Junior Nick Yozamp receives the “Jeopardy!” championship trophy from Alex Trebek after winning the $100,000 grand prize. His win brought attention to Wash. U., albeit temporarily. (Courtesy of ‘Jeopardy!’ Productions Inc.)

Tired of blank stares, desperate explanations and awkward silence when you tell others that you go to Washington University in St. Louis? Junior Nick Yozamp may be able to help.

Since Yozamp defeated contestants from across the nation and won the championship of the college tournament on “Jeopardy!” on Feb. 10, he has been busy being interviewed by newspapers and TV shows.

While Yozamp has seen attention primarily from more mainstream media outlets, his triumph has also inspired discussions on blogs and forums online.

One of the notable forums that has caught the Yozamp frenzy is www.collegeconfidential.com, a Web site on which students, parents and educators exchange questions, answers and experiences regarding anything related to college, from college applications to college life.

As of mid-March, a quick Google search on “Yozamp Jeopardy WUSTL” yielded more than 1,800 hits.

In response to this sudden rush of fame, Yozamp has his reservations.

“I’m kind of a quiet guy, so the publicity I’ve been getting is not my cup of tea,” Yozamp said. “It has been flattering, though…I’m just glad that the initial rush of publicity has quieted down.”

While the number of phone calls and requests for interviews may have died down, how the fame and glory that he has attracted in the media affect the University’s publicity remains an interesting question that is being investigated.

The Office of Public Affairs was one of the first to probe into this question.

“We did a Google news search on this [win] after the show aired,” said Neil Schoenherr, associate editor of The Record in the Office of Public Affairs. “The story got a few dozen hits here in St. Louis and in Minnesota, where Nick is from.”

When the same search was repeated in mid-March, however, only one hit appeared because more time has passed since the show.

To account for this phenomenon, some point out that while there are numerous reports on Yozamp’s success, a one-time event does not necessarily leave lasting impacts on the University’s national visibility.

Steve Givens, associate vice chancellor and executive director of public affairs, found that publicity surrounding major events affecting the University is often short lived.

“Even when we host presidential debates, the visibility and publicity that we garner from such an effort is rather fleeting,” he said.

What truly affects the University’s long-term publicity, Givens added, is the intellectual capital of the institution—the research, knowledge and expertise that the faculty, researchers and students of the Danforth Campus and the Medical Campus embody.

The question of publicity is especially sensitive and pertinent to the many students who feel that the University lacks the name recognition of other institutions of similar academic caliber.

“I think Wash. U. could do more to increase the public perception of Wash. U. because many people have never heard of the school before,” freshman Adam Tsao said. “For those who are more academically inclined, they think Wash. U. is a great school, but for those who aren’t so involved in their academics, they have no clue.”

Despite the reservations about how a one-time event can affect an institution’s reputation as a whole, Yozamp remains optimistic and hopes that his story will introduce Washington University to some prospective students and families for the first time.

“It is well-documented that colleges that have won the national basketball title or national football title see an uptick in applications in the following admissions cycle,” Yozamp said. “Who knows? maybe Wash. U. will see an uptick in applications thanks to its ‘Jeopardy!’ title.”

Freshman Bennett Rosenblatt (center), Campus Kitchen Public Relations Officer, grabs some food during the Campus Kitchen kick-off reception. Wash. U.'s newly founded chapter of Campus Kitchen, an student-run operation, cooks salvaged food from Bon Appétit and delivers it to shelters in the St. Louis area. (Johann Qua Hiansen | Student Life)

Bam! After baking eggplant Parmesan, boiling greens and dicing melon, a group of Washington University students delivered food to The Shalom House—a special needs women’s shelter—and spent an afternoon eating and playing Jenga with the residents last Saturday.

This event was not a one-day volunteering endeavor. On the contrary, the event marked the inauguration of the University’s newly founded chapter of Campus Kitchen.

Beginning this semester, Wash. U. students can continue the service by volunteering to cook salvaged food, delivering it to shelters in St. Louis and eating with the clients they serve.

Instead of buying ingredients, Campus Kitchen only uses excess food salvaged from Bon Appétit and partner organizations such as Operation Food Search.

From the select ingredients procured, shift captains unleash their creativity and devise recipes, leading a group of 10 to 12 students to prepare a meal for about 40 people.

While the chapter founders originally had difficulty finding a place to cook on campus, they partnered with First Congregational Church, which has agreed to let Campus Kitchen use its industrial-sized kitchen.

Not only does First Congregational Church offer the necessary space and facilities, it is located right behind Hitzeman Hall and is a short walk from the South 40.

In addition to delivering the food to The Shalom House, student volunteers also deliver to Our Lady’s Inn, a shelter for pregnant women or women who have recently given birth. Both of these shelters are within 10 miles of the University.

Although Campus Kitchen launched its operation only last weekend, it has already received warm support from students.

Bennett Rosenblatt, a freshman who was attracted to the organization’s mission and now serves as a public relations officer, shared why he enjoyed Campus Kitchen at the kick-off reception.

“Cooking is a pretty popular thing­—a lot of people like to cook—so [people] can fuse their interest in cooking with actually helping people directly,” Rosenblatt said. “Why not just cook and help people out?”

Sophia Cinel, one of the shift captains for the kick-off delivery, also shared where she finds enjoyment in her involvement. “Not only can you cook the food for them, you get to go there and eat with the clients and interact with the clients and meet up with them, so you get really see what you get involved with and who you are helping,” Cinel said.

As of now, Campus Kitchen hosts two cooking shifts per week—one from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Wednesdays and one from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturdays—and two delivery shifts—one from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. on Thursdays and another from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays.

In the coming semesters, however, the leadership core is interested in adding an additional shift to accommodate the many students who have expressed an interest in volunteering for Campus Kitchen.

One of the most notable aspects of Campus Kitchen is that passionate students run the entire operation.

“Our entire operation is student-run,” said sophomore Catherine D’Antonio, president of Campus Kitchen. “Our students run our shifts, our students plan the shifts, our students deliver the food, our students cook the food. I love the empowerment that Campus Kitchen offers to students at Wash. U.”

D’Antonio spoke of her passion for the program: “I fell in love with Campus Kitchen probably in our training—during the first meal that we cooked. It was just the most fun thing.”

Stephanie Kurtzman, director of the Community Service Office, applauds the students’ initiative and places high hopes on this new organization.

“I am incredibly proud that they finally got to this place,” Kurtzman said. “I believe this is going to grow over time and become a staple and tradition at Wash. U. and become something that we can all be really proud of.”

To study the effects of HIV on the brain, Beau Ances, assistant professor of neurology at the Washington University School of Medicine, led a team of researchers measuring the rate of blood flow to the brain in 26 HIV-positive and 25 HIV-negative subjects using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) techniques.

According to Ances, researchers are interested in measuring the rate of blood flow because it is an indicator of one’s biological age.

Since blood carries and distributes necessities to fueling cellular processes such as oxygen and ions to different parts of the body, a faster rate of blood flow correlates with a higher metabolic rate and an enhanced ability to perform tasks and respond to environmental demands.

Blood flow decreases predictably with age, so researchers determined that that the rate of blood flow of HIV-positive subjects was equivalent to that of healthy individuals who were 15 to 20 years older.

This finding, however, does not necessarily indicate that those infected with HIV will have a shorter lifespan compared to their healthy counterparts.

“This [study] is only looking at one time point,” Ances said. “In order to get to really get to the heart of the matter, we need to follow people out for a number of years, and see if, yes, do their brains shrink a lot or change a lot, which then [would lead] to an increased chance of having bad things occur to them.”

While many studies on HIV have been conducted since the discovery of the virus in 1981, this study is unique because it analyzes the effects of the virus on the brain.

The brain, according to Ances, is also a logical area of investigation, because after the virus infects the host, it quickly travels to that organ and stays there for the rest of the host’s life, leaving footprints that are little known to the scientific realm.

“The issue is that we really don’t evaluate that many HIV-positive people by what is happening with their brains,” Ances said.

While the results are only preliminary thus far, researchers hope to ultimately use fMRI to evaluate the efficacy of various therapeutic options for HIV.

Currently, the conventional techniques used to diagnose HIV include analyzing a subject’s white blood cell count—the number of CD4 T cells, to be specific—performing a lumbar puncture and asking the subject to do a pencil-and-paper neuropsychological test.

These techniques may be able to detect the presence of HIV, but they are often time-consuming and invasive.

“If you had a test that was non-invasive, or took a couple of minutes to do—or even less—most people would love to do that [over] any of the other tasks,” Ances said. “The ultimate goal is to eventually have easier ways to access people with common techniques that are available at most MRI scanners.”

In addition to pioneering the forefronts of HIV research, Ances also strongly encourages interested undergraduate students to participate in this type of research, especially in projects that let them see the clinical, human part of the disease.

“If you are doing cell work, it is hard to put a face to the disease when it is multiple steps away,” Ances said. “It is easier to see it when you see a patient who has the disease and you take a picture of their brain.”

Last Thursday, Yozamp appeared on “Jeopardy! College Championship” on NBC, beating out representatives from other universities in the quarterfinal round.

Although he was second going into Final Jeopardy!, he correctly answered the question of who appeared on the cover of the 1946 Time magazine with the caption “All Matter is Speed and Flame.”

Nick Yozamp

When looking back at the competition, Yozamp remembered the intensity of the game.

“The quarterfinal episode that I competed in was very competitive,” he said. “We were all pretty evenly matched. It was a really good game on all fronts.”

Having won the quarterfinal game, Yozamp is guaranteed winnings of $5,000, and will move onto the semifinal round to compete for the $100,000 prize guaranteed for the winner of the tournament.

Three semifinal games will be broadcast from Monday to Wednesday on NBC at 3:30 Central time; the game that Yozamp plays in will be aired on Monday. The final rounds will be broadcast Thursday and Friday.

Yozamp’s passion for “Jeopardy!” began when he started watching the show at around the age of 6 at his grandparents’ house. He was so captivated by the game that he asked for a “Jeopardy!” computer game for Christmas when he was 8.

Although correct answers were few and far between when he first began practicing the game, he continued playing, regularly watching the show and participating in Knowledge Bowl throughout middle and high school.

Gradually, he built up that encyclopedic knowledge and quiz-game acumen that would later carry him onto the very show itself.

Last August, Yozamp took a 50-question online diagnostic test offered by “Jeopardy!” and began his journey to the podium. After that performance, Yozamp was invited to an audition in Chicago in October.

After taking another 50-question test, playing a mock “Jeopardy!” game and being interviewed by the contestant coordinators, he was notified in December that he qualified to compete in the quarterfinal game.

Saying that Yozamp was excited would be an understatement.

“Since late high school or early college, it has been my ultimate goal in life to be on ‘Jeopardy!’—that was the main thing I wanted to do,” Yozamp said. “I’m just surprised that it happened so quickly.”

Yozamp said he enjoys every part of the game.

“I like the trivia aspect of it, learning knowledge in a lot of different fields,” he said. “What really appeals to me is just the breadth of the information on the show…The competitive aspect is also really fun. Everything about it is just really cool.”

Unsurprisingly, Yozamp’s family and friends are very proud of his accomplishment and are supportive in his trivia-related strives.

“I think that winning his quarterfinal game was an amazing feat,” said junior Alyssa Moller, Yozamp’s friend. “I am very excited to tune in on Monday for his semifinal game and see if he advances to the finals. Go Nick!”

While Yozamp is proud of his accomplishment, he also believes that others can do it as well. His advice to other “Jeopardy!” aspirants: “Keep at it—take the online tests when they are offered. Who knows, maybe you will do well enough, make it to the auditions and make it on ‘Jeopardy!’ If I can do it, other people can do it too.”

The next online “Jeopardy!” test for college students will be offered at 8 p.m. on Tuesday. Interested students can go to www.jeopardy.com, make an account and register for the test.

In addition to Yozamp, three other students have also represented Washington University in prior competitions on “Jeopardy!”: quarterfinalist Ericka Hayes in 1993, semifinalist Arianna Haut in 2002, and second runner-up Jayanth Iyengar in 2006.

Together, these symptoms come together under the umbrella term “cognitive fluctuations,” which is a spontaneous alteration in cognition, attention and arousal, as defined by the study. In layman’s terms, these syndromes are known as mental lapses or “brain farts.”

While prior studies have associated cognitive fluctuations with Lewy Body Disease, a type of dementia closely allied to both Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, the impact of this phenomenon on healthy brain aging and Alzheimer disease was unknown.

To probe into the relationship between cognitive fluctuations and Alzheimer’s, James Galvin, associate professor of neurology and psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine, director of the Memory Diagnostic Center and member of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, pioneered a study along with his colleagues Adriana Escandon and Noor Al-Hammadi.

In the study, 511 research participants of age 78.1, plus or minus 8 years, were evaluated for the presence and severity of dementia using the Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) and a neuropsychological test at the Washington University Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center.

Furthermore, the research participants also filled out informant assessments of fluctuations with the Mayo Fluctuations Questionnaire and day level of alertness with the Mayo Sleep Questionnaire.

Through this combination of assessments, researchers found that while only 0.7 percent of non-demented older adults had cognitive fluctuations, up to 15 percent of Alzheimer’s patients displayed such phenomenon.

After controlling for age and alertness level, researchers also found that participants with cognitive fluctuations were 4.6 times more likely to have dementia.

Although Galvin acknowledges that the presence of these fluctuations may be a normal sign of aging, he suggests that mental lapses are positively correlated with dementia.

“If you have these lapses, they don’t by themselves mean that you have Alzheimer’s disease [because] such lapses do occur in healthy older adults,” Galvin said. “But our results suggest that they are something your doctor needs to consider if he or she is evaluating you for problems with thinking and memory.”

The result of this study is significant because mental lapses have been commonly attributed to incipient Alzheimer’s disease.

“We have demonstrated for the first time that such episodes are more likely to occur in persons who are developing Alzheimer’s disease,” Galvin said.

While the study revealed some mysteries about Alzheimer’s, it also raised some questions.

“It is not yet known if the small number of non-demented older adults who experience fluctuations will go on to develop cognitive impairment,” Galvin said. “We hope to address this with longitudinal follow-up.”

In addition to following up on adults with elevated levels of cognitive fluctuations, Galvin hopes to study further these mental lapses from different angles, such as imaging strategies, to better identify treatment strategies.

Another route of research is to examine the alteration in brain function in individuals with fluctuations. To do so, Galvin plans to observe the changes in resting blood oxygen levels using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

While many studies are necessary to reach a more definitive conclusion, Galvin is optimistic about the current findings.

“Given the strong influence fluctuations have on cognitive performance, it is possible that fluctuations could serve as an infrequent, but important clinical marker for dementia,” Galvin wrote.

As recently reported in The New York Times, 75 percent of college instructors were full-time tenured or tenure-track professors in 1960, but only 27 percent are today. The rest of the instructors are hired part-time as graduate students, or adjunct and contingent faculty.

While this trend toward hiring fewer tenure-track faculties is observed across the nation, one of the most notable shifts is that at public four-year colleges and universities. From 1997 to 2007, tenured and tenure-track faculty members from these institutions have dwindled from slightly more than 50 percent to less than 40 percent of instructional faculty, according to a study released by the American Federation of Teachers.

Over the last 20 years, Washington University has run opposite to this trend. The number of tenured and tenure-track faculty has grown by about 27 percent, from 508 to 644, and the number of adjunct faculty has also grown by about 26 percent.

But the number of full-time non-tenure track faculty saw a significant rise over the same 20-year period, more than doubling from 189 to 398 on the Danforth Campus.

Growth in number

of non-tenured faculty

Edward Macias, provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs at Washington University, attributes this trend to the “growth of less commonly taught languages, which benefit from specialized language experts.” An expansion of artists and writers in residence, Macias adds, also contributed to the demand for part-time faculties, as the curriculum in creative writing and performing and studio arts has grown.

Since its establishment in the early 1900s, tenure has been an invaluable protection for those serving in the academia because it guarantees that “faculty members, after successful completion of a period of probationary service, can be dismissed only for adequate cause or other possible circumstances and only after a hearing before a faculty committee,” according to the American Association of University Professors.

The job security that accompanies tenure allows individuals to pursue their academic passions and speak out, even when their theories or data dissent from prevailing opinion.

While some students and parents are concerned that contingent faculty and graduate students may not provide as engaging instructional experience as tenured or tenure-tracked professors can, others disagree.

As Joseph Loewenstein, professor of English at Washington University, points out, these teachers can often offer comparable instruction instruction.

“Because graduate students have usually taken courses from tenured and tenure-track faculty, there is often a very high degree of shared method—shared interests and concerns,” Loewenstein said.

Some students also agree that they do not pay much attention to the instructors’ qualifications as long as they can stimulate students intellectually.

“I don’t really mind how old my teachers are or what backgrounds they come from as long as they can teach,” freshman Weina Dai said.

Another benefit of adjunct faculties and graduate students teaching is that these faces tend to bring a special enthusiasm and energy to the classroom.

In addition to noting the enthusiasm that new teachers bring, Loewenstein claimed that the smaller age difference between undergraduate and graduate students facilitates student-faculty interactions, opens up classroom discussions, and fosters a positive learning environment.

Since these teachers often teach the same courses repeatedly, “they can sometimes develop a remarkable and valuable skill and feeling for those particular courses, so they often bring a very special set of skills to the class,” he said.

Not only do students benefit from instruction from adjunct faculties and graduate students, the instructors learn and often enjoy the experience as well.

For example, Heidi Pennington, a second-year graduate student at Washington University who has been a TA in the Films and Media Studies program and an instructor of the Writing 1 program, shares her valuable and enjoyable teaching experience.

“My teaching experience at Wash. U. is a great benefit to me in my pedagogical and academic development,” Pennington said. “I believe that my training as a Ph.D. student absolutely requires the ability to be an effective educator at the college level, and I have been able to develop my skills as an instructor through my semesters teaching here at Wash. U.”

While there is no clear direction of how the trend will evolve in the future, the tenure issue is gaining increasing attention from students, faculty members and professional societies.

As Macias said, “This is not a new issue, but I think the dialogue will continue.”

Chancellor Mark Wrighton speaks at the State of the University in April. (Matt Mitgang | Student Life)

Student Life conducted an interview with Chancellor Mark Wrighton after the most recent quarterly meeting of the board of directors on Friday. The discussion involved a review of major events that occurred during the semester. Wrighton commented on the growth of the endowment this quarter, upcoming budget cuts, the debate surrounding clean coal, recent ethical controversies, the University’s position on “don’t ask, don’t tell,” the racial discrimination incident at Original Mothers bar in Chicago, and his favorite Michael Jackson song.

Mark Wrighton: Let me just quickly summarize the meeting, and then you can ask me some questions. I’ve made a big mistake in the meeting; I didn’t look at my Blackberry, like I often do in meetings, to find out that at half-time we were winning one to nothing, but on the way here, I just found out that we were tied five minutes ago. So, we’re hoping that we break that tie before the end of regulation play so that we are in the national championship. But I did note to the Board that we were playing at the time that I was giving my remarks, when we were just starting.

But I summarized a number of activities on campus, and initiatives and such, but the Board, at the December meeting, which is the second meeting of the academic year, elected a trustee that is Ethan A.H. Shepley Trustee, and that person is Andrea Grant, a double alumnae of the university from Arts and Sciences and from Law, and her Board service begins now. The first meeting would be in March—the first regular meeting.
And there are a number of things here, but that was one of the key action items. Another key action item related to candidates was appointment or promotion to tenured faculty positions. We had some candidates for those posts, and we also introduced a resolution on the setting of tuition, which is a process that concludes next month with meeting of the executive committee in terms of decision, and then a letter goes to the students and their families later in January.

The big agenda item for the Board in terms of substance for discussion really are plans to deal with the fiscal challenges for next year. At a committee meeting yesterday—the Board committee that is responsible for this—voted to reduce endowment spending by 4%, so university-wide, that is about $10 million reduced in revenue, and that is a complication that we knew about, even though the endowment has recovered quite significantly since July 1. We still feel it would be prudent to reduce spending by 4% next year; that is on top of 4% for the year we’re in. So we spent a fair amount of time—about a little over half an hour, I believe—talking with the Board about the financial planning next year.

Student Life: Since the endowment is down, is it still shrinking?

MW: Well, since July 1st through the end of November, we estimate that the endowment has increased by 13+ percent. We will spend, roughly speaking, 5%. So if we spent the 5% and ended up with the 13% gain, the endowment growth would be 8%. After the first quarter it was up 10%, so if you multiply that by four, we’d be up by 40% then—I’d be happy, but then it is a long year. And with all the certainty in the economy it would be premature to even count on a 13% total return on the investments. We obviously hope for that.

SL: Are there layoffs ahead?

MW: We’re going to be announcing, more broadly, the results of all our financial planning in the month of January, most likely. We have made all the firm decisions about where reductions will occur, but right now, we’re looking at, in just say the central administration, something like $7 million of reductions, and that’s a pretty significant number. But we’ve been working with people; we have some open positions that will not be filled. We’ll obviously try to minimize the consequences. We think that the administration does something, and if you cut, you’ll do less. And what we are trying to do is to, on the one hand, make the reductions we need to be fiscally responsible and also to prepare ourselves for years ahead that we think are not going to be robust in terms of large rates of growth of revenue. It is a different world. If it happens, as I said to the Board, we’ve got these great plans, and if new resources come along to support them, we’ll do new things, and we are doing new things as resources become available. Our scholarship initiative, for example, is an effort that can build resources.

SL: On another note, the University announced over the summer that it is closing the Center for the Study of Ethics and Human values at the end of the year. Meanwhile, University faculty members Jeff Smith and Timothy Kuklo drew national attention this semester for unethical actions; Smith for lying about his role in producing illegal campaign literature, Kuklo for falsifying data in a medical study. How do these events reflect on the state of ethics at Washington University?

MW: We have to reflect that we’re an institution populated by people, with all that that implies. All people exhibit shortfalls. It is regrettable people in positions of prominence and in positions of responsibility exhibit such short falls. You imply a relationship between the closing of the Center for the Study of Ethics and Human Values and fact that we had these shortfalls. I believe that it is the case that the transgressions of these individuals would not have been materially affected by whether or not we had a center in the first place, or whether we closed it, or added 20 million dollars to its budget. I think we have, in fact, a very strong community. We have a very strong culture of what I call—what we call—compliance, that is, an environment where people are informed about the policies of the university, and we have systems in place to review whether we are in compliance. I think, overall, we’re very strong in those regards.

Unfortunately, the constraints we face physically are going to affect all parts of the university. I said we’re reducing expenditure in the central administration, what we called the Central Fiscal Unit. The schools of the Danforth campus will also be experiencing, if not outright reductions, they will be slowing their development of new initiatives, slowing or lowering the number of faculty hired, so everybody will be operating with more financial constraints.

Unlike Student Life, my administration’s paper goes out of print after the December 10th issue. I’m told that will save 87 thousand dollars. I’m also told that there are individuals that are upset that they won’t have a printed Record, but we believe that it is the right decision in the long-term. The transition will be hard. I know people who don’t have computers—it might be hard for you to believe—but people who are fairly sophisticated, and when they do, they don’t read newspaper on them. We’re going to be doing a number of things that, you know, are not necessarily the most desirable things for us to be doing. But I don’t think the closing of the Center for Ethics and Human Values is the major contributor to a culture that I believe is quite robust with high integrity and a commitment to this community’s values and policies.

SL: What effect do these controversies around ethics have on students? On the University as a whole?

MW: I think the institution has broad shoulders—it’s a saying. Obviously, it’s not a positive on our reputation, but these are transgressions of individuals. I think for our part it’s disappointing, sad in a way—disappointing certainly, and for people who know the positive qualities of people who have made mistakes, it’s difficult. So nobody enjoys seeing a person who is found to have made these mistakes and I think for students, many of whom perhaps would have today aspirations not unlike Jeff Smith—people may have looked to him as a role model. We see oftentimes people who are our role models not quite living up to our expectations or the expectations that have somehow surrounded them and those shortcomings have unfortunately been, you know, have involved high profile individuals at the highest levels of the United States government, in the clergy, here in the academia, and certainly in the business world. So it’s something that I think we need to take seriously and we need to encourage a culture of integrity, and I think that we do. And a lot of our academic programs have these components as a part of the curriculum.

SL: One of the really significant events for students this semester was the incident of alleged racial discrimination at Original Mother’s Bar in Chicago. In response to this, you sent a letter to Chicago’s Mayor Daley, and you wrote that the experience of our students reveals “we have much work to do to achieve true racial equality in this country.” Have you heard back from Mayor Daley?

MW: No, I have not. I would have expected at least a courtesy response, something to the effect of: “I have received your letter; we will review what you have written”. You know, something that probably would have come pretty quickly and something in that vein, with no promises, but basically, an acknowledgement of the letter. I do have to say, I am extremely proud of our students, who conducted themselves in a way that makes me very proud to be a part of Washington University. And for the University, I think it frankly led to some very positive attention, and people have come to me about it. It’s been great to see our students conduct themselves so effectively at a time when it could have been emotional. I wasn’t there myself, but I know we had a large number of students there and I thought they responded extraordinarily well. And in the aftermath I think they conducted themselves well, and as I understand it, the outcome in connection with those responsible for that bar have made some commitments that I think will contribute to making their business better.

SL: And what is the University doing to achieve racial equality both here and more broadly in the community and the country?

MW: I think one of the most important things that an academic institution can do is to work hard to have a very inclusive environment as a community, which welcomes people and provides great opportunities. One of your headlines today is socioeconomic diversity. I haven’t read the article, but I saw it, as featured on my Blackberry. I think in an academic institution, and especially even though we are constrained, we should know that we are a wealthy institution. We have $5 billion in the bank, and that’s a lot of money. So we can afford to be proactive in recruiting people from all backgrounds. It’s not just counting noses. It’s really bringing to all members of the community the benefits of diversity. Washington University Students are destined to be leaders. That’s your potential. You’ll be leaders of organizations which are diverse, and it’s important to build a good understanding of all the people you’re going to be working with. I think here I’ve interacted with students who have told me, for example, a Midwestern young woman said to me ‘I came to Washington University and I’d never met anyone who’s Jewish.’ Well, they’d probably never been to New York, which has a very large Jewish population. But also the way we assign housing, you know people living together. We had a presentation at the Board meeting today on the McDonnell International Scholars academy. One of the committees, the committee on educational policy, and Professor Jim Werch, who is the director of the academy, he said ‘We’re building a network of people who get to know each other while they are here, and to understand the different cultures that they themselves represent.’ And you may know that there is tension at times between Japan and Korea. In the McDonnell academy we have partners in Japan, we have partners in Korea, and we have scholars from both countries, and we have a Japanese scholar who has a roommate from Korea. And I think that helps build better relationships and inasmuch as we say, and we hope, they emerge as global leaders, they can help over time address differences that have in the past, at least, created big conflict. And we know in America that racism exists, as evidenced by what went on in Chicago, and I think by having students here interacting with each other from many different backgrounds, that will be a positive in their education. So I think there are a lot of ways that we can help out. And I’ve pointed out to the Board that we’re not, for example, in this time of constraint diminishing our commitment, resolve, resources in our effort to strengthen diversity. That remains a very high priority.

SL:  Many students have criticized the administration’s position on clean coal, especially as relates to its appointment of two new Board members from prominent coal energy corporations and its hosting of an energy conference in support of clean coal. How do you respond to students critical of the University’s stance on clean coal?

MW: Well, first of all, the administration doesn’t appoint the Board of trustees. As was the case today, the Board elects its own members. So as Chancellor, I’m not a voting member of the Board. It is true that I can suggest people to be considered, and the process is one that involves a committee of the Board, the Nominating and Governance committee of the Board, receiving suggestions from people in the administration or other Board members, and there’s a fairly long list of people. The Board looks to recruit new members who will bring the three things we expect of Board group members: Work, wisdom, and wealth. At least two of the three. It’s kind of a funny saying, it’s from Vartan Gregorian, who was at the time he said it I think the president of Brown University. Board members of Washington University come from all parts of America. We look for people who are from major population centers. We look for Board members who are in positions of responsibility where they would have the experience that doesn’t guarantee wisdom, but experience that perhaps suggests that they would have that. Greg Boyce, who is the executive office of Peabody Energy, is by background an engineer and the chief executive officer of the world’s largest privately held coal company. Steve Leer—Greg Boyce is not an alumnus of the University—Steve Leer is a business alumnus of the university, and the CEO of another very large coal company, companies which happen to be headquartered in St. Louis, and companies that are going to be arguably extremely important to the future of the United States. They are major employers, they have major technical challenges, and therefore, they would appear to be in positions to give us guidance on how to address those technical challenges. They are, their companies, are our partners.

So let’s talk about the conference. I don’t rule on who’s a member of the Board. I can’t even overrule. They’re all my bosses. But it isn’t like a corporate board. A not-for-profit board has the interests of the institution. They are the owners of the institution while they’re board members, and they have the responsibility- they have two very important responsibilities. One is to oversee the assets of the university. We talked a little bit about the endowment. That’s a big responsibility of the Board. That’s their responsibility. I don’t tell them how to invest the endowment, the way it works is they say, as they did yesterday, ‘Here’s how much money we’re going to authorize to be given to the administration.’ And what I’m supposed to do is to use the money as wisely as possible. Oversight of the physical assets and the financial assets, that’s a Board responsibility.

The other responsibility is the review the performance of the Chancellor and to select the Chancellor if there’s a need to make a transition. So every year they review my performance, and could say, you know, ‘July 1, you’re done.’ I stand for election every year. And then, in large measure, they abdicate the administration to me, and I recommend to them University officers, and the deans. The University officers are the people who have the title Vice Chancellor, Treasurer, and Secretary to the Board. All of us, Chancellor and all those officers, stand for reelection every year.

But in terms of the actual operations of the University, for first order they say ‘OK, you’re the CEO, you’ve got your officers and your deans, you run the show and we’ll keep an eye on you.’ So some would imply, for example, that two Board members could say, ‘You know, you guys, you have to advocate for coal.’ Virtually never, I would say never, I’ve been here 15 years, no board member has ever said to me, ‘You know, you ought to have this policy.’ We propose policy to them, and they approve or not. And we have no policy on energy. I will state that categorically.

Let me say that again: we have no policy as an institution on whether coal is good or solar is good. The symposium that we convened stems from my involvement as vice-chairman of a national research council committee on America’s energy future. The committee, not Mark Wrighton but the committee, came up with a collection of findings, and if you haven’t read the report you can check this out, but at this meeting I gave a quick overview of the findings. And I emphasized two things, which, now this is Mark Wrighton’s opinion, not the University’s policy. The committee found that there’s a great opportunity in improving energy efficiency. We can reduce the consumption of energy, and especially electrical energy, by deploying known technology. You don’t have to do research, just implement this technology. And yet it costs money. But we say, and this is a University operational activity, wherever we can, we’re making capital investments to reduce the amount of energy we consume. If you’re familiar, we’ve renovated Busch hall here on the quadrangle. We redid the building so that, at least by our reckoning, we should get LEED certification at the silver level. And we deployed capital to reduce energy and we think it’s good because we’re going to save money. That is, our operating expenses on an ongoing basis will be lower. Let’s say for the sake of argument we spent a million dollars to improve the energy efficiency. We believe that in four years, we’ll be saving $250,000 a year in operations. Now that’s 10 average scholarship awards. And it isn’t over in 4 years, that’s going on into the future and we believe – no proof – energy prices will go up. I happen to believe that prices will go up over the long term. So that’s one thing I said.

The second thing I said at the symposium—I said a lot of things. But I emphasized the other big finding and again, my own opinion. The big finding is that coal is a very large resource the United States and many parts of the world. And our committee observed that carbon dioxide is a problem that we have to address. And if coal is to be a part of the future—today it’s 50% of US electricity, 85% of Missouri’s electricity—but if this is to continue to be a part of the future, and you’re worried about CO2, as many people are, than you have to be able to demonstrate at utility plant scale that there’s a technology that you can afford to capture and store carbon dioxide.

So I advocated for that demonstration project. I didn’t tell you I think coal is what we should be using. I believe in fact it was a mistake, if you listen to other things I say, it was a mistake for Missouri to not do something proactive that would have encouraged Ameren to build another nuclear power plant here. By basically making it difficult for Ameren to build the nuclear power plant, we have no option other than the combustion of coal, so we have to learn to work with it in a way that will not add to the detrimental consequences from CO2, and that’s to develop technology to deal with it. I’m a scientist. I’ve actually done a fair amount of work in energy conversion—fuel cells, solar energy conversion, catalysis—so I’m familiar with the language at least, I haven’t done anything important in at least 15 years in the actual science. But my own favorite, frankly, is solar and I said this at the meeting. There’s a huge super abundance of solar energy, we just have to capture it and that’s a fundamental research activity that I think we should be involved in. And we are. The largest grant ever to the Danforth campus came from the Dept. of Energy in April for work on photosynthesis. It’s a little more—they’ve decorated it more in their title, but it’s photosynthesis work that would give fundamental understanding that could help you use plants as models or actually use plants to generate fuel and that’s renewable. So I’m for it. But coal is with us today and our committee observes that renewables are likely in the next 10 years, which is a part of our charge, what’s going to happen in a decade, that renewables, much as we would like them perhaps to be a bigger part, they’re not going to be a big part of the energy picture for the United States in fractional terms. But wouldn’t you like to have the company that generates 1% of US electricity? You’d be affluent and influential. You could be a member of the board of trustees. But we know that it’s very hard to get to a new energy technology that delivers a significant fraction of US electricity. Moreover, we know as a matter of fact, it’s not what we wish or want necessarily but we know as a matter of fact that the developing world, especially China and India, are today deploying old technology, at best current technology, that uses much more coal tomorrow than they’re using today. And it’s almost literally tomorrow. Missouri has a population of roughly 5 million people. China has a population of over a billion. And there are many parts of China that don’t have access to the amount of energy that we do, and yet they’re growing rapidly. China became the largest producer of automobiles in the world last year, over a million automobiles per month. No exports. All domestic. So China, with 80% of their electrical energy from coal, with a prediction that it will still be 80% 10 years from now. Don’t we have a moral responsibility, not only to the United States but to the rest of the world, to work to develop technologies that will work to mitigate the consequences of the combustion from all that coal? That’s why we’re working on clean coal. I mean our, it isn’t something that I’m sitting in my office and I’m saying ‘Hm, we’ve got these big companies, let’s advocate for coal.’ We’re using coal. The rest of the world is going to use coal. There’s a lot of it and our faculty—not Mark Wrighton, I didn’t do coal research, I did solar energy—but our faculty said ‘We have some ideas that we’d like to pursue, do you think Arch Coal and Peabody Energy and Ameren would be willing to fund our research?’ Well those companies, obviously, they have a vested interest in clean coal and they’re investing. And the biggest investments are not in fact with us. Peabody Energy, for example, is investing in China more money than they’re investing with us…

We’re going to be announcing some ambitions in terms of the university operations that relate to the consumption of energy, but overall, we don’t have a position on what’s the best technology. And going back to our committee, I was the messenger at this meeting, not the policymaker, not speaking about whatever we’re going to do, but the committee—properly, in my view; since I’m vice chair I had my say in that—said ‘You know, we’re going to have a whole bunch of energy technologies, and all that are sensible will be used. Wind, geothermals, solar, photovoltaic, hot water from sunlight—everything is going to be used that makes sense.’ And it’s two words: makes sense. We might be able to take carbon dioxide from coal fired power plants and store it, but if it costs more than some number, it’s a losing proposition and it would make coal more expensive than, say, photovoltaics with storage, you know, with electrical storage, like batteries. You have to do what’s technologically feasible and economically viable.

And one other thing about the symposium, because I think you’d written that we didn’t have anything but coal on the agenda. We had a prominent presentation by—two presentations by outstanding women. Maxine Sabbots gave the keynote talk on energy efficiency, and we had Martha Schlicker of Monsanto, who is Vice President for Biofuels, a renewal energy, and we had an Ameren utility representative. Utilities are basically the people who convert one form of energy into electricity. They don’t have a dog in the hunt either, so to speak. They’d be happy for photovoltaics, and they’re under some mandate to do more in that arena. And we had a policy leader from the Brookings Institution. We had two people from coal, but two of the largest coal companies in the world are here, and we’re their partner.

SL: Students have decried a lack of student input in administrative decisions over the last year. In particular, students have criticized the university’s implementation of a smoking ban without student input and its investment of the endowment in a non-transparent manner. What is students’ role in administrative decision-making?

MW: Well, the board has the responsibility for the endowment. So it’s not a lack of transparency, I don’t actually know what the students would like to know more about. And yet, it’s a board responsibility. We have no secrets. We’re not secretly investing in Cuban companies that make cigars and sell them, while we’re introducing a smoking ban. There’s no—the board has formed an internal company called the Washington University Investment Management Company. The chairman of the board is the former chairman and chief executive officer of the country’s largest pension fund, TIAA-CREF, that’s John Biggs, and we hired to be the Chief Investment Officer a woman by the name of Kim Walker, and there’s a small board on this investment management company, and they oversee the investment of the endowment. They take their cues in part from what’s called the Asset Management Committee, which is another Board of Trustees committee, that sets the spending rule.

Do you have a savings account somewhere? If I said to you, ‘You can spend 10% per year,’ do you think you could keep your savings at that level by making wise investments? I bet you can’t. That’s what the experts say. I’m not an expert, but that’s what the experts say. You can’t spend 10% of your endowment and be safe, and have some high probability that you’ll still have your savings account. There are risky investments that promise you high returns. If you want high returns, you have high risk. And we try to—here’s our goal: Whatever spending from the endowment, we have the goal that the buying power grows a little bit with time. So that means whatever we take out every year, we’d like to be able to increase it at least by inflation plus a little bit. And that’s our goal. So what’s your guess about inflation? It’s maybe 3%. We’d also like to be spending about 5%. So that means 3% plus 5%, that’s 8% total return. And our historic return is 9%. But if you took out 10%, just to spend it, you’d soon run your endowment down or you’d be in such risky investments that in a time like we’ve experienced in the last 15 months, the endowment would be gone. So we have professionals who look at all that—there are no secrets. IN fact, it’s sort of like watching paint dry, you know, it’s not that interesting. We don’t actually—there’s no one—I have to be careful, because I’m not intimately involve din it, but I don’t think we have people who are getting the annual reports of publicly traded companies and saying, ‘I think we ought to invest in Monsanto,’ or Peabody energy, or any other company. The work is done with investment managers, and it’s key to listen to the strategy of these investment managers and then to hire them and then say, ‘We’ll give you $200 million dollars of our endowment, and we’re going to be watching you. How did you perform?’ And it’s financial. I don’t know how to be more transparent, but ask me any question.

What was the other thing—oh the smoking. Yeah. Completely an administration decision, and the right one. Completely black-and-white. Why should we form a committee when we know what the answer is? Washington University was a forefront institution in terms of relating smoking and lung cancer. That was years ago, and over time there’s been an extraordinarily compelling science case for eliminating the use of tobacco products, and I think it’s the right thing. Even secondhand smoke has been proven to be a challenge to public health. SO here we are, an institution at the forefront of medical science, and I think we shouldn’t permit smoking on our property. So I’ll take the spears on that one.

SL: Moving on, the University recently began a search for a new dean for the engineering school. First of all, when will we have a new dean?

MW: July 1st.

SL: And how will this dean be different from the last?

MW: Don’t know yet. We’ll see who it is. Ask me that question in the process. Provost Macias is responsible for conducting that process. It’s just been launched and we’re focusing our search on internal search, by that I mean a person from the academic community of Washington University. In a time like this, I think it would be a little harder to effect a transition from outside, and I think we really need a person that understands us.

SL: Are there specific qualities that you have in mind that would be different form what we had before?

MW: I think our expectation is what we look for for all our academic leaders, people who have themselves a demonstrated record of academic achievement. In this position, of course, we would want evidence of administrative experience and effectiveness overall, a person who can not be overly frustrated by a constrained economic environment, which we know we’re going to have. I’ve been, as I noted before, I’ve been here about 15 years, and we never had a year where we had no compensation increases materially, and where we had a downturn in the endowment. Al the years I’ve been here the endowment always went up until the year we’re in. And you know, that can be very, it is very disappointing, but you don’t want to let it cripple you. Our challenge continues to be the need to be the institution that seems to be and actually is on the move. And I think we can do that. I’m sure you noticed if you have friends at other institutions—they have big problems, bigger than ours.

SL: The student-led gay rights movement The Right Side of History has made LGBT civil rights a major political issue on campus this year. The leader of the movement, David Dresner, has asked University deans to send letters to students explaining why the University allows military recruiters on campus despite the military’s policy of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, which conflicts with the University’s non-discrimination policy. This came one year after the university began an annual James Holobaugh LGBT awards ceremony, which honors the legacy of an ROTC military cadet who was discharged from the military after he came out as gay. What is the university’s position on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell?

MW: I’ve been involved in this issue since I was provost at MIT, which actually has ROTC programs with the Navy, the Air Force and, I think, the Army. I may be wrong on that, but I’ve had a fair amount of experience. My father was in the US navy, career navy man, so I know something about how the military works. There is no evidence that sexual orientation has anything to do with performance, meaning that gays or lesbians are going to perform just as any other person. And the military understands that. I think the military is prepared to change their policy. Unfortunately, I think political leaders are frankly not as understanding of the reality here. And I think I would strongly like to see the United States change its policy. And there are a couple of ways to do that. The president of the United States could order it, in principle. And I think President Clinton was trying to find a path that didn’t create so much political problems that he couldn’t move forward. The Congress could vote and change that policy for the Defense Department, and the courts could, in principle, do something, according to my understanding. So I’m hopeful that the policy will be changed. I believe it should be. And there is a conflict between Washington University’s view and policy and my view, and that of the U.S. government. It’s a problem that we’ve been working on for quite some time. I think there’s growing understanding, and you hear that from military leaders or former military leaders, people who are, I believe, in a very good position to know, and I believe that over time the government will change its policy.

SL: Can we ask you a fun one on the way out?

MW: A fun one?

SL: What is your favorite Michael Jackson song?

MW: Name a few to remind me of them.

SL: Thriller, Billie Jean, Beat It, Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough.

MW: I’d have to hear them. I didn’t listen that much to Michael Jackson. My wife accuses me of just having been in the laboratory too long.

(Brittany Meyer | Student Life)

The average household income of a Washington University undergraduate student is around $180,000, according to a recent survey of 520 undergraduates conducted by Washington University Students for Undergraduate Socioeconomic Diversity.

The survey also found that many University students self-identify in social classes lower than the ones in which members of the group (WU/FUSED) classify them.

According to group co-chair senior Fernando Cutz, WU/FUSED uses U.S. Census Bureau data to define “lower class” as the 15 percent of Americans who make the least amount of money, “middle class” as the middle 70 percent, and “upper class” as the top 15 percent. Based on 2006 census data, WU/FUSED defines students from households with an income greater than $104,000 as upper class.

By this definition, 44 percent of University students are upper class, but only 8.3 percent of students self-identify as such, according to the survey.

“This shows that socio-economic diversity is not only severely lacking at Wash. U. as compared to our society at large (and as compared to other universities around the country), but that we as a student body aren’t adequately aware of this or of our own place in this,” Cutz wrote in an e-mail.

According to James Morley, associate professor of economics, comparing the average household income of University students with the national average can be misleading. Morley said a better comparison would be between the average undergraduate household and the average household with children going to college.

“The national average covers a huge range of different types of households, including retirees, younger families,” Morley said. “Typically, household income is highest—in the life-cycle sense—when people are middle-aged and when their children are around college-aged.”

The survey also found that while only 52 percent of students self-identify as “upper middle class,” 76 percent believe the average University student falls under this category.

In other words, many students self-identify in a class lower than the one they perceive to be the average social class of University students.

(Brittany Meyer | Student Life)

The survey was conducted using the online survey tool StudentVoice. Students were recruited for the survey through e-mails sent out to the student body by class presidents.

The survey drew roughly 60 percent female and 40 percent male respondents from all four years, with about 25 percent sophomores and seniors, 33 percent freshmen and 17 percent juniors. Respondents were given the opportunity to check multiple ethnicities in the survey, and out of 520 responses, the students identified as 65 percent white/Caucasian, 13 percent Asian, 9 percent black/African American and 5 percent Hispanic.

WU/FUSED members on socioeconomic diversity

Members of WU/FUSED say they want to stimulate conversations about socioeconomic diversity on campus.

“I think that ‘socioeconomic’ is sometimes a taboo to talk about anywhere, and so the issue of socioeconomic diversity is not touched by the administration and by the students, but it is a very important aspect of diversity,” said sophomore Kirsten Miller, a WU/FUSED member.

Some suggest that the University’s steep tuition label deters students from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds from applying.

“The sticker shock is something that scares students a lot,” said senior Chase Sackett, co-chair of WU/FUSED. “But for most of these private institutions like Washington University, it is actually cheaper for the average student to attend one of these schools because of the financial aid, which students are often not aware of.”

In an effort to increase socioeconomic diversity at the University, WU/FUSED plans to educate high school students about financial options and work with organizations such as Student Financial Services to make the University seem more welcoming to these students.

“By making it comfortable enough an institution that they can come and ask questions and actually apply, that’s the first step to actually increase socioeconomic diversity on campus,” said sophomore Betel Ezaz, WU/FUSED member.

Beyond targeting students from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds, WU/FUSED also aspires to raise awareness about socioeconomic diversity among the entire student body.

In addition to conducting the survey, WU/FUSED will connect with cultural, religious and international student groups and service groups such as Lock & Chain, Alpha Phi Omega and Each One Teach One to promote awareness about socioeconomic diversity.

“Our goal is really to reach out to other groups and try to co-sponsor events so that we are reaching a broader segment of our campus than us by ourselves can reach,” Cutz said.

With many future plans ahead, WU/FUSED shares the inspiration for and the importance of their endeavor.

“Sometimes it is hard to make people care about an issue, but the first step is to make sure that they are aware,” Ezaz said. “Awareness can pique interest and start the conversation we need on campus.”

Morley supports the efforts of WU/FUSED, saying: “There is a danger of too little diversity; college can become a bubble where people don’t see the full extent of the economic struggles that the broader population is going through, especially at a time like now with the recent severe economic recession.”

(Brittany Meyer | Student Life)

The median compensation of private university presidents increased 5.5 percent in the 2007-2008 fiscal year, up to $627,750, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education’s annual executive compensation survey. The survey’s data came from federal tax documents released before the economic downturn. In light of the economy, many private university presidents have frozen their salaries or, in the case of Washington University Chancellor Mark Wrighton, taken voluntary pay cuts.

The CHE survey, which included the presidents of 419 colleges and universities, found that the median pay of private university presidents in 2007-2008 was $358,746, a 6.5 percent increase from the previous year. Pay is defined as salaries, fees, bonuses, severance payments and deferred compensation. Compensation is defined as pay plus benefits, which include health and pension plans.

Over the previous five years, the median presidential pay, adjusted for inflation, grew by 14 percent.

To explain the nationwide increase in college presidents’ pay and compensation, Wrighton said that presidents’ salaries reflect the increasingly demanding and complex nature of their jobs. Wrighton said high salaries are necessary to attract talented leaders qualified for the position.

Wrighton predicted that the trend of increasing presidential salary will continue after the economy recovers.

Wrighton’s total pay was $539,250 in 2007-2008, according to the survey. His total compensation in 2007-2008, including benefits, was $769,027. The chancellor’s total compensation more than doubled between 1997-1998 and 2007-2008.

Last November, Wrighton announced he would voluntarily take two 5-percent pay cuts from his base salary to compensate for the University’s shrunken endowment. The first pay reduction went into effect on Jan. 1 and the second on July 1.

Amid the economic hardship, Wrighton said he considers his pay cut an “important symbol” of sacrifice.

“By indicating that I would be taking a pay reduction, this helps people understand the seriousness of the circumstance that we were facing,” Wrighton said.

Chancellor Wrighton is not alone in his symbolic gestures. Other top University officials, including school deans and vice chancellors, volunteered to have no increase in their compensation in 2009. High-ranking officials at other institutes of higher education have also taken pay cuts.

For example, John Hennessey, president of Stanford University, announced last December that he would take a 10 percent pay reduction from his base salary of $700,000.

With the recent signs of economic recovery, however, Wrighton said he looks forward to unfreezing the increases in compensation for administrators, faculty and staff as a means of rewarding their dedication to the University.

“I’m hoping that we’ll be able to move on to a situation where we see strong enough an economy where we can increase compensation,” Wrighton said. “We’ll be monitoring the economic situation very carefully and try to determine how best to reward the outstanding faculty and staff that we have at the University.”

Although many students were surprised by the magnitude of Wrighton’s salary, many believe it to be a legitimate compensation for his contributions to the University.

“I had no idea how much the chancellor made, but I’m sure that he deserves his salary,” freshman Elizabeth Fang said.

Others responded with more reservations.

“I have no idea what Chancellor Wrighton does on a daily basis,” freshman Allison Brenner said. “He only deserves such a high salary if his responsibilities merit it.”

His talk, titled “Can International Justice Meet the Demand for Accountability?”, attracted many law school students and faculty members interested in Rapp’s involvement in the fight for international justice. During his visit, Rapp also spoke with a selected group of undergraduate students as part of the Honorary Scholars Program led by Dean Ewan Harrison.

Rapp, who was appointed to his position by President Obama, now directly advises Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and formulates U.S. policy responses to atrocities committed in areas of conflict and elsewhere throughout the world.

Rapp’s fight for justice, however, began long before his recent appointment.

Beginning in 2001, Rapp widened his scope from private practice to the international stage. From 2001 to 2009, Rapp served as a U.N.-appointed prosecutor in trials involving the genocide in Rwanda and mass atrocities against civilians in Sierra Leone.

In the lecture, Rapp explained the inspiration for his turn in career path.

“I have always been interested in international politics,” Rapp said.

During his term, Rapp spearheaded prosecutions that led to the first convictions of leaders of the mass media for incitement to commit genocide. Furthermore, these prosecutions led to the first convictions of high-level commanders for acts of gender violence, including rape, sexual slavery and forced marriage, as crimes against humanity.

In addition to outlining the implications of judicial results, Rapp also noted the complex challenges that stood in the way of these convictions.

During the prosecutions, the international courts ran into difficulty proving the intentionality and conspiracy of leaders responsible for the atrocities in Rwanda and Sierra Leone due in part to language and culture differences. The challenge was further heightened when local governments lacked control over their nations and failed to prevent criminals from silencing witnesses.

The obstacle-filled road to the convictions only highlights the significance of these trials.

“These trials have contributed to the peace and reconciliation by exposing the end results of extremism and breaking the cycles of violence,” Rapp said. “They have also established a historical record to make it impossible in the future for these atrocities to be denied.”

While these trials have important precedence, Rapp said international efforts to account for war crimes against humanity are lacking.

“International institutions are important, but increasingly we have to rely on national ones that can prosecute more cases,” Rapp said on the avenue of seeking accountability for crimes against humanity in the future.

Rapp’s cautious-yet-optimistic message about the future fight for international justice was received with mixed reviews.

“It inspires some sort of hope in the face of atrocities like genocide and mass murder to know that a concrete justice system exists, that we can prosecute those who commit these kinds of crimes, crimes which are too often difficult to pin down on their perpetrators,” freshman and Honorary Scholar Anna Applebaum said.

Others expressed more reservations.

“I think that one day maybe we can get there—this idea where nations can be accountable for themselves. I just don’t think I have seen it yet,” said Sadena Thevarajah, third-year student at the School of Law.

“There is a lot of work to be done to protect citizens of the countries where the atrocities occur,” she added.

The event was organized by Leila Sadat, professor of law and director of the Harris World Law Institute at the law school.