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.
Steven S. Smith, PhD, director of the Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government and Public Policy and the Kate M. Gregg Distinguished Professor of Social Science and professor of political science, will be featured on 60 Minutes at 6 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 4, on CBS talking about partisanship and procedural warfare in the Senate.
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.
A series of application workshops will be held for
students interested in the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U)
to be held at Washington University in St. Louis April 5-7, 2013. The
workshops will focus on application criteria and developing the
required Commitment to Action. A Commitment to Action is a concrete plan
that addresses a pressing challenge in one of CGI U’s five focus areas:
education, environment and climate change, peace and human rights, poverty alleviation, or public health. The first workshop will be held from 6:30-7:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 1, in Brown Hall, Room 118.
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.
For decades, author, educator, environmentalist and
activist Bill McKibben has been telling us things we don’t want to hear —
presenting scary scorched Earth scenarios due to carbon emissions in
the atmosphere. He also leads a
global initiative — 350.org — to try to solve the climate crisis. McKibben will give the keynote address for the Sustainable Cities Conference Thursday, Nov. 1, on campus.
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.
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.