Newsroom Stories

More than 1,100 School of Law alumni and friends are returning to campus today and tomorrow for Alumni Weekend and to celebrate the 2012 milestone of Professor David M. Becker’s 50th year of teaching. Becker, JD, associate dean for external relations and the Joseph H. Zumbalen Professor Emeritus of the Law of Property, is a popular teacher and mentor known for his service and dedication to the law school.

Undergraduate research opportunities at Washington University have come a long way in a few short years. When the first symposium to showcase undergraduates’ research was held in spring 2005, there were just 15 participants. This weekend, 210 undergraduates will showcase their research projects through poster presentations and visual and oral presentations during the Fall Undergraduate Research Symposium from noon until 4 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 27.

The Brown School’s “Evaluation for Social Impact: A St. Louis Summit” Oct. 16 and 17 was an innovative conference designed to elevate understanding of evaluation techniques for agencies and nonprofits throughout the St. Louis region. It featured top national experts giving keynotes, spark talks and breakout sessions.

Resveratrol, an ingredient in red wine thought to improve insulin sensitivity, reduce risk of heart disease and increase longevity, does not appear to have those benefits in healthy women, according to new research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Ross Brownson, PhD, professor of medicine and social work at Washington University in St. Louis, has been named president-elect of the American College of Epidemiology.

That Mitt Romney, when he became governor of Massachusetts, did not know a sufficient number of women leaders in business and politics to appoint women he knew or knew about to positions in the state government is troublesome, says Mary Ann Dzuback, PhD, director of the Program in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

The City of St. Louis estimates more than 10,000 vacant parcels have come into its ownership through tax foreclosure — and nearly 20 percent of all property within city limits is vacant. A new joint program between the City of St. Louis and the Washington University in St. Louis Office of Sustainability seeks to reframe the issue: turning vacant land into an opportunity that inspires innovative thinking and catalyzes tangible demonstration projects.

Advances in medicine allow doctors to keep patients alive longer, tackle fertility problems and extend the viability of premature babies. They also lead to a growing number of moral questions for both the medical provider and patient. “Across the country, so-called conscience legislation allows doctors and nurses to refuse to provide abortions, contraception, sterilizations, and end-of-life care,” says Elizabeth Sepper, JD, health law expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. “But legislators have totally overlooked the consciences of providers who have made the conscientious judgment to deliver care and of the patients who seek these treatments.” Sepper says that conscience in the medical setting needs to be protected more consistently. “The one-sided protection of refusal cannot stand,” she says. “Just as we wouldn’t say that giving students vouchers only for Christian schools furthers religious freedom, we can’t say that current conscience legislation successfully lives up to its goal of protecting conscience.

Conductor Steven Jarvi, praised as an “eloquent and decisive” conductor by The Wall Street Journal, will make his public debut with the WUSTL Symphony Orchestra Oct. 27. The Parent and Family Weekend concert, which takes place in the 560 Music Center’s E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall, will feature music by Ludwig van Beethoven, Adam Schoenberg and Edward Elgar.

Critical data for more than 2,300 federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) cases now are available online thanks to a multi-year effort of researchers at Washington University School of Law’s Center for Empirical Research in the Law (CERL). The EEOC Litigation Project, which spans the period between 1997 and 2006, makes readily available detailed information about the EEOC’s enforcement litigation to legal scholars, social scientists, and policy-makers.