Humanities & Society

People head to the beach to escape the stress of everyday life, but a new study out of the Brown School at Washington University In St. Louis finds that there are peak times to reap the restorative benefit. “Mild temperature days and low tides offer the most restorative environments when visiting the beach,” says J. Aaron Hipp, PhD, environmental health expert and assistant professor at the Brown School.

Americans are remaining in the workforce longer and many are changing or advancing their careers well past age 40. “With this trend towards working longer, educational institutions have been trying to figure out their role in keeping up with the needs of our aging society,” says Nancy Morrow-Howell, PhD, the Ralph and Muriel Pumphrey Professor of Social Work at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. The Brown School decided to study the experiences of their students who came to get their MSW after the age of 40. The survey focuses on pathways to graduate school, their experience in the classroom as well as field, and their post-MSW careers. Morrow-Howell says that these results can be applied to other graduate programs, particularly in fields that may face labor shortages in the future, such as education, health and social services.

The Gephardt Institute for Public Service at Washington University in St. Louis has selected seven juniors for the inaugural cohort of the Civic Scholars Program. Civic Scholars will enroll in two years of academic course work related to civic leadership and receive mentorship to prepare them for a life dedicated to public service.

The Gephardt Institute for Public Service at Washington University in St. Louis and the Career Center are sponsoring the annual Government and Public Policy Career Days on Tuesday, Sept. 27, and Wednesday, Sept. 28.

The Institute for Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis will host its fourth annual conference, titled “Beyond Borders: Transforming Health at Home & Abroad,” from 12:30 to 5 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 5, at the Eric P. Newman Education Center on the Medical Campus.

Japanese body art, elaborate tattoos, fashion and pre-modern pornography are among topics to be explored as the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis opens its fall seminar series. The Japan Embodied: New Approaches to Japanese Studies seminar series opens at 4 p.m. Friday, Sept. 23, in Room 18, Busch Hall, on the Danforth Campus with a free, public program on body ornamentation in Japanese culture.

Washington University in St. Louis’ Center for New Institutional Social Science (CNISS) Fall 2011 Seminar Series kicks off Wednesday, Sept. 21 with a lecture by noted social policy expert John Gal, PhD. He is dean of the Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Gal will present “Immigration and the Categorical Welfare State in Israel” at 1 p.m. Sept. 21 in Seigle Hall, Room 301.

Students in a service-learning course in the Department of History in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis are working on an application to get the grocery store and its adjacent buildings — better known as “Tillie’s Corner” — on the National Register of Historic Places. The class, “Building St. Louis History: The City and Its Renaissance,” is taught by Sonia Lee, PhD, assistant professor of history.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s “Ponzi scheme” charge and Florida Sen. Mark Rubio’s assertion that Social Security is unsustainable recycle baseless attacks that go back as far as the 1930s, says Merton C. Bernstein, LLB, a nationally recognized expert on Social Security. “These are attempts to muster political support by appealing to long-held prejudices to satisfy those who never accepted Social Security,” Bernstein says. “To use them as guides to public policy would undermine our country’s most successful family protection program.”

The estimates of the population without health insurance in the U.S. remained unchanged in 2010, as compared to 2009, reflecting the counteracting effects of not only the sluggish economic recovery but also the preliminary benefits of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), says Timothy McBride, PhD, leading health economist and associate dean of public health at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.