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.
Charles E. Canter, MD, has been named the first Lois B. Tuttle and Jeanne B. Hauck Chair in Pediatrics at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Aron Rodrigue, this year’s annual Holocaust Memorial Lecturer, has put to rest the widely held notion that Sephardim living in the Balkans and other European lands during the Holocaust were not as badly affected as the Ashkenazi in Eastern Europe. The truth is they experienced the same persecution and destruction under Nazi occupation. Rodrigue will speak on campus Monday, Oct. 29.
Larry J. Shapiro, MD, executive vice chancellor for medical affairs and dean of the School of Medicine, will host the annual Dean’s Update for all employees Nov. 7 and 9.
Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton welcomed back two 2009 alums, Harrison Suarez (right) and Michael Haft — now both first lieutenants in the U.S. Marine Corps — who presented the university with a U.S. flag Oct. 20. The two men returned to personally thank Wrighton and the university for helping prepare them to serve their country.
The dance performance for Diwali, the Hindu Festival of Lights celebration, will be held Friday, Nov. 9. and Saturday, Nov. 10, at Edison Theatre. One of the largest student productions on campus, the event features dances from multiple genres choreographed by the South Asian Student Association.
Roch Guérin, PhD, has been named chair of the Computer Science & Engineering department effective July 1, 2013. Guérin is the Alfred Fitler Moore Professor of Telecommunications Networks and professor of electrical and systems engineering and computer and information science at the University of Pennsylvania, where he has been on the faculty since 1998.