Olin Business School

Graduate student groups and individual leaders at Washington University in St. Louis who help “bridge the gaps” between graduate and professional students from diverse areas of study throughout WUSTL’s seven schools were recognized during a recent awards ceremony and reception. The Graduate Professional Council’s Bridging GAPS (Graduate and Professional Students) Awards Ceremony was held April 9 in the Danforth University Center’s Goldberg Formal Lounge.

The Advisory Committee for the Diversity and Inclusion Grants has awarded eight grants totaling nearly $174,000 to Washington University faculty and administrators for initiatives that improve the university environment for women and members of underrepresented minority groups.

Janji, a socially conscious running shorts business created by members of the Washington University in St. Louis cross country team, will release its original running apparel at a public launch party in St. Louis Thursday, May 3. The venture aims to make a global impact on the food and water crisis through its running apparel.

The nation’s top 20 public firms could have added nearly $1 trillion to their market value if, in 2010, they had used a new tool, known as the research quotient (RQ), to determine their research and development (R&D) budgets, says its creator, Anne Marie Knott, PhD, associate professor of strategy at Washington University in St. Louis.

Olin Business School recognized the achievements of four alumni during the annual Distinguished Alumni Awards Ceremony April 5. They are: Scott B. Helm, Paul A. Koch, Roger L. Koch and Merry L. Mosbacher. Also presented was the Dean’s Medal to Joanne and Charles F. Knight and Carol and George Bauer.

Winners of the seventh annual YouthBridge Social Enterprise and Innovation Competition were announced April 11. Winning teams represented community and WUSTL social entrepreneurs, including students, alumni and faculty. Their social venture ideas ranged from teaching teens about entrepreneurship through beekeeping to providing education to kidney transplant patients.

Kurt Dirks, PhD, Bank of America Professor of Managerial Leadership at Olin Business School, discusses trust in the workplace. “It’s particularly timely,” he says, “given that trust in leaders of almost all sectors ranging from business to government to education are at record lows.”

The Jump Start our Business Start-ups (JOBS) Act, an entrepreneurship bill signed into law April 5 by President Barack Obama, could help open an entirely new class of investor to a process they largely have been held out of, says an expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

In a down economy where advertisers are concerned about every dollar spent, a team of researchers at Washington University in St. Louis has developed a new method of measuring the effectiveness of Google search advertising, taking into account not only online sales, but goods or services purchased off-line as well.

Richard M. Frankel, PhD, was installed March 21 as the Beverly and James Hance Professor of Accounting at Washington University in St. Louis. Frankel joined Olin Business School in 2005 as associate professor of accounting and is an expert in financial accounting, which provides information to individuals outside a firm.