Humanities & Society

The Brown School’s Transdisciplinary Problem Solving course on global hunger and undernutrition hosted a Hunger Banquet Oct. 18 in Brown Hall Lounge to recognize World Food Day. Hunger Banquet guests were given tickets as they entered the event representing food allowances from different income levels around the world. Mirroring the current crisis, food prices rose throughout the event, limiting the amount of food people could purchase. Video features comments by Brown School students Tess Thompson and Susan Vorkoper. 

Front-of-package nutrition labels already exist on many foods in the U.S., but an Institute of Medicine (IOM) panel recently recommended standardizing and simplifying this information through a rating system modeled after the Energy Star program. “You shouldn’t have to be a nutrition scientist to make healthy food choices for your family,” says Matthew Kreuter, PhD, member of the IOM panel and director of the Health Communications Research Laboratory at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.

As the number 11 has become the rallying number for the St. Louis Cardinals and their fans this season, could 11 also factor in poet Carl Phillips winning the most coveted literary prize in 2011? Phillips, professor of English in Arts & Sciences, has been selected — for the fourth time — as a finalist for the National Book Award in poetry. While the Cardinals are pursuing their 11th World Series title, Phillips is nominated for his 11th collection of poetry, Double Shadow.

While the St. Louis Regional Commerce and Growth Association claims the World Series will provide a $24.4 million economic boost to the area, a Washington University in St. Louis economist says it won’t change the area’s economic outlook as a whole.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and other legislators are calling for baseball players to stop using chewing tobacco on the field and in front of their fans. “This is an important public health issue,” says Douglas Luke, PhD, director of the Center for Tobacco Policy Research at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. “Not only is smokeless tobacco use hazardous, but young people who use smokeless tobacco are more likely to also start smoking cigarettes.” Luke notes that smokeless tobacco use is a growing problem, particularly for the youngest baseball fans.

The Brookings Institution, a nonprofit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C., and Washington University in St. Louis announce recipients of grants from the joint Academic Venture Fund. The purpose of the AVF is to support collaboration between scholars at WUSTL and the Brookings Institution, particularly long-term projects that impact research, education and policy.

Social Security recipients will receive a cost of living adjustment (COLA) of 3.6 percent beginning in 2012, the first increase since 2009. “COLA is welcome but will not fully maintain beneficiary purchasing power,” says Merton C. Bernstein, LLB, a nationally recognized expert on Social Security and the Walter D. Coles Professor Emeritus at Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. “The formula setting that rate does not meet fully the needs of Social Security recipients, especially when considering medical costs.”

Litigation and legislative reforms have achieved formal rights to equal treatment for women in employment. But women continue to perform disproportionate amounts of caregiving in the home, to suffer economic penalties for childbearing and to face discrimination on account of motherhood in the workplace. “The disconnect between formal equality and the deepening work-family conflict is no accident,” says Deborah Dinner, JD, legal historian and associate professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.

Washington University in St. Louis has received a five-year, $3 million grant to establish a new center to develop better ways to prevent and treat type 2 diabetes in high-risk patients, including American Indians and Alaska Natives, says Debra Haire-Joshu, PhD, director of the new center. 

A new series, called the Danforth Dialogues, demonstrates how persons with profoundly different views can engage each other forcefully and respectfully. Sen. John C. Danforth moderated the first discussion between Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind. The series is co-sponsored by the John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics.