Palmer currently serves as vice president of government relations at Peabody, while Nilles is the director of the National Coal Campaign for the Sierra Club.

Headquartered in St. Louis, Peabody Energy is the largest private-sector coal company in the world, generating 10 percent of the electricity consumed nationally. Gregory Boyce, CEO of Peabody Energy, is a member of the University’s board of trustees. Along with Ameren and Arch Coal, Peabody Energy is also a lead sponsor of Wash. U.’s Consortium for Clean Coal Utilization.

On the other side of the debate, The National Coal Campaign encompasses efforts to move beyond coal and adopt carbon emission-free energy. The campaign includes Campus Beyond Coal, an initiative to collaborate with college students throughout the nation to limit coal’s future. The Sierra Club is the oldest and largest environmental organization in the United States.

According to senior Melissa Legge, an organizer of the event, the debate is an opportunity for students to hear unfiltered accounts from each side.

“We [organizers] wanted to open up a dialogue on campus around the subject of coal…and open up a forum for the future of coal to be debated about,” Legge said. “Both sides deserve to be heard. We really want the debate to be…balanced.”

Senior Kady McFadden, another organizer of the event, agrees.

“It’s really important to understand what the arguments are on each side so that we can really make informed decisions going forward,” she said.

The Great Coal Debate will occur in Graham Chapel at 5 p.m. Tuesday. A reception will follow the event in Tisch Commons at the Danforth University Center. The entire debate will be streamed live on the website www.ustream.tv.

Each speaker will have 20 minutes to make a statement. Debaters will then answer five questions submitted previously by students. At the end of the event there will be a chance for audience members to ask questions. Brian Walsh, senior correspondent from Time magazine, will moderate.

A similar debate at the University of Charleston in West Virginia inspired McFadden and junior Harry Alper to organize Wash. U.’s version. Don Blankenship, CEO of Massey Energy, and Robert Kennedy Jr., founder of the Waterkeeper Alliance, debated a variety of issues surrounding coal, including poverty and the environment.

McFadden hopes that the debate will allow students to participate in an issue that largely affects St. Louis as well.

“People talk about coal in West Virginia, but we should be talking about it here in St. Louis…Two of the largest coal companies in the nation are in St. Louis,” she said.

“I hope that students recognize, first, how big of an issue coal is, but also how big of an issue it is in St. Louis and at Wash. U.”

Senior Will Fischer wants the event to further bring the campus to the forefront of the coal debate.

“Students can participate in a national and international discussion,” he said. “The debate really brings this national dialogue to campus.”

Student environmental activists have previously made their views known about the University’s involvement with coal executives. In November, students protested the University’s support of clean coal research with a flash mob at a reception following the America’s Energy Future symposium. Student Union later passed a resolution in support of the students’ activism.

Events include speeches from Alix Simnock, president of the Freshman Class Council; Beth Palmer, a freshman nominated by her class to speak; and Associate Director of Residential Life Mary Elliot, head of the sophomore kickoff. Senior Danny Gaynor, who also spoke at Convocation, will be the featured speaker.

According to Simnock, the Finale will provide students a chance to relax before finals and celebrate the end of the year.

“I’d like to see us reflect on what a great year we’ve had here at Wash. U.,” she said. “[The freshman class is] are an amazing group of people. I’m constantly meeting members of our class that I’m blown away by.”

JR Davis, next year’s sophomore class president, will also speak to students. He hopes the finale will be another chance for the class to come together and show spirit.

“That’s what class councils really try and do…bring groups together that may not have an opportunity otherwise,” he added. “I think that benefits the individual and the community as a whole.”

Davis acts as the freshman class’s internal vice president. Next year, according to Davis, students can look forward to Sophomore Class Council events regarding housing, internships and study abroad programs. A new initiative still in planning phases is a Wash. U. fair that would include pie-eating contests, dunk tanks and live music, among other activities.

This year’s Freshman Class Council consists of Simnock; Davis; Stephen Wagner, external vice president; Mary Pat Sinclair, secretary; and Ammar Karimajee, treasurer.

With an aim to unite the freshman class, the council has sold class T-shirts, organized trips for freshmen to SkyZone, offered free snacks at Ursa’s for students and collaborated with Sophomore Class Council to put on Sunday at the Swamp.

“Our main goal for putting on these activities was to create a sense of community for our class,” Simnock said. “We want [students] to feel as if their freshman class is their family at Wash. U. and give them a chance to…meet other freshmen going through the same experiences.”

Freshman Joshua Kim said he had enjoyed his first year.

“It was a new experience,” he said. “This was a bigger community than what I was used to, and I had fun meeting new friends.”

Other students shared Kim’s sentiments.

“I really enjoyed getting involved with different things on campus,” freshman Charlotte Weinstein said. “Freshman year has been so awesome!”

Freshman Finale will also include a ceremony awarding best residential adviser, WUSA, professor, class, member of staff and member of Bon Appétit. According to Simnock, there have been more than 100 nominations for the awards. Students can also look forward to a slideshow featuring pictures of the Class of 2013, and a raffle.

Along with their floors, students can come to the event wearing their residential college T-shirts. And just like at Convocation, the event ends with Ted Drewes frozen custard.

“[Freshman Finale is] hopefully going to be a lasting tradition—a footprint for the future here at Wash. U.,” Davis said. “I can assure everyone that they’re going to have an absolutely fantastic time.”

With the departure of three professors in the field, the program’s structure is currently under review. According to James McLeod, vice chancellor for students and dean of the College of Arts & Sciences, there have been no specific changes finalized yet.

Senior Kady McFadden explained that students were prompted to organize the town hall meeting after learning about restructuring efforts and a later e-mail sent by McLeod to all environmental studies students explaining these beginning efforts.

“We really wanted to make sure that students had a say in what happened before decisions were made,” McFadden said. “So, we didn’t want to just react to what administration decided, but we wanted to really be given the chance to engage with what we wanted to see in a program we’re so clearly invested in.”

McLeod told students at the town hall that those currently completing the environmental studies major or minor will still be able to leave Wash. U. with their planned degree.

The environmental studies major allows students to focus on environmental issues from a social science, geoscience or biology/ecology track.

The number of students pursuing the major has more than doubled in the past 10 years. Fifty majors are expected to graduate this year alone. New faculty members have been difficult to find, and expansion of the major has not matched this increased interest throughout the University for environmental studies.

Current professors Clare Palmer, John Orrock and Ellen Damschen expect to leave at the end of this year. For the program, Palmer teaches an environmental ethics course and introduction to environmental studies. Orrock teaches a course in behavioral ecology and Damschen teaches introduction to ecology. Both introductory courses are required for majors and minors. Behavioral ecology and the environmental ethics courses are electives.

Students hope that this is an opportunity to improve the program.

“A lot of students voiced here [at the town hall] that they want to see growth in the courses,” said freshman Jeremy Pivor, a biology/ecology track environmental studies major. “So what would be really nice to see is core courses where everyone in each of the tracks takes the courses together to learn about just in general environmental studies…and then, within their tracks, growth and specialization in areas they want to learn instead of the constant overlap of topics.”

Students at the town hall also voiced the hope that the program will maintain its interdisciplinary nature and, in the long term, turn into a department. They further look forward to future collaborations with the leaders of the environmental studies program and the dean’s office.

“I definitely think [the town hall] was a productive discussion, but it definitely will not be the last,” McFadden said. “We want students and faculty involved in the decisions that are being made in the future. We’re looking for Dean McLeod to at least accept a program in which students will be integrally involved in the decision-making.”

Within the coming weeks, McFadden and other students will form a plan to present to the administration detailing what they want in the major semester by semester.

Some students are still wary of potential parallels between the future of the program and the controversial actions of Mary Sansalone, former dean of the engineering school.

“There were a lot of similarities drawn last night [at the meeting] by students between this and what happened in the engineering school with Dean Sansalone,” said sophomore Arielle Klagsbrun, one of the organizers of the town hall. “I really hope that the school learns from the mistakes that happened in that time period and looks at how they can be transparent in their decisions and how students can be involved…in whatever restructuring they’re going to do.”

Sansalone had upset engineering students, faculty and alumni by making decisions regarding the school without much input from others.

“We all want a stronger effort. We want the study of the environment here, and that makes it a good discussion, a wonderful exchange,” McLeod said. “I heard from [students that] I need to keep them informed. That seems loud and clear—that needs to be a process.”

Every week Washington University students visit the school and act as student-teachers.

More than 20 of these student-teachers are overseen by Gay Lorberbaum, senior lecturer at the School of Architecture & Urban Design, and earn credit for participating in the Explore & Contribute: Collaboration between Washington University & Henry Elementary School program.

According to the school’s principal, Esperansa Veal, children from preschool to sixth grade enjoy the weekly sustainability classes provided by University students.

Sophomore Emily Treece is equally excited by the potential and enthusiasm of the elementary students. Treece teaches second graders with two other University students about ecosystems and energy use.

“They ask questions that make me stop and think twice about how things work and why things exist in the way they do,” Treece wrote in an e-mail to Student Life. “I believe that by simply listening to what the children have to say, you can nurture both their mind and spirit simultaneously.”

Treece was equally impressed by the students’ intellectual capabilities.

“The intelligence of the children is astonishing,” she wrote. “Without the enthusiasm of the children, this program would not succeed.”

The University students are divided into teaching teams that develop curricula for their classes based on their interests. Lessons are designed around certain themes for each grade level to help children understand their individual influence on the environment.

“All of our curriculum are designed around the idea of sustainability and introducing the idea of living a greener life,” said Emily Jacobson, another student-teacher.

Jacobson and her partners focus their lessons on how students can build sustainable relationships with themselves and others, and on applying that self-confidence in environmental sustainability.

“When you understand yourself and you understand the roles you play in your different relationships, you can improve them and make them more sustainable,” she added. “So we focused each week on a different relationship: One was friend, one was activist, [and] one was student.”

The work of University students has even rippled into the community; according to Veal, parents are curious about their children’s projects.

The sustainability courses are only one component Henry Elementary is adopting into the curriculum to achieve its goal of becoming the first GREEN Model Pilot School in the nation. Other efforts also include increasing natural light use, adopting a recycling program and installing energy-efficient lighting.

School administrators developed the GREEN Model guidelines after superintendent Kelvin Adams gave St. Louis public schools the opportunity to develop curriculum goals independently. The St. Louis Public School District further challenged these pilot programs to meet district goals in student performance, teaching quality, family involvement and budgeting.

Veal and her colleagues believe that through these hands-on courses, students not only will be excited to study science, math and writing, but also will be passionate about lifelong learning.

“With Wash. U., when the students come in and they are teaching the lesson and…making it hands-on…it’s more meaningful for the kids,” Veal said. “It’s a truly life-changing experience for everyone involved here at Patrick Henry.”

According to Veal, some children even want to attend the University after high school because of these science classes.

Lorberbaum also leads the Alberti Program-Architecture for Young People, in which undergraduates and graduates work with elementary, middle and high school students in creating sustainable architectural designs.

Junior Sarah Luongo and Steven Broderick, Class of 2009, work on excavations overlying a copper workshop found in Cahokia Mounds. A team of researchers led by John Kelly, Washington University archaeology professor, and James Brown from Northwestern University discovered a copper workshop that will provide insight into the lives of the Cahokians who leaved near the mounds more than 1,000 years ago. (Courtesy of John Kelly)

Nearly 1,000 years ago, the ancient city of Cahokia flourished only 20 minutes away from modern St. Louis in the floodplains of the Mississippi River. Today, the discovery of a copper workshop by a team of researchers led by John Kelly, Washington University archeology professor, and James Brown of Northwestern University will provide insight into the lives of the mysterious Cahokians.

Native Americans began to settle the area around East St. Louis in 1000 A.D., and the city had a population boom 50 years later. More than 20,000 people lived in the city during Cahokia’s Golden Age.

Four plazas were built around Monk’s Mound, believed to be the largest mound of Cahokia. The mound is approximately as large as the Danforth Campus.

Today, the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site still has 80 mounds of various sizes out of the more than 100 mounds built. These were created when Cahokians dismantled constructed buildings and buried the pieces underneath the earth. These buildings were sometimes reconstructed.

“One of the important elements in Indian cosmology is rebirth,” Kelly said. “They look out at the world around them; everything is dead now, but in two months it’s going to come back again and be reborn…We start with the building, the burial of the building, the rebirth of the building and the burial again.”

Only 1 percent of these mounds have been excavated to date. The copper workshop was found within Mound 34, where, according to Kelly, pieces of copper were discovered. Cahokians used the metal to create religious ornaments and other decorative items. It’s hypothesized that workers hammered and heated the copper to 600 degrees Celsius to flatten out the metal. The sheets were pressed onto carved wooden templates to create the ornament. The metal may have been obtained from the Great Lakes region. Copper specifically was used because it was considered to have special properties.

“They see that there is power in everything,” Kelly said. “Copper is something that is very powerful so how you handle it, how you deal with it is very important.”

After four centuries, the population of Cahokia began to decline and the city was abandoned. Although it remains unknown why the Cahokians left their city, theories range from environmental factors, like drought driving away inhabitants, to geopolitical issues. Artifacts from 1200 A.D. uncovered in excavations indicate a shift in focus from community life to warfare. The copper workshop itself is dated to 1200 A.D. The Osage tribe located in southern Missouri may have originated from Cahokia. Researchers currently work with the Osage tribe as they excavate, preventing changes to the mound.

Kelly and Brown won a grant from the National Geographic Society to continue their work two years ago. The team turns to current Native American culture to develop their hypotheses and theories regarding the lifestyles of the Cahokians.

Cahokia also presents a unique opportunity to examine the early formation of a city.

“What we’re looking at here is the very beginning of…urbanism,” Kelly said. “So it hasn’t had a chance to really flourish; it’s just starting to come into existence.”

The excavation team hopes to continue its work in the summer. Amateur archaeologist Gregory Perino had first found the copper workshop. In the 1950s, he had been hired to find artifacts for museum display. Kelly and Brown used his maps to retrace the copper workshop. The team now hopes to collect soil samples from the mound to test for copper levels.

Students and a professor work with locals helping out in Haiti on behalf of Engineers Without Borders during spring break in 2009. (Courtesy of Robin Shephard (top-left) and Will Fischer)

As national fundraisers for Haiti include everything from texting donations to celebrity-sponsored telethons, Washington University’s Engineers Without Borders continues to pursue long-term efforts to tackle poverty in the country.

Even before the earthquake struck on Jan. 12 near the capital city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti was considered the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. The 7.0 magnitude earthquake has killed more than 200,000 people in the nation to date. According to The New York Times, relief efforts in the United States for Haiti have raised about $560 million.

“[The country] suffers from so many ills: environmental degradation, corrupt government, inadequate education, crippling malnutrition [and] no reliable infrastructure for transporting goods into the country or obtaining power,” said Jamie Cummings, a member of Engineers Without Borders (EWB).

The University’s chapter of EWB partnered with Meds and Food for Kids (MFK), hoping to address these issues.

MFK, headed by Patricia Wolff, pediatrician at the Washington University Medical School, provides treatment for 2,000 to 3,000 malnourished children in Haiti with the Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) or Medika Mamba. This peanut butter product is a home-based treatment administered over six to eight weeks to alleviate malnutrition in children. RUTF used in Haiti is produced within a local factory headed by MFK.

French pediatrician André Briend had developed the formula, which is now used by worldwide organization Project Peanut Butter to treat hundreds of thousands of malnourishment cases. During field-testing, Mark Manary, a University professor of pediatrics, used the formula to treat malnourished children in Malawi.

In Haiti, MFK’s factory purchases as many peanuts as possible from local farmers and employs about 30 Haitians. According to senior Will Fischer, president of EWB, the student group hopes to help the factory increase the efficiency of the creation process. One issue EWB hopes to address is the difficulty farmers face in growing peanuts due to the region’s rainy seasons and climate.

“It’s really risky for a farmer to lay out peanuts on their fields unless it’s dry,” Fischer said. “Normally they have to get rid of 40 percent of the peanuts that they harvested.”

The solar peanut dryer would reduce peanut mold growth, and farmers would easily be able to introduce the machine into their farms. The dryer is also planned to be affordable for Haitian farmers.

Other plans include creating a process to make charcoal from waste peanut shells. According to Cummings, peanut shells are currently thrown away into nearby rivers after productions. With the new method, these peanut shells would be carbonized and pressed into briquettes.

“Once we fine-tune the process, we hope to distribute the technology to Haitians in the area, so that they can start up their own charcoal-making businesses, using waste biomass, while also decreasing the demand for wood,” she said.

Members from EWB traveled to Haiti in spring 2009. Students built the solar peanut dryer and tested the prototype in the summer. EWB plans to travel to Haiti in summer 2010 to continue its work with MFK.

“The saving of Haiti will come from long-term, smart investments in Haiti,” Cummings wrote. “Like that made by Meds and Food for Kids: building Haiti’s economy, employing its people and in general empowering its people to solve their own problems.”

At the time of the earthquake, more than a million families had already depended on international food aid to survive. Previous deforestation and soil erosion have resulted in severely depleted resources and even more disastrous effects from hurricanes and other storms.

“Haiti was in a desperate situation before the earthquake,” Cummings said. “The average Haitian lives on $2 a day.”

University City had requested proposals from the design community in the summer of 2009 for residential plans that would fill five lots within the neighborhood. The homes are also expected to gain Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum certification.

Megan Nasrallah from St. Louis architectural firm Arcturis; Donald Koster, senior lecturer at the University’s Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design; and Richard Reilly, who served as chief operating officer of the former company Boa Construction, collaborated on and submitted the uHome project proposal. University City then awarded them the opportunity to continue their plans.

For Nasrallah, the proposal’s sustainability aspects, and the collaboration between “academia, profession, municipality (University City) and builder” were compliant with Arcturis’ goals.

“The community and social aspects of this project aligned with our values,” Nasrallah said. “The project seemed like a good fit and a unique opportunity to engage Wash. U. in an atypical project, in an atypical way.”

In addition, GreenSpace Construction now collaborates with the project after Boa Construction closed in November 2009.

The uHome project starts with Wash. U. students creating the designs with support from Arcturis professionals. Designs will have to meet guidelines, including improved indoor environmental quality, efficiency in water usage, and innovation in design to be LEED certified.

Students are inspired by the challenge and the chance to influence the Sutter Heights community.

“I think that the social aspect is really important,” graduate student Laura Mark said. “I realize that you can’t just change everything and make everything better for everybody. But if you can make one person’s life better, then your efforts were worthwhile.”

Architecture graduate student Mark Epstein expressed similar sentiments.

“One of my biggest interests in architecture is [to] have an impact on people’s lives, and I think that even though [this is] a small project—it’s not a 97-story skyscraper—it’s very directly impacting people’s lives,” Epstein said.

Epstein also explained that many of the students involved in the uHome project are excited by the potential future construction of the homes.

“The aspect that hopefully this project will actually get built is very attractive to a lot of the people in our group,” he said.

Nasrallah said Arcturis staff also benefit from having new energy in the office, in addition to students gaining a valuable work experience.

Both Mark and Epstein appreciate their collaboration with Arcturis with regard to LEED certification, home design and experience with an architectural firm.

Those interested in purchasing a uHome would first have to qualify for construction loans provided by a local lender. Homebuyers would then work with the design team to adjust the designs for their needs. Depending on features within the home, prices will range from $120,000 to $200,000.

“We will have at minimum five model homes designed to be marketed that will be able to achieve LEED Platinum and will be in the price range that has been set,” Koster said. “Ideally, and I’m fully optimistic that this will occur, we will fully market the project and have identified potential homebuyers prior to the end of this semester.”

Homes should be finalized by November 2010, according to current plans.

The study, which compares child poverty rates to the need for food stamp benefits, found that 3.4 million more children received food stamps nationally. Nearly half of SNAP participants are now children, and one in five children under the age of 18 lives in poverty.

“Poverty is associated with a variety of health complications for children like asthma, lead poisoning and so on,” said Mark Rank, professor of social welfare.

Rank also said that children living in poverty might be undernourished, affecting their performance at school.

“If you’re a kid, you’re going to school, but you’re not getting all the nutrients you need,” Rank said. “It can affect your ability to learn and to do well in school.”

Currently, Mississippi has the highest rate of child poverty at 30.4 percent, and New Hampshire has the lowest rate at 9 percent. In Missouri, 18.6 percent of children rely on food stamps. Southern states overall continue to face higher levels of poverty due to a lack of economic opportunity.

Findings were based on Census Bureau statistics of poverty rates within the United States from 2008 to 2009. Poverty levels are predicted to rise, even several years after the economy improves.

Rank believes that the U.S. government still isn’t doing enough to alleviate poverty.

“We have the highest rates of poverty in the developed world, the most extreme economic inequality in the developed world, [and] we have the weakest social safety net in the world,” Rank said. “We do the least in terms of social policy, really of any other developed country, in terms of trying to help families get out of poverty, in trying to help kids that are in poverty.”

Those eligible to receive SNAP benefits have an income lower than 130 percent of the federal poverty guideline. Due to the increase in SNAP participants and rises in inflation, the Congressional Budget Office plans to allocate an additional $34 billion to pay for food stamps. The stimulus bill had already budgeted $20 billion for spending on food stamp benefits until 2019.

According to Rank, SNAP still doesn’t provide enough support for families in economically insecure situations. Providing universal health care—especially for children—is only one of the many social policies Rank believes the government needs to provide in order to have poverty rates similar to other developed countries.

Sophomore Kenith Dsouza hopes that Washington University students will respond to the worsening situation in Missouri.

“Having lived in India and seen poverty firsthand, I feel like it’s our responsibility to help those who are less fortunate than us,” Dsouza said. “We have to be aware of the fact that we need to do more so that tragedies like poverty don’t happen.”

Rank encourages students to be involved politically in order to improve social service programs.

“Students can think about it from a political and policy point of view—how can they mobilize and put pressure on the political system to create some changes?” Rank said. “Poverty is not an issue of ‘them’ but it’s really an issue of ‘us.’ Everyone is affected by these high rates of poverty.”

The New Frontiers Program aims to select a medium-class spacecraft mission that will investigate the history of Earth’s formation or even the origin of life. Eight proposals from institutions around the nation were sent in response to the New Frontiers Program 2009 Announcement of Opportunity in July 2009.

“The mission MoonRise is about understanding the impact history of the solar system,” Jolliff said.

Jolliff and his team hope that lunar samples will give insight to the series of impact events that helped reshape the inner planets.

Scientists have theorized that after the planets formed through the accretion of impacting objects, the number of impacting objects eventually decreased. But a newer theory suggests that the accretion of impacting objects tailed off, only to increase again. Lunar samples from a previous Apollo mission age impact areas on the Moon from 3.8-3.9 billion years ago, providing support for the second theory.

“The moon rocks and even meteorites point to a tremendous event 4 billion years ago,” Jolliff said.

Investigating lunar samples from MoonRise may help determine if this event occurred, and, if so, what the characteristics and time interval of the event was. Furthermore, if these impacts to Earth occurred, they would have affected the beginning formation of life and the development of early continents.

MoonRise would send a lander to the South Pole-Aitken Basin, the oldest basin on the Moon, to collect approximately 2 pounds of samples. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at the California Institute of Technology, a major partner of Jolliff and his team, would build the lander and design and implement the mission. Samples from the Moon would be further analyzed by the science team, which has collaborated and will continue to collaborate with scientists from institutions worldwide.

Jolliff wants Washington University students to become involved in this mission.

“We [Jolliff and his team] would like to have some really excellent student collaboration projects,” he said.

As a professor, Jolliff wants to have “maximum involvement from undergraduate and graduate students from Washington University.”

Freshman Katherine Shirley is already involved in data collection that would provide information essential in determining safe landing sites for the lander. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is imaging the Moon in detail, will create a large image mosaic of the basin.

“I’m happy to be involved in a really interesting field where lunar exploration could lead to further Martian exploration,” Shirley said.

Future projects also include exchanging students with partner institutions, such as the JPL.

“From my perspective, this is a great opportunity for Wash. U. to be [involved] in space exploration,” Jolliff said.

MoonRise would also engage the St. Louis community. According to Jolliff, the mission would include plans to immerse elementary through high school students in the fields of science and technology.

In addition to MoonRise, other proposals include an investigation, headed by Larry Esposito from the University of Colorado at Boulder, of the composition of Venus’ atmosphere and surface and a collection of meteorological data. The third selected proposal, headed by Michael Drake from the University of Arizona in Tucson, would send a spacecraft to collect samples from a primitive asteroid.

Finalists will be given approximately $3.3 million to complete a 12-month mission concept study. NASA will select the final project in 2011, and the mission will take place by Dec. 30, 2018.

In an e-mail to faculty, Provost Edward Macias, executive vice chancellor for academic affairs, encouraged Washington University faculty to submit applications and nominations for the position of dean by Dec. 14, 2009. The selected candidate will succeed current interim Dean Salvatore Sutera in June 2010, when Sutera plans to step down. Applications will be reviewed by the Advisory Committee on the Appointment of the Dean of Engineering, co-chaired by Macias; Joseph Ackerman, chair of the chemistry department; and Shelly Sakiyama-Elbert, associate professor of biomedical engineering. Other members of the committee include professors; department chairs; Evan Kharasch, interim vice chancellor for research; and Chris Kroeger, associate dean for engineering and applied science.

“The Committee has been asked to identify and recommend candidates from within the Washington University community,” Macias wrote in an e-mail. “Eligible candidates [are] those who have considerable working knowledge of, and experience within, the Washington University academic and administrative environment and culture.”

Macias also wrote that past alumni and University faculty are qualified to apply. The future dean is expected to act on the University Council and implement the goals of the engineering school. These goals include increasing collaboration between the school and other University departments and handling the financial aspects of the school.

The future dean will play a part in hiring new faculty, promoting groundbreaking research, and creating new academic programs.

Students, appreciative of the work completed by Sutera, also look forward to the selection of the new dean. Senior Dan Brewster, president of EnCouncil, said he hopes that the new dean will be accessible, open to feedback, and an active part of the engineering community.

“The new dean will have to find a middle route between being very visible and being a behind-the-scenes person,” Brewster said. Brewster also believes that the school should continue its efforts in diversifying its faculty.

According to the “Report on Trends in Faculty Diversity: Washington University Danforth Campus,” which is provided by the provost’s office, none of the current tenured and tenure-track faculty at the Engineering School are from an underrepresented minority.

The report, according to Lynn McCloskey, assistant provost in analysis, is intended to increase awareness in the University community of diversity trends on campus. Underrepresented minorities include blacks, Native Americans and Hispanics.

McCloskey explained that the lack of minorities in the engineering school can be explained by the lack of minority representation in the engineering field itself. Since there aren’t many underrepresented minority students in the engineering field, she said, there won’t be many underrepresented tenure and tenure-track faculty.

“Underrepresented minorities are less represented in the engineering disciplines than in fields like law or social work, where there is greater distribution,” said McCloskey. “We certainly think there’s opportunity to increase the underrepresented minorities in these schools.”

At least 3 percent of tenured and tenure-track faculty from the rest of the Danforth Campus schools come from underrepresented minorities.

The engineering school has been taking steps to improve its diversity levels. In all faculty openings found on the engineering school Web site, including professorships and research positions, women and minorities are encouraged to apply.

Macias expects candidates for the dean position to continue to promote diversity in the engineering school. “This is a priority for the entire university,” he wrote.

Students also recognize the school’s efforts.

“I know that the [engineering] school is working very hard on recruiting faculty from underrepresented minorities,” Brewster said.