Author: Leslie Gibson McCarthy

The Office of the Provost at WUSTL has launched a new website, diversity.wustl.edu, as the focal point for all diversity and inclusion initiatives on campus. The site has a comprehensive list of resources and programs, and will use photographs and videos to tell stories of the university’s people and programs that support diversity on campus.

SIFT (Shaw Institute for Field Training) and TERF (Tyson Environmental Research Fellowships) — a collaboration between WUSTL’s Tyson Research Center and the Missouri Botanical Gardens’ Shaw Nature Reserve — gives high school students authentic engagement in environmental research and prepares them for careers in biology and other sciences.​

The Brown School’s “Evaluation for Social Impact: A St. Louis Summit” Oct. 16 and 17 was an innovative conference designed to elevate understanding of evaluation techniques for agencies and nonprofits throughout the St. Louis region. It featured top national experts giving keynotes, spark talks and breakout sessions.

That Mitt Romney, when he became governor of Massachusetts, did not know a sufficient number of women leaders in business and politics to appoint women he knew or knew about to positions in the state government is troublesome, says Mary Ann Dzuback, PhD, director of the Program in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

Smoking is both a physical addiction to nicotine and a learned psychological behavior, so the best way to quit is to attack it from both sides, says Sarah Shelton of the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. And help may be right at your fingertips in the form of your smartphone.

The Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis commemorated World Food Day Oct. 16 by holding a lunch in Goldfarb Commons with a discussion following. Students were given “money” base on their random selection as being from rich, poor or moderate-income countries, and were given the opportunity to join with others to receive additional funds to pool cooperatively which they could then use to purchase food reflective of items available in those countries.

In remembrance of Martin Luther King Jr., the Society of Black Student Social Workers (SBSSW) and the Office of Student Affairs at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis will host its annual Financial Freedom Seminar on Saturday, Jan. 19, 2013.

The first presidential debate was most striking for Gov. Mitt Romney’s aggressiveness and President Barack Obama’s rhetorical reserve, but the town hall format in the second debate provides an extra challenge for the candidates, says Peter Kastor, PhD, professor of history and American culture studies at Washington University in St. Louis. The two debates also reveal one of the greatest challenges to candidates as they try to appear Presidential: balancing emotional display with appropriate reserve.

Two debates, three weeks. There’s not a whole of time or opportunity for the presidential candidates to reach undecided voters, adding weight to tomorrow’s debate. And as we’ve seen in the last two debates, it’s not so much what is being said as it is how the message is being delivered. That’s why President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney have a crucial meeting tomorrow night and experts at Washington University in St. Louis are ready to comment.

Just two weeks before the presidential election, the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis puts the Affordable Care Act front and center with a policy forum on the signature legislation of Barack Obama’s presidency. “Affordable Care Act-the Evolution Continues” takes place at 8 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 23, in Brown Hall Lounge on the Danforth Campus. Keynoting Jay Angoff, senior advisor at the U. S. Dept. of Health and Human Services. Angoff is an expert on insurance law and insurance-related issues at both the national and state levels.