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Washington University in St. Louis has announced a major, multi-year fundraising initiative, called Leading Together: The Campaign for Washington University, to build on its strong history and further evolve the university’s global leadership. Leading Together will focus on enhancing the university’s impact in four key areas: preparing the leaders of tomorrow, advancing human health, inspiring innovation and entrepreneurship, and enhancing the quality of life. The goal of Leading Together: The Campaign for Washington University is to raise a minimum of $2.2 billion in funding toward priorities included in the strategic plan.​​

At its fall meeting Oct. 5, the Board of Trustees elected trustee Craig D. Schnuck, chair of the executive committee of St. Louis-based Schnuck Markets, to a newly created additional vice chair role and heard a report on the Washington University endowment by Kimberly G. Walker, chief investment officer. Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton also gave the trustees an update on campus activities and accomplishments.

The director of the women, gender and sexuality studies program at Washington University in St. Louis identifies some key issues of importance to women and non-heterosexual American voters in this year’s elections. Among the key issues are women’s reproductive rights, access to health care, equal rights for non-heterosexual Americans and equal pay for equal work.

Bloom Coffee founder and WUSTL senior Andrew Dowd (right) makes lattes at WUSTL’s new student-run coffee café, Bloom Coffee. Bloom Coffee specializes in hand-brewed single origin coffees and handcrafted espresso and tea concoctions. The cafe is open from 7 p.m.-2 a.m. on Thursday and Friday nights at Ursa’s Café on the South 40.

About 500 students attended the first 2012 presidential debate viewing party Oct. 3 in Tisch Commons, Danforth University Center. The event featured free food, games and prizes. Parties also are planned for the remaining debates at 8 p.m. Oct. 11, 16 and 22.​​

Deep research into sustainability, memory and other compelling topics becomes clearer with the debut of Hold That Thought, a new podcast series from Arts & Sciences. The Hold That Thought website debuted Oct. 1 as a way to make in-depth faculty research and overarching ideas  more accessible to the general public.

The 2012 participants of the Global Diversity Overseas Seminar Program will share their experiences during two brown-bag lunch presentations next week. The winning staff members traveled to WUSTL study abroad locations in Paris, France, and Shanghai, China, this summer. The presentations will be held Tuesday, Oct. 9, and Thursday, Oct. 11, for Shanghai. 

Law students and women lawyers, judges and faculty members gathered Sept. 20 to celebrate the anniversary of WUSTL’s first woman law graduate, Phoebe Couzins, who earned a degree in 1871. The special event featured “speed mentoring” and networking sessions with law students and women attorneys.

WHAT: Celebration of Mike McLaughlin, Olin Business School MBA student who recently completed a 2,500-mile hike for charity, becoming what is believed to be the first person to through-hike the Appalachian and Ozark Trails back-to-back.

Barry Commoner, a biologist at WUSTL from 1947-1981, died Sept. 30, 2012, in Manhattan. He was 95. Commoner was a professor of plant physiology and of environmental studies, both in Arts & Sciences. According to The New York Times, Commoner was “a founder of modern ecology and one of its most provocative thinkers and mobilizers in making environmentalism a people’s political cause.”