Business & Entrepreneurship

To complete a course in entrepreneurship, Olin Business School students traveled to Budapest, Hungary for some hands-on work with new ventures. Their consulting projects not only benefitted the eastern European entrepreneurs, but helped students gain a better understanding of the global marketplace and their career futures.

The U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of Representative are working toward a final version of the financial reform bill, which is expected be on the desk of President Barack Obama by July 4. Securities law expert Hillary A. Sale, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, says that is coming at a good time for the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Washington University School of Law has developed a new summer course, the Associate in Training (AIT) Program, which focuses on advanced lawyering skills training and professional skill development. “The goal of the AIT Program is to give law students an opportunity to improve their practical skills and knowledge of a variety of types of law firm settings,” says Tomea Mayer Mersmann, JD, associate dean for strategic initiatives. 

Washington University in St. Louis Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton will share findings from the recent report by the Committee on America’s Energy Future in a talk June 7 at the Kauffman Foundation Conference Center in Kansas City. Wrighton served as vice-chair of the Committee on America’s Energy Future, a group sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. He is a scientist, researcher and respected authority on global energy options. 

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.