WUSTL Culture & Living News

IRS investigation spotlights need for Inspectors General

2013-05-16 00:00:00

An executive branch Inspector General played a critical role in exposing the IRS's practice of targeting Tea Party groups, says Kathleen Clark, JD, anti-corruption expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.

Clark

“Inspectors General can work internally to investigate alleged wrongdoing, gain access to sensitive documents and information, and report their findings both internally and to Congress and to the public,” Clark writes in a recent post on the Legal Ethics Forum blog.

“As we see with the IRS controversy, an Inspector General investigation can cause heads to roll. Perhaps that's why some government agencies have been without an Inspector General for a very long time - measured not in months, but in years.” Clark notes that the State Department has been without an Inspector General for more than five years.

MEDIA ADVISORY: Washington University Commencement is 8:30 a.m. Friday, May 17

2013-05-16 00:00:00

WHAT: Washington University’s 152nd Commencement. The university will awards 2,873 degrees to 2,752 students undergraduate, graduate and professional students. The university also will bestow honorary degrees on six individuals.

WHO: Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, N.J., will deliver the 2013 Commencement address. During the ceremony, Booker, who is credited with helping revitalize New Jersey’s largest city with his hands-on and innovative approach, also will receive an honorary doctor of laws degree. Washington University’s five other honorary degree recipients and their degrees are: Marilyn Fox, St. Louis civic leader, philanthropist and community volunteer, doctor of humanities; Martin L. Mathews, president, CEO and co-founder of Mathews-Dickey Boys’ & Girls’ Club, doctor of humanities; Juhani Pallasmaa, a Finnish architect, educator and critic and a leading international figure in contemporary architecture, design and artistic culture, doctor of art and architecture; Peter Rosen (MD ’60), one of the international leaders in the field of emergency medicine and one of the pioneers and founding fathers of the specialty, doctor of science; and Howard Wood (BSBA ’61), co-founder of two of the nation’s most successful telecommunications companies: Charter Communications Inc. and Cequel III LLC, doctor of laws.

WHERE: Brookings Quadrangle, which is directly west of Brookings Hall, the university’s main administration building that sits on the hill overlooking Forest Park.

WHEN: 8:30 a.m. Friday, May 17, 2013

MEDIA RESERVED SEATING: News organizations sending a reporter to Commencement should call Sue Killenberg McGinn by 5 p.m. Thursday, May 16, to make arrangements for a reserved-seating ticket. Mult boxes will be available at the seats and near the Beaumont Pavilion stage. The reserved media seats are in the Chancellor’s section, which is at the north end of the Quad on the right-hand side of Beaumont Pavilion.

LIVE TV BROADCASTS: TV stations who plan to shoot live from Brookings Quad should make arrangements with Liam Otten. Please call (314) 935-8494 (office) on May 16 or (314) 874-6331 (cell) on May 17.

MEDIA PARKING: Reserved media parking is available near the south end of Brookings Hall. Take Forsyth Boulevard or Forest Park Parkway to Hoyt Drive; take Hoyt to south leg of the circle drive that leads up to Brookings Hall, where a parking attendant will direct you. Please show attendant a media ID.

For more information the morning of Commencement, call Sue Killenberg McGinn at (314) 603-6008.

Washington University teams each win $50,000 Arch Grants in startup competition

Beth Miller and Melody Walker — 2013-05-14 00:00:00

Four startup companies with ties to Washington University in St. Louis have received $50,000 each in the Arch Grants 2013 Global Startup Competition designed to stimulate and support the early-stage entrepreneurial community in St. Louis.

The winning companies are: Sparo Labs, a medical device company founded by two engineering undergraduate students; Juristat, a software company that targets litigators and founded by three alumni; LipoSpectrum LLC, a life science company providing R&D labs with advanced biological lipid-analysis co-founded by an Olin Business School Executive MBA alumnus; and MMBiosensing LLC, which invented a new method of detecting the bio-markers of heart attack and founded by a WUSTL postdoctoral research associate.

The companies were among 20 companies chosen from 40 finalists, trimmed from more than 700 entrants, vying for the $50,000 grants of unrestricted funds. The grants also come with networking and mentoring opportunities and other free services, including legal, accounting, marketing, cloud computing and mentoring support.

Recipients also get access to St. Louis’ angel investment network, the opportunity to be a part of the downtown St. Louis startup community and an opportunity for a $100,000 follow-on grant from Arch Grants.

The win is the latest in a string of awards for Sparo Labs, headed by Andrew Brimer and Abigail Cohen, who are both graduating May 17 from the School of Engineering & Applied Science with bachelor’s degrees in mechanical engineering and biomedical engineering, respectively.

In April, the team won $25,000 in the engineering school’s inaugural Discovery Competition. In February, the team won $30,000 in the 2013 Olin Cup Competition sponsored by the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies. Last summer, the team won first place in two national engineering competitions, resulting in $15,000 in prizes.

Brimer and Cohen have spent nearly two years developing the product and a prototype that empowers patients to quantitatively track and proactively manage asthma, cystic fibrosis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder and other respiratory diseases via seamless integration with smartphones, tablets and computers — ultimately implementing low-cost diagnostic and monitoring spirometry worldwide.

Most spirometers cost between $1,000-$2,000, making them unaffordable for hospitals and clinics in the developing world. However, the Sparo Labs device costs about $8. The low cost could allow health-care providers in developing countries to purchase the spirometers, which are specially designed for accuracy and durability despite their price.

Sparo Labs has filed for a patent and is preparing the product for clinical trials and FDA approval.

Juristat collects electronic lawsuit case data from state and federal court databases. The company uses a proprietary system to index this data into a single dynamic searchable database. Its product can provide more than 150 unique pieces of litigation intelligence, such as the probability of success on motions and appeal or metrics of an attorney’s experience within a practice area or specific court. Users can then quickly search and produce predictive models allowing lawyers to design the best litigation and marketing strategies.

Juristat was co-founded by CEO Drew Winship, JD, formerly a trial lawyer for the Brown & James law firm and an alumnus of Washington University School of Law; Robert Ward, a developer for Beck Automation; and Jordan Woerndle, an analyst for the Neuroinformatics Research Group at the School of Medicine and an alumnus of the School of Engineering & Applied Science. Kent Syverud, JD, dean of Washington University School of Law, is on the advisory board for Juristat.

LipoSpectrum LLC co-founder and CEO Milind Sant, with a doctorate in organic chemistry and an executive MBA from Olin Business School, is employing patented technology developed at Washington University in this bioscience company. The technology, called Multi Dimensional Mass Spectrometry Shotgun Lipidomics (MDMS-SL), provides enhanced, state-of-the-art lipid analysis from biological samples of all types, including plants, animals and humans. Many fields can benefit from detailed molecular level lipid analysis, including cardiovascular, diabetes, obesity, cancer, autoimmune and neurological diseases, nutrition, agriculture and bio-fuel (algae).

MMBiosensing LLC, founded by Amos Danielli, a postdoctoral research associate in the lab of Lihong Wang, PhD, in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, has invented and patented a proprietary method of detecting the biomarkers of a heart attack with significantly higher sensitivity and greatly reduced testing time compared to competitors. The company is developing the technology into a point-of-care device that will greatly reduce emergency room wait times and costs to patients and providers, and improve patient outcomes. The company also won $50,000 in the 2013 Olin Cup competition.

The company’s leadership staff – Abu Abraham, Robbie Garrison, and F. Gabriel Santa Cruz – are all graduates of the Olin Business School.

Three doctoral candidates named Bouchet Fellows

2013-05-15 00:00:00

Three doctoral candidates at Washington University in St. Louis were inducted into the Edward A. Bouchet Graduate Honor Society at the annual Bouchet Conference on Diversity in Graduate Education April 19-20 at Yale University.

Inducted as the seventh class of WUSTL Bouchet Fellows are Stephanie N. Rodriguez, a doctoral candidate in the immunology program in the Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences; Beverly A. Tsacoyianis, a doctoral candidate in the Department of History in Arts & Sciences; and Sha-Lai L. Williams, who will be conferred a PhD from the Brown School during the university’s May 17 Commencement.

The Bouchet Society, named for the first African American to earn a doctorate in the United States, recognizes outstanding scholarly achievement and promotes diversity and excellence in doctoral education and the professoriate.

The society seeks to develop a network of preeminent scholars who exemplify academic and personal excellence, and serve as examples of scholarship, leadership, character, service and advocacy for students who have been traditionally underrepresented in the academy.

Rafia Zafar, PhD, associate dean for diversity and inclusiveness in the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, coordinates the WUSTL chapter of the Bouchet Society.

“Washington University’s graduate students are known to be among the best in America; our Bouchet honorees take their place among the ranks of the highest achieving doctoral candidates in the nation,” Zafar said.

Rodriguez

Rodriguez, who works in the laboratory of Paul M. Allen, PhD, the Robert L. Kroc Professor of Pathology and Immunology, studies the intricate mechanisms of T cell development and how these important immune cells mediate protection to pathogens.

Using a novel CD4 T cell system unique to Allen’s laboratory, her dissertation work investigates the dependence of CD4 T cells on self-molecules for their development into functionally mature and self-tolerant mediators of immune protection, and for continued survival in this mature state.

Her research will address longstanding questions in the field of CD4 T cell development, including the timing, number and duration of immature T cell interactions with cells presenting self-molecules, as well as directly assessing the controversial role of self-molecules in the maintenance of mature CD4 T cells.

The recipient of a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, Rodriguez has co-authored an article in the Journal of Immunology.

She is director of WUSTL’s Young Scientist Program, which was created in 1991 by medical and graduate students to attract high school students from disadvantaged backgrounds into scientific careers through activities emphasizing hands-on research and interaction between young people and scientists.

She has been involved with the organization since 2009 when she joined as a mentor and tutor.

Rodriguez earned a bachelor’s degree in biology with honors in microbes and immunity from Stanford University in 2009.

Tsacoyianis

Tsacoyianis, a Chancellor’s Graduate Fellow, is completing her dissertation, “Making Healthy Minds and Bodies in Syria, 1903-1961.”

She studies the social and medical history of mental illness in 20th-century Syria, arguing that psychiatrists in Syria presented mental health treatment to Syrians as more than a way to control or cure mental illness, but as a modernizing worldview to suppress and delegitimize spirit-based vernacular treatment.

Her work contributes to scholarly debates in the history of medicine, particularly in the role of religion and science in healing, and debates about the role of the state and various non-state actors in preserving health and shaping the bodies and minds of citizens.

Tsacoyianis has received numerous honors, including a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad fellowship and a P.E.O. Scholar award.

She is the book review editor for the Syrian Studies Association, an interdisciplinary, international organization, and speaks and reads multiple languages, including Spanish, French, Hebrew and Arabic.

Through the IIE Scholar Rescue Fund, she also has actively worked to secure safe academic positions for international scholars at risk for discrimination and/or political unrest in their home countries.

Tsacoyianis earned a bachelor’s degree in Near Eastern and Judaic studies with a minor in Islamic and Middle Eastern studies from Brandeis University in 2004. She will start a tenure-track position in Middle Eastern history at the University of Memphis this fall after earning a doctorate in August.

Williams

Williams earned a bachelor’s of social work in 1995 from North Carolina State University and a master’s of social work in 1996 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

She was a licensed clinical social worker for more than 10 years and a supervisor to provisionally licensed clinical social workers in North Carolina for three years.

Her dissertation, “Mental Health Service Utilization Rates Among African-American Emerging Adults,” draws on her research in cultural competence among social work and helping professionals and racial/ethnic disparities in access to and use of quality mental health services.

A Chancellor’s Graduate Fellow, Williams also has received a pre-doctoral fellowship from the National Institute of Mental Health under the auspices of its training grant program.

She has co-authored articles in Perspectives on Social Work, Health Promotion Practice and Patient Education and Counseling.

Williams, an ordained evangelist, has volunteered as a youth and young adult counselor with the New Destiny Apostolic Church in Maplewood, Mo., since 2009.

She will join the School of Social Work at the University of Missouri-St Louis as a tenure-track assistant professor in the fall.

About the Bouchet Society

Yale and Howard universities established the Bouchet Society in 2005 to recognize the life and academic contributions of Edward Alexander Bouchet, the first African American to earn a doctorate from an American university.

Bouchet was the sixth person in the Western Hemisphere to be awarded the PhD in physics, which he earned from Yale in 1876. He also earned an undergraduate degree from Yale in 1874 and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

WUSTL was invited to become a Bouchet chapter member in 2007, joining Georgetown and Cornell universities and the universities of Michigan and Washington, among other peer institutions.

A WUSTL committee selected the university’s latest class of Bouchet Fellows. Members of the committee are: Zafar; Adrienne D. Davis, JD, vice provost and the William M. Van Cleve Professor of Law; and Elaine P. Berland, PhD, associate dean of the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences and director of the Liberman Graduate Center.

Weidenbaum legacy honored with May 20 forum

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-05-13 00:00:00

Murray Weidenbaum shows some economic figures to President Ronald Reagan in 1981 at the White House. During Reagan's first administration, Weidenbaum became the first chairman of Reagan's Council of Economic Advisers.

Renowned economists will gather Monday, May 20, at the university to pay tribute to Murray Weidenbaum, PhD, founder and honorary chairman of WUSTL’s Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy at Washington University in St. Louis, in a forum highlighting his lifelong accomplishments.

The forum, from 1:30-5:15 p.m. in Simon Hall’s May Auditorium, will begin with a panel discussion on “Current Challenges in Regulation.” The second session will focus on “Today’s Challenges in Macroeconomic Policy.”

After both sessions, speakers and discussants will take questions from the audience.

A highly influential economist and policy adviser, Weidenbaum has a legacy in the academic and governmental realms that began in the early 1960s.

In all, Weidenbaum, the Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor of economics in Arts & Sciences, has served or advised five U.S. presidents, spending much of the time teaching, writing and conducting research. During the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, he served on the U.S. bureau of the budget staff.

After a stint in the business world as the company economist for The Boeing Co., he turned to academia via Stanford University, then Washington University, where he began as an associate professor of economics in 1964.

Two years later, he was named a full professor and chair of the department. During that time, Weidenbaum also directed the NASA Economics Research Program, the department’s largest research project.

He left for Washington, D.C., in 1969 to serve as the first assistant secretary of the treasury for economic policy under President Nixon. In 1971, he was installed as the Mallinckrodt professor at WUSTL.

This straddling of two worlds would become a pattern throughout the 1980s.

During the first Reagan administration, Weidenbaum became the first chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. His dual role as teacher and government policy leader continued through the George H.W. Bush White House, when the president sent him on a special mission to Poland and as a member of the EPA’s Clean Air Advisory Committee.

Throughout his academic life, Weidenbaum continued his keen interest in the impact of government on business, serving on the boards of directors at a variety of companies. In 1975, he founded the Center for the Study of American Business at WUSTL.

In 2001, the center was renamed the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy.

For more information on the tribute forum, including a full list of participants, visit wc.wustl.edu/events/WeidenbaumTributeForum20130520.

Supreme Court decision closes loophole in Monsanto’s business model

2013-05-13 00:00:00

The Supreme Court’s unanimous opinion in Bowman v. Monsanto holds that farmers who lawfully obtain Monsanto’s patented, genetically modified soybeans do not have a right to plant those soybeans and grow a new crop of soybeans without Monsanto’s permission. “The Court closed a potential loophole in Monsanto’s long-standing business model, prevents Monsanto’s customers from setting up ‘farm-factories’ for producing soybeans that could be sold in competition with Monsanto’s soybeans, and it enables Monsanto to continue to earn a reasonable profit on its patented technology,” says Kevin Collins, JD, patent law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis

Collins

Collins’ comments on the loophole in Monsanto’s business model and the legal controversy with the Bowman v. Monsanto decision follow:

Soybean loophole

Monsanto invented a genetically modified soybean that is resistant to a particular herbicide, glyphosate. This agricultural technology poses an unusual challenge for Monsanto insofar as Monsanto seeks to use patent protection to profit from its invention.

Unlike most technologies, soybeans are to some extent self-replicating: the process of planting genetically modified soybeans leads to the creation of more genetically modified soybeans which, if planted, can generate yet more genetically modified soybeans, etc. To profit from farmers’ use of the patented soybeans year after year, Monsanto must prevent farmers from saving the soybeans harvested from a first crop and replanting them as a second crop.

In large part, Monsanto achieves this goal by requiring farmers who purchase the patented soybeans from Monsanto to sign a technology licensing agreement that contractually forbids the farmers from saving and replanting the harvested soybeans in future growing seasons. However, this contractual solution leaves a loophole that Bowman sought to exploit. Farmers who have signed the technology agreement regularly sell their soybean crops to a grain elevator that, in turn, regularly sells the soybeans for human or animal consumption.

Bowman went to a grain elevator, purchased Monsanto’s genetically modified soybeans, and planted them in his fields. Bowman was not under any contractual obligation to Monsanto; he did not sign a technology licensing agreement when he purchased the soybeans. He therefore argued that he had the right to re-plant the soybeans he purchased and to grow a new crop. This is the potential loophole in Monsanto’s ability to prevent the saving and replanting of its patented soybeans that the Supreme Court closed in Bowman v. Monsanto.

Legal controversy

More technically, the legal controversy in Bowman arises from the convergence of the unusual technological capacity of patented soybeans to self-replicate when planted and the patent doctrine of exhaustion.

The exhaustion doctrine states that an unrestricted sale of a patented article exhausts the patentee’s rights with respect to that article.

When a consumer buys a patented good—say, a vacuum cleaner—in an over-the-counter transaction, the consumer may use the vacuum cleaner for its intended purpose of cleaning without infringing the patent. However, the exhaustion doctrine is limited in that the purchase of the vacuum cleaner does not give the patent owner the right to make a second vacuum cleaner.

This limit on the exhaustion doctrine is an intuitive one: it is necessary for a patent owner to continue to earn a profit on a patented technology throughout the full term of a patent.

Bowman’s argument hinges on the fact that the clean distinction between a normally exhausted right to use a patented good for its intended purpose and a normally not-exhausted right to make new patented goods collapses when the patented technology is a self-replicating soybean.

The normal and ordinary way in which a farmer uses a soybean (planting it) necessarily makes new soybeans (the harvested crop). Bowman argued that his right to use the purchased soybeans therefore entailed a right to make new soybeans.

The Supreme Court disagreed, holding that the exhaustion doctrine did not give Bowman the right to purchase the patented soybeans at the grain elevator, plant them, and grow a new crop. The Court’s reasoning relied primarily on the fact that there are many ways to use soybeans that do not require self-replication (e.g., using the soybeans for human or animal consumption).

Engineering undergrads create game-changing asthma management device

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-05-15 00:00:00

http://youtu.be/zBGm83pNxuo

Engineering students Andrew Brimer and Abigail Cohen discuss their project, Sparo Labs, which recently won the $25,000 prize in the Washington University in St. Louis of Engineering & Applied Science's inaugural Discovery Competition. Sparo Labs results from an award-winning project to develop a low-cost, pocket-sized spirometer to measure lung function in patients with chronic respiratory diseases.

An estimated 300 million people in the world suffer from asthma. That number is expected to grow to more than 400 million by 2025. While diagnosis and treatment in the United States is accessible, people living in the developing world have a much more difficult time.

Thanks to a new product being developed by engineering students at Washington University in St. Louis, those millions of people may have new hope.

Andrew Brimer, senior majoring in mechanical engineering, and Abigail Cohen, senior majoring in biomedical engineering, have created a new portable and low-cost spirometer, which they hope will revolutionize the way asthma and other chronic respiratory diseases are diagnosed and treated.

Through creation of this device their company, Sparo Labs, can empower patients to connect with their doctors in tracking and managing asthma, cystic fibrosis, COPD and other diseases through seamless integration with mobile devices.

The team has spent more than a year and a half developing a spirometer that conquers issues of high cost and difficulty of use, drawing on the expertise and hard work of a number of fellow
students and advisors.

Most spirometers cost between $1,000 and $2,000, making them unaffordable to hospitals in the developing world. However, the Sparo Labs device will cost just $8. In addition to the low cost, the Sparo design does not require calibration, which has been a big hurdle to personal use of spirometers.

Sparo Labs is drawing quite a bit of attention, having won this year’s $30,000 Olin Cup top prize, the $25,000 top prize in the inaugural Discovery Competition sponsored by the School of Engineering & Applied Science and a $50,000 Arch Grant.

All told, including off-campus competitions, the team has earned more than $150,000.

Brimer and Cohen say they owe much of their success to the nurturing entrepreneurial spirit at Washington University in St. Louis.

“The university is doing a great job promoting and encouraging entrepreneurship on all levels, from the ‘back of a napkin ideas’ that can be pitched at an IdeaBounce, to the Olin Cup or Discovery Competition that help foster more developed or mature projects into real companies with serious funding,” Brimer says.

"Washington University's focus on entrepreneurship has allowed us and other students the ability to get valuable feedback and funding to help turn ideas into viable companies with large potential for impact," Cohen says.

The pair has received mentorship from the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, the Hatchery entrepreneurship course at Olin Business School and from Mario Castro, MD, director of the Asthma and Airway Translational Research Unit at the School of Medicine.

“The culture of innovation and entrepreneurship continues to grow at Washington University,” says Ken Harrington, managing director of the Skandalaris Center. “The innovation and entrepreneurship initiative is one of the pillars that guides the university’s vision. All students may participate in entrepreneurial coursework and co-curricular programs are open to both student and community entrepreneurs.”

“This is an exciting time for innovation and entrepreneurship at Washington University,” Harrington says. “We continue to see new cross-campus collaborations and relationships with the community that grow the culture and the support system for entrepreneurs.”

Faulty memory finds a new culprit

Melanie Bauer — 2013-05-07 00:00:00

Grandpa's stories often begin with the phrase, “Have I ever told you about the time…?” What he doesn’t know is that, yes, he has told you about that time, and he has told you many times before.

Why is this situation so typical of our conversations with older adults? A recent study conducted at Washington University in St. Louis suggests it may be due to the changing way we perceive events in our lives as we age. The study finds that this perception is influenced by a part of the brain called the medial temporal lobes (MTL), which declines in functioning in old age.

But how does MTL actually help us remember?

Bailey

“The traditional view of MTL is that it helps us with episodic memory,” said Heather Bailey, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Dynamic Cognition Laboratory who conducted the current study along with Jeffrey Zacks, PhD, professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences, and colleagues.

Episodic memory is a type of long-term memory, specifically our memory for events such as our 21st birthday, what we ate for breakfast or our last conversation with a grandparent. However, a more recent view of MTL — one supported by the current study — suggests it is not just responsible for helping us remember the past.

Zacks

“More recent research suggests that MTL is important for helping us identify patterns in our experiences, and chunk and segment them into meaningful events while we’re experiencing them,” Bailey said.

“Chunk” and “segment” are lingo used in segmentation theory to describe the way in which our brains mentally chop up our days. For example, when thinking back on what you did yesterday, you might remember waking up, showering, getting dressed, drinking coffee, driving to work, and so on. Each of these activities is a “chunk” that your brain created and stored in memory.

Study participants viewed short movies of everyday tasks, such as a woman washing dishes, and "chunked" them into segments of activity. Afterward, they were asked to recall what happened.

“It’s not like you press a record button and your brain records your day and then, when you want to think back on it, you’re just hitting a play button and watching a continuous stream of 24 hours. Your brain is naturally chunking the events in your day into discrete parts,” Bailey said.

In their study, published online April 28 by the journal Psychological Science, Bailey, Zacks and colleagues investigated the connection between how people perceive and chunk everyday events and later remember those events.

In their study, older adults were shown short movies of people doing everyday tasks, such as a woman making breakfast or a man building a Lego ship. While watching the movie, they were instructed to press a button whenever they thought one part of the activity was ending and a new part was beginning (i.e., separate the movie into “chunks”). After the movie ended, they were asked to recall what happened.

In addition to assessing memory for the movies, the size of the older adults’ MTL was measured using structural MRI. The study's purpose was to examine the effects of a degraded (i.e., smaller) MTL on how well people can chunk and remember everyday events. The study included both healthy older adults and older adults with Alzheimer’s disease, some of whom had degradation of their MTL.

“Older adults in the study who showed atrophy in MTL showed decline in memory for these everyday activities, and also showed decline in segmenting and chunking these events as they were happening,” Bailey said. “MTL accounted for a huge portion of this relationship we saw between segmentation and memory.”

This means that what people are doing while they’re watching movies or going through their daily lives — how well they’re chunking their experiences into separate memories — has a strong influence on how well they will remember those experiences in the future. How well they are able to chunk and remember is partly due to how well their MTL is functioning, the study finds.

These findings may have relevance in a clinical setting for treating older adults with memory impairments.

“Alzheimer’s disease attacks MTL in the early stages of the disease,” said Bailey. “But even with MTL atrophy, you may be able to train people to chunk better, which might help them remember their everyday activities better, too.”

Forgetfulness is characteristic of the aging mind and conversations with our aging relatives. This Washington University study suggests that the problem may not just be with the process of recalling memories for events, but also with the process of viewing and chunking the events as they unfold.

So, memory improvement for older adults would come from working harder to form new memories better, rather than working harder to bring to mind older memories that already have formed. In this way, how we perceive the world is a strong predictor of how we’ll remember it in the future.

As part of their future research, Bailey and colleagues will design studies to actually combat memory impairment in older adults.

“We want to investigate further this link between event perception and memory. We want to see if we can intervene at an early point in perception, if it will affect memory,” Bailey said.

Chatterjee receives this year's Isserman Prize

By Kelly Wiese Niemeyer — 2013-05-07 00:00:00

Chatterjee

Arts & Sciences senior Nisha K. Chatterjee is this year’s winner of the Rabbi Ferdinand M. Isserman Prize.

The award, given annually, recognizes a student who has made a significant contribution in service and leadership to ecumenical or interfaith activities on the Washington University in St. Louis campus.

Chatterjee, a native of La Canada, Calif., has been active with the university's Bhakti Yoga Club as well as the Inter-Beliefs Council. She previously was treasurer and this year serves as president of Bhakti Yoga Club, which helps students experience spiritual culture from ancient India.

She represented Bhakti Yoga Club on the Interfaith Campus Ministries Association, a group composed mostly of clergy and religious organizations’ staff, and helped with joint outreach events. She also was part of a team that helped organize and run this year’s Pluralism Week, which promotes interfaith awareness and dialogue within the WUSTL community.

Chatterjee plans to graduate this month with a bachelor of arts degree, majoring in international and area studies and economics.

The prize was established to honor the late Ferdinand Isserman, a distinguished rabbi and author who was active in social and interfaith issues locally, nationally and internationally. Winners receive $500 and are honored at a luncheon.

WUSTL celebrates Earth Week with first bike-in movie

2013-05-06 00:00:00

whitney curtis (2)

Washington University in St. Louis faculty, staff and students ride from the Danforth Campus to Forest Park for the first “bike-in” movie April 25, as part of the 2013 Earth Week celebration. The group watched Back to the Future on Art Hill and enjoyed dinner and dessert from local food trucks prior to biking back to campus. Below: WUSTL alumna Elizabeth Riley and junior Tyler Caldwell. The WUSTL community engaged in a week packed with sustainability-themed activities, which included a potluck picnic, a climate change panel discussion, free bike tune-ups and a workday at Burning Kumquat, the student-run organic garden. For more information about the university’s sustainability efforts, visit sustainability.wustl.edu.

‘Don’t despair’ and six other career tips for new college graduates

Mark W. Smith, JD — 2013-05-06 00:00:00

Photo: Mark Katzman

Who can forget Dustin Hoffman’s character in the 1967 American movie classic The Graduate? Mild-mannered and adrift, Ben Braddock immortalized the situation of the successful college graduate who returns home without a job or immediate prospects.

With today’s economy and job market for new college gradates so uncertain, many more recent college graduates are duplicating Ben’s experience — but typically without the cool humor, existential angst or Anne Bancroft in black, thigh-high stockings. The situation frustrates graduates and their parents alike.

In spite of a sluggish job market for today’s graduates, there are a few specific things both parents and graduates can do to move forward during this time of waiting.

1. Don't despair.

Graduates, you are not alone, and your situation will change. Remember, this can be a difficult time and your friends and family can help you through it.

Parents, remember that a lobster grows by shedding its exoskeleton and crawling under a big, safe rock until it can grow a new shell. Your little lobster has just shed his student exoskeleton. You are that big, safe rock your child may need to crawl under until he or she develops a new professional shell.

2. Change your way of thinking about your job search.

Graduates, don't model your job search on your college application process. It's easy to fill out applications — most likely online — and wait to hear what happens. While that process works well for college or graduate school, it typically will not work for a job search. The appropriate job search paradigm is dating. It is all about meeting lots of people and finding the right fit. That means lots of networking and probably lots of rejections before you find the right position. This is particularly true in this market. Most positions won’t be posted.

Parents, think about people you know who could advise your child about his or her career search.

3. Figure out what you want to do.

Graduates, this can be the scariest but also the most enjoyable part of the process. If you are unsure about your future, think about what you value, what you are good at and how you want to spend your life. Go to a good bookstore. It will have hundreds of books on different careers and career-search strategies. When this discovery process starts working for you, it can be an incredibly exciting time of exploration.

Parents, help your child think about what makes him or her passionate and how that passion might convert to a career.

4. Get organized.

Graduates, create a plan of attack with small, attainable steps. Dedicate a certain amount of time each day to your search and make and keep a job search folder. File various iterations of your cover letters, resumes, and thank you notes there. (And, yes, don’t forget to write thank you notes to anyone who grants you an interview or meeting.) Create a spreadsheet to help you track contacts.

Parents, help your child break down the process into achievable goals.

5. Use your college career office.

Graduates, even if you never visited the office while you were a student, use its services now, but set your expectations appropriately. Don't expect them to have a magic drawer full of jobs. What they do have is an ability to help you focus and execute your search — and they tend to have more time to work with you during the summer.

Parents, you can encourage your children to reach out to their career center, but you can't do it for them.

6. Don't apply to graduate or professional school unless you know why.

Graduates, it is tempting to go back to school because you "need to do something." But be aware: graduate and professional school can increase your debt load without increasing job prospects. Don't go to graduate or professional school unless you know why you are going, where it leads and that you want that career.

7. Consider a volunteer or part-time position.

Graduates, while you are looking for that perfect first job, volunteer on a political campaign or with a local nonprofit agency or advocacy group. Also consider a post-graduate internship. You will meet people who can help with your search. The experience also will prevent a gap on your resume. If you can't afford to be unpaid, take a temporary job. Remember though, your first priority should remain your job search.

Parents, while you certainly didn't pay all of that college tuition so your child could take a volunteer position, this will help in the long run.

Many individuals never take the time to really think about what they want to do and how to do it. They just fall into something and either stay with it or bounce around without direction. While you can't control everything in your life, this is your chance to think, learn and discover opportunities that could result in a satisfying and exciting career rather than a mind-numbing job.

Mark W. Smith, JD, is associate vice chancellor for students and director of the Career Center at Washington University in St. Louis.

Danforth Center’s ‘Religion & Politics’ online journal named Webby Official Honoree

2013-05-01 00:00:00

Religion & Politics, the online journal of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics at Washington University in St. Louis, has been recognized as an official honoree at the 17th Annual Webby Awards in the Best Religion & Spirituality Website category.

Hailed as the "Internet's highest honor" by The New York Times, The Webby Awards, presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, is the leading international award honoring excellence on the Internet.

"It is gratifying for all of us at the journal and the center to have our hard work recognized in this way,” said the center’s director, R. Marie Griffith, the John C. Danforth Distinguished Professor in the Humanities. “Many people have played an important role in the journal's early development. I am particularly grateful to our managing editor, Tiffany Stanley, for her dedication to the journal and her valuable contributions to its success."

Religion & Politics, which just celebrated its one-year anniversary, is an online news journal dedicated to the two topics thought “unfit for polite company,” according to the site. In its first year, it surpassed 1 million pageviews and reached nearly one-quarter of a million unique visitors.

The site features articles from scholars and journalists who proceed from a single premise: that for better and for worse, religion and politics converge, clash and shape public life. The journal publishes a range of political and religious views and honors frank and respectful debate. To learn more, visit here.

To view the listing of the awards, visit here.

Crowds flock to Thurtene Carnival

2013-04-23 00:00:00

Pleasant weather led to a good turnout this past weekend for Thurtene Carnival.

The annual community event brings together students, faculty and staff from Washington University in St. Louis with the university’s surrounding neighbors and the greater St. Louis community for a weekend filled with rides, carnival fare and student-produced family-friendly plays. One new feature for 2013 was a rock-climbing wall.

james byard

Thurtene Carnival gets under way at Washington University in St. Louis during the evening April 19, with rides aglow in front of the landmark Brookings Hall. The weekend event is the nation's oldest and largest student-run carnival, dating back to 1907.

whitney Curtis

Senior James Gill, who plans to graduate in May and is majoring in marketing and entrepreneurship, tries to convince carnivalgoers to pay $1 to throw pies at him during Thurtene Carnival April 20. The three-day annual event raises money for charity, and this year's major cause is Provident, a St. Louis area nonprofit group that provides services from after-school programs to a suicide prevention hotline.

whitney curtis

Sophomore Maggie Kelleher, left, and senior Susanna Barron, of Alpha Omicron Pi, help children make crafts during Thurtene Carnival. Fraternities and sororities on campus typically pair up to build elaborate facades, house-like structures that are constructed and decorated the week before the carnival, each with its own theme. Student groups then offer plays and other family friendly activities during the weekend-long event. Kelleher is a business administration major, while Barron is majoring in political science and in French, both in Arts & Sciences.

Increasing surveillance a dangerous reaction to Boston bombings, says privacy law expert

2013-04-23 00:00:00

In the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings, some people are calling for an increase in surveillance cameras throughout U.S. cities.

“This would be a mistake,” says Neil M. Richards, JD, privacy law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “It would be dangerous to our civil liberties, and it would be bad policy.”

Richards

Richards gives his personal reaction to the Boston bombings and offers three reasons why increasing the number of surveillance cameras would be an unnecessary response to recent events in a CNN opinion piece, "Surveillance State No Answer to Terror."

“Being constantly observed might make us feel slightly safer, but this would be only an illusion of safety,” he writes.

“History has shown repeatedly that broad government surveillance powers inevitably get abused – whether by the Gestapo, the Stasi, or our own FBI, which engaged in unlawful surveillance and blackmail of ‘dangerous’ people like Martin Luther King, Jr.”

Read the full article at http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/23/opinion/richards-surveillance-state/index.html.

Washington University named to list of ‘greenest’ schools

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-04-18 00:00:00

Washington University in St. Louis has been named to The Princeton Review’s list of the most environmentally responsible “green colleges” in North America.

The Princeton Review, in collaboration with the Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council, named WUSTL to The Princeton Review's Guide to 322 Green Colleges: 2013 Edition, which profiles 320 schools in the U.S. and two in Canada that demonstrate notable commitments to sustainability in their academic offerings, campus infrastructure, activities and career preparation.

“We are happy to be recognized for our extraordinary efforts in the area of sustainability,” said Hank Webber, executive vice chancellor for administration. “Our new $30 million Energy Conservation Investment, along with our Less is More campaign, will serve to strengthen our already robust commitment to sustainable operations, community and teaching and research.”

For more information on WUSTL's Commitment to Action, visit news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/25161.aspx.

The 215-page book — the only free, comprehensive, annual guide to green colleges — can be downloaded at princetonreview.com/green-guide.

Washington University is one of three Missouri schools to be included. The others are Drury and the University of Missouri-Columbia.

For more information on sustainability at Washington University, visit sustain.wustl.edu.

How schools were chosen

The Princeton Review chose the schools based on a survey it conducted of hundreds of colleges across the U.S. and in Canada in 2012 to tally its "Green Ratings" (scores from 60 to 99). The survey asked administrators more than 50 questions about their institution's sustainability-related policies, practices and programs. The 322 schools in this guide received scores of 83 or above in that assessment. The Princeton Review does not rank the schools in this guide 1 to 322, nor does it include their Green Rating scores in the book's school profiles. Information about The Princeton Review's Green Rating methodology and its "Green Honor Roll" saluting 21 schools that received Green Ratings of 99 is at princetonreview.com/green.aspx.

Make music with student-created app

Melody Walker — 2013-04-18 00:00:00

It’s called Sketch-A-Song. It’s free, and it’s designed to make music creation accessible to everyone — even people without formal musical training.

The Sketch-A-Song app in use.

Jacob Zax, a senior majoring in political science, and classmate Adam Segal, an English literature major, both in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, are members of a team of seven friends who devoted last summer to creating the app.

The men all attended Denver East High School in Colorado and are pursuing degrees ranging from computer science to English at different universities. Zax answered questions about Sketch-A-Song via email, three days after their app’s soft launch. The app allows users to touch buttons to choose musical elements, such as horns or guitars, along with the timing for including such sounds in a song.

Q: Can you tell me a bit more about your friends and co-creators?

A: The group of co-creators are best friends from high school. We were very close in high school and have stayed best friends throughout college. Towards the end of last year, we decided to forgo internships to spend one last summer together working on a project.

Q: How long have you been working on this app?

A: A total of nine months. We worked full time for two months during the summer and almost released when we returned to school. We weren’t quite ready though, and after a lot of deliberation, decided to make the finishing touches to the app over winter break (making progress during the semester was unrealistic due to our other commitments). Those improvements ended up taking us into the start of this semester, but they’ve made a big difference in the app’s quality.

Q: What was inspiration for Sketch-A-Song?

A: Adam and I took a class called the Hatchery (a course that helps students develop business plans) in the Washington University (Olin) Business School in the spring of 2012, which was designed to nurture students' entrepreneurial ideas and ambitions. While our project for that class was quite different from Sketch-A-Song, the experience helped inspire us to commit our summer to our own venture and convince our friends to join us in starting a business. As a group, we had a passionate collective belief that we could learn a ton from working with one another towards a common goal. Also, my friends are just inspiring people — and the thought of sharing a summer with them in such a meaningful way was exhilarating from Day One.

As for the concept of music creation, all credit goes to our co-creator Zack Sulsky, who is a great musician and music theorist. He was the one who convinced us that we should aspire to creating a product that would allow anyone to make pleasing music.

Q: Do you plan to make money with the app?

A: We made the app because we wanted to give people a way to express themselves musically that was fun, intuitive and accessible. We explicitly chose not to include advertisements because we didn’t want to detract from the simplicity of the creation process or the app’s overall aesthetic.

However, we do have in-app-purchases as a way to unlock additional content and while our NoteNotes (that’s our name for the in-game currency) are moderately priced, and can also be earned by making songs, we do expect to make some money as people become familiar with the game and want to explore additional instruments and sketchpads.

Q: What are you guys going to do this summer?

A: As graduating seniors we have a variety of plans, jobs and traveling to look forward to. I will personally be taking the lead on promoting Sketch-A-Song before exploring other career opportunities. Adam will be training to become a teacher with Teach For America. While the team is headed in many different professional directions, our commitment to Sketch-A-Song will continue to unite us.

Visit Sketch-A-Song’s website and download the app for iOS or Android devices.

Encouraging literacy: Education students donate more than 350 books to local grade school

2013-04-19 00:00:00

For the fifth year in a row, the Washington University in St. Louis members of Kappa Delta Pi (KDP), the international honor society in education, led a service project that focuses on literacy and benefits local grade-schoolers.

Pre-K through sixth-grade students and their teachers at Cool Valley Elementary School in the Ferguson-Florissant School District were the lucky recipients of more than 350 books donated by KDP members.

The eleven KDP members, both undergraduate and graduate students in WUSTL’s Department of Education in Arts & Sciences, held fundraisers and wrote successful grants to the Women’s Society of Washington University and the education department to help pay for the books, which they delivered to the school April 12.

Each Cool Valley student received a book, which they selected in advance, along with a personalized bookmark. Each of the school’s 18 teachers received a basket of five books for their classrooms.

“This project is such a wonderful opportunity to boost literacy in the homes of our students,” said Suzette Simms, Cool Valley principal. “For the Washington University students to choose our school for this service project and to choose books that our students are interested in reading is awesome.”

all photos by Sid Hastings

Allison Laird, an Arts & Sciences junior majoring in education and president of KDP, reads “Leah's Pony” to third-graders at Cool Valley Elementary. In addition to delivering books to the school, the WUSTL education students also delivered a lesson as part of their service project, titled “On the Move: Encouraging Literacy.”

Eileen Lai, a senior majoring in education, watches as kindergartners balance bean bags on their heads as part of Lai’s lesson on the timeless classic “Caps for Sale” about a cap salesman who wears his entire stock of caps on his head.

Laird receives appreciative hugs from third-graders at Cool Valley Elementary School after she and her fellow KDP honor society members hand-delivered books to the students. WUSTL's KDP chapter members have purchased and donated close to 2,000 books to area school children in the past five years.

Symposium: Finding humanity in advanced dementia, April 27

2013-04-17 00:00:00

Rebecca L. BarNard

A Polaroid self-portrait hand-reworked by Rebecca L. Barnard, an artist, eerily foreshadows her oncoming illness, diagnosed 14 years later.

The Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology Program of Washington University in St Louis will host a symposium “Finding Humanity in Advanced Dementia” Saturday, April 27.

In this symposium, experts in the fields of patient care, psychology, philosophy, medicine, neuroscience, and a family caregiver discuss the effect of severe cognitive loss on people with dementia and those who care for them and seek to discover ways to honor the dignity of individuals coping with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias.

Greg ruffing/redux

In December 2007, Richard Rubin and his wife, Beck (pictured above), already diagnosed with early-onset dementia, attended a lecture on “Cognitive Loss and Ethics” in Baltimore.

The young speaker asked whether a woman, faithful to her husband all her life, who started an affair in her nursing home, should be stopped. “Should you honor the wishes of a person in the early stages of dementia after she ceases to be a person,” the speaker asked.

Beck whispered to Richard, “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” and left the room.

A year later, Richard was struggling to keep Beck at home despite progressing dementia. In a moment of desperation, he tried to force her to take anti-psychotic medication. She backed away from him and slammed her head into the wall phone, which crashed to floor. Holding her head, she wailed, “Oh, Sweetie. Oh, Sweetie, I'm just a person! I'm just a person.”  

Richard Rubin will be the first speaker in the symposium “Finding Humanity in Advanced Dementia.”

The symposium will begin with a personal perspective presented by Richard M. Rubin, PhD, a lecturer in philosophy in University College (see sidebar).

Peggy Szwabo, PhD, a mental health consultant, then will discuss dementia caregiving from a clinical perspective.

She will be followed by Jason Karlawish, MD, professor of medicine, medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania, and by Agnieszka Jaworska, PhD, associate professor of philosophy at the University of California at Riverside.

John C. Morris, MD, the Harvey A. and Dorismae Hacker Friedman Distinguished Professor of Neurology and director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, and Marcus E. Raichle, MD, professor of radiology, neurology, neurobiology and biomedical engineering, both at Washington University in St. Louis, will discuss biological aspects of dementia, and Raichle will present a case history from his own family.

All of the speakers, together with Rebecca Dresser, JD, the Daniel Noyes Professor of Law and professor of ethics in medicine at WUSTL, will take part in a panel discussion, and Carl Craver, PhD, professor of philosophy in Arts & Sciences at WUSTL, will deliver concluding remarks.

The symposium, which runs from 1 to 7:30 p.m. in Wilson Hall, Room 214, on the university’s Danforth Campus, is free and open to the public. Seating is limited, so pre-registration is enouraged. To register, email: wustldementiasymposium@gmail.com.

Futher details and additional resources for people struggling with dementia can be found at: https://pages.wustl.edu/dementiasymposium.

Relay For Life raises hope and funds one lap at a time

2013-04-17 00:00:00

Whitney Curtis

Washington University in St. Louis’ 11th annual Relay For Life once again opened with a symbolic Survivors Lap around Bushyhead Track at Francis Field. More than 1,600 people participated in the 12-hour, overnight walk-a-thon April 13 and 14, which raised $220,287 for the American Cancer Society. This year’s event opened with a ceremony to celebrate the three themes of the national event: celebrate, remember and fight back. Ceremonies throughout the night included student speakers, including those who are cancer survivors or otherwise have been affected by the disease. The opening ceremony featured comments from Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton, who spoke about cancer research being done at the university’s Siteman Cancer Center, some of which is funded by the efforts of Relay For Life.

Senior class launches gift campaign

2013-04-18 00:00:00

Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton and seniors dancing the Harlem Shake.

Hoping to help future generations of Washington University in St. Louis students as they themselves have been helped, the Senior Class Council recently kicked off its Senior Gift Campaign with a rousing, fun video featuring Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton and a group of seniors dancing the Harlem Shake in the chancellor’s office.

To view the video, visit here.

The goal for the campaign, according to 2013 Senior Class President J.R. Davis, is to top 85 percent participation by members of the undergraduate class. Seniors can get more information and find a link to donate by visiting here.

“What's really great about the Senior Gift Campaign is that there are so many good reasons for seniors to be a part of it and make to a donation,” said Davis. “A large part of our undergraduate experience was made possible through the giving of others. This campaign gives seniors the chance to give back to future generations of students and shape their experience in a positive way.”

Gerald Early gets star on St. Louis Walk of Fame

2013-04-16 00:00:00

Washington University Professor Gerald L. Early, PhD, an internationally renowned essayist and American culture critic, was recognized with a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame during an April 11 induction ceremony in front of the Moonrise Hotel on Delmar Boulevard in The Loop.

The St. Louis Walk of Fame consists of more than 130 sets of brass stars and bronze plaques honoring individuals from the St. Louis area who have made major national contributions to America’s cultural heritage.

Joe Edwards, founder of the St. Louis Walk of Fame and owner of numerous Loop businesses, including the Moonrise and Blueberry Hill, noted that Early was joining other WUSTL literary luminaries on the St. Louis Walk of Fame.

“It’s nothing short of phenomenal how many people in the St. Louis Walk of Fame have some connection to Washington University,” he said. “Either they attended, they taught or have done research there.”

All Photos by Whitney Curtis

Gerald L. Early, PhD (left), receives a plaque from Joe Edwards marking Early’s induction into the St. Louis Walk of Fame during an April 11 ceremony in front of the Moonrise Hotel on Delmar Boulevard in The Loop.

In his induction speech, Early talked about lessons he learned while growing up in a tight, working-class neighborhood in South Philadelphia. Among the people he thanked was his mother, who was in the audience. “My mother, a widow during my childhood and adolescence, provided me with a wonderful childhood and gave me a set of tough, realistic values by which to measure and criticize life.” To read his talk from the ceremony, visit here.

Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton, who spoke during the ceremony, congratulates Early. In his remarks, Wrighton said that he normally does not celebrate failure, but noted one time early in his career that he was thankful for not succeeding. That was when Wrighton was provost at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and he tried wooing Early from WUSTL to MIT.

Colleagues, friends and family — including his mother, sister and cousin from Philadelphia and in-laws from Dallas — attended Gerald Early's St. Louis Walk of Fame induction ceremony. Early, a professor of English, of African and African-American studies, and of American culture studies, all in Arts & Sciences, recently stepped down as director of the Center for the Humanities after more than 11 years in that position. The center and African and African-American studies hosted a reception for Early later in the day in the Women's Building Lounge.

Media Advisory: Thurtene Carnival preparations — photo/video opportunity

2013-04-16 00:00:00

WHO: Washington University in St. Louis students

WHAT: Students are hard at work constructing their facades, miniature house-like themed structures, in preparation for the Thurtene Carnival this weekend

WHEN: 24 hours a day from now through Friday night, though busiest times will be from 4-8 p.m. daily

WHERE: Brookings Drive on the WUSTL campus (near corner of Forest Park Parkway and Skinker Boulevard)

WHY: The Thurtene Carnival, featuring rides, food and entertainment, will be held this weekend, April 19-21. One of the carnival’s unique features is the facades created by various student organizations, inside which students perform family-friendly plays.

To learn more, visit www.thurtene.org or read the Record story.

Gerald Early's St. Louis Walk of Fame induction ceremony talk

2013-04-16 00:00:00

Gerald L. Early, PhD, the Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters at Washington University in St. Louis, delivered the following address during his induction ceremony into the St. Louis Walk of Fame April 11 on Delmar Boulevard in The Loop.

Also speaking during the ceremony was Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton and Joe Edwards, founder of the St. Louis Walk of Fame and owner of numerous Loop businesses, including Blueberry Hill and the Moonrise Hotel, where the ceremony took place.

St. Louis Walk of Fame induction ceremony talk by Gerald Early

It is difficult to give an appropriate response to receiving an honor like this. To say that you don’t deserve it assails the judgment of the people who chose you for it. To say that you deserve it is an admission that you don’t know how to judge yourself objectively. So, as with any gift, it is best simply to accept it with gratitude.

I wish to thank Joe Edwards for establishing the Walk of Fame and for his kindness. Of course, I thank all the people who voted for me to have this plaque. It would not have been possible for me to have won this award without the support of Washington University, which has been so central to my career. I am indebted to the leadership there, Chancellors Danforth and Wrighton and to the various deans of Arts and Sciences who helped me.

I am exceedingly grateful to various colleagues and friends in the English department, in African and African-American Studies, at the Center for the Humanities, and in other departments and schools around the university for what they have done for me. I have the pleasure of working with many fine, very smart, and honorable people. I’ve learned a great deal from my peers.

I regret that the late Jim McLeod is not here today. He was very important to my development during his years as director of the African and African-American Studies Program. He would have been pleased to see me get this sort of recognition. He always believed in my possibilities.

I serve on the boards of several nonprofits in St. Louis and I am grateful to them for permitting me the opportunity to work with them in fulfilling their missions. To do such work is a privilege.

In particular, I wish to thank Bob Archibald, former president of the Missouri History Museum, for permitting me to do two major projects: the Miles Davis exhibit and the Seeking St. Louis writers project, which resulted in two of my most important books, Miles Davis and American Culture and Ain’t But A Place: African American Writings about St. Louis. I am proud of these books and humbled that Bob thought I had the skill to do them.

I owe much to my family, my daughters Rosalind and Linnet, who have grown up to be such mature, responsible adults, my son-in-law, Stan, a good father, husband, and scholar, and my grandsons William and Stanley.

If anyone deserves a plaque like this, it is my wife, Ida, for all her civic work, for her path- breaking leadership of the Junior League, for all the difference that she has made at Washington University, and for her devotion to St. Louis’s nonprofit world. She has always been my model citizen. I wish I had half her zeal and commitment, half her moral clarity and common sense sympathy.

I am so very glad that my mother, my sister, and my cousin are here from Philadelphia for this occasion. My mother, a widow during my childhood and adolescence, provided me with a wonderful childhood and gave me a set of tough, realistic values by which to measure and criticize life. My sister introduced me to books and music. I was the only kid in my neighborhood who had a sister who read to him stories by Charles Dickens and played for him records by Nina Simone, Phil Ochs, Miriam Makeba, and Odetta. And my cousin was with me when I first became a published writer while I was a student at the University of Pennsylvania.

I am pleased as well that my in-laws from Dallas, Texas, are here: My mother-in-law, my sister-in-law, my brother-in-law, and my niece-in-law. They are all such good and generous people who have been so supportive of me over the years. I am honored that they took the time to be here today.

It is clear that many can make a claim to a small piece of this plaque. No one does anything solely through his or her own efforts. No one is his or her own invention. We are rather cobbled together piecemeal by a network of unexpected influences. These influences do not even sort themselves out in the end as good or bad but rather as those we need, those we like, those we think we understand, and those we crave to exorcise but can’t.

I grew up in what today might be called an inner-city neighborhood in South Philadelphia that was made up of African Americans and Italian Americans almost in equal number. The adults were all working class and, no matter their race, they were all conservative people.

Mine was the generation of the Baby Boomers and our parents went through their childhood and teen years during the Depression and World War II. It was those years that formulated their conservative views, their belief in the power of the Christian church, in the necessity of school, the sanctity of marriage, the shame of teen pregnancy, the need for a man to earn enough to support a wife and children, the need for a woman to be a good mother and housewife and to keep an eye on the neighborhood during the day, the wonders of home ownership.

They believed that too much egalitarianism was a form of decadence, and harbored great suspicions of a new trend afoot called credit cards. I was taught it was horrible to borrow money but lots of adults then were buying on the “e-z” installment plan and borrowing from credit unions. Nearly everyone smoked including many of us kids. Everyone was on the lookout for a buck and a little luck, so everyone, black and white, played the illegal lottery. And nearly everyone, black and white, went to the nearby Catholic elementary school every week to play bingo.

Several of the black women in the neighborhood cleaned the homes of some of the white women; and many black teens worked in the small shops owned by the Italians and the Jews. Many of the blacks in the neighborhood lived in housing projects; none of the whites did. There was an overt racial hierarchy and we had our share of racial conflict. But surprisingly people got on with one another reasonably well.

Everyone in the neighborhood believed in unions and voted for Democratic Party every election because everyone could count on Democrat politicians like Rep. Bill Barrett to do favors for you like getting your kid out of jail without paying bail if he had been arrested on a misdemeanor or getting your driver’s license back after it had been suspended for drunk driving, or helping your kid get out of the army without being dishonorably discharged or helping your kid get into the police academy or something like that.

Our politics was the ideology of patronage. This working class conservatism had severe shortcomings as it was partly built on intolerance, superstition, political corruption, and prideful ignorance but there was much about this community’s conservatism that made my childhood stable and warm and rich in the gifts of ordinary life, even if it was narrow in its exposure and unenlightened about the wider world. I am what this neighborhood made me.

A few years ago I took my daughter Rosalind on a walking tour of this neighborhood. She was surprised by how modest it was, despite a few touches of gentrification. She was even more surprised when we ran into people, black and white, who knew me, had grown up with me, and remembered me despite the fact that I had not lived there for over 35 years and had not seen these people in years.

She was surprised as well that I was held in such esteem by them. “I was lucky. The people in this neighborhood always believed in my possibilities,” I said to her.

When we arrived at an old ball field, I told her a story of how I used to play baseball for my elementary school team, how bad I was as a player then, and how the kids and the gym teacher made me a catcher, a position nobody wanted to play. I was afraid of the ball, afraid of being hit by the bat when I was catching, afraid of striking out when I was batting, which I always did. The opposition called me the automatic out, the clown, hole in the glove, and the weakling.

One day I was really struggling, making errors and striking out, and I was getting razed by both the opposing team and my own teammates who yelled at me “Why the hell can’t you hit anything?” So, finally, I simply sat down on the bench, started to cry, and refused to play anymore. I was tired of being humiliated.

The gym teacher was furious with me and told me I wouldn’t amount to much of a man if I couldn’t take adversity, if I couldn’t take some hazing. Look at what Jackie Robinson had to take, he said. That odd appeal to racial pride might have worked but I was only 10 years old and was convinced in my child’s mind that Jackie Robinson could not have suffered nearly as much as I had.

The opposition really gave it to me and called me a sissy, a crybaby, and the like. But my teammates did not raze me or even get mad, they came over and earnestly talked me back into playing. They told me not to let them down and we had to stick together as a team. As bad as I was, they still wanted me.

My best friend, Benny, handed me the catcher’s mask and mitt and said, “God hates a coward.” He grew up to become a preacher and was always a devout kid. So I went back into the game. In the last inning of that game, we were ahead by one run. The opposition had a runner on first with two outs and the batter hits a ball into the gap. The kid on first was tearing around the bases. Amazingly, we made absolutely perfect relays and I got the ball just as this husky kid came barreling toward the plate and he ran right over me, flattened me completely. I actually saw stars. That’s how hard he hit me.

Rosalind thought the story had a sad ending. She thought the opposition won.

Oh no, I told her. The kid was out. I tagged him and held on to the ball. It didn’t matter that he knocked me into the middle of next week. We won the game and I was a hero.

I told her that I learned everything from that game. First, I learned that while I wasn’t as good as I wanted to be, I wasn’t as bad as I thought I was. And that I didn’t need to be better than everyone else. I only needed to be the best at the crucial moment when it counted most.

Second, the only way to stop being embarrassed and humiliated was to get better. There is a certain kernel of cruelty in all learning. Third, from time to time, you need someone who believes in your possibilities to tell you to trust your stuff, as they say in baseball, because God does indeed hate a coward.

Rosalind thought it was a good story. She understood the neighborhood was more than she thought it was, it had more to offer than was apparent on its surface.

I also learned one other thing, I told her. Long before Tom Hanks said it in a movie, I learned that there is no crying in baseball.

Prestigious recognition from French government

2013-04-12 00:00:00

KeVin Lowder

Alumna Anna DiPalma Amelung, PhD, a facilitator at the Lifelong Learning Institute (LLI) at Washington University in St. Louis, was inducted as a Chevalier dans L'Ordre des Palmes Académiques (Knight in the Order of Academic Palms) for outstanding contributions to the development of French culture and language. Jean-Francois Rochard, the attache cultural adjoint consulate general of France in Chicago, presented Amelung with a medallion on behalf of the French government during a March 22 ceremony and reception at the West Campus Conference Center. Amelung, who has facilitated 16 courses at the Lifelong Learning Institute over the past three years, gave a lecture titled "In Praise of Franco-American Friendship: Mary Cassatt and Edgar Degas" during the event. Amelung earned a PhD in French from WUSTL in 1980. The Ordre des Palmes Académiques is the oldest non-military decoration in France, founded by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1808 to honor educators. LLI is a community outreach education program sponsored by University College in Arts & Sciences that offers a variety of non-credit academic courses for senior adults. A teacher of French and Latin for 45 years in Europe and the United States, Amelung refers to LLI students as "the most exciting and rewarding student body one can only dream of."

'Stay Enchanted' at annual Thurtene Carnival

Kelly Wiese Niemeyer — 2013-04-11 00:00:00

Jenn SIlverberg

Fairgoers enjoy last year's Thurtene Carnival on the WUSTL campus.

The nation’s oldest and largest student-run carnival gets under way later this month.

The event is a fun way to bring together students, faculty and staff from Washington University in St. Louis with the university’s neighbors and the greater St. Louis community for a weekend filled with rides, carnival fare, a rock-climbing wall and family friendly plays. More than 80,000 people are expected to attend.

The Thurtene Carnival will be on WUSTL’s campus, on Brookings Drive, from 4-8 p.m. April 19 and from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. April 20 and 21. More than 50 WUSTL student organizations are involved.

Part of the allure of the weekend is the chance to walk around the lawn in front of Brookings Hall and check out the facades, elaborate miniature house-like structures that student organizations have created. Each has a theme, and past ones have ranged from surf shops to Egyptian crypts.

Students work, in shifts, around the clock for the week leading up to the carnival to get their facades built and decorated, and the groups start planning their displays months in advance.

Thurtene Junior Honorary has worked to make the event more environmentally friendly. So this year, the containers used to serve food will be compostable, thanks to a grant from the Student Sustainability Fund, explained Thurtene public relations co-chair Dara Baker, a junior majoring in psychology in Arts & Sciences. Composting stations will be set up around the carnival site. Leftover construction materials also will be reused for art projects.

Coca-Cola Co. is a sponsor for Thurtene for the second straight year. The company has donated 25 rain-collection barrels made of recycled material, and proceeds from sales of the barrels will go to charity. Bonfyre, a St, Louis-based free mobile sharing app co-founded by WUSTL alumni, also is a sponsor. The company will donate $1 for each person who joins the Thurtene Bonfyre group.

This year, the carnival’s overall theme is “Stay Enchanted,” a nod to the generations who have come to enjoy the annual event.

“Our theme serves as a celebration for parents who’ve been coming to the carnival since they were children,” said Thurtene public relations co-chair Emilio Ramos, a junior majoring in communication design. “We’re inviting them to come relive the mystical fervor of the carnival, now with their own children. We hope to continue the carnival’s honored tradition of uniting the university community with St. Louis citizens and local businesses.”

The carnival will boast typical staples such as funnel cakes and corn dogs, but also offer food choices with an international flavor such as potstickers and samosas. Admission to the carnival is free, but patrons should bring cash for rides, food and to see some of the plays inside the facades – which, again, rely on students’ writing and acting skills.

The weekend festivities will help benefit and promote the local charity that Thurtene is partnering with this year, Provident. Provident, one of the region’s oldest family service nonprofit agencies, provides a number of community programs, from after-school activities and character building for youth to a suicide prevention and crisis hotline.

Thurtene dates back to 1907 and is led by 13 juniors chosen for the honorary society based on their leadership, character and campus involvement.

For more information, visit www.thurtene.org.

WUSTL's Alumni Weekend also will coincide with the Thurtene Carnival. To learn more, visit here.

Land Lab winners advancing sustainability in St. Louis

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-04-11 00:00:00

The City of St. Louis is poised to lead the way in innovative solutions to the national urban issue of vacant land, thanks to a unique partnership with Washington University in St. Louis.

Four of the city’s vacant lots will be home for five demonstration projects testing new ways to think of vacant space.

From a franchise-model urban farm co-existing next to an intimate bistro built out of re-used shipping containers — to a sunflower lab piloting efficiency of plant-based soil remediation — Old North St. Louis will be the first home to what truly will be a Sustainable Land Lab.

Winners of the inaugural Sustainable Land Lab Competition are:

Bistro Box and Our Farm: The Bistro Box concept is a small business incubator that transforms surplus cargo containers into a compact restaurant and culinary destination. Our Farm is a scalable urban agriculture network that proposes to transform blighted lots into cost-efficient models of sustainability. (This is a hybrid of two finalist teams sharing a single lot due to the synergy between the two projects.)
Chess Pocket Park: An outdoor community chess venue for residents with a permanent location supporting our primary community asset – people.
Mighty Mississippians: A modern agricultural and sustainable living model, the premises for this approach are rooted in regional history, the Mississippians and their ancestors, as well as modern permaculture practices. Using concepts of permaculture, the site will demonstrate the interdependent relationships that work efficiently and sustainably in nature and that worked for previous civilizations, from the soil to the birds, to humans.
Sunflower+ Project: Proposes turning previously developed urban lots into a community asset through the planting of sunflowers. With a goal of eventually spurring redevelopment of these vacant parcels, the project will serve as an appropriate, scalable and productive transitional solution.The sunflowers will improve soil quality, remove soil contaminants and eventually produce a marketable set of products from flowers to seeds to biodiesel.

Each winning project will receive a two-year land lease and $5,000 seed money to start their project.

In the inaugural year of this city-wide competition, the pilot sites will be hosted in Old North St. Louis.

“The Sustainable Land Lab Competition is exploring innovative ideas for a national issue,” says Phil Valko, director of sustainability at the university.

“From urban to suburban to rural communities, vacant land is an American epidemic. This competition is adding to the dialogue and the body of problem solving,” he says. “The aspect that makes it especially unique is that the winners will actually win land and money to build their idea. The partnership between the city and Washington University in St. Louis is of great benefit to both. It leverages the university’s role as a thought leader and research institution to channel creative thinking to a major challenge the city faces.”

The competition timing aligns well with the release of the first City of St. Louis Sustainability Plan.

“Advancing tangible and measurable sustainability has been an important goal of this project,” says Catherine Werner, sustainability director for the City of St. Louis. “Part of the challenge was for the teams to specifically address how their projects will help achieve the city’s sustainability goals. It’s very exciting to now have the opportunity to watch as creative sustainability ideas become reality.”

“I am thrilled that we have been able to partner with Washington University on this project,” says St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay. “There was an overwhelming amount of interest and support from the community and the result was a high level of energy and an impressive array of final project ideas. It was difficult to select just a few winning projects. I look forward to celebrating the winning projects and using ideas from all the projects involved to address vacant land use in the city.”

The winning teams presented their ideas during a public forum Thursday, April 11, at Bridge, 1004 Locust St.

Forty-eight teams applied in the first of a three-round competition. The final round consisted of eight ideas representing 10 of the original teams.

All of the submissions can be found online at sustainablecities.wustl.edu/land-labs-competition/submissions/.

The competition brief, which outlines the goals and context for this initiative, can be found online at sustainablecities.wustl.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/SustainableLandLab_CompetitionBrief_110212.pdf.

The Sustainable Land Lab is a partnership between Washington University and the City of St. Louis, with support from Old North St. Louis Restoration Group, Equifax and the Regional Housing and Community Development Alliance.

It is the ongoing legacy of Washington University’s three-day Sustainable Cities Conference, held Nov. 1-3, 2012. The Sustainable Land Lab is designed to be a living laboratory of two-year demonstration projects, which will showcase innovative ideas and integrated strategies for transforming one of the region’s greatest challenges — vacant land — into an asset that can advance sustainability.

Social entrepreneurs win share of $164,000 at annual innovation competition

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-04-11 00:00:00

The winners of the eighth annual YouthBridge Social Enterprise and Innovation Competition (SEIC) and its $164,000 in awards have been announced.

Mary Butkus

Sister Joan Kuester (left), executive director of the Daughters of Charity Foundation, and Jill McGuire (right), executive director of the Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis, talk with Jessica Hentoff of the Circus Harmony Flying Trapeze Center. Hentoff won $30,000 from each organization.

Winning teams represented community and Washington University in St. Louis social entrepreneurs. Their social venture ideas ranged widely, covering youth, teens, homelessness and collaboration among all types of social enterprises.

"This year’s social entrepreneurs came up with lots of ideas and concepts that were new and fresh for St. Louis," said Ken Harrington, director of the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at WUSTL.

"All the finalists will have high impact on our community as they move forward," he said. "We are particularly excited about how past and current competitors are collaborating to build a community culture supporting social entrepreneurship. These are exciting times in St. Louis.”

Harrington announced the following awards April 10, selected from a pool of seven finalists:

The YouthBridge Community Foundation award of $35,000 to Independent Youth, a nonprofit organization that educates teens on entrepreneurship by offering unique programs and resources.
Daughters of Charity Foundation of St. Louis award of $30,000 and the Regional Arts Commission award of $30,000 to Circus Harmony Flying Trapeze Center, where men, women and children will be able to increase confidence and life skills using circus performance experiences.
The Lutheran Foundation of St. Louis award of $25,000 to ArchCity Defenders Inc., a nonprofit legal organization that works with numerous social services groups to provide comprehensive criminal and civic legal services for homeless and other disadvantaged people.
The Skandalaris Award of $25,000 to GoodMap, an easy-to-use website where social agencies can collaborate to achieve greater impact including helping people find, organize and share information about community resources.
In addition, awards were given for the best score for measuring social value and best venture supported by students.

Law firm and Skandalaris sponsor Polsinelli Shughart will provide up to three $3,000 prizes of in-kind legal services to teams in this year’s competition.

The YouthBridge SEIC started in 2005 as a partnership between the Skandalaris Center and the YouthBridge Community Foundation. Since its inception, the competition has awarded more than $1 million in cash and in-kind prizes to 36 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 RubinBrown, the Regional Chamber, Polsinelli Shughart and Lopata, Flegel & Company.

Are human genes patentable?

Jessica Martin — 2013-04-11 00:00:00

On April 15, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics, a case that could answer the question, “Under what conditions, if any, are isolated human genes patentable?” Kevin Emerson Collins, JD, patent law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, believes that layered uncertainties make this case an unusually difficult case in which to predict the outcome.

During the early 1990s, Myriad Genetics made important scientific discoveries related to mutations in the BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 genes, which are biomarkers for increased risk of breast and ovarian cancer. Based on this work, Myriad sought, and obtained, patent protection for “isolated” DNA molecules that embody these sequences.

The Supreme Court’s opinion in Myriad will determine whether Myriad’s gene patents are valid or, alternatively, whether they were improperly issued from the beginning.

“The legal controversy centers on patent law’s ‘products of nature’ doctrine—a doctrine that prevents the patenting of newly made products that do not display a ‘marked difference’ from naturally occurring products,” Collins says.

“A perfectly circular section cut out of a leaf of a newly discovered plant may be technically new at the time that it is first made -- and it may be socially useful if the leaf contains chemicals that are natural wound healers, but it’s likely an unpatentable product of nature because there is no marked difference between the newly created product and the naturally occurring product.

http://youtu.be/IVzBmAlpB8M

Kevin Emerson Collins, patent law expert and professor of law at Washington University inSt. Louis, discusses the Myriad Genetics case before the Supreme Court. This case could answer the question, "Under what conditions, if any, are isolated human genes patentable?" Collins believes that layered uncertainties make this case an unusually difficult case in which to predict the outcome.

“Importantly, the Myriad gene patents only encompass DNA molecules in an ‘isolated’ state, separate from the remainder of the chromosome in which they exist in a human body, and they thus describe molecules that were technically new when Myriad first made them.”

The question before the Court is whether the structural and functional differences between naturally occurring DNA molecules and DNA molecules in an isolated state is sufficiently significant to constitute a “marked difference” and to sanction the patenting of the isolated DNAs.

Behind the legal controversy is an economic controversy that may (or may not) influence the Supreme Court’s pronouncement on the products of nature doctrine. “The social costs of the exclusive rights to inventions granted by patents are normally justified by the incentives that patents provide for self-interested entities to invest in research and development and generate the socially valuable inventions,” Collins says.

However, under some circumstances, there are legitimate concerns that the incentive-based benefits of patents may not outweigh these costs.

“One function of the products of nature doctrine is to ensure that the basic tools of scientific and technological work are not constrained by claims of patent rights and remain free for all to use as inputs into future research,” says Collins.

“To the extent that isolated genes are essential technological and scientific building blocks, the costs of Myriad’s gene patents in the form of slower innovation in the future may be so great that they will outweigh the benefits of the patent-induced incentives that speed up the creation of the isolated genes themselves.”

The verdict

Collins says it is difficult to predict how the Supreme Court will decide this case because of three compounded uncertainties.

First, the Supreme Court has to date not offered a clear legal framework for identifying products of nature, so it is unclear how high a hurdle the markedly different standard will prove to be.

Second, it is unclear how strongly the Court’s legal determination will be influenced by the underlying economic concerns about the privatization of the building blocks of technological progress.

Third, the relationship between the Supreme Court and the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals—the court that authored the opinion below in Myriad—is not likely to lead to much of any deference.

“Recent Federal Circuit patent decisions have been poorly received by the Supreme Court,” Collins says. “The Federal Circuit upheld the patentablity of these genes, but, given recent history, this is not much of an indicator as to Supreme Court will handle this case.”

Media Advisory: St. Louis Walk of Fame induction ceremony for Gerald Early today

2013-04-11 00:00:00

WHO: Washington University’s Gerald L. Early, PhD, a noted essayist and American culture critic, and Joe Edwards, founder of the St. Louis Walk of Fame and owner of numerous Loop businesses, including Blueberry Hill and the Moonrise Hotel

WHAT: A ceremony marking Early’s induction into the St. Louis Walk of Fame

WHERE: In front of the Moonrise Hotel, 6177 Delmar Blvd.

WHEN: 11:30 a.m. Thursday, April 11

WHY: Gerald L. Early, the Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters at Washington University in St. Louis, will join other WUSTL literary luminaries on the St. Louis Walk of Fame.

A native of Philadelphia, Early has been on the WUSTL faculty since 1982.

He is a professor of English, of African and African-American studies, and of American culture studies, all in Arts & Sciences. He recently stepped down as director of Arts & Sciences’ Center for the Humanities after more than 11 years in that position.

A prolific writer, Early is author and editor of more than a dozen books and winner of prestigious literary prizes.

“It’s amazing to me the number of literary greats on the walk who have connections to Washington University, from such faculty members as William Gass, Howard Nemerov and Stanley Elkin to alumni A. E. Hotchner and Tennessee Williams,” said Edwards. “Gerald Early is most deserving of his place alongside these acclaimed writers.”

NOTE: Early’s star, which will be at the ceremony, will be embedded at a later time near the corner of Delmar and Eastgate Avenue after construction is completed on the first phase of Washington University’s Loop Student Living Initiative.

The St. Louis Walk of Fame consists of more than 130 sets of brass stars and bronze plaques honoring individuals from the St. Louis area who made major national contributions to America’s cultural heritage.

For more on Early and the induction ceremony, visit here.

Rising melanoma rates among adolescents, children are subject of new study

2013-04-09 00:00:00

With springtime temperatures and warm weather approaching, the inclination to spend time outdoors is a strong one – especially for children who have been cooped up all winter.

But parents should be vigilant about sunscreen. And teenage girls might want to rethink springtime tanning and tanning beds. A new study out of the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis looks at the increase of melanoma, a form of skin cancer, in children and adolescents and what those trends might be telling us.

Johnson

“Melanoma,” said Kimberly J. Johnson, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School and senior author of the study, “is rare in children between the ages of 0 and 19 years with just 400-500 individuals diagnosed annually in the U.S.

“Similar to what we’re seeing in adults, rates have increased over the past several decades,” she said. “Although the exact reasons for this trend are unclear, parents should be vigilant about helping children and adolescents reduce their chance of developing melanoma by practicing sun-protective behaviors and avoiding tanning beds.”

The study, “Incidence of Childhood and Adolescent Melanoma in the United States: 1973-2009,” will be published online Monday, April 15, in the journal Pediatrics. The research was being presented during a poster session in Washington, D.C., on April 9, at the annual meeting of the American Association of Cancer Research.

Lead author Jeannette R. Wong, MPH, of the Radiation Epidemiology Branch of the Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics of the National Cancer Institute, started the study as a student in the Master of Public Health Program at the Brown School. In addition to Wong and Johnson, co-authors include Jenine K. Harris, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School, and Carlos Rodriguez-Galindo, MD, of Harvard University.

“The study will help put melanoma on the radar of pediatricians,” said Johnson, who also is a faculty scholar in WUSTL's Institute for Public Health.

A large percentage of a person’s lifetime exposure to UV radiation occurs during childhood. Children and adolescents spend more time outdoors, especially in the summer months, and may receive three times more UV rays than adults. In addition, an individual’s childhood UV exposure is a risk factor for melanoma later in life.

Johnson and the researchers used Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results data from nine U.S. cancer registries and found that the incidence of childhood and adolescent melanoma has been significantly increasing in the United States from 1973-2009 — an average of 2 percent per year.

Among the risk factors for melanoma are fair skin, light-colored hair and eyes, family history, prevalence of such things as birthmarks, moles or blemishes; and an increased exposure to ultraviolet radiation.

“The true impact of this research will be to increase awareness of the dangers of too much exposure to the sun and artificial tanning,” Johnson said.

CGI U Day Two: Empowering women throughout the world

Mark S. Wrighton — 2013-04-06 00:00:00

Shabana Basij-Rasikh, managing director of the School of Leadership in Afghanistan, inspired the audience this morning with her story of struggling to receive an education under Taliban rule.

Day two of CGI U at Washington University began with an excellent and inspiring plenary session called “A Better Future for Girls and Women: Empowering the Next Generation.” Moderated by Chelsea Clinton and featuring four leaders who are making a difference for women around the world, the session included microcredit pioneer and 2006 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus. As international women’s activist Zainab Salbi reminded us last evening, “If there’s one investment we need to make in the world, it’s investing in women and girls.”

Chelsea Clinton did a great job moderating the session and began with a staggering statistic: There are 66 million girls waiting to be sent to school.

We heard inspirational stories from two powerful women who have made incredible inroads in the empowerment of women in their home countries of Somalia and Afghanistan. Shabana Basij-Rasikh, managing director of the School of Leadership in Afghanistan, related a story of her own father, who risked death in sending her to school, emphasizing the role that fathers must play in ensuring better lives for their daughters. When threatened because of his commitment to his daughter, Basij-Rasikh’s father said: “Go ahead and kill me if you like. It will not stop me from getting an education for my daughter.”

Stephen Felice, president and chief commercial officer of Dell, spoke on the importance of both educating and mentoring women in the areas of science, technology, engineering and technology. He said, and I certainly concur: “This comes down to empowerment. It’s not just strictly about teaching the technologies, math and science. It’s also about creating a support environment to enable women to feel like they can come forward, express their own opinions and take risks.”

Concentrating on the incredible impact that women make in the world was a great way to begin the second day of CGI U.

Visit here to see my observations from yesterday’s opening session.

CGI U Day Two: Closing thoughts and pictures of the day

Mark S. Wrighton — 2013-04-06 00:00:00

Joe Angeles

President Clinton and Stephen Colbert field questions from CGI U paticipants during the closing plenary.

The closing session of CGI U at Washington University has just concluded and the enthusiasm and passion in the room are still very much on my mind. We ended CGI U with a rousing, entertaining and deeply inspirational session featuring Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert and CGI U’s namesake, President Bill Clinton.

Following one of Colbert’s characteristically humorous and quirky monologues, he and Clinton settled into two overstuffed chairs in the center of stage and engaged each other — and all of us lucky enough to be present — in a dialogue that was funny, moving and highly educational. The two discussed a wide variety of serious issues, including the global economy and the jobs crisis, but you’ll need to tune in some time this week to see the monologue and hear the interview. You won’t be disappointed!

In his closing remarks, President Clinton touched on the important issue of global sustainability and praised Washington University for its commitment and record of achievement in building “green” (LEED-certified) buildings. I’m very proud of all of us here on campus who contribute to our sustainability effort, and I look forward to seeing it through in the years ahead.

President Clinton announced the winner of the CGIU "Sweet 16" Commitments Challenge, a bracket competition of social innovation, enterprise and sustainability ideas from college and university students. I am proud that a team from Washington University made it the final four before “losing” (I really don’t like that word in this context of selfless commitments…) to the eventual winner, Davier Rodriguez of Arizona State University for his innovative DREAMZone project to establish a national network of allies to support undocumented students.

When asked by a CGI U participant in the audience if he would rather have eight more years as president or continue the work he was doing now, the president replied: “I’d rather keep doing what I’m doing for as long as I can possibly do it, because I’m not sure anyone else would be doing it.”

As he has been doing all weekend, President Clinton’s response inspired all of us and left us even more committed to following our own passions. At the end of the day, that’s why we all came here this weekend.

James Byard

CGI U participants were inspired and engaged throughout the two days of the event.

Whitney Curtis

A CGI U participant works to move her ideas into action at one of the many skills and working sessions offered on Saturday.

CGI U Opens: Thoughts and picture of the day

Mark S. Wrighton — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 15:55:14 CST

Joe Angeles

The opening night of Clinton Global Initiative University. To download hi-res images from the CGI U visit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wustlpa/.

The soulful voice of Alicia Keys resounded throughout the WU Field House as more than 1,200 of the brightest young minds in the world took their seats for the opening session of the 6th annual Clinton Global Initiative University.

And what a night it was.

From Chelsea Clinton asking the crowd to ensure that “how” is at the center of every conversation, to walking out on stage and greeting CGI U, to welcoming President Clinton back to the same venue in which he shined at a 1992 presidential debate, it was a good beginning to an incredible night.

But that wasn't the best part.

Addressed first by four of last year’s CGI U commitments, a panel featuring the President, designer Kenneth Cole; Twitter founder CEO Jack Dorsey; student and author William Kamkwamba; and writer and international women’s activist Zainab Salbi wowed the crowd with words of inspiration and challenge.

The energy was electric. As I told the crowd, Washington University in St. Louis believes it has a responsibility to encourage civic engagement. Through the great work of our faculty, our staff, our schools and our students, we are preparing leaders, advancing human health, inspiring entrepreneurship and innovation and striving to enhance the quality of life for all.

You can follow the activities of the weekend at http://wustlviewcgiu.tumblr.com/

Many poignant messages were shared tonight, among them:

“We trust you to change the future of the world,” President Clinton said.

“Wash U is really an example for universities not just in the U.S., but also around the world,” Chelsea Clinton said.

“If you have strong sense of purpose, you can do anything,” Dorsey told the crowd.

And tonight was just the beginning.

Sustainable Land Lab winners announced April 11

2013-04-04 00:00:00

An outdoor chess park. Cargo containers transformed into compact restaurants. A sustainable urban farm.

On April 11, Washington University in St. Louis and the City of St. Louis will announce which of these or several other concepts will win the inaugural Sustainable Land Lab Competition, the first of its kind in St. Louis.

The public announcement will be made at 10 a.m. April 11 in the City Hall Rotunda. A public celebration with presentations from the winners will take place later that evening. Winning teams will receive a two-year land lease and $5,000 seed money to start their project.

The land lab competition, which began in November, allows teams to compete for the opportunity to create a two-year demonstration project to transform a vacant lot into an asset that advances sustainability.

Forty-eight teams applied in the first of a three-round effort. The final round consists of eight ideas representing 10 of the original teams.
Ideas competing for the four awards include:

Bistro Box: The Bistro Box concept is a small business incubator that transforms surplus cargo containers into a compact restaurant and culinary destination.
Carbon Carpet: The Carbon Carpet team proposes to install warm season grass plantings on unutilized urban lots currently owned by the LRA. Plantings will be positioned to afford educational, financial, ecological and social benefits to neighbors, city residents and fellow inhabitants of spaceship earth, in that order, respectively.
Chess Pocket Park: COMMUNITY SUSTAINABILITY supported through Chess Pocket Park – outdoor community chess venue for residents with a permanent location supporting our primary community asset – its people.
HUB (Hybrid Urban Bioscapes): A productive landscape and a public space. The intention is to share knowledge and strategies with local residents about how to cultivate and maintain a food producing garden while having a place to gather.
Mighty Mississippians: A modern agricultural and sustainable living model, the premises for this approach are rooted in regional history, the Mississippians and their ancestors, as well as modern permaculture practices. Using concepts of permaculture, the site would demonstrate the interdependent relationships that work efficiently and sustainably in nature and that worked for previous civilizations, from the soil to the birds, to humans.
Renewing Roots Urban Farm: A scalable urban agriculture network that proposes to transform blighted lots into cost efficient models of sustainability.
ShiftUP: A community space to rent, maintain, and learn about bicycles. As a bike hub, shiftUP would encourage bikers from other parts of St. Louis to visit Old North and interact with the community.
Sunflower+ Project: Proposes turning previously developed urban lots into a community asset through the planting of sunflowers. With a goal of eventually spurring redevelopment of these vacant parcels, the project will serve as an appropriate, scalable, and productive transitional solution.

The winning teams will present their ideas at an evening celebration at 6:30 p.m., April 11, at Bridge, 1004 Locust St. This event is open to the public.

All of the submissions can be found online at sustainablecities.wustl.edu/land-labs-competition/submissions/.

The competition brief, which outlines the goals and context for thisinitiative, can be found online at sustainablecities.wustl.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/SustainableLandLab_CompetitionBrief_110212.pdf.

The Sustainable Land Lab is a partnership between Washington University and the City of St. Louis. It is the ongoing legacy of Washington University’s three-day Sustainable Cities Conference, held Nov. 1-3, 2012.The Sustainable Land Lab is designed to be a living laboratory of two-year demonstration projects, which will showcase innovative ideas and integrated strategies for transforming one of the region’s greatest challenges — vacant land — into an asset that can advance sustainability.

Avoid impulsive acts by imagining future benefits

Melanie Bauer — 2013-04-03 00:00:00

Why is it so hard for some people to resist the least little temptation, while others seem to possess incredible patience, passing up immediate gratification for a greater long-term good?

The answer, suggests a new brain-imaging study from Washington University in St. Louis, lies in how effective people are at feeling good right now about all the future benefits that may come from passing up a smaller immediate reward. Researchers found that activity in two regions of the brain distinguished impulsive and patient people.

“Activity in one part of the brain, the anterior prefrontal cortex , seems to show whether you’re getting pleasure from thinking about the future reward you are about to receive,” explained study co-author Todd Braver, PhD, professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences. “People can relate to this idea that when you know something good is coming, just that waiting can feel pleasurable.”

WUSTL PHOTO

Study participants were observed while waiting for rewards of juice for completing experimental tasks.

The study, which was published in the first issue of the Journal of Neuroscience this year, was designed to examine what happens in the brain as people wait for a reward, especially whether people characterized as “impulsive” would show different brain responses than those considered “patient.”

The lead author of the study was Koji Jimura, then a postdoctoral researcher in Braver’s Cognitive Control and Psychopathology Laboratory, and now a research associate professor at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, in Japan.

Unlike previous research on delayed gratification that had people choose between hypothetical rewards of money over long delays (e.g, $500 now or $1,000 a year from now), this Washington University study presented their participants with real rewards of squirts of juice that they chose to receive either immediately or after a delay of up to a minute.

“It’s kind of funny because we treated the people in our study like researchers that work with animals do, and we actually squirted juice into their mouths,” Braver said.

Results show that a brain region called the ventral striatum (VS) ramped up its activity in impulsive people as they got closer and closer to receiving their delayed reward. The VS activity of patient people, on the other hand, stayed more constant.

Braver

The researchers interpreted these different brain responses to mean that impulsive people initially did not find the prospect of waiting for a reward very appealing. However, as they approached the time they’d receive that reward, they became more excited and their VS reflected that excitement.

“This gradual increase may reflect impatience or excessive anticipation of the upcoming reward in impulsive individuals,” said Jimura. "This was unlike patient people, who were likely content with waiting for the reward from the start, as no changes in VS activity were observed for them."

The most novel finding of the study concerned the anterior prefrontal cortex (aPFC). This is the part of the brain that helps you think about the future. Here, researchers found that the patient people heightened activity in the aPFC when they first started waiting for the reward, which then decreased as the time to receive the reward approached. Impulsive people didn’t show this brain activity pattern.

“The aPFC appears to allow you to create a mental simulation of the future. It helps you consider what it’ll be like getting the future reward. In this way, you can get access to the utility and satisfaction in the present,” said Braver.

By thinking about the future reward, patient people were able to gain what economists call “anticipatory utility.” While their reward was far away in time, they were giddy with anticipation in the present. Conversely, impulsive people weren’t thinking beyond the present and so did not feel pleasure when they were told they had to wait. Their excitement built only as they got closer to receiving their reward.

Overall, this study suggests that people may be impulsive because they do not or cannot imagine the future, so they prefer rewards right away. This research could be useful for assessing the effects of clinical treatments for impulsivity problems, which can lead to issues such as problem gambling and substance abuse disorders. A similar brain-imaging approach as was used in the Washington University study could allow clinicians to track the effects of an intervention on changes not only in impulsive behavior but also changes in patients’ brain responses.

Jimura

“One possible treatment approach could be to enhance mental functions in aPFC, a brain region well-known to be associated with cognitive control,” said Jimura. "By increasing cognitive control, impulsive patients could learn to reject their immediate impulses."

Impulsivity occurs not only in a clinical setting but also every day in our own lives. Applying his research to his personal life, Braver said, “When I’m successful at achieving long-term goals it’s from explicitly trying to activate that goal and imagining each decision as helping me achieve it, to keep me on track.”

Perhaps adopting this strategy of focusing on the long term could help us move past present distractions and move toward our future goals.

Supreme Court can strike down DOMA without impacting right to marry, says constitutional law expert

Jessica Martin — 2013-04-02 00:00:00

As the U.S. Supreme Court hearings on the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) conclude, it looks like the justices are ready to strike down the law, says Gregory P. Magarian, JD, constitutional law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “The crucial thing about this case is that the Court can strike down DOMA without impacting the right or lack thereof of someone to marry,” he says.

Magarian

If the Court strikes down DOMA, it will essentially clear the way for states to continue deciding what they want to do on same sex marriage.

"Based on recent evidence, an increasing number of them will opt to legalize same sex marriage," Magarian says.

"If that trend continues, I think the Court in ten or fifteen years will probably hold that the Constitution requires legalized same sex marriage. In this way, the Court can follow the political trend rather than getting out in front."

The dangers of surveillance - it’s bad, but why?

Jessica Martin — 2013-04-01 00:00:00

Surveillance is everywhere, from street corner cameras to the subject of books and movies. “We talk a lot about why surveillance is bad, but we don’t really know why,” says Neil Richards, JD, privacy law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “We only have a vague intuition about it, which is why courts don’t protect it. We know we don’t like it, and that it has something to do with privacy, but beyond that, the details can be fuzzy.”

Richards

Richards says that there are two real dangers of surveillance.
“It menaces our intellectual privacy and it gives the watcher a power advantage over the watched, which can be used for blackmail, persuasion, or discrimination,” he says.

Richards’ new article on the topic, “The Danger of Surveillance,” will be published in the next issue of the Harvard Law Review.

Richards says that there are four principles that U.S. law should embody to avoid the dangers of surveillance:

“First, we must recognize that surveillance transcends the public-private divide,” he says.

“Even if we are ultimately more concerned with government surveillance, any solution must grapple with the complex relationships between government and corporate watchers.

“Second, we must recognize that secret surveillance is illegitimate, and prohibit the creation of any domestic surveillance programs whose existence is secret.

“Third, we should recognize that total surveillance is illegitimate and reject the idea that it is acceptable for the government to record all Internet activity without authorization.

“Fourth, we must recognize that surveillance is harmful and should be considered as such in the courts.”

News of the article’s publication has been trending on Twitter. You can read the complete article at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2239412

Three challenges for the First Amendment

Jessica Martin — 2013-04-01 00:00:00

A group of some of the country’s top scholars in First Amendment law recently gathered at Washington University in St. Louis to discuss pressing challenges being faced by the first of our Bill of Rights. Three issues rose to the top of the list for Washington University’s first amendment experts: free expression in a digital age; impaired political debate; and weakened rights of groups.

John Inazu, Greg Magarian and Neil Richards, professors of law at Washington University in St. Louis, comment:

John Inazu
Breakdown of the rights of expressive groups

"One of the most important recent issues is the Supreme Court's unwillingness to recognize the distinctive rights of the First Amendment and the ways in which those rights complement and reinforce one another,” he says.

Inazu

“In a troubling trend, the Court increasingly collapses the rights enumerated in the First Amendment into a framework that emphasizes the moment of expression to the detriment of the background contexts from which expression emerges.

"For example, the Court's doctrine of expressive association focuses on whether groups further some other First Amendment purpose like speech or political or religious activity. Butmany associations exist for other than expressive purposes: dinner groups, bowling leagues, sororities, intramural spots teams, chess clubs. These groups may not appear to be explicitly 'expressive,' but they create a space where relationships foster, ideas form, and thoughts emerge."

Gregory Magarian
Impaired political debate

“First Amendment law plays a large role in enabling robust public political discussion,” he says.

”In particular, expressive freedom can help to generate dynamic political change. Current First Amendment doctrine, however, has many features that flatten political debate and impair dynamic change.

Magarian

“The Supreme Court's campaign finance and government speech doctrines, for example, constrain participation in political discussions while narrowing the range of ideas that those discussions take into account. Meanwhile, the Court ignores important threats to political dissent, such as law enforcement crackdowns on political activists and suppression of speech by nominally private authorities. In an age when our political discourse has grown both more acrimonious and less informative, we sorely need for the Court to reconsider its priorities and revise some essential doctrines.”

Neil Richards
Free expression in a digital age

“Perhaps the most important issue in First Amendment law right now is how we understand free expression in a digital age,” Richards says.

Richards

“The rise of social media, blogs, and other forms of digital expression have coincided with a decline in traditional media, particularly in the economic viability of newspapers. At the same time, our reading habits and other intellectual activities are being tracked, monitored, and analyzed by advertisers and government agencies. The challenge for First Amendment law will be to ensure that our cherished rights of free expression survive the transition to digital form without sacrificing the important ability of citizens to speak, write, and communicate freely and sometimes anonymously without fear of government or social reprisals.”

First Amendment law at Washington University in St. Louis

Washington University School of Law is home to some of the country’s top specialists in First Amendment law. Under the leadership of Inazu, Magarian and Richards, Washington University plans to make the “Washington University First Amendment Roundtable” an annual event.

Sussman to outline critical role of culture in understanding society

Barbara Rea — 2013-04-02 00:00:00

“The anthropological concept of culture is extremely important and often misunderstood because many of the things that are assumed to be biologically determined, like criminality or homosexuality or IQ, are really behaviorally and societally defined.”

This quote from Robert W. Sussman, PhD, professor of physical anthropology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University, forms the basis for his Phi Beta Kappa/Sigma Xi Lecture.

“The Importance of the Concept of Culture to Science and Society,” part of the university’s Assembly Series, will be held at 4 p.m. Tuesday, April 9, in Steinberg Hall Auditorium (Note change in venue). The lecture is free and open to the public.

Sussman’s talk will be based on his presentation given at the February 2013 conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. It stressed the need to understand how the adoption of strict biological determinism — formed out of the legitimate scientific theories of Darwin, Mendel and others in the 19th century — led to the eugenics movement in the U.S. and to the rise of Nazism, and overshadowed the profound role the anthropological concept of culture plays in human behavior.

“The key starting point for all these discussions should be the understanding that while all human behaviors are driven in some way by our genetic makeup, the vast majority of individual variances result from a person’s social, environmental and cultural exposure.”

In this lecture, Sussman will trace the earliest known forms of racism in European history, before the Spanish Inquisition, when different peoples were thought of as either Pre-Adamites, with biologically fixed characteristics that could not be changed by living conditions or by education, or as “degenerates,” a term used to describe people considered to be born of God and who could be improved by changing their habits and environment, in other words, they could be missionized or “civilized.”

However, in the early 1900s, some of the more blatant tenets of eugenics began to face challenges from an emerging body of scientific evidence supporting the important role that cultural experience, societal influence and environment play in shaping human behavior. The groundbreaking work of American anthropologist Franz Boas proved that some human traits could be changed by their environment.

Boas’ work, along with a re-synthesis of earlier work by Darwin and Mendel, helped build scientific support for a new and powerful anthropological concept of culture — the idea that how and what humans thought mainly was related to their life history, education and socialization.

Sussman, who has taught at the university since 1973, does extensive fieldwork in primate behavior and ecology in Costa Rica, Guyana, Madagascar and Mauritius. His research focuses on primate populations and threats to their habitats.

With more than 100 scholarly journal articles and several books to his credit, Sussman is a prolific author on a range of subjects related to his lifelong research and fieldwork. His most recent books, Origins of Cooperation and Altruism, co-edited with WUSTL colleague C. Robert Cloninger, MD, the Wallace Renard Professor of Psychiatry at the School of Medicine, and Man the Hunted: Primate, Predators and Human Evolution, co-written with Donna Hart, were published in 2009 and 2011, respectively.

His work has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, National Geographic Society, World Wildlife Fund and the Fulbright Scholar Program, as well as a number of other agencies. He also serves as editor of the Yearbook of Physical Anthropology.

Sussman is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the highest recognition the organization bestows.

Sussman earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in anthropology from the University of California-Los Angeles and graduated with a PhD from Duke University in 1972.

For more information on this and other Assembly Series programs, visit assemblyseries.wustl.edu

Hoops Day readies campus for Thurtene Carnival

2013-04-01 00:00:00

WHITNEY CURTIS (2)

Despite an early-spring snowstorm, about 100 youth and students turned out for Hoops Day on Sunday, March 24, sponsored by Thurtene Junior Honorary. It's one of several lead-up events as students prepare for the annual carnival. During the event, organizers offered a basketball clinic for area youth and players competed in a 3-on-3 tournament at the Athletic Complex. Above, Dan Burkett, left, a senior biology major in Arts & Sciences, and junior Jerome Barnes, who is studying anthropology, also in A&S, compete during a 3-on-3 game. Participants paid a small fee to play, and the money raised is being donated to the charity Thurtene has chosen to highlight this year, Provident. Below, Alexa Bloom, left, a freshman business student, and senior Kristin Anda, an engineering student, face off. For more information about the upcoming Thurtene Carnival, being held April 19-21 outside Brookings Hall, visit www.thurtene.org.

Winners of 26th annual book collection competition announced

2013-03-29 00:00:00

Top row, left to right: graduate student winners Sarah Sobonya and John Gauthier. Bottom row: undergraduate winners Brian Feldman and Lauren Henley.

When Carl Neureuther, a 1940 graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, set up an endowment in 1987 to support library collections, he was also ensuring support for something more: a lifelong love of reading.

He wanted to encourage students to read for pleasure — not just for class — and in addition to growing the University Libraries’ collection of fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, Neureuther’s gift created an annual essay contest that invites students to share stories of their own passion for reading and collecting books.

Twenty-six years later, the results are in for this year’s Neureuther Student Book Collection Essay Competition sponsored by Washington University Libraries. WUSTL students entered their essays into undergraduate and graduate categories, competing for prizes of $1,000 for first place and $500 for second place. Four volunteers recruited from among the faculty of Washington University and the St. Louis community judged the essays.

This year, Sarah Sobonya, a PhD candidate in anthropology in Arts & Sciences, won first place in the graduate category for her essay titled “Keeping Abreast of the Literature.” John Gauthier, a first-year law student, took second place in the graduate category with “Arturo Belano and the Storybook War.”

In the undergraduate category, senior Brian Feldman (philosophy-neuroscience-psychology and classics in Arts & Sciences) won first place for his essay “A Muse for Recollection: On Collecting Ancient Greek Textbooks.” Sophomore Lauren Henley (history in Arts & Sciences) took second place with “Asthmatic and Alone: How Books Became My World.”

The 2013 winning essays, as well as an archive of past ones, are available on the Libraries’ website. An exhibit celebrating the winners' book collections and essays also is on display in the lobby of Olin Library through early April.

Know thyself: How mindfulness can improve self-knowledge

2013-03-25 00:00:00

Mindfulness — paying attention to one’s current experience in a nonjudgmental way — might help us to learn more about our own personalities, new research from Washington University in St. Louis suggests.

Carlson

The motivation to see ourselves in a desirable way is one of the main obstacles to self-knowledge, suggests study author Erika Carlson, an Arts & Sciences doctoral student in psychology.

Titled "Overcoming the barriers to self-knowledge: Mindfulness as a path to seeing yourself as you really are," Carlson's study is published in the March 2013 issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science.

Mindfulness, Carlson explains, is a technique often recognized for its positive effects on mental health. It involves paying attention to your current experience (e.g., thoughts, feelings) and observing it in a nonjudgmental manner.

Recent research has highlighted the fact that we have many blind spots when it comes to understanding our patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving.

Despite our intuition that we know ourselves the best, other people have a more accurate view of some traits (e.g., intellect) than we do. In some cases, blind spots in self-knowledge can have negative consequences, such as poor decision-making, poor academic achievement, emotional and interpersonal problems and lower life satisfaction.

According to Carlson, these two components of mindfulness, attention and nonjudgmental observation, can overcome the major barriers to knowing ourselves.

For instance, people may overestimate their virtuous qualities to ward off negative feelings or boost self-esteem. However, nonjudgmental observation of one’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior might reduce emotional reactivity — such as feelings of inadequacy or low self-esteem — that typically interferes with people seeing the truth about themselves.

Lack of information is another barrier to self-knowledge — in some situations, people might not have the information they need to accurately assess themselves.

For instance, we have a hard time observing much of our nonverbal behavior, so we may not know that we’re grimacing or fidgeting during a serious conversation. Mindfulness also could help in this domain, as research has shown that mindfulness training is associated with greater bodily awareness.

This research was supported by National Science Foundation Grant BCS-1025330 awarded to Simine Vazire, PhD, the Saul and Louise Rosenzweig Associate Professor in Personality Science in Psychology.

Gerald Early to get star on St. Louis Walk of Fame

Susan Killenberg McGinn — 2013-03-26 00:00:00

Award-winning poet Maya Angelou. Record-setting aviator Charles Lindbergh. The “King of Ragtime” music Scott Joplin.

These standouts in their respective fields all have one thing in common: A star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame.

Early

Washington University’s Gerald L. Early, PhD, a noted essayist and American culture critic, will soon be joining a distinguished group when he receives a star embedded in the Delmar Boulevard sidewalk in The Loop.

A ceremony marking Early’s induction into the St. Louis Walk of Fame will be held in front of the Moonrise Hotel, 6177 Delmar Blvd., at 11:30 a.m. Thursday, April 11. The ceremony is open to the public.

Early, the Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters at Washington University in St. Louis, will give an acceptance speech during the ceremony.

Joe Edwards, founder of the St. Louis Walk of Fame and owner of numerous Loop businesses, including Blueberry Hill and the Moonrise Hotel, will also make remarks and introduce Early.

“I’m delighted that the 120-member selection committee chose Gerald Early to join the other Washington University literary luminaries on the St. Louis Walk of Fame,” said Edwards.

Early’s star will be embedded at a later time near the corner of Delmar and Eastgate Avenue after construction is completed on the first phase of Washington University’s Loop Student Living Initiative.

“Gerald is one of our most outstanding, accomplished faculty members and I’m delighted that he is being recognized in this way,” said Barbara A. Schaal, PhD, the Mary Dell Chilton Distinguished University Professor and dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences.

“It’s a fitting honor for someone who has contributed so much to the cultural and intellectual life of St. Louis. To me Gerald represents the very ideal of a great humanities scholar. He’s kind, approachable and humble with a quick and discerning mind. The range of his intellectual curiosity and expertise are inspiring.”

Each star features the name of an honoree with an accompanying plaque summarizing the honoree’s accomplishments. All honorees must have been born in St. Louis or spent their formative or creative years here.

Award-winning writer

A native of Philadelphia, Early has been on the Washington University faculty since 1982.

A prolific writer, Early is author and editor of more than a dozen books and winner of prestigious literary prizes.

Early, who has received two Grammy Award nominations in the category of Best Album Liner Notes, writes on topics as diverse as boxing, baseball, jazz, literature, Motown, Miles Davis, Muhammad Ali, Sammy Davis Jr., and the Korean War.

His books include The Culture of Bruising: Essays on Prizefighting, Literature and Modern American Culture, which won the 1994 National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism, and This Is Where I Came In: Black America in the 1960s.

His most recent book is A Level Playing Field: African American Athletes and the Republic of Sports (Harvard University Press, 2011.)

Other works include One Nation Under a Groove: Motown and American Culture; Daughters: On Family and Fatherhood; and Tuxedo Junction: Essays on American Culture.

He has served as a consultant on Ken Burns’ documentary films on baseball, jazz, Jack Johnson and World War II, all of which aired on PBS. He appeared in the first three as an on-air analyst.

Last September, Early received the St. Louis American Foundation’s Lifetime Achiever in Education award at the Salute to Excellence in Education Scholarship and Awards Gala.

Showcase for St. Louis’ cultural heritage

Edwards founded the nonprofit St. Louis Walk of Fame in 1988 to provide a showcase for the cultural heritage of St. Louis and to advance the knowledge, awareness and appreciation of great St. Louisans and their accomplishments.

“The informational plaques set the St. Louis Walk of Fame apart from any project of its kind in the country, and help make it educational and inspirational as well as enjoyable,” Edwards says.

“The knowledge gained from the plaques instills pride in our community.”

To view a list of other St. Louis Walk of Fame inductees, visit http://www.stlouiswalkoffame.org/inductees/.

Media Advisory: WUSTL to announce major sustainability commitment March 27

2013-03-26 00:00:00

WHO: Washington University in St. Louis student commitment makers participating in the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) April 5-7 and WUSTL leaders, including Henry S. Webber, executive vice chancellor for administration, and Amanda Moore McBride, director of the Gephardt Institute for Public Service.

WHAT: More than 60 of the 118 innovative and far-reaching projects that Washington University students have committed to accomplish as part of this year’s Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) will be on display at Faces of Hope.

Also, Webber will announce WUSTL’s institutional Commitment to Action, a significant investment in a more sustainable future.

WHERE: Danforth University Center, 6475 Forsyth Blvd., on WUSTL’s Danforth Campus. First- and second-floor common areas

WHEN: 4:30 to 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 27, 2013

MORE: Faces of Hope, an annual WUSTL event that celebrates faculty, staff and students’ civic engagement and community service, will focus on the Commitments to Action that the 200 WUSTL students participating in CGI U will make during the April 5-7 meeting.

Commitments to Action are new, specific and measurable initiatives that address some of the most pressing challenges on campus, in the community or around the world.

The WUSTL students will be among more than 1,000 college students from around the world as well as key innovators, thought leaders and civically engaged celebrities discussing and developing innovative solutions to pressing global challenges during CGI U 2013.

Among the featured speakers at CGI U 2013 are former President Bill Clinton, Chelsea Clinton, Stephen Colbert, Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus and WUSTL’s Michael Sherraden.

Among the WUSTL student projects that span the globe, there are many focused on making an impact in St. Louis. They include:

• “Promoting Women’s Health Within the Immigrant and Refugee Community of St. Louis” aims to disseminate information about the women’s health preventative care provisions of the Affordable Care Act to this community and improve overall health literacy.

• “Addressing Civic Education in St. Louis” places Washington University law students in St. Louis high schools to teach a semester-long course on students’ constitutional rights in order to address a fundamental civics gap in American education.

• “Green Light St. Louis,” an extension of Green Light New Orleans, replaces incandescent light bulbs with Compact Florescent light bulbs in low-income households for free.

Washington University, an international leader in contributing to dialogue, finding solutions, and preparing young people to address the world’s most pressing challenges, is an ideal partner and host for CGI U.

CGI U student participants and WUSTL administrators at Faces of Hope will be available for interviews. Please contact Sue Killenberg McGinn at (314) 603-6008 for assistance.

EDITOR’S NOTE:
The deadline to apply for media credentials to CGI U April 5-7 at Washington University is 5 p.m. Tuesday, April 2. To apply, go here. Journalists may apply for credentials on site, but pre-registered media will be given priority. For questions about media registration, email press@clintonglobalinitiative.org.

University’s Commitment to Action brings $30 million to advance sustainability

Neil Schoenherr — 2013-03-27 00:00:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4R5GKfHUUg&feature=share&list=PLb9ODR3vzQJM-ZkBw7DngUgJU8enswKkw

Henry S. Webber, executive vice chancellor for administration, discusses the $30 million dollar sustainability commitment Washington University is making as part of its Clinton Global Initiative University efforts. The ambitious plan involves returning the university to 1990 emissions levels despite a doubling in size of the campus and its Medical School.

As part of its Clinton Global Initiative University efforts, Washington University in St. Louis has announced a major institutional commitment to action around the important issue of sustainability.

Webber

“Human health and environmental sustainability are inextricably linked,” said Henry S. Webber, executive vice chancellor for administration. “As a university community, one of the most important things we can do is consume less. Consuming less reduces greenhouse gas emissions; cuts down on fossil fuel consumption; and positively impacts air and water quality, public health, climate patterns, agricultural production and more.”

As such, Washington University is committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions 22 percent by 2020, reverting to 1990 levels.

To advance this goal, the university has established an Energy Conservation Investment of $30 million that will enable the university to accelerate investments in:

greater energy efficiency
improved heating and cooling
better waste management

Students, faculty and staff are committing to consume less as part of the university’s “Less is More” campaign.

Taking simple actions such as turning off lights and recycling as much as possible, combined with the institutional investment, will result in lower emissions and preservation of natural resources.

While the university has accomplished much in recent years to reduce its environmental impact, these commitments strengthen the institution’s resolve to push this initiative to the next level.

“Society expects great universities to provide leadership on critical social issues and to be very wise stewards of our resources,” Webber said. “Our sustainability work does both.

“We’re showing how as a $2.3 billion economic engine, we can significantly reduce our environmental impact, and we can do so in a way that’s also economically viable. That frees up resources to invest in our primary missions of teaching, research and patient care.”

Sustainability at WUSTL

Washington University in St. Louis is a national leader in sustainability, a core priority that runs through all aspects of the campus community, operations and the university’s work as a leading research and teaching institution.

The university already has made great strides in the area of sustainability. While the university’s square footage has more than doubled since 1990, to 11.5 million square feet from 5.7 million square feet, the university has reduced its overall energy usage by 4 percent during this time.

Sixty-eight percent of waste was diverted from landfills in 2012 and the university has amassed more than $109 million in avoided energy costs since 1990.

Washington University is the hub of an international laboratory, training leaders while creating and nurturing ideas aimed at forging a more sustainable future. Significant global partnerships are helping to address issues of energy, environment and sustainability through international collaborative research efforts.

For more information, visit sustain.wustl.edu. For more information about the Clinton Global Initiative University, visit cgiu.wustl.edu.

Proposition to improve Arch, trails and public parks on April 2 ballot

2013-03-28 00:00:00

On Tuesday, April 2, City of St. Louis and St. Louis County voters will vote on Proposition P, the Safe and Accessible Arch and Public Parks Initiative.

Proposition P proposes a 3/16 of 1 cent sales tax increase (which amounts to less than 2 cents on a $10 purchase) that would be used to pay for improvements to the Gateway Arch grounds, the regional Great Rivers Greenway trails, and city and county parks. If passed, the tax will raise about $31 million annually and will be in effect for 20 years.

Washington University has been actively engaged for many years in the support of transit, biking and pedestrian paths and parks that help connect the university to the wider community. Proposition P opens up opportunities to enhance these important assets, and the university supports the initiative’s goals.

Proposition P will provide additional funding for both Forest Park, which borders the Danforth and Medical Center campuses and is considered by many to be the area’s premier park, and the Gateway Arch. The Arch is the iconic symbol of St. Louis and critical improvements will make it accessible to all.

Proposition P has been endorsed by numerous groups, including Forest Park Forever, Focus St. Louis, Civic Progress, the St. Louis Regional Chamber, the Regional Business Council and the Starkloff Disability Institute.

For more information about the proposed initiative, visit http://www.greatriversgreenway.org/prop-p-facts.aspx.

Skulls of early humans carry telltale signs of inbreeding, study suggests

Gerry Everding — 2013-03-20 00:00:00

View of the Xujiayao site (below) and internal and external view of the Xujiayao 11 skull piece with its position indicated on the drawing of a complete skull (above).

Buried for 100,000 years at Xujiayao in the Nihewan Basin of northern China, the recovered skull pieces of an early human exhibit a now-rare congenital deformation that indicates inbreeding might well have been common among our ancestors, new research from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Washington University in St. Louis suggests.

The skull, known as Xujiayao 11, has an unusual perforation through the top of the brain case — an enlarged parietal foramen (EPF) or “hole in the skull” — that is consistent with modern humans diagnosed with a rare genetic mutation in the homeobox genes ALX4 on chromosome 11 and MSX2 on chromosome 5.

These specific genetic mutations interfere with bone formation and prevent the closure of small holes in the back of the prenatal braincase, a process that is normally completed within the first five months of fetal development. It occurs in about one out of every 25,000 modern human births.

Although this genetic abnormality is sometimes associated with cognitive deficits, the older adult age of Xujiayao 11 suggests that any such deficits in this individual were minor.

Traces of genetic abnormalities, such as EPF, are seen unusually often in the skulls of Pleistocene humans, from early Homo erectus to the end of the Paleolithic.

Trinkaus

“The probability of finding one of these abnormalities in the small available sample of human fossils is very low, and the cumulative probability of finding so many is exceedingly small,” suggests study co-author Erik Trinkaus, PhD, the Mary Tileston Hemenway Professor of Anthropology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University.

“The presence of the Xujiayao and other Pleistocene human abnormalities therefore suggests unusual population dynamics, most likely from high levels of inbreeding and local population instability. It therefore provides a background for understanding populational and cultural dynamics through much of human evolution.”

Published March 18 in the journal PLOS ONE, the study is co-authored by Xiu-Jie Wu and Song Xing of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Beijing. Its findings are based on the analysis of the fossilized partial skull of an adult late archaic human from the Xujiayao site, in the Nihewan Basin of northern China.

Washington University's Thurtene holds neighborhood block party, basketball clinic for kids

2013-03-19 00:00:00

Students from Washington University in St. Louis are gearing up for the annual Thurtene Carnival, and they plan community events this weekend to help bring neighbors together to share in the fun.

The Thurtene Junior Honorary will host a neighborhood block party and barbecue, basketball clinics for area youth and a 3-on-3 tournament.

The goal of the weekend events is to bridge the gap between WUSTL and its surrounding neighbors along with providing fun-filled events for the entire St. Louis community, explained Thurtene public relations co-chair Dara Baker, a junior majoring in psychology.

These events will help benefit and promote the local charity that Thurtene is partnering with this year, Provident. Provident, one of the region’s oldest family service nonprofit agencies, provides a number of community programs, from after-school activities and character building for youth to a suicide prevention and crisis hotline.

The Thurtene carnival will be on WUSTL’s campus, on Brookings Drive, from April 19-21. At the carnival, families can check out the elaborate facades that campus student groups have spent months planning, constructing and decorating. Inside the structures, guests can enjoy plays. This year's carnival theme is “Stay Enchanted.”

Thurtene is the oldest and largest student-run carnival in the nation, dating back to 1907, and is led by 13 juniors chosen for the honorary society based on their leadership, character and campus involvement.

Schedule details:

1 – 3 p.m. Saturday, March 23: Block party, corner of Melville Avenue and Kingsbury Boulevard, with food and games

11 a.m. - 3 p.m. Sunday, March 24: Hoops Day. Thurtene will hold basketball clinics for area youth, as well as a 3-on-3 basketball tournament, at the Athletic Complex.

For more information or to sign up for the tournament, visit www.thurtene.org.

Pow Wow 2013: 'Honoring Our Cultures'

Thu, 21 Sar 2013 20:27:02 CST

James byard (2)

Participants in the 23rd annual Pow Wow at Washington University in St. Louis line up for the grand entrance in the Field House March 16. The annual event, hosted by the Kathryn M. Buder Center for American Indian Studies at the Brown School, offered visitors and participants a full day of dancing, singing, drumming, arts, crafts and food. Below, the AC Woodland Singers, from the Alabama Coushatta Reservation in Livingston, Texas, sing gourd dance songs for the surrounding gourd dancers. The gourd dance honors veterans. This year’s Pow Wow theme was "Honoring Our Cultures While Strengthening Our Communities." The theme was chosen as a reminder that when it comes to community development among American Indians, it is important to honor and celebrate traditions while strengthening community.

WUSTL makes progress in sustainability

Kelly Wiese Niemeyer — 2013-03-18 00:00:00

James Byard

Stephen Xie clears his plate after a meal this month at the student eatery Bear's Den, one of the campus locations that offers composting as part of university efforts to reduce its waste sent to landfills.

Washington University in St. Louis has made strides in becoming more sustainable, from keeping more waste out of landfills to adding staff to focus on energy conservation.

Waste diversion

The university’s data indicate an overall institutional waste diversion rate of about 40 percent for fiscal year 2012, which ended in June. That breaks down as 43 percent from the Danforth Campus and 36 percent from the Medical Campus. That’s an increase from the fiscal 2011 overall rate of 34 percent.

When including construction and demolition waste, the number jumps to 68 percent for all WUSTL campuses, the Office of Sustainability reported.

WUSTL has made marked improvement in recent years. For comparison, in fiscal 2008, the overall diversion rate, including both the Danforth and Medical campuses, was 18.5 percent, so last year’s rate was more than twice as good.

The post-consumer recycling rate, which measures the success of the single-stream recycling program, also improved from four years earlier, rising from about 15 percent to 26 percent. Those successes come despite the university having a larger population and more square feet of space than it did in 2008.

However, Sustainability Director Phil Valko doesn’t want WUSTL community members getting complacent. He cautions that the recycling rate actually dropped off a bit in fiscal 2012 from the previous two years.
“We’ve made an awful lot of progress, but we still have a long way to go,” he said.

In addition, an audit of waste at Bear’s Den last fall indicated the vast majority of items in the landfill container actually could be recycled or composted, so there’s room for improvement. For example, Valko said, after student volunteers re-sorted materials deposited in the various bins, they determined that while people deposited 60 pounds into the landfill bin, in reality only 6 pounds belonged there.

The message he wants WUSTL community members to take away is: when in doubt, recycle. Sorting systems at the back end are better than they used to be, he said, and most things are recyclable.

To reduce its reliance on landfills, WUSTL has expanded composting sites on campus, adding pilot sites last fall at the Brown School, the School of Law and the Millbrook (Facilities) Building.

Last semester, the university collected more than 14,000 pounds of compost at the pilot sites. That figure excludes Dining Services locations, which collectively gather about 50,000 pounds of compost each semester.

The university diverted 81.5 percent of construction and demolition waste from landfills -- more than 26 million pounds -- in fiscal 2012, the office reported. One example of a success story is finding new homes for 1 million pounds of artificial turf removed from Francis Field. (See previous Record story).

Other examples are steel beams taken to a recycling company, which melts them down to make other steel products; leftover concrete broken up and used as gravel for roads; and lumber getting chipped to become landscaping mulch.

Recyclemania

WUSTL also is again participating in the Recyclemania competition, in which colleges and universities across the U.S. and Canada compete to see which can keep the most waste out of landfills during an eight-week period, measured by weight, per capita and in other ways.

This year’s competition began Feb. 3 and runs through March 30.

Last year, the university finished the contest in the top 10 percent in the Gorilla category, which awards schools that recycle the greatest overall amount of recyclable materials. WUSTL ranked No. 23 out of 296 schools, recycling about 278.6 tons.

This year, with five weeks’ worth of results recorded, WUSTL ranks No. 20 out of 346, which is again in the top 10 percent.

Valko said for this year, he’s simply hoping to improve on previous performances, but wants to set a more precise benchmark and step up education efforts around campus for the 2014 competition.

Energy conservation

The university also has added to its ranks in utility operations in recent months, bringing on senior engineers at both the Danforth and Medical campuses, new positions that can focus on smarter energy use in WUSTL buildings.

Mechanical engineer Brian Winschel is at the Danforth Campus, and energy engineer Kevin Harding is at the Medical Campus.

Ed Barry, director of utility operations at the Danforth Campus, said Winschel is helping with general oversight and upkeep of the operation, but also is working on projects such as installing meters across campus so utilities staff can gain a better sense of which buildings use the most energy and target reduction efforts accordingly. Such efforts could range from simple things like reminding employees to turn off lights when leaving a room to updates such as occupancy sensors or installation of new heating and cooling systems during building renovations.

“This is more of a reinforcement of what we’ve been doing all along, and being able to devote more manpower to it,” Barry said.

Winschel also has been involved with plans for solar panel installation at the Delmar Loop retail and student apartment development under construction.

Harding, meanwhile, is working on ways to make air flow more efficient in medical buildings and to shut down labs not in use for an extended time to save energy and lower utility costs. Shuttering unused labs could save up to $400,000 a year in energy costs, explained Jim Stueber, director of facilities engineering for the School of Medicine.

Harding also is helping oversee energy meters’ installation and oversight, as Winschel is on the Danforth Campus.

Harding is charged with finding opportunities to conserve energy, managing energy meters and training technicians so they’re up to speed on best practices in energy conservation.

All these efforts, Stueber said, are in response to Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton’s sustainability plan and challenge.

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Pow Wow 2013: 'Honoring Our Cultures'​

WUSTL makes progress in sustainability

Pow Wow 2013: 'Honoring Our Cultures'