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University News
 New university center named to honor Danforths:
Washington University will name its new university center in honor of Chancellor Emeritus William H. and the late Elizabeth (Ibby) Gray Danforth. The building, designed as a green structure and scheduled to open for the fall 2008 semester, will be named the William H. and Elizabeth Gray Danforth University Center.
Students work to better schools through Service First:
More than 1,000 newly arrived freshmen volunteered their time to paint, landscape, clean, and beautify 13 area public schools to make the school year more enjoyable for students and their teachers. It was all part of the annual Service First, an initiative that introduces first-year University students to community service in the St. Louis area.
$50 million NIH grant to speed treatment and cures:
As part of a national effort to translate basic science discoveries into treatments and cures for patients more quickly, Washington University School of Medicine will lead a regional group of institutions under a new, $50 million, five-year grant program that will greatly enhance clinical and translational research.
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Research
Peanut-butter program is restoring health to thousands of children:
An enriched peanut-butter mixture given at home is successfully promoting recovery in large numbers of starving children in Malawi, according to a group of researchers at Washington University School of Medicine. Mark J. Manary, M.D., professor of pediatrics, has spent several years researching the use of the enriched peanut-butter mixture, called Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) with small groups of young children. A three-year study of the program documented the success.
Higher gas prices means tightening the belt in more ways than one:
Just as rising gasoline prices are forcing many Americans to tighten their financial belts, new research suggests higher fuel costs may come with a related silver lining — trimmer waistlines. "An additional $1 in real gasoline prices would reduce obesity in the U.S. by 15 percent after three years," says Charles Courtemanche, an economics researcher in Arts & Sciences.
Flooding caused snake populations to shrink to dire numbers:
The flood of 1993 provided ecologist Owen Sexton, Ph.D., professor emeritus of biology in Arts & Sciences, with a rare opportunity: his collected data and the flood combined to make "the perfect study" of how an area rebounds from natural disaster. A year after the flood, he found that 70 percent of the pre-flood population of five snake species had been displaced or killed, and the populations of three other species had either been eliminated or left so low that they could not be detected.
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| Features
Major health care proposals ignore the 'Big Leak':
"Universal health care is getting the attention it deserves, but unfortunately, the proposals receiving the most attention ignore the 'Big Leak,’ the enormous non-benefit costs incurred by health care providers who must match their billions of billings with thousands of differing private health care plans," says Merton C. Bernstein, a founding member of the National Academy of Social Insurance and the Walter D. Coles Professor Emeritus of Law. ”Putting everyone under the Medicare umbrella would eliminate that leak," he says.
Students help open hallmark school for autistic children:
When the Archdiocese of St. Louis recognized a need within its community for giving children with certain disabilities a better education, it turned to Washington University. After extensive research, four students detailed a plan for a hallmark school in St. Louis County catering to children with autism and related disorders. The St. Gemma Program for Children with Autism and Developmental Disabilities opened for classes on September 5. |
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Heard on Campus
"I do make a distinction between my art and architecture works, and I've always seen the monuments and the memorials as being in between. They're hybrids. They have functionality, but the functionality is purely symbolic."
— Maya Lin, artist, architect, and designer of the Vietnam War Memorial, from her lecture, "Between Art and Architecture," given September 6 as part of the Graham Chapel Assembly Series and presented by the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts in collaboration with the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis |
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Sharing the spirit of Iran:
With hopes of improving cultural understanding, Fatemeh Keshavarz, professor of Persian language and literature and chair of the Department of Asian & Near Eastern Languages & Literatures, wrote Jasmine and Stars: Reading More Than Lolita in Tehran — stories of ordinary, peace-loving Iranians who share the same hopes and aspirations of us all. Through her new work, she also hopes to demonstrate the sophistication of contemporary Persian literature.
Kudos
Linda B. Cottler, Ph.D., professor of epidemiology in psychiatry in the School of Medicine, has been named president-elect of the American Psychopathological Association.
Ramanath Cowsik, Ph.D., professor of physics and director of the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences in Arts & Sciences, received the 2007 M. P. Birla Memorial Award from the M. P. Birla Institute of Fundamental Research and the M. P. Birla Planetarium in Kolkata, India.
Timothy Eberlein, M.D., the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Distinguished Professor and Director of the Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center and the William K. Bixby Professor of Surgery and chair of the Mary Culver Department of Surgery, has been elected to a three-year term on the board of directors of the Association of American Cancer Institutes.
Egon Schwartz, Ph.D., the Rosa May Distinguished University Professor in the Humanities Emeritus and professor emeritus of Germanic Languages and Literatures, was presented the Austrian Great Cross of Merit on September 17. |
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About @Washington University in St. Louis
This newsletter is prepared by Special Development Communications Projects staff in Alumni and Development Programs. It is intended to provide a brief summary of what is happening at the University. Alumni, parents, and friends of the University for whom we have valid e-mail addresses automatically receive @Washington University in St. Louis.
Copyright 2006, Washington University in St. Louis
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