Newsroom Stories

Jason Echols spent his time at the Brown School concentrating on gerontology — including helping to produce a contest-winning YouTube video on social work and aging. “We haven’t really done enough to talk about what happens when people grow older,” Echols says. Working with older adults is something he’s passionate about, and he’ll continue working toward that passion after he receives his master’s of social work from the Brown School May 21.

The lottery for the first round of enrollment in the Family Learning Center at Washington University will be held Thursday, May 27. The Family Learning Center — scheduled to open Sept. 7, 2010 — will offer care for 156 children of faculty, staff and students from the ages of 6 weeks to 6 years.

The School of Medicine’s Public Health Interest Group is holding a class at the Herbert Hoover Boys & Girls Club Adams Park Unit to teach children and their parents how to prepare healthy meals. School of Medicine students spend the first hour discussing nutrition with the children and their parents separately, and in the second hour, the families come together to prepare and eat a meal.

The decoding  of the Neandertal genome, which suggested modern humans interbred with Neandertals, followed hard on the heals of a WUSTL professor’s critique on mathematical and logical grounds of a gene analysis that suggested no interbreeding.

Two prominent economists made headlines last week in visits to the Olin Business School when they shared their views on the economy and its recovery from the “Great Recession.” Former Federal Reserve chief Paul Volcker and St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank president and CEO James Bullard, PhD, offered different perspectives on jobs, financial reform and the global economy. One dared to suggest the need for increased taxes in the near future; one said the current crisis in Greece could slow the U.S. recovery.

The Shriners Hospitals for Children has resumed plans to build a new hospital at Washington University Medical Center. The project was placed on hold in early 2009 due to the economic downturn and its effect on the international health system’s endowment fund.

Sports updates for week of May 10, 2010.

Washington University in St. Louis is recognizing Charles F. and Joanne Knight by naming its world-renowned Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (ADRC) in their honor.

Jack Duncan grew up in Virginia learning never to waste anything, especially those two most precious human and natural treasures — time and resources. Duncan, who will graduate May 21 with a degree in environmental studies, has been chosen by the Record as an Outstanding Graduate in the College of Arts & Sciences.

Washington University has awarded five Bear Cub Fund grants totaling $165,000 to support innovative research that has shown commercial potential.