Author: Jessica Roberts Martin

Interest in social entrepreneurship — using innovation and enterprise to address social problems — has exploded, but training has always been from a business perspective. This fall, the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis will be home to the first social entrepreneurship program based in a social work setting.

Stephen H. Legomsky, JD, DPhil, the John S. Lehmann University Professor at the School of Law at Washington University in St. Louis, has been appointed chief counsel for the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), effective Oct. 24, 2011, announced Ivan Fong, general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security.

Privacy lawsuits in the United States usually seek damages for revealing embarrassing but true facts by the media— the so-called “disclosure tort” — but this is a “poor vehicle for grappling with the problems of privacy and reputation in the digital age,” says Neil M. Richards, JD, privacy law expert and professor at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. “The disclosure tort has never really worked successfully,” he says. “It’s largely unconstitutional.” Richards notes that there are two existing privacy law concepts that may be good supplements or even replacements to the disclosure tort.

People head to the beach to escape the stress of everyday life, but a new study out of the Brown School at Washington University In St. Louis finds that there are peak times to reap the restorative benefit. “Mild temperature days and low tides offer the most restorative environments when visiting the beach,” says J. Aaron Hipp, PhD, environmental health expert and assistant professor at the Brown School.

Americans are remaining in the workforce longer and many are changing or advancing their careers well past age 40. “With this trend towards working longer, educational institutions have been trying to figure out their role in keeping up with the needs of our aging society,” says Nancy Morrow-Howell, PhD, the Ralph and Muriel Pumphrey Professor of Social Work at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. The Brown School decided to study the experiences of their students who came to get their MSW after the age of 40. The survey focuses on pathways to graduate school, their experience in the classroom as well as field, and their post-MSW careers. Morrow-Howell says that these results can be applied to other graduate programs, particularly in fields that may face labor shortages in the future, such as education, health and social services.

WUSTL faculty and staff will receive an email linking to a brief, anonymous survey about the work environment at WUSTL. The survey is part of an initiative on multiple identities supported by the Office of the Provost and the Diversity and Inclusion Grants Program.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s “Ponzi scheme” charge and Florida Sen. Mark Rubio’s assertion that Social Security is unsustainable recycle baseless attacks that go back as far as the 1930s, says Merton C. Bernstein, LLB, a nationally recognized expert on Social Security. “These are attempts to muster political support by appealing to long-held prejudices to satisfy those who never accepted Social Security,” Bernstein says. “To use them as guides to public policy would undermine our country’s most successful family protection program.”

The estimates of the population without health insurance in the U.S. remained unchanged in 2010, as compared to 2009, reflecting the counteracting effects of not only the sluggish economic recovery but also the preliminary benefits of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), says Timothy McBride, PhD, leading health economist and associate dean of public health at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.

Faculty and graduate students from St. Louis-area universities with an interest in labor, households, health care, law and social welfare are invited to take part in a series of Monday brown-bag luncheon seminars to be held on the Danforth Campus biweekly beginning Monday, Sept. 19, through Nov. 28. Presentations will be from noon-1 p.m. in Seigle Hall, Room 348. The series begins with a lecture by Joan C. Williams, JD, the Distinguished Professor of Law, University of California Hastings College of the Law Foundation Chair and director of the Center for WorkLife Law at UC Hastings on “Why Gender is So Unbending: Gender Pressures on Men.”

In July 2011, the Brown School’s MPH program submitted its preliminary self-study document for review by the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH), the accrediting body for public health schools and programs. As part of the accreditation process, CEPH seeks public comment from those individuals and organizations that work closely with the school on this program.