Rendering of the new Concourse C checkpoint at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport. (Courtesy of Lambert Airport)

Students traveling to and from St. Louis next academic year will notice some changes in the appearance of Lambert-St. Louis International Airport. In fall 2010, Terminal 1 will begin a two-year, $50 million interior renovation project, the largest in the airport’s history.

The renovation is the second phase of the $70 million Airport Experience Program. The $20 million first phase, which included dome resurfacing, a new baggage system and new signage, was completed in 2009.

The second phase, called “the heart and soul” of the project, will completely transform A and C concourses with new ticket counters, new restrooms, an upgraded C concourse checkpoint with improved screening equipment, a higher and brighter ceiling with programmable LED lighted caps, an added atrium that will connect ticketing and lower levels, a “St. Louis Stage” performance area, and new interactive and static art displays.

“The Airport Experience Program was born in 2005; it was a vision by community and business leaders, after the airport had suffered a loss of flights in 2004, [to make] a more vibrant airport and regain interest,” airport spokesman Jeff Lea said.

Terminal 1 was built in 1956 and was designed by architect Minoru Yamasaki.

“Lambert was one of the first city-owned airports in the country in 1928, [and the terminal] was replicated by a couple other airports in New York and Paris,” Lea said. The terminal hasn’t undergone any major renovations since.

The renovation will not include Terminal 2 or concourses B or D in Terminal 1.

“We are relocating a few airlines that were in B and D into the C concourse; [A and C] are the two biggest concourses [that] have the most activity,” Lea said. “[We’re] trying to consolidate the airlines.”

Concourses B and D will terminate any airline operations by late spring, Lea added. Whether the two concourses will permanently close has not been decided.

The $50 million will be coming from airport bonds, “[which includes] passenger and airport fees,” Lea said. “It’s not supported by any city general revenue.”

But according to Glenn MacDonald, professor in the Olin Business School, bonds are just government borrowing, and “government borrowing is just future taxation.”

More than half of the $50 million will be used toward labor, which will support approximately 150 skilled daily construction workers.

According to the airport’s news release on the renovation, the project “demonstrates Lambert’s commitment…[to] enhance our competitive position given that the Airport is our region’s most important economic asset.”

But whether or not the project will actually enhance St. Louis’ economic position is questionable.

“The gross state product of Missouri is $250 billion a year…The renovation is about $25 million a year,” MacDonald said. “It is a drip in the ocean.”

MacDonald also commented that businesses don’t make their decision to come to St. Louis based on how nice its airport is, but rather on the business climate here.

“It’s just like paving Highway 40,” MacDonald said. “It’s a maintenance that needs to be done.”

Airport renovations like this “happen all over the country, all times of the year. At this moment, there’s probably a couple dozen going around in the country,” said Tony Molinaro, the central region spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

Apart from the second phase renovation of the Airport Experience Program, the airport has plans to add and renovate restaurants and introduce a Dunkin Donuts in the A concourse.

Nomealpoints.com launched on Jan. 19, the first day of spring semester, and lists all of the free food events that are happening on campus each day. Events also include targeted audiences, with keywords such as “everyone” or “international students.”

In addition to going straight to the Web site, students can access the Web site’s information through Facebook, Twitter, RSS, Google Cal and iCal.

“I think the best thing is that [the Web site] essentially takes all information that would otherwise be spread out and puts it all in one place,” said freshman Will Johnson, who has launched a Web site of his own that allows users to create music playlists. “It’s a great way to find free food, but also [to] be able to get involved with other clubs.”

The Web site is managed by Rosenthal alone, who receives e-mails from organizations across campus about the details of events and takes five minutes each day to update the Web site.

“I have a filter on Gmail that sorts through everything that has to do with free food,” Rosenthal said.

The Web site recently added a tool that allows subscribers to receive daily e-mails at 7 a.m., listing all of the free food events for that day.

In the future, Rosenthal hopes to add on special deals by local restaurants.

“Right now it’s just free meals, I hope to expand that to free meals and good deals,” he said. With that, he also hopes to generate revenue to cover the costs of running the Web site, and perhaps pay someone to update the page.

“I’m also working on having updated daily menus for various [dining] places, for example what they’re serving at the DUC on a daily basis,” he said. Although this information is posted on Wash. U.’s Dining Services Web site, Rosenthal hopes nomealpoints.com will be easier to read and to access along with other free food information.

The Web site has had more than 700 individual visitors since its creation, with more than 200 fans on Facebook and 53 followers on Twitter.

“I’m trying to…encourage more groups to send in their free meal events; that way [organizations] get free advertising for their events, and of course it helps the Web site,” Rosenthal said.

Despite its success, students see possible minor drawbacks.

“I think the obvious pitfall is that not all events are meant to be open events, or [have] people going for [only] the food and not being interested in the organization or the event,” Johnson said. He added that Rosenthal has put up “good mechanisms” to counter this problem by creating an intended audience subheading.

When asked about possibilities of imitation on campus, junior Harvey Multani, a systems science and business major, said he doesn’t expect much competition. “There’s money to be made, but it’s not [that] much money, and building up the brand recognition would take up so much time,” he said. “[The new Web site] would have to be unbelievably awesome to get people to switch.”

Four hundred and fifty-three men had registered online, although the actual numbers are estimated to be lower, said Dave Wallace, coordinator for Greek housing programs. This was because “some active brothers [registered to show] people how to register, and some double registered,” he said. Others might have registered over break and changed their minds later on.

The main difference this year compared to previous years was the shortened recruitment period.

“Last year, they had about three to four weeks,” said sophomore Sam Propis, co-recruitment chair of Sigma Chi. “This year it was two to three, although I think more people rushed this year. One hundred and seventy kids came through our doors.”

The time frame was set by the Interfraternity Council.

“Last year, it was a little too long, this year was a little bit too short,” said Matt Hoffman, co-recruitment chair of Beta Theta Pi. “It was kind of demanding for brothers and freshmen to be coming to that many events.”

Despite this change, recruitment was structured similarly to previous years.

“The first week they get back, that Friday night is open house,” Propis said. “Rushees from 5 [p.m.] to 9 [p.m.] go to any house, meet brothers, stop by and put their name down.”

Each fraternity held three to four open events, otherwise known as open rush, during which brothers got to know rushees and cut down their list of potential pledges to invite to closed events.

“You want people who would be a good fit and good contributing brothers down the road,” Hoffman said.

Closed events are intended to provide a fun environment in which brothers and rushees get to know each other in a more intimate setting to see if the rushee is a good fit.

This year, events held by fraternities included broomball, paintball, Skyzone, bowling, laser tag, and dinners at fraternity houses and locations off campus.

According to Hoffman, spring recruitment is designed mostly for freshmen, although some sophomores also rush. Fall recruitment, on the other hand, targets mainly sophomores, and tends to be a smaller event. For instance, 25 men are pledging Beta Theta Pi this spring, while only seven had pledged this past fall.

When asked how the rush process went, freshman Stan Rosenthal, who is currently pledging Kappa Sigma, said that it was a good time and “more or less what I expected.”

“I hung out there first semester and knew a lot of brothers already,” Rosenthal said. “I enjoyed stopping by the house and I feel comfortable…I think everyone there takes care of their academics and saves plenty of time to hang out and have a good time.”

The two-hour event took place in the Knight Center and consisted of a lecture followed by a question-and-answer session. A one-hour reception afterward completed the program.

Per the policy of professor Chuck Knight, Student Life and other media outlets were not given access to the event.

While Major spoke to students in one of the main classrooms at the Knight Center, simulcasts were projected into two neighboring rooms, where guests including students, alumni and friends watched.

Major discussed a variety of issues ranging from climate change and population control to the free-market system and the role of government.

“It was better than what I expected,” said Prasanna Ayer, a local alumnus who obtained his MBA from Olin. “It was very insightful, not just from a political perspective but from [a global economic] perspective. [It was] not something you expect to hear from politicians. He [was] very straightforward with his feelings.”

Like others, Ayer was surprised by the quality of questions coming from the classroom.

Often lengthy questions were asked on many topics including how to unite world leaders, the media’s role in politics, leadership in the face of adversity, universal healthcare, and the debate between capitalism and a centralized free-market system.

Major answered each question, with the exception of a question directed toward criticizing president Obama’s health care plan, often adding anecdotes from his experience as prime minister.

Emphasis was placed on the enormous change that has taken place in the world, as well as the even greater change that can be anticipated of the future. Major expressed the need to adapt to these changes and for politicians to “look at the world with an honest and critical eye”.

When speaking about the debate between capitalism and a free-market system, Major explained that there was a trade-off between speedy decision-making and the benefits of a completely free-market system without government intervention.

Additionally, Major spoke about the difference between leadership and power, explaining that leadership means doing the right thing, even in the face of opposition. He recalled the health care changes he had implemented as prime minister, stating that there was great opposition, but “a degree of stubbornness and consistency” gave him strength in carrying out his policies, which he believes have been vindicated by history.

While many enjoyed the talk, some of the audience felt that more could have been discussed at a deeper level, such as issues of terrorism and reducing the deficit.

“I think we talked about a lot of difficult and critical problems in the world,” said Raj Talwar, an attendee of the event. “I do understand he’s not a magician, but I wish he had gone into a little bit more depth.”

The audience was very receptive, and appreciated that Major spoke candidly.

“[He was] very different from what you would see from current American politicians,” Ayer said.

English professor Gerald Early was selected as a member of an eight-person jury charged with choosing a proposal to redesign the grounds surrounding the Gateway Arch. The facelift of the Arch grounds will be finished by 2015. (Matt Mitgang | Student Life)

The competition, “Framing A Modern Masterpiece: The City + The Arch + The River,” encompasses the idea of “connecting the city, the Arch grounds, and the river, maintaining the Arch as an icon, [and] portraying the entire place as an iconic place,” according to the competition manager, Don Stastny, a prominent architect and urban designer and the CEO of Portland’s StastnyBrun Architects Inc.

In January, eight jurors of various specialties were selected, one of whom was a Washington University faculty member: Gerald Early, the Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters and the director of the Center for the Humanities.

Others include architecture critic Robert Campbell, former National Park Service Deputy Director Denis Galvin, urban strategist David Leland, curator Cara McCarty, landscape architects Laurie Olin and Carol Barney, and Harvard urban design professor Alex Krieger.

“We selected the jury [by looking at] the qualities that we want the designers to address within the competition,” Stastny said. “We look for people who aren’t just kind of singular but have multiple kinds of discipline. They also have to be the type of people who will collaborate…[and] have the highest personal integrity. Once they make a decision as a jury, that opinion will be respected and not turned over.”

Redesigning the Arch grounds had been an architectural project discussed for many years before becoming a reality.

“One of the things that had been talked about was redesigning the Arch grounds by 2004 [to commemorate the year 1904, when the World Fair had been held], but that never happened,” Early said. “This is a new initiative that’s being launched—[it has been] talked about probably for the last eight or nine years.”

The first step of the competition—a deadline for competition registration that included a letter of intent—has ended.

“In this first round, we will evaluate the qualifications; people have submitted their intention and their desire…The jury will look for teams who have shown prior work [that is] creative and viable,” said Alex Krieger, an urban designer who had been on the juries for a competition to redesign Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House as well as a Holocaust memorial in Boston.

According to Early, a winning team’s scheme will be selected this August.

To connect the city and the river is a unique project in and of itself and can be compared to a similar architectural design competition in Shanghai, Krieger said.

“In Shanghai, the competition was to take a three-mile area between the river and the historic part of the city…to bury the very wide road [separating] the city from the river, and then extend the park system to the river,” Krieger said. “The kind of impact of [the Arch competition] would be comparable to the transformation [in Shanghai].”

The jury will meet for the first time early next week and begin the selection process. According to Stastny, there has not been a budget for the competition in an effort to prevent limiting designs. But Krieger said the jury will make sure that “the winning scheme is viable to be realized and to continue to be realized in the near future.”

“It has to be somehow comparable to the Arch itself,” Krieger said. “It has to provide amenities to people using the park environment; it should diminish the barrier from downtown St. Louis and the river; [and] it should of course be beautiful when seen from the distance.”

Participants of the meeting included freshman Dan Cohn, sophomore Molly Gott, junior Jacob Stern, Zimmer, Chief Investment Officer Kim Walker, Assistant to the Chancellor Rob Wild and Executive Vice Chancellor for Administration Hank Webber.

“We are behind in not having endowment transparency,” Cohn said. “We would like to incorporate more stakeholders in the decisions. We don’t want to hurt the endowment; we want to know what’s in it.”

The group presented a set of what it said were socially responsible investment guidelines with three proposals: first, the creation of an investment advisory committee composed of undergraduate and graduate students, alumni, faculty and staff who would review and make suggestions to investment decisions; second, the committee will report back to the school community about specific investment decisions; third, the creation of a Web site providing specific investment decisions and holdings open only to the University community.

“It was a frustrating meeting,” Zimmer said. “They expected us to sell them our ideas while we wanted to have a conversation and figure out where we stood. Kim Walker told us that they’re completely responsibility-blind in their investments and there’s also no report-back feature. So whatever the Wash. U. Investment Company does, there’s no way for students to know at all.”

Zimmer expressed frustration that student views cannot currently play into investments.

“Most of the board members don’t make investment decisions,” Zimmer said. “The people who are making these kinds of decisions are business leaders who don’t have a real strong commitment to [the community]. There’s no voice for students, staff, or community on these boards. There are two student representatives to the board of trustees, but they’re non-voting members. They’re not elected by students; they submit applications [that are] approved by the chancellor’s office; and they don’t have access to investment information.”

The administrators, however, felt that the first meeting was a starting point, and that the students were eager to hear about a decision right away.

“From the administrative perspective, it was a very good meeting. We were clear that we couldn’t make any decisions in that meeting,” Wild said. “The students raised some important issues that they really cared about. We have one purpose, and that is to make money—because the endowment can be invested back into the school. The students proposed a different way of looking at the endowment.”
Walker expressed similar concerns.

“We are interested in what the students have proposed,” Walker said. “We don’t know how to incorporate some of their suggestions without compromising some of the objectives that we had for the endowment.”

The students cited that many other universities, including Brown and Columbia, have adopted socially responsible investing, and feel that the University can become one of them. But the administration feels the need to look into these facts before seeing what can be done.

“I think the key is to understand what actually has been adopted—to go beyond the headlines, to see really what some of these universities are really doing,” Walker said. “That’s part of what we’re really trying to do now. It’s publicly difficult just by searching the media. We’ll be talking to our counterparts at these universities so that we can at least bring the facts to the table.”
Zimmer expressed optimism about WUSET’s future.

“We’re going to try to rally student support…We’re going to try to get students more momentum, demonstrate to the University that students do want this…It would give students the ability to comment on the investments. We feel that the University could easily balance social investment responsibility and make money for the endowment.”

The Olin Cup Competition is co-sponsored by Olin Business School and several corporate sponsors from the community to help and encourage young entrepreneurs to create successful and viable business ventures.

This year, 45 teams entered the competition, an increase from last year’s 38 teams.

On Nov. 2, in the first round of the competition, 18 semifinalist teams were selected after submitting an executive summary, which mapped out specific details of their business plans.

“Both the quantity and quality of the entries this year has definitely increased,” said II Luscri, student services coordinator of the Skandalaris Center. “We spend a week with the executive summaries. It’s not an easy decision to make. We don’t have a strict number about how many teams we allow or don’t allow. Each judge stack ranks the teams 1 to 45.”

The business ideas submitted this year include Equity Benefits, a pre-employment screening device that solves discrimination problems; Eyelten Therapeutics, which develops therapies to treat age-related macular degeneration; InkBlot, a software solution that cuts student printing costs; LockerDome, a networking platform for amateur sports; and Visipo, a monitoring system that detects, confirms and cites offenders who talk, text and drive.

The second round is called a public “elevator pitch.”

“[The elevator pitch is a] 2-minute description about their idea; what would you say to somebody if you got caught in an elevator with them for two minutes?” Luscri said.

The event is open to the public, and audience members will be able to judge the event. The person that most closely matches the judges’ results of ranking the teams will win $250 in prize money.

The final round will take place on Jan. 21, 2010, and will consist of a 15-minute business plan presentation followed by a 15-minute question and answer session.

“We have about 25 experts [judging] from the community, some affiliated with the University, but mostly from Angel Investor network, Venture Capital network, Successful Entrepreneurs and the regional Commerce and Growth Association,” Luscri said.

Last year’s winner was VirtualNerd, an interactive online tutoring service that targets high school students struggling in math and science and that was developed by entrepreneur Josh Salcman and current University Ph.D. candidate Leo Shmuylovich.

“The biggest weakness with [teaching] videos is that people are unable to ask questions while watching the video,” Shmuylovich said. “We built a Web site that allows you to interact with the video [with] access to links and problems that have solutions to common questions and problems.”

The VirtualNerd Web site has been established with video tutorials, but the actual tutor videos won’t begin until early December, Shmuylovich added.

“The Olin Cup was a really fantastic opportunity for us,” Shmuylovich said. “Our executive summary was ranked somewhere along the bottom, and our elevator pitch was somewhere in the top-middle. I think that really speaks to the value of the competition. There’s so much feedback and opportunities for asking questions.”

Shmuylovich’s advice to current teams is to have a thorough financial plan that details how money that someone else has invested in the team will be used.

He believes the judges were most impressed with their considerations of potential pitfalls and how to get past them.

“The competition gave us a lot of confidence, and having confidence in the face of adversity is a very important thing in business,” Shmuylovich said. “The Olin Cup opens a lot of doors because people automatically know who you are; people from outside are offering to invest and help out.”

According to Paschall, a national request for a child abuse subspecialty was presented to the American Board of Pediatrics four to five years ago but was turned down. The request was resubmitted in 2007 and approved.

Jamie Spurrier, a current chief resident at St. Louis Children’s Hospital, will be the first and only fellow beginning the three-year program next July.

Spurrier successfully requested the fellowship upon hearing that the American Academy of Pediatrics had decided there was enough interest in the problem of child abuse and that Dr. Paschall was part of a group that was advocating for the subspecialty’s initiation.

“We’ve had unofficial training programs [for child abuse], [but] there hasn’t been an official fellowship,” Spurrier said.

Spurrier said she did a rotation as an intern under Paschall and realized then that she was interested in researching child abuse.

The subspecialty program will award fellows a certificate of special qualification in child abuse and requires fellows to have completed medical school and three years of general pediatrics residency.

The program will include classes in biostatistics, epidemiology and biomechanics. Fellows will also design a research project and learn about how to interview children. Subspecialties will also be included on a rotating basis and include pediatric radiology and pediatric and adolescent gynecology.

Additionally, fellows will learn from physiologists and psychologists who specialize in helping victims of sexual and physical abuse, and psychologists who perform perpetrator therapy. They will also acquire clinical experience through interacting with children who have been burned, performing consultation at a special abuse management clinic and conducting sexual abuse evaluations in the emergency room.

Although professors have not yet been selected, Paschall said classes will be drawn from the medical school as well as the law school, and will be open to other undergraduate students at the University.

The certificate and the costs of the fellowship, including a stipend, will come from the School of Medicine.

“This year [we] will have one [fellow] for three years. Ultimately, when the fellowship develops, there will be a new fellow each year,” Paschall said. “The major advantage is that the fellows begin to teach each other.”

Other children’s hospitals that will join with universities to include a child abuse subspecialty program include Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital of Denver and Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago.

Other schools that made the honor roll include Swarthmore College, Harvard College and Lake Forest College.

According to Princeton Review spokesperson Rebecca Lessem, college-bound high school students and their families are increasingly concerned with finding not only the perfect college but also an affordable one.

“Financial aid is a really hot topic this year, and with the economy, financial aid is a big part of students and parents’ decisions in where they go to school,” Lessem said.

Derek Lam, a senior receiving nearly full financial aid, attested to this point.

“Truman State University offered me a full ride, but Wash. U. gave me a good enough financial aid package so that I could actually afford to come,” Lam said.

Senior Kevin Chang saidhe feels the University’s ranking is consistent with the reality of financial aid here.

“[The rankings] definitely seem pretty reasonable,” Chang said. “Wash. U. has been generous.”

To achieve maximum accuracy, the Princeton Review uses a number of methods when constructing rankings. The company gathers institutional data from administrators, including the percentage of students determined to have a need for aid, the percentage of need met, and the percentage of students whose aid was fully met. The company also uses student surveys.

“We try to reach as many students possible,” Lessem said.

The University evaluates students’ financial situation each year.

“Families complete financial aid applications that include information about their income, their financial position and family demographics,” said Bill Witbrodt, the director of Student Financial Services. “Based on that information, [a financial aid] amount is determined.”

But circumstances can change from year to year, and the University‘s financial aid department responds to these changes.

“Sometimes, [the government has] cut my financial aid, but the school has been generous enough to match whatever cuts the state made. I also have outside scholarships…the school will reimburse you [if necessary],” Lam said.

Although students are generally pleased with their financial aid, international students have a different perspective.

“I feel like at not just Wash. U., but at a lot of colleges in the U.S., just knowing that you’re an international student puts a strain on your eligibility on your financial aid…It’s already really competitive for international students, so [we feel] like, ‘Oh, I can’t ask for financial aid, because then I might not get in,’” senior Yu-Ching Cheng said.

Washington University also fared well on other Princeton Review ranking lists, placing fourth in Quality of Life, ninth in School Runs Like Butter, 10th in Best Campus Food, and 10th in Dorms Like Palaces.

“Function (noun): No list of overinflated jargon would be complete without this classic, all-purpose noun that instantly makes you sound scientifically saucy in virtually any context. Otherwise known as the ketchup of argumentative conversations, ‘function’ may be overused, but it hasn’t lost its awesomely obnoxious flavor.”

Zhu’s blog, an element of the MIT admissions website, is part of a growing trend on universities’ admissions sites, many of which have begun recruiting student writers to blog about their experiences at college in hopes of giving prospective students greater insight into student life.

“Prospective students will always want to hear from the admissions office. They want to hear about the students’ side in addition to the administrators’. We’re able to provide a much more direct, everyday, and vivacious account of Vassar,” says Vassar undergraduate and student blogger Brian Farkas.

Admissions departments at some universities seek out student bloggers from diverse backgrounds, while others have developed an application process to select them.

“The admissions person for my region knew what my interests were. She suggested me, and then the communications department contacted me and invited me to apply,” explained Temple Price, a freshman at Wellesley College.

At MIT, the application process is more competitive.  Applicants must submit a link of a previous blog and be interviewed for the position. Zhu was among four bloggers chosen from a pool of 32.

At Vassar, the goal is diversity. The four student bloggers there include not only vice president Brian Farkas, but also a baseball player, an editorial director for the student style magazine and a martial arts fanatic who founded the Multi-Racial/Biracial Students’ Association at Vassar.

Although it has only been a few years since the creation of these blogs, many of them have been popularly received by prospective students looking to use them as a resource in the application process.

“I respond to 12-20 emails a week with answers to [students’] questions,” Farkas said. “I’m pre-law at Vassar. Many people have asked me about the law school process. People have asked me what kind of support the school gives. Sometimes it’ll be totally unrelated to the topics I’m blogging about.”

To recruit these bloggers, some universities are offering pay for admissions bloggers. Others see it as a volunteer opportunity.

“It’s a little extra money for something that’s fun to do as well,” Price said. “Blogging as a freshman is interesting because the whole process last year is still fresh in my mind. I’m trying to write the perfect blog for extracurricular things. I want to talk about it in a candid way without being discouraging.”

Junior Becca Dirks thought the system was a an interesting idea.

“I think it’s a good idea. It allows students to see what the current student body actually thinks. Had it been available I would have spent a lot of time looking at [the blogs],” Dirks said.

When asked about censorship, all three student bloggers from MIT, Vassar, and Wellesley exclaimed that it was absolutely nonexistent.

“We have a separate website—blogger.com—so we have total control over what we write,” Farkas said.

Even if the schools were able to censor the blogs, students say there would be little need. “No one really has anything bad to say about the school,” Farkas continued.

The trend of admissions blogs will most likely continue to grow at schools across the country, as students so far have only good things to say about the blogs.

“I really love that Vassar allows student to blog. I think that it’s really important because students are really Vassar’s ambassadors. Students here take so many classes and go to so many events that it’s really important to give students a voice,” Farkas said.