Newsroom Stories

Academicians, business leaders, judiciary members and a key watchdog group will come together to discuss the future of legal education at “The Law School in the New Legal Environment Symposium” at Washington University School of Law Friday, Oct. 26. The symposium will examine issues such as affordability and access to legal education; faculty; preparation for practice; job placement; and online legal education and how it will change traditional law schools. “Lawyers and law students are facing serious challenges with employment, debt and career satisfaction,” says Kent D. Syverud, JD, dean of the law school. “This symposium will address how American law schools can embrace needed change rather than avoiding it.”

Some Halloween news tips refuse to die, rising from the newsroom morgue each October with a stubborn resolve to once again help trick-or-treaters stay safe on Halloween night. Here’s three timely safety tips that remain very much undead.

Victoria L. May (right), assistant dean of Arts & Sciences and director of the Institute for School Partnership, speaks at a breakfast at Brittany Woods Middle School Oct. 3 to celebrate the university’s collaboration with the district. The partnership between WUSTL and UCity schools began informally through various programs, and became formal in 2009.

Andrew Yoo, Robert Gereau and Michael Bruchas have been awarded grants from the National Institues of Health Common Fund to pursue visionary research that has the potential to transform science and improve human health.

Jennifer R. Smith, PhD, dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, is one of eight U.S. citizens selected to go abroad in 2013 as an Eisenhower USA Fellow. Retired Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of Eisenhower Fellowships, announced the eight fellowship winners, who were selected from a highly competitive pool of applicants. As part of her fellowship, Smith will spend a month in India next summer on an intensive individualized professional program.

Leading scientists have selected the first drugs to be evaluated in a worldwide clinical trial to determine whether they can prevent Alzheimer’s disease. The pioneering trial, expected to start by early 2013, initially will test three promising drugs, each designed to target Alzheimer’s in different ways.

The most vulnerable and marginalized groups in this country stand to lose the most in this campaign, says Jason Q. Purnell, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, and all the rhetoric directed at the middle class fails to take into account the very real struggles of the poor and the working class in this country. It’s one of the issues that is being overlooked as the presidential campaign heads into the home stretch with the election just four weeks away. “I do believe this election is a stark choice between a vision in which government has a constructive role to play in enhancing people’s life choices and one in which individuals are largely on their own,” he says.

Faculty, staff and students commuting to all WUSTL campuses are encouraged to leave their sedans, SUVs and minivans in the garage and go “car-free” for the month of October as part of the university’s Car-Free Month. Car-Free Month activities include free bicycle tune-ups, a group bike ride, a Car-Free Challenge and demonstrations.

Brian K. Kobilka, MD, a former medical resident at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine, is the winner of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

William G. Powderly, MD, will lead global health initiatives as a newly appointed deputy director of Washington University’s Institute of Public Health. He also will serve as co-director of the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Medicine at the university’s School of Medicine. ​