Business & Entrepreneurship

LaRussaThe Washington University Assembly Series will have an unorthodox start to its fall schedule with a talk by Cardinals’ manager, Tony La Russa at 11 a.m. Sept. 7 in Graham Chapel. The rest of the series features speakers on a wide range of topics including politics, economics, writing, history, religion, medicine, literature, evolution, space exploration, social justice and the Holocaust.

Below is a link to the Washington University news release about the U.S. News & World Report undergraduate rankings for 2004-05: http://news-info.wustl.edu/news/page/normal/3627.html To view a full listing of U.S. News magazine, book and Web-only rankings for 2004-05, please visit the U.S. News & World Report site: http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/rankindex_brief.php

Photo by David KilperLars Angenent (right) and Jason He examine the upflow microbial fuel cell, which can turn wastewater into electricity.The upflow microbial fuel cell is fed continually and works with chambers atop each other rather than beside each other.

Written in a plainspoken and often humorous style, the memoir offers a fresh and engaging perspective on Reagan’s leadership style and motivations.

For nearly a quarter century, Murray Weidenbaum has said little about what it was like to serve as the first chairman of President Ronald Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers, a role in which he was a primary architect of policies later known as “Reaganomics.” Now, one year after Reagan’s passing, Weidenbaum has issued a brief memoir detailing his years as the president’s chief economic adviser.

David Kilper / WUSTL PhotoAngenent and He’s microbial fuel cell may be scaled up for industrial use.An environmental engineer at Washington University in St. Louis has created a device similar to a hydrogen fuel cell that uses bacteria to treat wastewater and create electricity. Lars Angenent, Ph.D., assistant professor of Chemical Engineering, and a member of the University’s Environmental Engineering Science Program, has devised a microbial fuel cell which he calls an upflow microbial fuel cell (UMFC) that is fed continually and, unlike most microbial fuel cells, works with chambers atop each other rather than beside each other.

In the global economy, running a business is especially risky when finance and operations are ignorant of the other’s business. The risk factors go beyond the usual challenges of matching supply and demand to include unanticipated commodity price shocks, volatile exchange rates, and unexpected supply disruptions as a result of forces beyond our controls, such as physical disasters and terrorist attacks. Rather than let companies discover the perils the hard way, Professor Panos Kouvelis of the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis is spearheading efforts in academia to create models of how finance and operations can work together to achieve maximum success.

A new partnership between the YouthBridge Association and the Skandalaris Center at Washington University in St. Louis will support social entrepreneurship in the St. Louis region. YouthBridge has pledged $500,000 in funding over five years so Washington University can create the YouthBridge Award and the St. Louis Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation Competition. The university, with the help from community partners, plans to support the initiative with more than $500,000 in resources. Washington University and YouthBridge are inviting other area universities, institutions, community groups and foundations to collaborate on this effort. The purpose of the competition is to stimulate collaborative activity that leads to multiple innovative approaches to the area’s social problems.

MerrifieldIn an effort to strengthen diversity among the students, faculty and staff at Washington University in St. Louis, Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton has appointed Leah Merrifield as special assistant to the chancellor for diversity initiatives. Merrifield, director of community relations in the Office of Governmental and Community Relations, will assume her new position July 1. She will report to Wrighton.

WarrenSpending by federal regulatory agencies continues to grow at a faster pace than other nondiscretionary spending according to “Upward Trend in Regulation Continues: An Analysis of the U.S. Budget for Fiscal Years 2005 and 2006,” this year’s edition of the annual report on regulatory spending and staffing by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government, and Public Policy at Washington University in St. Louis.