Brown School

Bolstering its emphasis on interdisciplinary efforts, Washington University will offer five new courses rooted in a partnership between two or more schools. In tandem with the growing trend of cross-collaboration in research and the professional arena, the Office of the Provost created its Cross-School Interdisciplinary Teaching Grants Program in 2010. The first of those grants was announced last month.

Ravi Chockalingam, MD, will take what he has learned as a member of WUSTL’s inaugural Master of Public Health Program in the Brown School and apply it to public health programs locally, in his native India, and beyond. At the Brown School, Chockalingam worked his community health care worker model into his class work.

As the Brittany Woods-WUSTL partnership develops, programs that address students’ values, motivation, and attitudes are joining those that focus on academic subjects. Schools that combine academics with programs that support social development and healthy families are called community schools.

Evidence supporting the link between savings and college success is growing. Three studies out of the Center for Social Development (CSD) at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis offer a connection between assets and college enrollment and completion. “This research underscores the importance of policies and programs that help Americans of all income levels to save for college,” says Margaret Clancy, policy director and College Savings Initiative director at CSD. In a study forthcoming in the Journal of Children and Poverty, CSD researchers found that among youth who expected to graduate from a four-year college, those with a savings account in their name were approximately six times more likely to attend college than those with no account.  

As fuel prices soar, food prices are beginning to creep up to crisis levels most recently seen in 2007. “Coupled with the financial crisis, high food prices can take a significant toll on nutrition, especially in developing countries,” says Lora Iannotti, PhD. “The same consequences can be true for wealthier countries, as households opt for less expensive, poor quality foods. Hidden hunger is a problem across the globe.”

The George Warren Brown School of Social Work awarded one Distinguished Faculty Award and five Distinguished Alumni Awards during its annual alumni awards celebration April 5 at Steinberg Hall Auditorium. Two of the alumni also were selected as outstanding “Graduates of the Last Decade.”

What does it take for a family in the U.S. to have long-term economic security and not just “get by”? This question inspired the creation of the Basic Economic Security Tables Index (BEST), a joint effort of Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW) and the Center for Social Development (CSD) at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. The BEST is different from other ‘living wage’ indexes in that it aims to capture what is needed for household stability and development rather than focusing on subsistence. Findings suggest that families’ largest economic security challenges are rent and utilities, transportation, and childcare. The report calls the high cost of quality childcare “the greatest threat to many families’ security.” Childcare is so expensive that income needs for a one-parent family with two preschoolers are equivalent to those of a one-parent family with five teenagers.

Dancers, drummers and dignitaries participate in the Grand Entry at the 21st annual Pow Wow at the WUSTL Field House April 9. This year’s Pow Wow, a festival of American Indian cultures, brought together some of the largest numbers of dancers and drummers in the event’s history. In addition to dancing, singing and drumming, visitors were able to enjoy a number of traditional arts and crafts and community information booths.

Molly Tovar, EdD, director of the Kathryn M. Buder Center for American Indian Studies at the Brown School, lives her life by four Rs: Relationships, Responsibilities, Reciprocity and Redistribution. “Redistribution is the sharing obligation. Its primary purpose is to balance and rebalance relationships,” she says.

A government shutdown is looming and many politicians who are claiming “we’re broke” are proposing short-term or long-term federal budget plans with steep budget cuts as the only option to reduce the deficit. “But it looks like budget deficits are being driven in part by a deliberate strategy to sustain them, so policymakers are forced to cut spending,” says Timothy McBride, PhD, economist and associate dean for public health at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. “The evidence certainly supports the theory that the Republicans are using a strategy of ‘starving the beast,’” he says.