News highlights for October 7, 2010

CisionPoint news monitoring provides this small sampling of the university's daily news coverage. Click headline to read full text via Cision or link directly to the online article where available. For questions or comments about this service, or to add or delete a name from the mailing list, please contact Gerry Everding.

Financial Times (UK) Alphaville Blog

Rating agency multiplicity
10/06/10

A new working paper — by Bo Becker of Harvard Business School and Todd Milbourn from Washington University — asks just how increased competition affects the ratings industry? Their study explores how Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s responded to the rapid growth of then-upstart Fitch, in the corporate ratings space in the early 1990s.Their findings are not what you might expect. Link to Article

Bloomberg Businessweek

MBA interns land job offers
2009 was, by far, the worst job market for MBAs in years, but there are signs 2010 might be different. At the Washington University in St. Louis Olin Business School, 26 percent of those with internships have received job offers from their employers, compared with 18 percent in 2009. While Mark Brostoff, the associate dean and director of the Weston Career Center at Olin, said in an interview that hiring is nowhere near the levels it was in the years before the financial crisis, the increase indicates that the economy is picking up. Link to Article

Miller-McCune Magazine

An emotional timeline of Sept. 11, 2001
09/2010

German researchers, analyzing the content of text messages sent on 9/11/01, report that while sadness and anxiety levels remained stable through the day, anger steadily increased. In other research, Washington University’s Alan Lambert found that, several years after the event, “reminders of the 9/11 attacks significantly increased feelings of anger, which in turn led to systematic support for both real and fictional political hawks. In contrast, anxiety tended to have the opposite effect on such attitudes.” Link to Article

Education Week

Chinese aid boosts Mandarin-language instruction in U.S.
Efforts are burgeoning to promote teaching the official Chinese language in U.S. schools. A report issued last year by the Center for Applied Statistics at Washington University in St. Louis found that Chinese was being taught in 4 percent of secondary schools in 2008, up from just 1 percent in 1997. One key player taking an increased role is the Chinese government itself. Just this year, the Office of Chinese Language Council International committed millions of dollars to help launch several ventures with U.S. schools. Link to Article

Technology Transfer Tactics
National Research Council examines university management of IP
10/06/2010

Since passage of the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980, universities have become more effective in making research advances available to the public and spurring innovation, according to a new National Resource Council report titled Improving University Management of Intellectual Property in the Public Interest. Nevertheless, the process “can be improved,” says Washington University Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton, chair of the committee that wrote the report. Link to Article

CFO
The SEC: All together now?
10/06/2010

The five-member Securities and Exchange Commission consists of three Democratic and two Republican appointees, and it operates in a highly politicized environment. All five current members have meritorious backgrounds, heavy on academic and regulatory experience. Republican Troy Paredes, a Yale University law graduate, came to the commission as a law-school professor at Washington University, St. Louis, with a courtesy appointment also at the business school there. Link to Article

Bloomberg Businessweek
Obama VA appointee questioned over $4 million from Medtronic
10/06/2010

Medtronic paid almost $800,000 over three years to a former Army surgeon accused by the military of fabricating a study that reported favorably on Medtronics Infuse bone-graft product. The surgeon, Timothy Kuklo, has denied any wrongdoing and a committee at Washington University in St. Louis, where he worked after completing his Army service said last year that it did not find sufficient evidence to support the allegation that he falsified research results. Link to Article

The Hamilton Spectator
Women’s aches and pains may signal serious health threats
10/06/2010

Women are more than twice as likely as men to tear the anterior cruciate ligament in their knees. This may result from men and women using different leg and hip muscles, suggests a new study by Dr. Robert H. Brophy, an orthopedic surgeon at Washington University School of Medicine. He found that male players use muscles that move the thigh away from the body at the hip more than females do, and speculates that it contributes to the difference. Link to Article

See also Seattle Times, Windsor Star (Ontario, Canada), The Republic

Grist
Peabody Coal’s plan to save the world…or itself?
10/06/2010

Peabody Energy recently announced its new campaign to “end global energy poverty.” The company is proposing to ship U.S. coal overseas to bring electricity and prosperity to the world’s two billion residents that lack access to electricity. This PR ploy, the article suggests, is ugly and offensive, and an act of desperation. Students at Washington University in St. Louis, it notes, recently protested an appearance at their school by Peabody CEO Gregory Boyce. Link to Article

See also Huffington Post

ASBMB News (American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology)

Sarah C. R. Elgin Wins Teaching Award
10/06/10

Sarah C. R. Elgin, the Viktor Hamburger professor in arts and sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, won the 2010 Janet Anderseon Lecture Award from the Midstates Consortium for Math and Science for her mentoring of undergraduates. Elgin has been an active proponent of science education at the K-12 level. Link to Article



St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Is there a doctor in the house?
10/06/2010

Of the 110 students expected to graduate this spring from Washington University School of Medicine, 38 plan on practicing in primary care, one in family medicine, 14 in pediatrics, 23 in internal medicine and 34 in specialties. School of Medicine Assistant Dean Kathryn M. Diemer says the projections reflect a national trend of fewer medical students entering family practice. A shortage may be looming. Link to Article

The Beacon (St. Louis)

Solving the world’s energy needs requires a global response
10/06/10

Presidents of 26 universities from around the world gave their perspectives on energy and the environment at the McDonnell International Scholars Academy Symposium: “Global Energy Future” held at Washington University from Oct. 1-5. All are members of McDonnell Academy Global Energy and Environment Partnership, a consortium of universities and corporations, including many of St. Louis’ largest companies. Link to Article


News in higher education

The Columbia Tribune / Associated Press

Missouri review targets “low-producing” degrees
10/06/10

The University of Missouri’s flagship campus is reviewing 75 degree programs for possible elimination or consolidation as the state seeks costs savings. Most of the academic disciplines targeted for review are masters and doctoral programs, including higher level degrees in anthropology, classical studies, forestry, geology sciences, neuroscience, rural sociology and theater. Link to Article

New York Times

At Yale, Anger Over Tactics Used in Raid of Off-Campus Party
10/06/2010
Raids on bars are not unusual these days in New Haven, where huge crowds in a cluster of downtown nightspots have lately turned rowdy. More than 100 Yale University students were on the dance floor at an upscale nightclub near campus on Saturday night when liquor control agents raided the club. Police officers — in riot gear and armed with assault rifles — ordered students to sit on the floor as they checked IDs, and for the next hour silenced polite questions with expletives and threats of arrest. The dean of Yale College, Mary Miller, met with the mayor, a group of Yale students and other university officials to Tuesday to discuss the police raid. Link to Article

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The Chronicle of Higher Education
Inside Higher Ed
University Business

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