News highlights for November 9, 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.

Irish Times

Anniversary of Centre for Human Rights
11/08/2010
The 10th anniversary celebrations of the Irish Centre for Human Rights at NUI Galway will take place on November 19th and 20th. Speakers at the two-day event will include Leila Nadya Sadat, professor at Washington University’s school of law. Link to Article

CBS News

Georgina Bloomberg’s scary fall: Echoes of Chris Reeve
The 27-year-old daughter of New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Georgina Bloomberg, suffered a concussion and fractured spine after taking a tumble during an equestrian sporting tournament, her publicist said Sunday. The fall evoked memories of the paralyzing injury suffered 15 years ago by another celebrity with a passion for horse-jumping, “Superman” actor Christopher Reeve. Concussions are serious injuries and can have lasting health consequences, including dementia, according to Dr. Mark Halstead of Washington University in St. Louis, an expert in sports-related concussions. They “need to be treated as if they are a big deal,” he says. “The brain is pretty important.” Link to Article

New York Times

For edge on Alzheimer’s, hunting its early signs

Much of the research on Alzheimer’s next year will be about going back in time, trying to determine when and how the brain begins to deteriorate. Several research projects are expecting to make strides next year. Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network, or DIAN , led by Dr. John C. Morris, an Alzheimer’s expert at Washington University in St. Louis, is studying members of families in the United States, Australia and Britain who have mutations that cause dementia at age 46, on average. DIAN has recruited 100 people, 18 and older, whose parents had Alzheimer’s-causing mutations but who do not yet show symptoms; it plans to recruit 300 more. So far, researchers have found evidence that “biomarker changes do seem to occur at least 10 years, maybe 20 years before the age of onset” of symptoms, Dr. Morris said. See also stltoday.com

KMOX Radio

Spy stories
Shirley Perry, the WUSTL alum and Alton, Ill., native turned CIA operative during the Cold War, talked about her experiences on Mark Reardon’s show on KMOX from 3:35 to 3:50 Monday. Link to Article

St. Louis Business Journal

Politics & religion, peanut butter & jelly

Over the past two decades, religion has become the most determinate factor (with the exception of race) in predicting voting behavior, said Michael Cromartie at an election postmortem at the new John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics held Monday night. Link to Article

St. Louis Globe-Democrat

Parade Grand Marshal named
11/08/2011

Ernie Hays, the beloved organist who retired this year after 40 years at the musical helm of Busch Stadium, will serve as the Grand Marshal of the 2010 Ameren Missouri Thanksgiving Day Parade on November 25 in downtown St. Louis. He grew up in Houston, Missouri, and attended Drury College and Southwest Missouri State on music scholarships. After serving in the Navy, Hays completed an engineering degree at Washington University in St. Louis and worked a “day job” in the aerospace program at McDonnell Aircraft. At night, he played clubs around St. Louis and taught piano, guitar and trumpet lessons. Link to Article

Missouri Lawyers Weekly
St. Louis County jury finds for Washington University in age bias case
10/27/2010

(Full text) Washington University didn’t pass over an employee for a different university position because of her age, a St. Louis County jury determined. The jury also awarded the university $12,000 for a counterclaim in its Oct. 29 decision. Judy Sawyer, 66, was associate director of the engineering school’s dual degree program when she was let go in 2006, according to court documents. After being out of work four months, she took another job with the university copying transcripts, her attorney, Mary Anne Sedey, of Sedey Harper in St. Louis, said in opening statements. An assistant dean position opened up within Sawyer’s old department a couple years later, however, and Sawyer – then 64 – applied. She didn’t get the job and later found out that a 29-year- old woman was hired into the position instead, Sedey said. Testimony from other university employees and another 64-year- old applicant helped make the university’s case, the university’s attorney, Thomas E. Wack, said after the trial.

News in higher education

New York Times

Proficiency of black students is found to be far lower than expected

11/09/2011

An achievement gap separating black from white students has long been documented—social divide extremely vexing to policy makers and the target of one blast of school reform after another. But a new report focusing on black males suggests that the picture is even bleaker than generally known. Only 12 percent of black fourth-grade boys are proficient in reading, compared with 38 percent of white boys, and only 12 percent of black eighth-grade boys are proficient in math, compared with 44 percent of white boys. The report, “A Call for Change,” is to be released Tuesday by the Council of the Great City Schools, an advocacy group for urban public schools. Link to Article

New York Times.com

College sticker prices rising, but so is financial aid

11/08/2011
The College Board recently released its latest report on college costs, and it is chock-full of nutritious charts and graphs. One takeaway is that while sticker prices for college tuition may be rising, for the typical student out-of-pocket higher education costs have actually fallen in recent years, thanks to more generous financial aid. Link to Article

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The Chronicle of Higher Education
Inside Higher Ed
University Business

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