Newsroom Stories

A recent report by the Partnership for Public Service indicates a strong disconnect between the desire of federal employees to innovate and the degree to which innovation is encouraged in their workplaces. Now beginning its second year, the Master’s of Science in Leadership, offered by Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis in partnership with the Brookings Institution, helps U.S. government employees think strategically about opportunities for innovation, and does it in a way that is very cost effective.

Kenneth M. Murphy, MD, PhD, has been named the Eugene L. Opie First Centennial Professor of Pathology and Immunology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

Every day we make thousands of tiny predictions — when the bus will arrive, who is knocking on the door, whether the dropped glass will break. Now, in one of the first studies of its kind, researchers at Washington University in St. Louis are beginning to unravel the process by which the brain makes these everyday prognostications.

Washington University’s main move-in day in the South 40 residence halls for freshmen is Thursday, Aug. 25. Nearly 1,500 freshmen are arriving for the 2011-12 academic year that begins Aug. 30. With help from family, friends and upperclassmen, the freshmen will be hauling everything from refrigerators and microwaves to carpets, bicycles and stereo systems into their new homes away from home.

More than 1,200 freshmen are expected to participate in this year’s 13th annual Service First event on Saturday, Sept. 3, at 12 St. Louis-area schools. Among the projects Washington University students will be participating in include painting playground maps and indoor and outdoor murals, creating bulletin boards, and assisting teachers in preparing classrooms for the new school year.

The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum has received an extraordinary gift from the David Woods Kemper Memorial Foundation to support the acquisition of new works by artists living and working in Germany. This fall, the Kemper Art Museum will present Precarious Worlds: Contemporary Art From Germany. The exhibition will feature the first five works acquired thanks to the Kemper gift — monumentally scaled pieces by Franz Ackermann, Thomas Demand, Sergej Jensen, Charline von Heyl, and Corinne Wasmuht — along with significant works already in the permanent collection by Michel Majerus, Manfred Pernice and Wolfgang Tillmans, as well as a major installation, on loan for the exhibition, by Hans-Peter Feldmann.

Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Boise State University have been named partners in one of five U.S. centers that will use genetic data to search for proteins that are abnormally made by cancer cells. The partnerships form the new Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium (CPTAC) supported by the National Cancer Institute.

Poor diet, lack of exercise and smoking are often cited as causes of preventable illness and death in the United States. A new master’s program in Applied Health Behavior Research launching this fall is designed to address the science of health behavior, says Mario Schootman, PhD, the program’s director.

Nearly half of adolescents with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) used a mental health service in the past year to address issues such as behavioral problems, anxiety and depression. A new study from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis reinforces how important school-based services are for this group. The study found 49 percent received the service at schools, and that African-American adolescents and youths from lower income families were more likely to receive school-based services.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) recently filed a lawsuit against the Camdenton, Mo. school district for using filtering software to block websites targeted to the gay and lesbian community. “The Supreme Court has made clear that school districts have great latitude in choosing what educational materials they make available to their students,” says Gregory P. Magarian, JD, constitutional law expert and professor of law at Washington University In St. Louis. “However, in a case in 1982, a plurality of the Court suggested that schools may not have the authority to remove materials from school libraries based on viewpoint discrimination.”