyes, and lips, white beauty was on display.

“It astounded me! I was in a nation of people of color who rejected that distinction,” Norwood says. “Colorism is also huge in India. India and China together make up a third of the world’s population. Do you know what that means? That means at least a third of the world population is literally uncomfortable in their own skin. That reality overwhelmed me.” After encouragement from a colleague, Norwood decided to put together an anthology about colorism. She convinced 12 authors—including two research assistants, third-year law student Violeta Foreman and recent alumna Adrienne Johnson, JD ’13—to submit 9 essays on various aspects of colorism in local communities, in the United States, and throughout the world. Norwood wrote the introduction and two essays.

“Colorism is everywhere, even in food preferences,” she says. “Consider white rice, white bread, white potatoes, white meat in chicken. Even nuts! Take pistachios, for example. China is the world’s largest consumer of pistachios. There, the nuts are bleached to destroy the natural caramel colored shell in order to make them lighter and thus more appealing. As people interviewed about the two colors uniformly remarked, ‘Lighter is better,’" Norwood observes. “It’s a bias that you see everywhere, from Jamaica to the Philippines to Europe to the United States. White imagery is omnipresent and advanced as supreme. White represents power, success, desirability, and many people think, ‘I want that!’ Unfortunately, ‘that’ often translates not into wanting just what those people have (money, power, prestige, love), but rather actually wanting that lighter skin. The thinking is that lighter skin means a better life.”

Given that, how does Norwood explain the popularity of tanning beds in the United States?

“I have a few responses,” she says. “Tanning beds are not popular among brown or darker skinned people. The people most injured by colorism are not running to the tanning salons. In fact, many of those people are the ones who are bleaching their skin, at considerable risk to their health, to be lighter. Tans are temporary. Dabbling with darkness is sexy, exotic, fun. It’s a nice experiment. It isn’t one’s reality, though. Finally, we can’t forget that tanned white skin in this country currently is associated with wealth, and thus one’s status.” As Norwood establishes in the anthology, colonization has had a significant impact on colorism around the world. Indeed, “most formerly colonized countries took on the values and culture of the colonizer such that, even today, while independence reigns in many of these formerly colonized nations, the culture and values—including the symbiotic connection between white skin and power—remain firmly embedded within them.”

Colorism in the United States is especially complex, Norwood adds. In terms of African Americans, colorism in this country can be traced back more than 300 years. During slavery, sexual unions between slave women and white male slave owners produced "mulattos"—children, half black, half white—who were often lighter in skin tone.

Those children, while still slaves, often were preferred over their darker skinned counterparts. They were taught to read, taught skills, brought into the house to work, and often were able to sell their services, secure their own freedom, and eventually own their own property—including slaves of their own.

During Reconstruction, biracial and multiracial people were also often better equipped to transition to freedom. Ironically, their “privileged” status set them so apart from their darker skinned counterparts. Many went on to establish separate communities, neighborhoods, associations, and schools.

“The famous ‘paper bag’ tests, ‘blue vein’ societies, and ‘ruler’ tests were proof of the perpetuation of the value of light skin,” Norwood says. “And in many circles, circumstances, and situations today, this preference continues to be played out.”

Norwood’s book demonstrates that colorism touches every corner of society, especially the law. “In the United States, darker skinned men and women are more likely to be arrested, convicted, and sentenced to death than their lighter skinned counterparts. Juries view (and therefore value the credibility of) people differently based on the color of the defendant’s skin, the witness’s skin, and the lawyer’s skin. Employment decisions, hirings, promotions, and demotions often can be traced to colorism,” she says.

Colorism is even practiced by children. In the early 1950s, the plaintiffs in the Brown v. Board of Education case used the famous “doll study,” conducted by psychologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark, to help establish the detrimental effects of segregation on the attitude and esteem of young black children at the time. The children were asked to comment on two dolls, one black and one white. With stunning unanimity, black children associated positive feelings and connotations with the white doll, and negative connotations with the black doll.

In 2010, CNN hired renowned child psychologist Margaret Beale Spencer to create and perform a 21st century version of that famous study. This time, however, black and white children, including a preschooler, were used in the experiment. The 2010 results were virtually identical for children of both races. Some of the children’s parents were shocked to see not only their kids associating positive images and attributes to the white images, but also associating negative feelings toward the darker images.

“The parents said, ‘But we never talk about race at home. We teach them that we are all the same.’ And therein lies the problem,” Norwood says. “Not only does race matter, but color matters also. And even children as young as three know this to be true.

“Our task with the book is to bring colorism to the conscious level and to have open dialogue about it,” Norwood says. “We are not the first group of authors to raise this issue. Colorism is centuries years old. Yet, we find ourselves in this place where the practiced reality continues to be that lighter is better. It is an accepted and almost unquestioned norm. It is so engrained in our collective DNA that it thrives virtually undetected.

“I can’t tell you how many people tell me that this either isn’t a problem or doesn’t exist,” she continues. “Even many black, brown, and beige people, in the United States and throughout the world, make the same conclusions. In reality, though, societies are not colorblind. We live in a very colored world that is built upon a color caste system where dark people are relegated to life at the lowest levels of society. And the color caste is poised to become sharper, clearer, and more impenetrable. We hope to add our voices to the call toward the eradication of this growing form of discrimination.”

Vetta Sanders Thompson, PhD, associate professor of the Brown School, has researched this topic as well and contributes a chapter that moves the idea of colorism beyond skin color.

"Every marginalized ethnic group has issues with physical identification which includes the color of their skin," Thompson says. "Physical features such as color and texture of hair, contours of the face and nose, body shape — all of these things relate to colorism. Skin color is almost never considered without some attention to these other physical features. The chapter I've written for the book suggests that while issues of race are reduced, they linger in other ways.

"I agree with Kim in that racial bias will continue to diminish, but colorism will not unless we focus on the issue," Thompson says.

In addition to Thompson, other contributors to the book are: Taunya Banks, Kira Hudson Banks, Kevin D. Brown, Kellina Craig-Henderson, Paul Finkelman, Ronald Hall, Richard D. Harvey, Adrienne Johnson and Rachel E. Tennial.

View book on Amazon here

'Half the Sky' author to explain how to turn oppression into opportunity for women worldwide for next Assembly Series

Barbara Rea — 2014-02-05 00:00:00

WuDunn

Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Sheryl WuDunn will present an Assembly Series address, “Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide,” at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 11, in Graham Chapel on Washington University in St. Louis' Danforth Campus.

A booksigning will follow in the Women’s Building Formal Lounge. Both events are free and open to the public.

WuDunn’s lecture is sponsored by the undergraduate student governing body, Student Union, the WUSTL student group Half the Sky and co-sponsored by the Gephardt Institute for Public Service and the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government and Public Policy.

WuDunn is a best-selling author, business leader and lecturer who studies and writes about the economic, political and social forces affecting women throughout the globe. She is also a co-author, with her husband, Nicholas Kristof, of "Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide."

But "Half the Sky" is more than a book; it also is a powerful social justice and economic movement that is positively affecting millions of women’s lives throughout the globe, and WuDunn is leading the development of a multimedia effort to support "Half the Sky" initiatives.

In addition, WuDunn is president of TripleEdge, a social investing consultancy, and also works as a director with Mid-Market Securities, an investment banking firm serving the middle market.

She has had extensive experience at The New York Times, in both executive and journalistic roles, first as a correspondent in its Beijing bureau. With Kristof, she has authored two additional best-sellers about Asia: "Thunder from the East" and "China Wakes." The couple received a Pulitzer Prize for international reporting in 1990 for their coverage of the Tiananmen Square protests.

WuDunn earned a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University, an MBA from Harvard University, and a master's in public affairs from Princeton University.

For information regarding this and other programs, visit the Assembly Series page or call 314-935-4620.

Nanopore Diagnostics wins Olin Cup

Neil Schoenherr — 2014-02-05 00:00:00

http://youtu.be/lOhd_5xn8AQ

Founded by WUSTL post-doctoral research scholar Tom Cohen and PhD/MBA student Benjamin Borgo, the Nanopore Diagnostic team won this year's Olin Cup prize and $50,000 in seed investment during a Jan. 30 ceremony highlighted by remarks from David Karandish (BS '05), CEO of Answers Corp. Nanopore is developing a test to fight the spread of antibiotic resistance. The test, which takes 20 minutes to read, will identify if the patient can benefit from antibiotics, and which one to prescribe.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, antimicrobial resistance is one our most serious health threats, with infections from resistant bacteria becoming far too common. Part of the problem is over-prescription of antibiotics.

Nanopore Diagnostics hopes to change that.

Founded by Washington University in St. Louis post-doctoral research scholar Tom Cohen and PhD/MBA student Benjamin Borgo, the company won this year’s Olin Cup prize and $50,000 in seed investment during a ceremony highlighted by remarks from David Karandish (BS ’05), CEO of Answers Corp.

Borgo also was awarded the $5,000 cash student prize. The team’s third partner is Christoph Bausch.

Nanopore is developing a test to fight the spread of antibiotic resistance. The test, which takes 20 minutes to read, will identify whether the patient can benefit from antibiotics, and if so, which one to prescribe.

“It feels pretty exciting to have won,” Cohen said. “I was actually a competitor last year and made it to the finals. Through this entire process, the Olin Cup competition has provided a lot to us. It’s not only the feedback you get from the judges, but also the way the Olin Cup links you with mentors throughout the process. Much of the network we’ve been able to build and utilize to gain traction in St. Louis has come through those connections.”

In his keynote address, Karandish spoke of his attempts to start seven different businesses before graduating from WUSTL. He said all of the attempts were failures, and he and his business partner and classmate Chris Sims did not have jobs when they graduated. He spoke of the seven years of “fasting” before founding AFCV Holdings, now known as Answers, and the seven years of “feasting” since then.

He concluded by saying the experience taught him and Sims the important entrepreneurial skills of building key partnerships, picking the right business model, capital structure and product distribution.

“The skills you learn as you try and fail are the building blocks of your ultimate success,” Karandish said. “Keep at it, and the skills will drive you toward success.”

The event also included remarks from Mark Pydynowski (BSBA ’04), who won the 2005 Olin Cup. Mark returned on behalf of all Olin Cup past participants to express his thanks and appreciation to Ken Harrington, managing director of the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, who plans to leave the university in August.

In announcing the Olin Cup winners, Harrington thanked Pydynowski and commented on the growth of the entrepreneurial community in St. Louis.

“The Skandalaris Center supports entrepreneurs at the idea stage and helps smart people run into each other so good things happen,” Harrington said. “As more entrepreneurs try, the community gets smarter, and more people will be successful like David and Chris, who in turn provide financial and mentoring support to startups. Our Olin Cup companies are getting better every year.”

In addition to Nanopore, two finalist teams received $20,000 each in seed funding:

Genetix Fusion, a company developing the next generation of transfection kits for biomedical researchers, and SynerZ Medical, which is developing an outpatient device for treatment of obesity and type 2 diabetes.

Olin Business School is the Skandalaris Center’s partner in the Olin Cup, with additional sponsorship from the law firm Polsinelli, accounting firm RubinBrown, the St. Louis Regional Chamber, and Lopata, Flegel & Co.

SCOTUS preview: First Amendment expert on legislative prayer and the “mistakes of the past, present and future”

Dylan Kickham — 2014-02-03 00:00:00

The Supreme Court is expected to rule this spring on whether prayers before town hall meetings violate the First Amendment clause that prohibits the establishment of religion.

In Town of Greece v. Galloway, two local citizens of the New York town who frequently attended board meetings are arguing that the opening prayers at these meetings left them, as non-Christians, feeling coerced to participate and isolated. The town has responded that anyone, regardless of faith tradition or beliefs, could volunteer to recite a prayer and there was never any intentional exclusion.

Inazu

John Inazu, a First Amendment expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, highlights one dimension of the litigation often unaddressed by commentators: what he calls the “mistakes of the past, present and future” adopted by proponents of legislative prayer.

The mistake of the past refers to “the nostalgic impulse to return to an earlier era of religiously infused political life,” he says. “As prominent American religious historians have stated, ‘early America does not deserve to be uniquely, distinctly or even predominantly Christian, if we mean by the word ‘Christian’ a state of society reflecting the ideals presented in Scripture.’”

Inazu says the mistake of the present is ascribing greater significance to the presence of religious language than to the context in which the language is used.

He uses the example of the 2010 remake of the 1985 song We Are the World, which sparked outrage for omitting a line mentioning God in the original. “While several people angrily commented that the remake showed a movement away from God, they did not seem to know that the original line – stating God turned stone to bread – is actually heresy,” he says. “The commentators cared more about having God’s name in the song than having it used in correct context.”

Finally, Inazu describes the mistake of the future as using too much energy on legislative prayer battles and distracting from other priorities. “Religious believers who expend political capital and litigation resources to preserve civic rituals and secular liturgies may be doing so at the cost of ignoring far more direct threats to the freedom of the church,” he says.

“In the end, the church should be asking what it would benefit from such a case, as it can flourish without such entanglements.”

A decision in Town of Greece v. Galloway is expected by June 2014.

Super Bowl ads last months, not just one day

Neil Schoenherr — 2014-01-28 00:00:00

Wikimedia Commons

Gather around, the game is on! Super Bowl ads today aren't just watched on television, but promote engagement through social media and other Internet and mobile channels.

Commercials for the commercials? Arnold Schwarzenegger in tennis gear? A "Full House" reunion? Must be Super Bowl time.

"It's interesting to see the experience of the Super Bowl ads lasting eight to 13 weeks on average today compared to one day of viewing the ads years ago,” said Carol Johanek, adjunct professor of marketing at Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School.

“For the first time, YouTube is actually dedicating a channel for viewers to see the full commercials prior to the game.”

For advertisers, more ads mean more views and hopefully more engagement with potential customers.

It’s a social event

“The increased exposure of both the teasers and the full commercials continues to impact the number of average views to the brands' websites, allowing the brands to converse with their consumers,” Johanek said. “The ads continue to spearhead social media strategies primarily looking to engage the brand's segment, adding Instagram to the mix of tools being used.”

Instagram and Twitter hashtags continue to be utilized by brands to engage in conversation about the ads and to measure the level of communication taking place, she said.

The celebrity factor

Celebrities once again will be a strong presence in the spots, Johanek said, with Arnold Schwarzenegger (Bud Light), John Stamos (Oikos) and Scarlett Johansson (Dolce and Gabbana) being some of the new ones this year. A Dannon commercial will bank on the nostalgia factor by reuniting some of the cast from from the 1990s hit television show "Full House."

“Viewers can also expect to see lots of animals and young kids due to their continued success in evoking emotions and raising overall attention of the brand to the consumer,” Johanek said.

WUSTL privacy law expert says Obama’s surveillance reforms a good but incomplete start

Dylan Kickham — 2014-01-27 00:00:00

3.5 out of 12 -- That is the score the Electronic Frontier Foundation gave President Obama’s highly anticipated address on NSA spying last week. And while lauding Obama for recognizing the dangers of government surveillance and the importance of discussing it, Washington University in St. Louis privacy law expert Neil Richards agrees that the president did not quite go far enough to protect individual privacy.

“Missing entirely from the president’s promises was any repudiation of the third-party doctrine, which denies Fourth Amendment protection of data shared with anyone else,” Richards said.

“Also missing was protection for whistleblowers such as Edward Snowden, without whom we would not be having this urgent conversation.”

Richards explains that while Obama’s proposed reforms are a good but incomplete start, he is also concerned that they will not take effect, since without congressional action they can “easily be abandoned by a change of mind or a change of administration.”

Richards, a professor of law at WUSTL, asserts that what the country really needs right now is permanent and explicitly laid-out reform. “Clear and understandable laws that give our security services appropriate but limited powers and that protect privacy for the vast majority can be good for everyone [including the government],” Richards said.

“Obama’s speech could not have come at a better time, and our obligation now is to ensure that we institute effective and permanent legal reform to protect our civil liberties.”

Read more of Neil Richards commentary in the Boston Review at http://www.bostonreview.net/blog/richards-nsa-obama-surveillance.

Bunderson to lead executive programs at Olin Business School

2014-01-23 00:00:00

Stuart Bunderson, PhD, the George and Carol Bauer Professor of Organizational Ethics and Governance, has accepted an appointment as associate dean of executive programs at Washington University in St. Louis' Olin Business School. He will assume this role March 1.

Bunderson

In his new position, Bunderson will be responsible for providing strategic direction and overseeing operations and administration of Executive MBA and nondegree Executive Education programs.

earned a bachelor's degree in psychology (with honors) and a master's in organizational behavior (with highest honors) from Brigham Young University, and he earned a doctorate in organizational behavior from the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management.

Before pursuing his academic career, Bunderson worked in organization and management development at PepsiCo Inc. He has worked closely with a wide range of leading companies in his executive teaching, consulting and collaborative research activities. Bunderson also has published extensively in top academic journals and has served in editorial positions for those journals.

Sam Chun, PhD, senior lecturer in management practice, will continue in his role as interim associate dean for executive programs until Feb. 28.

Recent immigration agency chief counsel criticizes House leadership for stalling immigration reform

2014-01-22 00:00:00

Legomsky

“The House leadership’s procedural excuses for blocking a vote on critical immigration reform make little sense,” said Stephen Legomsky, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis and the recent chief counsel of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). In that position, he worked intensively with White House and DHS officials and played a major role on comprehensive immigration reform proposals. “It’s now been seven months since the Senate passed a bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform bill. Speaker Boehner should allow the people’s elected representatives in the House to consider it without further delay,” Legomsky argued.

The House leadership prefers a piecemeal approach to the immigration reform bill. It believes the Senate bill is too long.

“That’s fine,” Legomsky said. “Whether it passes one long bill with five parts or five separate bills doesn’t matter, as long as the legislative package ultimately covers the same ground. The point is that the House has done neither, despite having had seven months to study and debate the Senate bill.”

At any rate, Legomsky noted, “there’s no way to avoid length or complexity. Immigration law covers a broad territory. It includes the admission of permanent residents and 22 categories of temporary visitors, as well as the corresponding procedures; the grounds and procedures for deportation; border and interior enforcement; employer sanctions; the substance and process for refugee admissions; the rules for acquiring and losing U.S. citizenship; and many related issues. The basic framework hasn’t been overhauled for 60 years, while the nation’s demographic, economic and social structures have changed radically.”

“So size, complexity, and time do not excuse inaction. The real debate is, or should be, about substance. The House Republicans viscerally oppose legalization, or ‘amnesty’ as they like to call it. They argue that legalization should not even be considered for several years, until massive new enforcement measures (which the Senate bill provides) have been implemented. They worry that otherwise the administration will grant legalization while ignoring enforcement.”

“This is an odd claim to make against an administration that has been harshly criticized by the left for record deportations of almost 400,000 per year,” Legomsky observed. He argues there is no reason to wait and abundant reason not to.

First, he points out, “virtually everyone agrees that the current undocumented population is here to stay. The overwhelming majority of our current undocumented residents have remained even during the recent economic downturn; they’re not going to leave now. Nor have even the most enforcement-minded argued that 11 million people could realistically be found, apprehended, arrested, detained, prosecuted, judged and physically removed.”

“So the real question is whether we’re better off having this population continue to live in the shadows or out in the open. Right now we don’t know who they are or where they live. We don’t know their histories. We do know that their vulnerability gives unscrupulous employers the opportunity to pay them low wages and subject them to abusive working conditions – a strong incentive to hire them over U.S. workers. Legalization would eliminate that incentive.”

Critics also maintain that granting legalization will encourage more illegal immigration. Legomsky disputes this. “The Senate’s proposal would limit legalization to people who had already arrived by a specified past date. Nobody who comes in the future will qualify, and no one would have any reason to expect Congress to pass yet another legalization right on the heels of this one. The last major legalization, after all, was 27 years ago.”

Legomsky acknowledges one other concern about legalization – that it would be unfair to those who “play by the rules.” Some critics admonish undocumented immigrants to go home, apply through legal channels, and wait their turn like everyone else.

“That impulse is understandable,” Legomsky conceded, “but it rests on a common misconception about U.S. immigration law. To immigrate legally to the United States, it’s not enough to have an unblemished record and a willingness to wait in line. Our law allow only a few specific groups to qualify -- mainly those reuniting with certain close U.S. family members; those with particular occupational skills needed in the U.S. economy; and refugees. If you are not in one of those categories or a few smaller ones, you cannot legally immigrate to the United States – no matter how law-abiding and productive you might be or how long you’ve waited.”

He adds, “most undocumented immigrants would be delighted to wait in line for a legally recognized status. The problem is that there simply isn’t any line for them to wait in. The Senate bill would create such a line and put them at the back of it – behind all those who have applied through current legal channels. And it would fine them heavily.”

Legomsky calls the Senate bill “a carefully balanced, thoroughly debated, bipartisan effort that would dramatically bolster enforcement, reform our outdated selection criteria, and address the current problem of 11 million undocumented residents.” He called on Boehner to “let his members vote.”

Stephen Legomsky

Legomsky is a professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. He has taught immigration law for 30 years and has written several academic books and articles on the subject. His law school immigration coursebook, now in its fifth edition, has been adopted as the required text for immigration courses at 176 U.S. law schools. In addition to his recently completed stint as chief counsel of USCIS, he has testified before Congress several times and has been an adviser to President George H.W. Bush’s Commissioner of Immigration, President Clinton’s transition team on immigration, President Obama’s transition team on immigration, several foreign governments, and the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees.

Law lecture series continues with leaders in racial justice and immigration

Dylan Kickham — 2014-01-17 00:00:00

Federal appellate Judge Bernice Donald, JD, president of the American Bar Foundation, and Thomas A. Saenz, JD, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), will be the next speakers for the 16th annual School of Law Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series.

Donald, the law school's 2014 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Speaker, will present "From the Struggle for Civil Rights to Strivings in 'Post-Racial America,'" at noon Thursday, Jan. 30; Saenz will present "America's Critical Immigrant Workforce: The Evolving Legal Landscape" at noon Thursday, Feb. 27. Both talks will be at noon in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom (No. 310) of Anheuser-Busch Hall at Washington University in St. Louis.

Donald

Donald, of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, is the first African American and the second woman to lead the American Bar Foundation in its 60-year history. During her tenure, she founded the American Bar Association Spirit of Excellence Award to honor the accomplishments of lawyers of color who work to promote a more racially and ethnically diverse legal profession. In 2011, Donald herself won the award. Donald's lecture is co-sponsored by Jurist-in-Residence, the Black Law Students Association and the Women's Law Caucus.

Saenz

Saenz, a nationally recognized civil rights attorney and former counsel to Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, has negotiated important legislative initiatives and litigated significant civil rights cases in the areas of immigrants’ rights, employment, education, affirmative action and voting rights. He was a leader in successful negotiations involving funding for the Los Angeles public schools and city employees.

He successfully challenged as unconstitutional California’s Proposition 187, a ballot initiative to establish a state-run citizenship screening system and prohibit “illegal aliens” from using health care, public education and other social services in California. He also served as MALDEF’s lead counsel in litigation involving California’s Proposition 227, English-only education initiative. Saenz's lecture is co-sponsored by the law school Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Work & Social Capital, the Latin America Public Interest Law Initiative, the Latin American Law Student Association and the Immigration Law Society.

The yearlong Public Interest Law & Policy Speakers Series brings to WUSTL nationally and internationally prominent experts in such areas as civil rights, racial justice, capital punishment and immigration, with the goal of fostering interdisciplinary conversations across the university and the community about the social, political and economic issues involved in access to justice.

The 2013-14 series features judges, lawyers, authors and academics with expertise in public interest law and policy.

Lectures are free and open to the public.

For a full list of the 2013-14 speakers, visit here.

Business schools in St. Louis, South Korea launch global finance program

Melody Walker — 2014-01-16 00:00:00

http://youtu.be/G-PEbUZvXoQ

Watch to learn more about the Global Master of Finance dual-degree program offered by Washington University in St. Louis and Yonsei University.

Washington University in St. Louis and Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, are partnering to offer a unique learning experience to master the complex world of business by earning two degrees on two continents in their new Global Master of Finance dual-degree program. Graduates of this fast-paced, 14-month comprehensive program will earn a master's degree in finance from WUSTL and a global master's in business administration from Yonsei.

Mahendra R. Gupta, PhD, dean of Olin Business School (left), and Young-Ryeol Park, PhD, dean of Yonsei School of Business, hold their schools' official agreement, singed in December 2013, creating the Global Master of Finance Dual Degree Program.

“Specialized knowledge and training are mandatory for today’s business professionals,” said Mahendra R. Gupta, PhD, dean of WUSTL's Olin Business School and the Geraldine J. and Robert L. Virgil Professor of Accounting and Management. “This program will emphasize both academic rigor and practical applications. Our partnership with Yonsei doubles the benefits for students in terms of faculty, alumni and industry networks in Asia and the U.S.”

Two top-ranked business schools

The Economist ranks Yonsei University’s Global MBA as the best in Korea and fourth in Asia. The Financial Times ranks Olin Business School’s Master of Finance program No. 1 in the U.S. and in the top 25 globally.

“Yonsei University is excited to further our longstanding partnership with Washington University in St. Louis by launching the dual-degree program,” said Young-Ryeol Park, PhD, dean of Yonsei School of Business. “This program will provide students the opportunity to gain real global experience through both academic and practical education in the world’s leading business schools.”

Faculty members from both universities and industry experts from around the world will teach in the dual-degree program. Courses will cover emerging markets, business strategy, entrepreneurship, negotiation, international finance and risk management. Each student cohort will be diverse and international. Students will spend the first and final semesters at Olin Business School in St. Louis and three semesters in Seoul at Yonsei University.

Curriculum includes immersion courses in New York and Washington, D.C., that explore U.S. financial markets, policymaking, legislative processes, enforcement agencies and the Federal Reserve.

The courses in Washington, D.C., are offered in collaboration with Brookings Executive Education, part of The Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization. WUSTL successfully launched a similar dual-degree program with Singapore Management University in 2013.

A half-century of partnership

The business schools at WUSTL and Yonsei have a long history of partnership that began more than 50 years ago. Between 1958 and 1962, Washington University’s business school, under the auspices of the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Overseas Mission, worked with Yonsei and two other Korean universities to bring together experienced businessmen, academic authorities and advanced graduate students to modernize Korean business practices.

Student-exchange programs also were established at that time. Ja Song was one of the first Korean exchange students in 1958. He became a professor, dean of Yonsei business school, and then president of the university in 1992. Song was named minister of education in South Korea in 2000.

To learn more about the Global Master of Finance dual-degree program, visit here.

Cordells endow visiting professorship in School of Law

Barbara Rea — 2014-01-16 00:00:00

Mary Butkus/WUSTL Photos

Joseph and Yvonne Cordell

Washington University School of Law alumni Joseph E. and Yvonne L. Cordell have made a $1 million gift commitment to establish and endow the Cordell & Cordell Visiting Professorship in the law school.

The gift will support an established legal scholar and teacher who demonstrates a commitment to adding a diverse voice to legal education, including one that represents a conservative and/or libertarian viewpoint. The Cordells hope the visiting professorship also will attract a strong scholar and teacher who is committed to public service, pro bono work, and/or activities that support family values and the community.

“This very generous gift speaks directly to the university’s commitment to breadth in our academic offerings,” Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton said. “I am very grateful to Joseph and Yvonne Cordell for supporting a plurality of legal opinion in the law school, which will serve our students well as they move into their chosen careers.”

“This is a remarkable gift from a dedicated couple that supports the law school’s commitment to providing a world-class legal education for our students,” said Daniel L. Keating, JD, Tyrrell Williams Professor of Law and interim dean of the law school.

The Cordells serve as volunteers for Leading Together: The Campaign for Washington University, and Yvonne Cordell also has provided volunteer support for the law school’s Scholarship Initiative. They have funded the Cordell & Cordell Annual Scholarship in the law school for the past five years.

Couple forms law firm focused on family law

Yvonne L. Cordell (JD '88) and Joseph E. Cordell, JD (LLM '08) are co-founders of Cordell & Cordell, the largest family law firm in the country specializing in the representation of men in family court law. Based in St. Louis, the firm has grown from one office in 1990 to more than 150 attorneys in more than 70 offices today.

The idea for the firm developed when Joseph Cordell realized that about 98 percent of the firm’s clients were men and recognized a need for “a level playing field in divorce courts.” He not only co-founded the firm but also is chief executive officer and executive partner. He is a recognized expert in the specialized area of protecting and promoting fathers’ rights throughout the divorce court process.

He has authored two books, "Your Civil War: A Father’s Guide to Winning Child Custody" and "The 10 Stupidest Mistakes Men Make When Facing Divorce." He also has created and regularly contributes to the popular websites DadsDivorce.com and MensRights.com.

True to her philosophy of giving back to the community, Yvonne Cordell directs Teen Challenge of St. Louis, the local arm of a national organization that provides care for young men with addictions and other life-controlling problems.

Yvonne Cordell received her undergraduate education at Illinois State University, followed by her law degree from Washington University in St. Louis. Joseph Cordell graduated from Oklahoma State University, then went on to receive his JD from the University of Texas at Austin before earning his LLM in taxation from WUSTL.

How effective are renewable energy subsidies?

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-12-23 00:00:00

Renewable energy subsidies have been a politically popular program over the past decade. These subsidies have led to explosive growth in wind power installations across the United States, especially in the Midwest and Texas.

But do these subsidies work?

Not as well as one might think, finds a new study from Washington University in St. Louis' Olin Business School.

The "social costs" of carbon dioxide would have to be greater than $42 per ton in order for the environmental benefits of wind power to have out weighed the costs of subsidies, finds Joseph Cullen, PhD, assistant professor economics and expert on environmental regulation and energy markets.

The social cost of carbon is the marginal cost to society of emitting one extra ton of carbon (as carbon dioxide) at any point in time.

The current social cost of carbon estimates, released in November and projected for 2015, range from $12 to $116 per ton of additional carbon dioxide emissions. The prior version, from 2010, had a range between $7 and $81 per ton of carbon dioxide. The estimates are expected to rise in the coming decades.

Cullen's findings are explained in a paper titled "Measuring the Environmental Benefits of Wind-Generated Electricity" in American Economic Journal: Economic Policy.

"Given the lack of a national climate legislation, renewable energy subsidies are likely to be continued to be used as one of the major policy instruments for mitigating carbon dioxide emissions in the near future," Cullen says. "As such, it's imperative that we gain a better understanding of the impact of subsidization on emissions."

Joseph Cullen

Since electricity produced by wind is emission free, the development of wind-power may reduce aggregate pollution by offsetting production from fossil fuel generated electricity production. When low marginal cost wind-generated electricity enters the grid, higher marginal cost fossil fuel generators will reduce their output.

However, emission rates of fossil fuel generators vary greatly by generator (coal-fired, natural gas, nuclear, hydropower). Thus, the quantity of emissions offset by wind power will depend crucially on which generators reduce their output, Cullen says.

The quantity of pollutants offset by wind power depends crucially on which generators reduce production when wind power comes online.

Cullen's paper introduces an approach to empirically measure the environmental contribution of wind power resulting from these production offsets.

"By exploiting the quasi-experimental variation in wind power production driven by weather fluctuations, it is possible to identify generator specific production offsets due to wind power," Cullen says.

Importantly, dynamics play a critical role in the estimation procedure, he finds.

"Failing to account for dynamics in generator operations leads to overly optimistic estimates of emission offsets," Cullen says. "Although a static model would indicate that wind has a significant impact on the operation of coal generators, the results from a dynamic model show that wind power only crowds out electricity production fueled by natural gas."

The model was used to estimate wind power offsets for generators on the Texas electricity grid. The results showed that one mega watt hour of wind power production offsets less than half a ton of carbon dioxide, almost one pound of nitrogen oxide, and no discernible amount of sulfur dioxide.

"As a benchmark for the economic benefits of renewable subsidies, I compared the value of offset emissions to the cost of subsidizing wind farms for a range of possible emission values," Cullen says. "I found that the value of subsidizing wind power is driven primarily by carbon dioxide offsets, but that the social costs of carbon dioxide would have to be greater than $42 per ton in order for the environmental benefits of wind power to have out weighed the costs of subsidies."

Spot-on NSA ruling rightfully questions effectiveness of phone surveillance, privacy law expert says

Jessica Martin — 2013-12-18 00:00:00

Richards

U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon’s recent decision ruling the National Security Agency phone surveillance program unconstitutional is absolutely correct as a matter of law, said Neil M. Richards, JD, privacy law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.

“The bulk data collection at issue in the case reveals a tremendous amount about us – who we know, who we confide in, where we go, and with whom,” he said.

“It’s exactly the sort of information that should require a warrant before the government obtains it.”

Richards was struck by Leon’s willingness to question whether this surveillance program was effective.

“All too often over the past decade, we’ve seen politicians, judges and citizens take the government at its vague word that surveillance is useful without asking the hard questions about how useful particular kinds of surveillance are, and what we are losing in exchange,” he said.

“Asking hard questions may seem disrespectful or like it is getting in the way of officials doing their job, but it is essential. In a democracy, the people (and their elected and appointed representatives) have a duty to ask what the government is doing in their name, and what the costs of those actions are.

“The Snowden revelations started a conversation in this country and around the globe about what kinds of government surveillance are appropriate in a democracy, and I think this case (which will likely end up in the Supreme Court) will be an essential part of that conversation.

Richards said it is unfortunate that the specter of terrorism has caused most people to be highly deferential to any question of national security at the same time that the digital revolution is permitting kinds of surveillance that would have been politically and technically impossible as recently as 15 years ago.

“It’s also revealed — as Judge Leon noted — that many of our legal rules and precedents presuppose a nondigital, analog world,” Richards said.

“I’m hopeful that our conversation about these questions will produce not just litigation but legislation that is tailored to our new technologies. These new laws should allow government surveillance where it is appropriate, but place meaningful constraints on the government’s ability to peer into the lives of ordinary people. These sorts of issues are exactly why we have laws – a set of rules that allow the government limited powers to do its job, but which protect the vital civil liberties our system of self-government is supposed to cherish.”

Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic files amicus brief in U.S. Supreme Court

2013-12-11 00:00:00

Students and faculty in the Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic (IEC) at Washington University School of Law in St. Louis have filed an amicus brief on behalf of air pollution scientists in an important environmental case before the U.S. Supreme Court. The case, EPA v. EME Homer City Generation LP, involves a challenge to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), which seeks to protect the health of citizens of downwind states by placing limits on air pollution that crosses state lines. Electric power companies and several states and local governments challenged the rule as overreaching.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case Dec. 10 and will rule in coming months. The court took the unusual step of extending oral argument by an additional 30 minutes, underscoring the significance and complexity of this case.

“The Supreme Court will have to decide whether EPA acted within its authority under the Clean Air Act when it required upwind states to control the amount of air pollution they send across the country,” said IEC attorney Liz Hubertz, JD, who filed the brief in support of EPA’s rule.

Added IEC scientist Ken Miller, who also worked on the brief: “Interstate air transport of pollutants is a thorny technical problem. The EPA rule, developed after careful consideration of alternatives and extensive air quality and transport modeling, is a reasonable scientific solution for apportioning and controlling cross-border pollution.”

Third-year law student Raya Rivera and fellow IEC clinic student Jennifer Elwell, a senior in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, contributed to the brief as well. The brief contains the arguments of 12 leading atmospheric scientists and air-quality modeling experts from such leading universities as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford, Columbia and Duke.

The scientists explain why the approach the EPA used to quantify upwind states’ significant contributions to air pollution in downwind states and determine upwind states’ emissions reduction obligations is a scientifically reasonable way to meet the interstate pollution requirements of the Clean Air Act. Many environmental and public health groups, such as the American Lung Association, as well as a number of cities and states support the EPA rule.

EPA promulgated the CSAPR rule in 2011, and it was immediately challenged in federal court. In 2012, in a 2-1 decision, the D.C. Circuit federal appeals court held that the EPA exceeded its authority under the Clean Air Act when the EPA failed to heed what the opinion called “red lines,” or constraints imposed by the statute itself, thereby leading to “overcontrol” of cross-state pollution in some upwind states. Judge Judith W. Rogers, in a passionate dissent, observed that these constraints made their first appearance in the appellate court, and that it would be difficult for any rule to meet the panel majority’s red lines.

Amici state in the brief: “The constraints imposed by the lower court’s opinion are not based on a realistic scientific understanding of the complexity of interstate air transport. EPA’s Transport Rule is a reasonable implementation of the good neighbor provision. Therefore the rule should be allowed to stand."

MSNBC coverage of the case featured a reproduced "air pollution transport" map, which Hubertz used in the brief, and cited Hubertz as saying: “The D.C. Circuit’s opinion was a simple answer to a complicated question. We think it’s all but impossible to comply with the D.C. Circuit's red lines and still take into account how air pollution actually works.”

Other Coverage:
USA Today [view]
SCOTUSBlog [view]

Law professor conducts workshop on constitutional reform for Burmese leaders

2013-12-17 00:00:00

Law

A multiweek visit to the United States by Burmese lawmakers kicked off with a two-day intensive workshop on constitutional reform conducted by David S. Law, JD, PhD, professor of law and of political science, in Arts & Sciences, at Washington University in St. Louis.

The parliament of Burma (officially Myanmar) is expected to take up significant reforms of its 2008 constitution in 2014. An article carried by The Associated Press and The Washington Post identified the workshop participants as key players in Burma’s constitutional reform process. The participants were selected by the U.S. State Department and included members of parliament from the ruling Unity and Democracy Party, the Rakhine Nationalities Development Party, the All Nationals’ Democracy Party, and the National League for Democracy opposition party led by Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

The workshop was held Dec. 3 and 4 at the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution in Montpelier, Va., and sponsored by the State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program. The State Department’s move comes as the nation of Burma — which is undergoing rapid democratization after five decades of military rule — is struggling with a rise in sectarian violence that has displaced more than 200,000 people, according to The Washington Post.

The curriculum included mechanisms and strategies for amending a constitution; options for structuring a federal system of government; the decentralization of control over natural resources; protection of minority rights; the role of the judiciary in promoting democracy and enforcing constitutional guarantees; and strategies for promoting the rule of law. Law was selected to conduct the workshop for his interdisciplinary background and expertise on global constitutionalism, constitutional drafting, design of government institutions, and Asian constitutionalism in particular.

“I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to work with this group of lawmakers at such a pivotal time in Burma’s history,” Law said. “It’s so rare to have the opportunity to bring together comparative constitutional law and political science in a collaborative, real-life, problem-solving setting. It’s a privilege and an honor to have the chance to be helpful in whatever small way that I can.”

Law’s previous experience in this area includes traveling to Yemen with the U.N. Special Envoy as a consultant on nation-building and constitutional reform matters. He holds a PhD in political science from Stanford University, a law degree from Harvard University, and a degree in European and comparative law from the University of Oxford.

Washington People: Clifford Holekamp

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-11-26 00:00:00

Mary Butkus/WUSTL Photos

Clifford Holekamp, senior lecturer in entrepreneurship at Olin Business School, is shown at Lab 1500 in downtown St. Louis.

Clifford Holekamp is senior lecturer in entrepreneurship and director of the entrepreneurship platform at Olin Business School. He manages an angel investment portfolio, serves as a board member for several ventures, and is a judge and adviser for the Olin Cup business plan competition and for the Arch Grants international business plan competition.

We sat down with Holekamp to discuss entrepreneurship at Washington University and St. Louis' rise as a startup hub.

First question: Can entrepreneurship be taught?

You bet! It strikes me as a little egotistical when entrepreneurs claim that they have a natural born gift for entrepreneurship that can't be taught to others.

I think the debate is further confused when we don’t differentiate between the studies of ideation/innovation and of venture management. We are seeing innovation being effectively taught in the curriculums of just about every school in the university.

Olin, of course, has been teaching applicable principles of business management and leadership for generations. Entrepreneurship as a career path may not be for everyone, but my students graduate armed with the management knowledge needed to successfully lead entrepreneurial firms.

Tell us a little about your background. You started a business before coming to Olin, correct?

Actually, I first came to Washington University as an MBA student in 1999. While studying at Olin, I developed a concept for a chain of health-care centers that combine a podiatrist’s clinic with a foot-care products store. Customers preferred the accessible retail format and the emphasis on customer service. The business grew very quickly, and I was bought out by an investment syndicate in 2007.

In addition to teaching entrepreneurship on the Danforth Campus, you're credited with being a key leader in St. Louis' burgeoning startup scene. Tell us about your work outside the classroom.

I am part of the founding group of general partners at Cultivation Capital. We started with an early-stage tech fund in 2012, and in the last year and a half, we added an early-stage life sciences fund, a small growth fund, and partnered with the St. Louis Regional Chamber to launch an accelerator called SixThirty.

It is very exciting to be part of this dream team of entrepreneurs, including WUSTL alums Jim McKelvey and Rick Holton, who are now coordinating our energies to attracting and growing the next generation of great companies. Additionally, I am actively engaged as a board member of several local ventures, including LockerDome, TrakBill and Rothman Furniture.

Mary Butkus/WUSTL Photos

(From left to right) Holekamp chats with Andrew Brimer, a recent alumnus of the School of Engineering & Applied Science, and Kyle Tabor, a current MBA candiate. Holekamp mentored both during Olin's Hatchery business plan course. Brimer is co-founder of Sparo Labs, which is developing a low-cost sprirometer to measure lung function. The three were at Lab 1500 to film an upcoming segment on entrepreneurship for Techli.com.

St. Louis is becoming increasingly recognized for its vital and connected startup scene. What is it about St. Louis that makes such growth possible?

It’s all about the community. A wonderfully energized community has developed around the startup scene, and the momentum attracts momentum.

One of my personal charges is to keep Wash. U engaged in this scene. I have had the opportunity to help get hundreds of students involved in entrepreneurship community events; have had my students doing academic project work with dozens of startups; and have made countless introductions that have led to jobs and internships for our students.

Our students have a front-row seat to the startup revolution in St. Louis, but, even better, they can actually play in the game if they want to.

You're on the board at Arch Grants. What is that organization, and how is it contributing to the community?

I believe Arch Grants is the keystone organization in the St. Louis startup community.

We are a nonprofit, international startup business competition. We receive applications from startup ventures from all over the world, which are competing for one of 20 $50,000 grants that we give away annually. We are looking for innovative and dynamic growth companies who we believe will contribute to the startup culture and economy of St. Louis.

The grant is a free prize, with the only consideration being that the company move its headquarters to downtown St. Louis. Several Wash. U students have been awardees, and I see Arch Grants as a significant opportunity for seed-stage funding for our student entrepreneurs.

The teaching of entrepreneurship at the university has increased quite a bit in the last five years, and not just at Olin Business School. What are some things that you notice about the students who take your courses?

My students are incredibly focused and engaged. They want to be here and want to get every bit of value they can out of their educational opportunities. I wouldn’t be teaching if I didn’t think that the students cared as much as I do.

In the last five years, the student motivation hasn’t changed, but the degree of action has. When I first started, most students were looking at business ideas from a theoretical perspective. Now, more of these students are actually starting companies, and most don’t even wait for graduation.

How would you like to see entrepreneurship education at WUSTL develop in the future?

My interest is in continuing to break down academic barriers to make the study and pursuit of entrepreneurship more collaborative and more multidisciplinary. I've helped build strong partnerships with the Brown School in social entrepreneurship, with the engineering school in innovation, and with the law school in early-stage company strategy and consulting.

Nationally, the teaching of entrepreneurship is getting more and more experiential. Likewise at Olin, I've launched three new experiential courses and have consulted with other faculty to add experiential components to their existing courses. Amidst the growth, however, it is important not to lose the role of teaching and instruction in the use of experiential learning techniques.

It is exciting to spin companies out of our courses — I am very proud of the over 70 companies that have launched out of my classes in the past five years. But I am even more proud of the education I provided those students that will help them become more successful.

'Christmas Creep': Happiness or humbug?

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-11-25 00:00:00

"Christmas Creep,” the "technical" term for the pre-holiday appearance of retail decorations and promotions, crept into stores and marketing in October this year.

Major department stores are even pre-empting Black Friday by opening on Thanksgiving Day.

Is starting the holiday shopping season earlier and earlier a good marketing move or could it backfire?

Four marketing professors at Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School discuss this phenomenon.

Chakravarthi Narasimhan PhD, the  Philip L. Siteman Professor of Marketing:

Narasimhan

“It is very difficult for any retailer to scale down the size of the operations in the near term. So, given their cost positions, they compete aggressively for market share of the customers. During tough economic times, the total available retail money shrinks, as is evidenced by the recent earnings reports from Wal-Mart, Target etc., which exacerbates the aggressiveness among these retailers.

What we are seeing is the result of that. If no one does anything, then one retailer may correctly think that he will gain competitive advantage by engaging in this ‘Christmas Creep.’ But, if everyone thinks that way, everyone follows suit and the industry as a whole may or may not be better off. If consumers open their wallets more and spend more because of all this, then collectively perhaps the retailers may become better.

But, if the total retail dollars do not increase sufficiently, then most retailers may be worse off because of cost increases in going early as well as deeper discounts that may follow. There could be a slight first-mover advantage to the retailer who moved first since consumers may recall that retailer more and search that retailer first.”

Carol Johanek, adjunct professor of marketing:

Johanek

“'Christmas Creep’ has been happening for years and reflects the fact that these retailers are responding to the needs of their market segments. The holiday season, of course, is a key selling time for retailers, and with the time frame being especially short this year between Thanksgiving and Christmas, it is not surprising to see these brands setting up their promotions earlier on the calendar.

With our slow recovery, there is less hiring, more stagnated wages and individuals — specifically lower-income, price-sensitive shoppers — love the special promotions, lay-away options and early deals. Although there are studies that show consumers are not happy over the earlier holiday promotions, their behavior says something very different.

Crowds continue to patronize Black Friday; this year resulting in not only more days for these events but longer store hours. Shoppers of retailers such as Kmart, Wal-Mart or Target love the idea of coming home after getting those special deals from their brands and engaging in the excitement at these events. Many brands are using sites such as Pinterest to communicate their great holiday promotions this year. This could be a great opportunity for such brands to build connections with their customer base for the rest of the year ahead.”

Joseph Goodman, PhD, associate professor of marketing:

Goodman

“Black Friday deals are a classic loss-leader strategy. Retailers are trying to get these products out in front so they get people into the store. They may lose a few dollars on those particular items, but they will make up the money when people buy two or three other things.

There is some research evidence that indicates consumers are focusing less on material values and more on acquiring experiences. It might be that they are actually shopping for an experience. Research says that when consumers spend money on experiences, they actually end up being happier and more satisfied with their life than when they are purchasing material goods. So there might be a silver lining in all of this.

I just wonder how long will it take until Thanksgiving is completely a shopping day and it turns into Black Thursday.”

Martin Sneider, adjunct professor of marketing:

Sneider

“Retailers have been pushing Christmas décor, merchandising, and promotions earlier and earlier for many years. It seems almost quaint now, but there was a time not so long ago when retailers waited to take markdowns until AFTER Christmas. Now price busting begins in early November and reaches its twin peaks during Thanksgiving week and the week BEFORE Christmas.

With the media spotlight on retailing during Thanksgiving weekend, price cutting and door busters are forms of MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) where retailers try to outdo one another by slashing gross profit to unsustainable levels. All want sales momentum going into the holiday season, which accounts for a huge percentage of retailer sales and profits. Reporters in helicopters circle over crowded parking lots; lines of bundled-up shoppers snake around store entrances, and smiling customers with shopping carts festooned with holiday purchases fill the airwaves and newspaper.

With a much shortened holiday shopping season (a very late Thanksgiving means four or five fewer shopping days this year), retailers are starting even earlier, with some opening Thanksgiving Day and others Thanksgiving evening. Two notable exceptions are Nordstrom and Costco, which won’t open their doors until after Thanksgiving.

Two possibilities for earlier openings: 1. Those opening earlier will capture more market share…after all, lots of folks are stuffed full of turkey and have seen enough of football and family and ready to spend; and 2. Holiday business will merely be spread over more hours with no discernible increase in the total. Many retailers are betting on the first possibility, which means the second possibility is the likely outcome: more store hours with no real increase in business."

Washington University School of Law brings innovative privacy education to middle school

Dylan Kickham — 2013-11-21 00:00:00

Washington University in St. Louis law students have begun offering privacy and Internet safety education to local middle school students.

Law students Matthew Cin and Ujjayini Bose, under the supervision of Neil Richards, JD, professor of law, are adapting an original middle school curriculum for privacy education developed by Fordham University School of Law's Center on Law and Information Policy (CLIP).

“Raising digitally aware and responsible children is one the greatest challenges facing parents and teachers today,” Richards said.

“As parents of young children, my wife and I struggle with how to teach our children how to take advantage of the benefits of digital technologies while avoiding their perils. Our Privacy Education Program is an attempt to help local schools address these problems in the middle school years, when children start to fully embrace these technologies as essential parts of their lives.”

WUSTL is one of about a dozen law schools set to teach the program in schools across the country starting this semester. The law students have launched the program with The St. Michael School of Clayton, a small independent school near the law school that uses technology extensively as part of its curriculum.

“Working with the students has been fascinating. It is astonishing to see how integral technology has become to their development, and how insightful their views are on topics such as privacy, technology and social media,” said Bose, a second-year law student. Bose added, “Not only is Professor Richards one of the leading voices in privacy law, but he is also a wonderful mentor to both Matt and me. We are thrilled to have the opportunity to work with him.”

The program features a set of hour-long sessions covering topics such as:

privacy basics;
how to deal with passwords and behavioral ads;
navigating social media and tricky situations;
understanding mobile, WiFi and facial recognition; and
managing a digital reputation.

“As technologies become more and more embedded into all aspects of our lives, it’s increasingly important to equip teens, in particular, with the knowledge to protect themselves from the potential risks associated with these new tools,” explained Cin, a third-year law student.

Recent reports from the Pew Research Center illustrate the need for this type of education. The reports found that: 93 percent of youth ages 12-17 go online; 53 percent of teens post their email address online; 20 percent post their cellphone number; and 33 percent are connected online to people they have never met personally.

“As online technologies become a key feature in young teens’ lives, parents and educators must teach teens about the privacy and safety implications of these technologies,” said Joel Reidenberg, JD, Fordham law professor and founding director of CLIP.

The law school’s program at St. Michael’s has been highly successful.

“Using cutting-edge technology is part of our school culture. It is our job to teach responsibility, respect and safety in this global community, and we’re delighted to be working with Washington University to tackle this critically important educational issue,” said Elizabeth T. Mosher, head of The St. Michael School.

Richards and his students will bring the program to John Burroughs School in the spring and continue to look for additional partners.

Olin student team wins prestigious case competition

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-11-18 00:00:00

A team of Olin Business School graduate students recently won the $5,000 first prize in the 18th annual International Case Competition organized by Carnegie Mellon’s Tepper School of Business.

Olin came in second last year, but this is its first win in the prestigious competition.

In addition, the team of four MBA students and one master's in supply chain management student tied with Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the “Best Presentation” Award.

“Winning second place would have been fantastic; winning first place plus an additional award that could have gone to anyone, whether they placed in the finals or not, was unbelievable,” said MBA student Chase Huey.

“Olin Business School is on its way to being a Top 10 MBA program, and our team hopes that victories like these continue to validate that assertion, reminding those of us within the school as well as the business community as a whole of our potential.”

Others on the team were MBA students Prasanna Shrivastava, Saurabh Singh and Austin Murray and master's in supply chain management student Qu (Jane) Jiang.

Top-tier business schools from all over the United States and abroad are invited every fall to compete in the prestigious two-day operations case competition. The next generation of operations management leaders work in small groups under strict timelines to solve a business case that highlights multinational corporations’ real-world operational issues.

The teams then present their strategies to a panel of industry and academic experts in the field of operations management.

The event has become an important educational and networking tool for the schools involved as well as an exceptional recruiting opportunity.

Other schools participating included Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley; Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University; MIT Sloan School of Management; Yale School of Management; and New York University Stern School of Business. 

“The Olin Supply Chain Club put together an amazing team, each member brought unique skills, and highly effective leadership allowed each member to achieve their potential,” Murray said. “The collaborative teamwork, along with amble preparation before the competition, gave the team a noticeable advantage over other competitors.”

School of Law's trial team wins prestigious National Institute of Trial Advocacy 2013 Tournament of Champions

2013-11-15 00:00:00

The Washington University in St. Louis School of Law's trial competition team placed first at the National Institute of Trial Advocacy 2013 Tournament of Champions, held in Birmingham, Ala.

Members of the team were Katherine Coleman, Pallavi Garg, Stanley Thompson and Cort VanOstran; coaches were WUSTL law alumni St. Louis Circuit Judge David C. Mason and attorney Mark Rudder.

The tournament is between the top 16 law school trial advocacy programs, based on their three-year record in the two major national open trial competitions, and was held over six trials Oct. 30-Nov. 3.

Birmingham was also the setting for the case tried by the students. The competition case was based on the 1962 bombings of African-American churches in Birmingham by the Ku Klux Klan. The case involved the prosecution of one of the bombers of the "15th Street" Baptist Church. Some of the actual evidence, including photos and audiotape, was used in the trials. The students alternated between prosecution and defense, ultimately winning on the defense in the championship round.

John C. Robbins, lead defense counsel in the actual case, who served as one of the competition judges, said Thompson "gave a better closing for the defendant" than he did in the actual trial.

The WUSTL trial competition team then advanced to the National Civil Trial Competition in Los Angeles, where third-year law students Elad Gross, James Miao, Emily Ottenson and Erika Wurst competed. This competition was between the top 16 law school trial teams based on a five-year history. The team finished in the top half of the competition. Judge Mason also coached this team.

Students can sign up for firsthand look at Israeli startup scene

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-11-13 00:00:00

It’s a good time to be an entrepreneur in Israel.

Israel has more startup businesses per capita than any country in the world. Sixty-five percent of the startups last more than five years, and it has the third-most companies listed on Nasdaq, behind the United States and China.

A unique partnership between Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School and the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya, Israel, will give undergraduates from any American college or university a firsthand look at this burgeoning startup scene this summer.

The deadline to sign up is Feb. 15. The program is June 15-July 24.

The Israel Summer Business Academy, which is open to all undergraduates no matter their academic or religious background, will provide students a rare chance for an in-depth, six-week look at Israel’s startup culture while also earning credit at their home institutions.

WUSTL will grant course credit; transcripts will be sent to home institutions at the end of the program.

“This is a unique and powerful partnership with IDC,” said Steve Malter, director of the undergraduate program at Olin and founder of ISBA. “It will allow students from all over this country to immerse themselves in a uniquely entrepreneurial environment and to learn from some of the top innovators in Israel.”

While in Israel, students will take two courses — “Business, Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Israel” and “Venture Advising/Venture Creation.” Learning will occur both inside and outside the classroom, with students being able to apply what they learn to advising Israeli startups and creating their own startup.

The program will feature extensive immersive visits with companies, startups and thought leaders, including Google Israel, Intel, Teva Pharmaceuticals, various venture capital firms, incubators, the U.S. Embassy, the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and top U.S. and Israeli government officials.

The program costs $4,000 and includes tuition, housing, insurance, excursions, bus pass and some meals.

For complete information and to sign up, visit olin.wustl.edu/isba.

Washington University partners with Techli to support entrepreneurship in St. Louis

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-11-12 00:00:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUcalDD8aQs

Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School and School of Engineering & Applied Science have announced a partnership with the startup-focused news organization Techli to promote the growing entrepreneurship community in and around St. Louis.

“We are so excited to be partnering with a great research institution like Washington University. Their involvement in the St. Louis startup community is one of the big drivers behind the success our city is currently experiencing,” said Edward Domain, founder and chief operating officer of Techli.

The partnership will feature a series of videos and stories on the Techli website showcasing the entrepreneurial spirit of the entire St. Louis ecosystem, which is becoming widely recognized as a startup mecca and a great place for recent college graduates to create their own ventures.

The first show features WUSTL Provost Holden Thorp, PhD. A successful entrepreneur himself, Thorp, author of the 2010 book Engines of Innovation, discusses the role universities can play in helping to further entrepreneurial innovation.

Future show topics will include how the St. Louis startup support system, from access to funding to mentorship, has grown over the past year; the increase in teen entrepreneurship; and the importance of getting the established business community involved with the startup community.

“The robust culture of entrepreneurship at Olin Business School is helping to launch our undergraduate and graduate students into career paths we could not have imagined a decade ago,” said Mahendra R. Gupta, PhD, dean of Olin Business School and the Geraldine J. and Robert L. Virgil Professor of Accounting and Management.

“I look forward to highlighting our student’s successes, as well as the many other innovative ventures being developed here in St. Louis, through this partnership with Techli,” Gupta said.

“While the School of Engineering continues to emphasize advances in theoretical knowledge, we are more actively promoting the application of new discoveries by enhancing the climate of entrepreneurship,” said Ralph S. Quatrano, PhD, dean of the School of Engineering & Applied Science and the Spencer T. Olin Professor.

“Through our annual Discovery Competition, our entrepreneurship course for undergraduates and faculty mentorship, we are taking an active role in advancing entrepreneurship in the St. Louis region,” he said.

About Techli

Techli delivers news and in-depth editorial on the technologies, businesses and ideas that are changing the way people live, work, and play. Techli knows that cutting-edge technologies and vanguard businesses are emerging around the world, not just in Silicon Valley. Techli covers innovation wherever it happens, whenever it happens.

Entrepreneurship at Washington University in St. Louis

Entrepreneur magazine has ranked Washington University No. 8 in undergraduate programs and No. 12 in graduate programs. Degrees in entrepreneurship are offered at the undergraduate and graduate level at Olin Business School. A minor degree in entrepreneurship is an option for all WUSTL undergraduates. The Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies hosts two annual business plan competitions that together award nearly $250,000: the Olin Cup for commercial ventures and the YouthBridge Social Enterprise and Innovation Competition for social ventures. The School of Engineering & Applied Science hosts its Discovery Competition with the goal of promoting new and innovative solutions for real-world problems and allowing students to compete for financial resources that could help turn their ideas into businesses. The winning team is awarded $25,000. Students and alumni regularly participate in the Arch Grants competition in St. Louis.

Olin Cup finalists offer quality, diverse ideas

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-11-12 00:00:00

A mobile solution to the severity of epileptic seizures. Helmets designed to reduce concussions in high-impact sports. A locally sourced grain-to-glass spirits distillery.

These are just a few of the ideas of the seven final teams, announced Nov. 7, vying this year for $70,000 in seed money to start a new company. The Olin Cup is sponsored by the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies.

Five of the seven final teams are student-owned or supported ventures and in the running for an additional $5,000 prize given to the best business proposal submitted by a Washington University in St. Louis student team.

"The quality and diversity of the ideas was exceptional this year, and once again our judges asked, 'How is it that the entrepreneurs and ventures keep improving every year?' We think that the answer is that the culture of entrepreneurship continues to expand and improve," said Ken Harrington, managing director of the Skandalaris Center.

Audience members were invited to rank each of the presentations. The person who came closest to the judges' rankings will receive $250.

Contestants submitted an executive summary of their proposed business to enter the competition. From that initial field of 40 entrants, 17 semifinalists were chosen to compete in the “elevator pitch” challenge that required a two-minute presentation of the business idea to a diverse team of judges representing several regional alumni, service providers and other members of the support community for entrepreneurs.

This year’s finalists are (* indicates student-owned or student-supported venture):

Epi Squared*, developing an implantable mobile solution to reduce severity of epileptic seizures;
Farmplicity*, an online marketplace making it easy for chefs to acquire local food;
Genetix Fusion*, developing the next generation of transfection kits for biomedical researchers;
Nanopore Diagnostics*, developing products that provide immediate molecular diagnostic testing;
Stumpy's Spirits*, locally sourced grain-to-glass premium spirits distiller;
SynerZ Medical, developing an outpatient device for treatment of obesity and type 2 diabetes; and
Zymplr, developing a helmet designed to reduce concussions in high-impact sports.

The final hurdle for the entrepreneurs will be writing and presenting a full business plan in January. The finalists each will submit a business plan and give a 25-minute oral presentation to the judges, with a question-and-answer period as the final phase of the competition.

The Olin Cup winners will be announced Jan. 30 at an awards ceremony. The Olin Cup was created as a cross-campus activity in 1988 by Olin Business School and has awarded funding to winning commercial ventures since 2003. The competition is sponsored by Olin Business School and the Skandalaris Center; accounting firm RubinBrown; law firm Polsinelli; and the St. Louis Regional Chamber.

‘Privacy and Surveillance’ roundtable discussion to address history, meaning of privacy

2013-11-11 00:00:00

When former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden exposed classified information about widespread government surveillance programs, he launched a public debate about privacy in the digital age. Is privacy a “right”? What are we willing to sacrifice for privacy? How consistent are our beliefs about privacy and how consistently do we “practice” it.

In response to these types of questions, Washington University in St. Louis experts on privacy issues, ranging from the history of privacy to privacy law, will participate in a roundtable discussion, titled “Privacy and Surveillance,” from noon to 2 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 20, in Anheuser-Busch Hall, Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom.

The Interdisciplinary Project in the Humanities (IPH) in Arts & Sciences and Arts & Sciences are co-sponsoring the discussion, which is free and open to the public.

Joe Loewenstein, PhD, director of IPH and professor of English, believes the humanities are especially suited to address the complex issues surrounding privacy and surveillance.

“The humanities have a real grip on what’s vivid and, well, dangerous in life around us; privacy is very much our topic,” Loewenstein said. “This discussion is a good opportunity to remind the St. Louis community, our university colleagues, and, especially, our students that there’s a long history of meditation on privacy, that the tradition of thinking on this topic is long, volatile and complicated.”

The discussion will begin with the political and theoretical beginnings of thinking about privacy and move to contemporary questions surrounding Internet surveillance. In addition to discussing the negative aspects of privacy violation, experts will offer perspectives on the potential benefits of surveillance.

For example, faculty will describe literary studies suggesting that repressive situations often spur rather than inhibit creativity. Other topics to be discussed include feminist critiques of certain types of privacy and the ethics of scholarship.

“I think it’s important that serious intellectual communities like ours should not treat a complex concept like privacy as simple or stable. We can’t assume that when I speak of privacy, what you hear is what I mean. Above all, we need to recognize that privacy is not an unmitigated and simple good,” Lowenstein said. “One of the pleasures of being at a university is that we don’t have to deal in sound bites.”

The roundtable will feature Jean Allman, PhD, the J.H. Hexter Professor in the Humanities in Arts & Sciences and chair of the Department of History; Frank Lovett, PhD, associate professor of political science and director of the Legal Studies program, both in Arts & Sciences; Linda Nicholson, PhD, the Susan E. and William P. Stiritz Distinguished Professor of Women’s Studies in Arts & Sciences and ombuds for the Danforth Campus faculty; William J. Maxwell, PhD, associate professor of English; and Neil Richards, JD, professor of law.

Elizabeth W. Sepper, JD, associate professor of law, will serve as the respondent.

For more information, contact IPH at (314) 935-4200 or iph@artsci.wustl.edu.

Law school's partnership with Northwest Academy of Law spans mentoring, coaching and support for peace summit

Timothy Fox — 2013-11-07 00:00:00

JOE ANGELES/WUSTL Photos

(From left) Northwest Academy of Law senior Imoni Cooper talks with John Inazu, JD, associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, after the Urban Peace Summit held at Northwest Academy Nov. 8. To learn more about the summit, visit this page. WUSTL law school faculty and students work closely with Northwest high school students throughout the year.

Washington University in St. Louis law students are taking their commitment to public service to the next level through a growing partnership with Northwest Academy of Law. With the assistance of law faculty and through their own initiatives, law students are reaching out to the inner-city St. Louis high school's students to provide mentoring and law-related educational experiences.

Every week this fall, 15 law students have made the 20-minute trek to Northwest as part of John Inazu’s seminar, "The First Amendment in Schools." Since 2008, law Prof. Katherine Goldwasser, JD, has supervised law practicum students through a combined teaching and mentoring program she created at the school. It’s a logical partnership as Northwest is a law-themed “choice” school, with a law-related curriculum, moot courtroom and law library.

Meanwhile, other students are part of the Marshall-Brennan Constitutional Literacy Project at the school. Since fall 2011, through a practicum supervised by Jane Moul, JD, professor of practice, two law students each semester have taught students at Northwest through a class that meets at least two, and sometimes three, times a week. The project takes civics education for public school students beyond its basic requirements by teaching students about their constitutional rights. (An expansion to the program was proposed as part of the Clinton Global Initiative University held at WUSTL last spring.)

Next term, second-year law student Aissatou Barry, a member of Inazu’s class, will start preparing Northwest students to travel to Washington, D.C., to participate in a national mock-trial competition.

A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., Barry attended junior high at the Crown School for Law and Journalism, a largely African-American public school in New York. While there, she met with attorneys in a mentoring program who gave her confidence and encouraged her to become a lawyer. She sees her work at Northwest as her way of returning the favor.

“The students are so smart,” she said. “They know how to apply cases to real-life situations, and they have good analytical skills. It helps their self-esteem to know that they are successfully doing work that would challenge any law student.”

Unfortunately, the students — juniors and seniors — also face significant challenges outside of school, Barry said. Some have children of their own; some are caring for siblings or parents. Many work outside of school. And, a few weeks ago, some lost a friend to a shooting near the school.

“They have a lot going on in the community,” Barry said. As a result, attendance in her mock trial training varies from week to week.

“Mock trial is sometimes put on the back burner,” she said. “But they know this is a huge opportunity. It’s a chance to go to Washington, D.C., for kids who may not have even been south of Delmar Boulevard.

“This is an example of Washington University taking care of St. Louis,” Barry added. “People say that it takes a village to raise a child, but it takes a village to create a village, too.”

On Nov. 8, members of the WUSTL “village” reached out to Northwest again by participating in an “Urban Peace Summit” at the school. A number of School of Law and Brown School students and faculty worked behind the scenes with the school to prepare for the summit.

“The students and staff of Northwest want to highlight positive responses to the challenge of urban crime,” Inazu, associate professor of law, said before the event. “The summit will allow high school voices to be heard in a way they haven’t been heard before. We want to forge even more connections between Washington University and Northwest by getting more law students and faculty to see the high school and facilitating more opportunities for mentoring and partnership.”

The Urban Peace Summit came on the heels of a recent “Urban Crime Summit.”

The Northwest students wrote an open letter about the crime summit that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch published on its website. “The students came out of the Urban Crime Summit wanting to offer a constructive response,” Inazu said.

The students received feedback from C.J. Larkin, JD, senior lecturer in law, and Karen Tokarz, JD, the Charles Nagel Professor of Public Interest Law & Public Service; as well as WUSTL Civil Rights, Community Justice and Mediation Clinic law students Noble Freeman, Carol Jansen and Katy Swiss; and alumnus Ilunga Kalala (JD ’13).

In that spirit, Northwest crafted an agenda for the Urban Peace Summit that combined short messages from representatives of the city and the community with a more extended panel discussion. After a welcome from Northwest Academy Principal Valerie Carter-Thomas, presenters included representatives from the attorney general’s office, mayor’s office, St. Louis police department, and state Legislature, as well as local aldermen, judges and community leaders.

The summit ended with reflections by Northwest students.

“The best thing about working with the high school students is that it bridges the gap between just hearing about the school and actually seeing the students and the teachers who embody it,” said third-year law student Rebecca Morton, the student leader of Marshall-Brennan who taught last fall at Northwest. “I’ve really enjoyed being able to teach and utilize practical legal skills to break down complex concepts for a high school audience. It’s also just been great to be actively involved in the community outside law school.”

In the meantime, Barry is focused on fundraising for the mock trial competition. Money is needed not only for transportation, but also to help pay for dress clothes for students.

“We’re looking for funding from a variety of sources,” she said. “We’re applying for grants from the university and outside of the university, seeking funding from the United Way and reaching out to local law firms.”

Turning to her own professional goals, Barry said she wants to do “work that is mentally challenging, like international litigation or regulatory work. But I love this experience of working with the kids, because I also want to dedicate a lot of time to public service and maybe government work.”

“I love St. Louis,” Barry added. “I would love to stay here and help it realize its potential — there is so much to be done, but it just takes a few people to care.”

McKelvey encourages students to pursue goals, learn from failures

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-11-06 00:00:00

Sid Hastings/wustl photos

Jim McKelvey, School of Engineering & Applied Science alumnus and co-founder of Square, spoke with MBA students in Simon Hall Nov. 1 as part of the Entrepreneurship Platform Summit, organized by Cliff Holekamp, senior lecturer in entrepreneurship at Olin Business School. McKelvey is a stalwart in the startup community, having founded or co-founded Third Degree Glass Factory, the SixThirty financial technology accelerator, Cultivation Capital and Launch Code, among others. McKelvey shared his experiences with students and encouraged them to pursue their entrepreneurial goals, saying that failure is expected and is part of the learning process.

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