Constitutional courts worldwide are increasingly turning to legal arguments and ideas from other countries for guidance and inspiration. But scholarly interest in the growing judicial use of foreign law paints a very misleading picture of the globalization of constitutional law, says David Law, JD, PhD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. He says that for those who want to see the U.S. Supreme Court make greater and more sophisticated use of foreign law, encouraging its members or inviting them to additional conferences and gatherings is likely to have little impact. “At this point in time, the greatest obstacle to judicial comparativism in the United States is not the unwillingness of individual judges to consider foreign legal materials, it is the current political economy of the American legal education.”
Seethu Seetharaman, PhD, was recently installed as the W. Patrick McGinnis Professor of Marketing in the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis. The ceremony, held Oct. 26 in the Charles F. Knight Executive Education Center, included welcoming remarks by Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton and an address by Seetharaman.
Faculty Fellows in the South 40 recently hosted holiday parties for their student neighbors. Freshman Matt Burkhardt (left) visits with Ian MacMullen, PhD, assistant professor of political science in Arts & Sciences. MacMullen and his wife, Lola Fayanju, MD, research fellow in the WUSTL Department of Surgery, co-hosted the party in their Gregg House residence. Faculty Fellows help integrate academic and residential life by living in the residential colleges with students for three-year stints.
Nominations are due Jan. 19 for the fourth annual James M. Holobaugh Honors. Campus Life and the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender) Advisory Board will be hosting the Holobaugh Honors Ceremony at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 8, in Holmes Lounge, Ridgley Hall.
With the holidays right around the corner, many parents are scanning the latest “recommended toy” lists as they make their final purchases. An education expert at Washington University in St. Louis says that, while educational toys are a fine idea, children receive the most benefit when their parents play with them and engage them in their new gifts. R. Keith Sawyer, PhD, associate professor of education in Arts & Sciences, offers advice to parents worried about making the right toy choices for their children.
Career Center advisers are encouraging students to make the most of the upcoming holiday break. The extended time off is a great chance to network and put plans into action, they say. Students are urged to self-evaluate, review their interests and options and update their resumes with recent experiences and new skills.
The School of Medicine will present its annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration Lecture at 4 p.m. Monday, Jan. 16, in the Eric P. Newman Education Center.
High levels of tau protein in fluid bathing the brain are linked to poor recovery after head trauma, according to a study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Fondazione IRCCS Ca Granda-Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico in Milan, Italy. The results were reported online Nov. 23 in the journal Brain.
A section of Throop Drive that runs in front of the Knight Center and Eliot Hall will close for construction beginning Thursday, Dec. 22. That stretch of Throop Drive will reopen Tuesday, Jan. 17. Also closing Dec. 22 are three levels Millbrook Garage’s southwest section that face the Knight Center and Eliot Hall. The three levels are slated for demolition and will not reopen. Both closings are in preparation for the construction of two new buildings for Olin Business School.
Michael Sherraden’s book, Assets and the Poor: A New American Welfare Policy, broke new ground on social policy in 1991. Twenty years later, its impact still is being felt around the world. In Assets and the Poor, Sherraden, PhD, the Benjamin E. Youngdahl Professor of Social Development at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, writes that asset accumulation is structured and subsidized for many non-poor households, primarily via retirement accounts and home ownership. He argues that these opportunities should be available to all and proposes establishing individual savings accounts for the poor — also known as Individual Development Accounts (IDAs). Since Sherraden first proposed IDAs, they have been adopted in federal legislation and in more than 40 states.
