Business & Entrepreneurship

Journalists covering the business beat are invited to participate in the first Olin Corporate Strategy Prize, sponsored by the Olin Business School. $10,000 in honoraria will be awarded for the best reporting on companies that have undergone significant strategic change.  Deadline for submissions is June 30, 2010.

At age 84, James Martin Wybar of Philadelphia was the first in line to receive his diploma at Olin Business School’s 2010 Commencement May 21. Wybar is the oldest graduate in the school’s history. He finished his courses in 1947, but didn’t have time to collect his diploma until this year.

Nelson S. “Strobe” Talbott, president of the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and former deputy secretary of state from 1995-2001, delivered the keynote address during the Washington University School of Law diploma ceremony on Friday, May 21, in Mudd Field.

Homeland security and other regulatory agencies are creating jobs and a record-breaking budget according to a new study from the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy at Washington University in St. Louis and the George Washington University Regulatory Studies Center.  A Decade of Growth in the Regulators’ Budget: An Analysis of the U.S. Budget for Fiscal Years 2010 and 2011 details the rise in regulatory spending and who gets the lion’s share of this year’s $59 billion federal regulatory budget.

Sadena Thevarajah feels that the best way to address health-care inequality is to become an attorney. Another step toward that journey will be complete May 21 when Thevarajah, the Record‘s 2010 Outstanding Graduate in the School of Law, receives her juris doctorate from WUSTL.

Peter K. Cramer, PhD, has been named new assistant dean of graduate programs in the School of Law at Washington University in St. Louis. His duties include coordinating recruitment, admissions and placement of the law school’s graduate programs and for the day-to-day operations of those programs. This summer, the law school is launching a new executive LLM program co-taught by law faculty at WUSTL and Korea University. 

Which companies get the biggest bang for their buck when it comes to R&D? Olin Business School professor of strategy Anne Marie Knott believes there is a strong correlation between certain characteristics of companies and their R&D practices.  Effective R&D is a sign of firm with high IQ.  But just what makes a company smart?  Professor Knott is on a mission to measure firms’ IQ and how to improve it.  Video included.

Two prominent economists made headlines last week in visits to the Olin Business School when they shared their views on the economy and its recovery from the “Great Recession.” Former Federal Reserve chief Paul Volcker and St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank president and CEO James Bullard, PhD, offered different perspectives on jobs, financial reform and the global economy. One dared to suggest the need for increased taxes in the near future; one said the current crisis in Greece could slow the U.S. recovery.

Students graduating from Olin Business School’s undergrad, MBA and Executive MBA programs receive diplomas in separate ceremonies this month.  The will also receive some words of wisdom and advice from those who have gone before them.  Olin alumni will be the featured speakers at commencement exercises on the Danforth Campus.

Washington University School of Law’s Civil Justice Clinic, partnering with Legal Services of Eastern Missouri (LSEM), has reached a settlement with the Saint Louis Public Schools (SLPS) in a federal lawsuit that challenged the appropriateness and constitutionality of recent disciplinary practices for two high school students.