News highlights for February 23, 2011

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.

Buenos Aires Herald (Argentina)

Missing Thomas Jefferson books found
2/22/2011

Seventy-four books that belonged to former US president Thomas Jefferson were found at Washington University in Saint Louis, Missouri. Link to Article See also Los Angeles Times, MSN India, Taiwan News, CBS News, Forbes

MarketPlace | American Public Radio

Apple shareholders curious about succession plan
2/23/2011

Apple CEO Steve Jobs has been on medical leave since last month. Shareholders are pushing the company to reveal who would take over the company should he leave permanently. Apple’s annual shareholder meeting is today and the focus is expected to be on who should take over the company if CEO Steve Jobs steps down for good. He’s been on medical leave since last month. “No doubt the tabloid reports and alleged pictures of him leaving a cancer clinic aren’t helping,” said Hillary Sale, who teaches corporate governance at Washington University. Link to Article

Foreign Policy

Corps concerns
2/22/2011

In an age of globetrotting American college kids, ubiquitous Internet access and cell phone networks that reach even sub-Saharan cattle herders, does the world still need the Peace Corps? Times have changed. For one thing, the corps no longer enjoys a monopoly on service abroad: In 2008, more than 1 million Americans reported volunteering in another country, according to Benjamin Lough at Washington University in St Louis. Link to Article

Harvard Business Review
Leadership that Longfellow would appreciate
02/23/2011

David Gergen, director of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, discusses the Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative, which helps older executives find ways to give back to society as their first careers come to an end. Since its founding in 2007, the Wharton School at Penn and Washington University 
have since started similar programs, and more universities are likely to follow. “For many early Baby Boomers, there is a nagging sense that their generation hasn’t yet fulfilled,” he says. Link to Article

The Questionmark blog

Advice from cognitive psychologist Roddy Roediger on using retrieval practice to aid learning
02/23/2011

Blogger John Kleeman is a keen admirer of the work of Professor Roddy Roediger, a cognitive psychologist who investigates how quizzes and tests directly aid learning by giving retrieval practice. Roediger, the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor at Washington University in St. Louis, participates in a Q&A interview on his memory research and how it can be applied in practice. Link to Article

Religion News Service

Budget cuts target the poor, faith groups say
02/22/2011

Get ready for more undernourished infants, dangerously cold homes and disease-stricken communities if federal budget cuts become law, suggest morally outraged religious advocacy groups. Moral arguments aren’t just niceties for lawmakers to consider once economic analyses are done, according to Wayne Fields, executive director of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics at Washington University in St. Louis. On the contrary, he said, budget pressures and religious lobbying efforts can help reveal a public figure’s depth of commitment. Link to Article See also Huffington Post

American Medical News

Autism patients lose access to key services after high school
2/23/2011

After young adults with autism spectrum disorder leave high school, the number that receive speech therapy and other services they had in school declines significantly, a new study shows. Only 9% continue to undergo speech therapy, a finding that surprised the study’s authors. “It was not a surprise that families were losing services … but we were surprised at the dramatic drop off in speech therapy,” said Paul T. Shattuck, PhD, a study author and an assistant professor of social work at Washington University’s Brown School of Social Work in St. Louis. Link to Article

Positive Psychology News Daily

High status, low status: What difference does it make?
02/22/2011

Stuart Bunderson at Washington University has studied how groups determine who has what kind of expertise. Groups tend to perform better when people identify the location of different kinds of expertise accurately. Studies show that people are not always good at identifying the most expert members in a particular area, often assuming incorrectly that the most dominant and assertive members are most expert. In other words, status perceptions impact the expectations that people have of themselves and others. Link to Article

Somerville Patch
 (Somerville, MA)
Study says state offers better history education
02/23/2011

In a recent blog post for NPR, Ursula Goodenough, who is currently evaluating state science standards for the Fordham Institute, illuminated how education standards work. Goodenough, a biology professor at Washington University, participated in the 2005 evaluation of science standards that awarded Massachusetts an A in part for clearly outlining expectations for science learning and offering technology courses. As Goodenough explained, each state assembles a committee to come up with standards that determine what material K-12 teachers will cover in each grade for each subject. Link to Article

KCRG.com
(Cedar Rapids, IA)
The future of legal education
02/23/2011

Given the shaky economy and an even more troubled job outlook in the legal profession, are student loans no longer a value? The University of Iowa College of Law will examine that question during a symposium examining the future of law schools on Feb. 25-26. Kent D. Syverud of Washington University in St. Louis joins other law school deans, scholars, practitioners and judges to discuss changes they would like to see in law school curriculum and methods. Link to Article

Daily Nebraskan | Staff Editorial

Washington University proves success of student movements
2/22/2011

Last month, students at Washington University in St. Louis protested an appearance by Bristol Palin at a panel discussion that was meant to be part of the college’s Student Sexual Responsibility Week. The student movement wasn’t a matter of partisanship nor was it a matter of irrelevancy. Palin was scheduled to be paid approximately $20,000, taken from student fees, for giving a brief pro-abstinence speech. Eight hundred students petitioned the event based on Palin’s “lack of expertise.” Regardless of how one might feel regarding Palin, the Daily Nebraskan finds it refreshing to see college students, such as ourselves, effectively exercising their first amendment right to petition as it pertains to a relevant topic, like student fees. Link to Article

St. Louis Public Radio


WUSTL School of Medicine staff discuss youth health issues

02/23/2011

Audio podcast discussion about health issues facing under-served youth features several staff from SPOT — a Washington University initiative providing teens with testing and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases and HIV, mental health and substance abuse counseling, job training and pregnancy prevention. Guests include Katie Plax, MD, medical director; Rochelle Moore, lead case manager; and Lawrence Lewis, program coordinator. Link to Article

St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Truman State, U of I and Washington U make “best value” list
02/23/2011

Washington University, where the sticker price for a year’s schooling runs $52,000, made the Princeton Review’s latest “best value list” for private colleges, although not the top 10. Princeton Review, which preps students for college-board exams, cooperated with USA Today to compile the list, which attempts to rank schools by academic bang for the tuition buck, including financial aid. Link to Article See also St. Louis Business Journal

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Monsanto steps up war on crop parasites with acquistion of Divergence Inc.
02/23/2011

Biotech giant Monsanto has snapped up Divergence Inc., a neighboring biotechnology company in Creve Coeur that has worked for the past dozen years on products that control crop parasites. For the biotechnology business community in the St. Louis area, the acquisition represents a major success. Divergence Inc. — formed in 1999 by James McCarter, a genome researcher at Washington University — has had the support of area biotech-boosting efforts. Link to Article

Columbia Daily Tribune (Columbia, MO)

Economic scare tactics ignore logic
02/22/2011

The scare is on. Some wild economic predictions have been put forward regarding the legislative proposal to eliminate Missouri’s income tax and replace it with a higher sales tax rate. However, recent research advances from scholars such as Washington University economist Rodolfo Manuelli suggest people will realize higher after-tax returns when income tax rates are lowered. As after-tax returns increase, they will be employed more intensively as factors of production, and economic growth rates will rise. Link to Article

Riverfront Times

Review – Ghost: Elizabeth Peyton
02/23/2011

Like one of her closest forebears, Andy Warhol, Elizabeth Peyton made a name for herself as a noted barometer of ultra-contemporary culture. Now Peyton serves as a marker of how rapidly trends age. “Peyton’s work appears dreamily revelatory — a timeless reflection on the past and the ghostlike traces culture leaves upon us,” according to this review of her show, which runs through April 18 at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum at Washington University. Link to Article

KSDK-TV (St. Louis, MO)

Transplanted New Zealander reacts to earthquake in Christchurch
02/22/2011

Watching video of the earthquake aftermath and hearing survival stories is heart wrenching to New Zealanders living in the St. Louis area. Dr. Terrie Inder is a Washington University pediatric neurologist who has lived here for six years. Inder sat down with NewsChannel 5. When she first saw the video of her native Christchurch, New Zealand, Dr. Terrie Inder could not believe her eyes. Link to Broadcast


News in Higher Education

Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News

Study finds a friend at NIH, but will Congress share the love?
2/23/2011

A paper recently published in The New England Journal of Medicine presented a study quantifying the number of FDA-approved drugs discovered through research at federally funded organizations. Its message has found a friend in the director of the NIH, but earlier this month, newly empowered House Republicans proposed a bill cutting the agency’s budget by 5%, or $1.63 billion. Link to Article

AOL | Parentdish blog

Author explores lives of ‘Practice Babies’ once raised on college campuses

02/23/2011

Once upon a time, babies were fed, bathed, read nursery rhymes and rocked to sleep — by 18-year-olds on college campuses. From 1919 to 1969, infants called “practice babies” were delivered from orphanages to home economics classrooms of U.S. colleges and universities, where young women were taught the science of mothering. “Practice babies” served as the inspiration for author Lisa Grunwald’s novel “The Irresistible Henry House,” leading her to take a deeper look into what life was like for practice babies and their college-aged “moms.” Link to Article

For additional higher education news (subscription may be required):
The Chronicle of Higher Education
Inside Higher Ed
University Business

Leave a Comment

Comments and respectful dialogue are encouraged, but content will be moderated. Please, no personal attacks, obscenity or profanity, selling of commercial products, or endorsements of political candidates or positions. We reserve the right to remove any inappropriate comments. We also cannot address individual medical concerns or provide medical advice in this forum.