Three aspiring playwrights will present staged readings of their works Friday and Saturday, Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, as part of the 2011 A.E. Hotchner Playwriting Festival. Nicknamed “The Hotch,” the festival consists of an intensive two-week workshop, led this year by nationally known dramaturg Megan Monaghan Revis (right).

Members of the WUSTL community, including Lauren Yang, a second-year medical student, turned out Sept. 13 to give blood at the university-wide blood drive. In the past four years, WUSTL has donated enough blood to save nearly 20,000 lives, says Stephanie N. Kurtzman, director of the Community Service Office.

The Federal Reserve’s latest plan to prop up the sagging American economy, known as Operation Twist, won’t have a significant impact, says Radhakrishnan Gopalan, PhD, assistant professor of finance at Olin Business School.

At its fall meeting Sept. 23, the Board of Trustees heard a number of presentations by top university officials, including a report on the  endowment by Kimberly G. Walker, chief investment officer; a student housing and off-campus development planning update from Executive Vice Chancellor Henry S. Webber; and a presentation on the new Preston M. Green Hall by Ralph S. Quatrano, PhD, dean of the School of Engineering & Applied Science and the Spencer T. Olin Professor.

New research shows that the likelihood of a medical school graduate becoming board certified is linked to age at graduation, race and ethnicity, and level of debt. The study, by researchers at the School of Medicine, was published this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

6:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 26

Sam Fox School Public Lecture Series/Abend Family Lecture

“Solutions for Problems That Don’t Exist.” Neil Denari, principal, Neil M. Denari Architects Inc., Los Angeles. Free and open to the public. Reception at 6 p.m. precedes lecture. Steinberg Hall Aud.
(314) 935-9300.

Conference to focus on global health

The Institute for Public Health will host its fourth annual conference, titled “Beyond Borders: Transforming Health at Home & Abroad,” from 12:30-5 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 5, at the Eric P. Newman Education Center on the Medical Campus.

Brent Ruoff, MD

Canyoneering helps Ruoff in emergency medicine. FULL STORY

How did your favorite team fare?

Football looked to get back on a winning track over the weekend at North Park University in Chicago, while women’s golf, men’s tennis and cross country all saw action as well. To find out how your favorite WUSTL team fared, visit bearsports.wustl.edu.