Student Life Archives

The Washington University Chamber Choir performed Saturday to its largest crowd ever at its annual winter concert in Graham Chapel.
The choir’s conductor, John Stewart, said that the a cappella group’s 65 students performed very well.
“These are the best voices I’ve ever had,” said Stewart, who has been the director of vocal activities at WU for 12 years. He compared the ingredients needed for a successful choir to those required for a winning sports team.
“It’s analogous [because] in addition to talent, you have to have the right chemistry and atmosphere,” he said. “There is the right chemistry this year. [The students] are joyful, energetic and they work very hard.”
Most of the students in the choir agreed, although a few said that the chemistry in the choir wasn’t as deep as their singing may show. And one member thought that while the singing was better this year, the pieces sung were easier then those of the years before.
Junior Jen Weiner said that she enjoyed the timeless quality of the music.
“It’s touching to know that the pieces were written hundreds of years ago, and they’re still beautiful.”
According to Stewart, the 90-minute concert contained pieces in five different languages and from four different centuries.
Erin Podolny, a sophomore soprano in the choir, said that the choir is better from the years before.
“It’s really amazing this year,” she said. “We have a very balanced choir this year.” Podolny said the bass section, whose size had been a problem in the past, in particular has seen improvement from previous years.
However, she was both pleased and disappointed at the student turnout.
“I obviously would have liked to see more people,” she said, “but you can’t expect a campus where most students are 19 and 20 to come and listen to Tschaikovsky.”
Other students in the choir reflected Podolny’s comments. They gave Stewart high marks for his inspiration and vocal instruction.
“We couldn’t have done it without John,” said Poldony, who added that Stewart reads a different inspiring quote to the choir at each practice. “He tries to make it more then just singing.”
The choir’s next performances will be at the Art Museum on Tuesday, December 4, at 2:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. Their next concert on campus will be a performance with the WU student orchestra on April 9.

Contact Aaron at [email protected]

Although the majority of Washington University’s full-time faculty members focus their professional time outside the classroom on research at the university, about 15 percent do research for outside corporations, according to Dr. Theodore Cicero, vice chancellor for research.
WU’s policy on outside research requires a formal contract written on behalf of the professor and the outside company. The policy encourages only about 20 percent of a faculty member’s time, or about one day per week, to be contracted to other companies. According to Edward Macias, executive vice chancellor and dean of arts and sciences, this policy is similar to that of other research institutions like Stanford or Duke.
“The faculty are encouraged to have outside ties as long as the time required isn’t too demanding,” said Cicero.
He added that WU faculty who work for outside corporations are still considered full-time employees and are obligated to teach and do research for the university.
The only restrictions that WU places on professors concern those corporate ties which may result in a conflict of interest or a personal benefit to the individual from the relations with the company.
According to Ron Cytron, assistant professor of computer science and researcher for the Distribution Objective Computing group, in most cases in which intellectual property is involved, including research and development of a particular product, a legal document of ownership and controlling interest must be created. A conference with legal representation is held to make sure there are no violations of security issues.
Usually WU receives license to the product or research, and the companies obtain free use in response to public demand.
“WU has a good policy on how the money is split appropriately,” said Cytron. According to him, if a grant is given to a particular professor, WU usually receives 54 percent of the grant money and the rest is given to the professor for the compensations for the time and effort. The money for the university pays for equipment usage, building space and computer availability.
WU’s standard procedures call for a formal annual review in which all 2,000 of WU’s faculty disclose all financial relationships outside of the university. Any corporate conflicts are then brought to light and considered.
Most faculty members who have outside ties consult with other companies that have the same focus and interests that they do. Macias said that common areas where professors work outside the university include business, computer science and engineering: companies seek experts in their fields, and often turn to universities for help.
Macias also noted that these relationships outside the university can be beneficial to WU.
“To stay in touch with the outside business world, WU supports relationships with other corporations in order to be on the cutting edge of the field,” said Macias.
In addition to the benefit of WU faculty staying abreast of the corporate world, WU also benefits from the grant money received from the outside companies. Cytron received $9,260,131 from 1995 to 2001 for research for the Distribution Objective Computing (DOC) group in which he is involved. The money is from well-known organizations such as Sprint, Boeing, Motorola, Microsoft and others.
The DOC project, founded by Doup Schmit, a former WU professor, does research with embedded systems such as low-power processors. The corporations donate to the DOC group in return for specific research and consultation.
“Working with the DOC program is financially motivating and enables professors to maintain good connections with the ever growing business world,” said Cytron.
Like Cytron, Kenneth Harrington, professor of business, also has corporate ties. He works with incubator corporations and larger Midwest companies, helping to create the start-up process for each company.
Recently, Harrington combined his corporate and professorial backgrounds in the Olin School’s entrepreneur program. The program is one of four in the Center for Experienced Learning in which students do internships with outside companies. Students and professors are paid directly for their work and work on their own time.
“The entrepreneur program allows WU students to be more involved with the business process and to interface with various corporations,” said Harrington.
The students working on the project help in various ways. In one case, students helped produce the written business plan for the company.
“The entrepreneur program has blossomed and grown from an experimental component into a strong positive experience for both the students and companies involved,” said Harrington.

Contact Jen at [email protected]

Washington University alumnus Kerry Hill was accepted to the two-year program as an intern in the HIV/AIDS Bureau in the Department of Health and Human Services as a Presidential Management Intern this year.
As part of the presidential management internship program, he is working to help states better administer the Ryan White CARE Act, which provides grants to states to serve HIV and AIDS patients who can not afford private treatment.
An executive order by Jimmy Carter in 1977 created the presidential management internship program (PMI). Each year the PMI program recruits graduate students from across the country to apply and accepts no more than 400 interns.
The program’s website says its purpose is “to attract to the Federal service outstanding graduate students from a wide variety of academic disciplines who have an interest in, and commitment to, a career in the analysis and management of public policies and programs.”
Those students fortunate enough to be accepted are granted a two-year internship in a federal government agency and are typically hired into a management position by that agency after their internship ends. The PMI program also provides its participants with a multitude of resources to advance their careers, including orientation and graduation training, a career development group, an active alumni association and rotations through other government agencies.
Applicants must have earned a masters or doctoral degrees and have to be nominated by their schools in order to apply.
Hill, who received a Master’s degree in Social Work from WU in August 2001, described the application process as “extraordinarily competitive.”
Hill said that approximately 1,800 applied. Following a day long assessment consisting of individual, writing and group exercises, managers cut the applicant pool to about 600. Hill made the first cut.
The second round consisted of an invitation to a job fair advertising the various PMI positions available.
“There were 700 possible positions that I could apply for, and I went through and picked out the agencies that I wanted to work for,” said Hill.
Fortunately for him, Hill said he felt well prepared for the application process: before attending WU, Hill worked for the Missouri Division of Family Services for six years and worked part-time in the psychiatric unit of Barnes-Jewish Hospital. He earned his Bachelor’s degree in psychology from the University of Missouri at Columbia in 1989.
Most of Hill’s job-experience was in the field of child protection services, but as he moved from project to project he developed an interest in public policy administration.
“The first job that I took was working with juveniles that were locked up with the Division of Youth Services,” said Hill. “That’s when I started realizing the stark contrast between the white middle-class society I was raised in and the gross injustices of racism and classism that existed in urban pockets.”
Hill decided that working with juveniles who were already in the justice system was too late and instead moved his focus to child abuse investigations.
“It was a very tough job, very dangerous at times,” said Hill. “I got to see the wide variety of dysfunctional families. Ultimately, what pulled on my heartstrings was [that] I was bringing these kids into foster care, and I was worried about them.”
His work with child abuse investigations led him to work with children placed in foster care and later with teen parents who had been forced to give their children up to foster care. From that work, and as part of a project toward his master’s degree, Hill developed a program called the Teen Parents Mentoring Program.
“I thought that if we could create a system of support for teen parents, we could prevent kids from coming into foster care. So that’s when I started my Teen Parent Mentoring Program,” said Hill. After writing the program and receiving a grant, Hill worked with the program for 18 months, servicing 50 teens.
Hill described the program as research-based: it was published in journals and evaluated for its effectiveness.
After creating the Teen Parent Mentoring Program, Hill decided he wanted to switch fields from child protection to HIV/AIDS.
“The whole time in the 90’s in my personal life, I had lost many friends to AIDS,” said Hill. “As a social worker it was burning inside of me to move to the HIV/AIDS field from the children’s services field. One of the reasons I went to get my master’s degree in social work was to change careers and move from the children’s services field to the HIV/AIDS field.”
Besides his desire to switch fields, Hill also credits the master’s of social work program at WU for his interest in public policy administration. Though he highly enjoyed working “on the frontlines” in child protection services and with teen parents, he eventually concluded that he could do more good by working on systemic problems as a program manager.
“I think ultimately my master’s degree program changed my outlook from micro to macro. The policy classes really forced me to look at advocacy not just for your client but for anyone who is in poverty or who is underserved,” said Hill. “You can’t just serve your client, you also have to be advocating on a political level for your clients. That’s where I saw that I would be of most benefit.”

Hill moves to Washington

As a part of the PMI program, Hill has begun his career transition into the HIV/AIDS field and into the management level of social work. His current project is technical assistance calls to states.
Hill works with the state administrators of the AIDS Drug Assistance Program, which provides grants to states to provide health care for low-income AIDS patients. According to Hill, the program primarily provides assistance to the uninsured, and about 90 percent of its clients are below 200 percent of the federal poverty level.
Hill said he is very happy with his current work in the HIV/AIDS bureau, but also excited about the opportunities the PMI program will provide him for working with different federal government agencies. As a part of his internship, Hill is granted a rotation with different agencies of up to a year.
He is currently looking at opportunities with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the White House’s National Office of HIV/AIDS Policy, the Office of Pharmacy Affairs, the National Institutes of Health and the Office of Management and Budget.
The rotation part of the PMI program is designed to give interns a chance to learn the skills needed to work in the federal government in a variety of capacities. It also allows them to network with departments they may want to work for after their internships are over.
As for the future, Hill intends to continue to work in the HIV/AIDS field. His short-term goals center on the PMI program, but in the long-term Hill said he hopes to continue managing programs that serve the underprivileged. Hill summarizes his story and his plans for the future as an effort to find the best way to help the underserved.
“Ultimately I want to say one of the reasons I left the frontlines of social work is I was making individual differences, and they were nice, but ultimately I realized there was a larger system that was oppressed. I felt that the system needed more work,” said Hill.
“I was helping these individuals put Band-Aids over crises but it was the systems that were holding these individuals apart or keeping them from progressing.I wanted to move to something where I could make a much larger difference in more peoples’ lives,” he added.

Contact Alli at [email protected]

As university administrators tout the opportunity for wide and thorough learning they say is provided by the new cluster class system, some students and advisors are confused by the complexities of the new curricular model.
According to Dean of Arts and Sciences James McLeod’s statement in The Discovery Book: A Guide to the ArtSci Curriculum, the purpose of the new curriculum is to “create a breadth and depth of learning as well as the skills of writing, numeracy and critical and analytical thinking.”
Associate Dean for Freshmen Delores Kennedy added, “the new curriculum will improve the quality of education students receive and integrate the distribution courses so that they are more cohesive.”
Some students’ views on the system, however, are closer to those of freshman Emily Culver, who sees it as “an intricately laid puzzle that it is more confusing than helpful.”
The Bowen Committee originally planned the system, and a committee of students and faculty later approved it.
Clusters are the largest addition to the new requirements. They are in a variety of areas ranging from “Paleobiology,” the study of fossils and the history of life, to “Modernisms: Intellectual, Aesthetic, Cinematic,” the study of modernism in different contexts and applications. The majority of clusters are two or three courses, many of which are at the 300 level.
One advantage to the cluster system, according to Kennedy, is that every course WU offers is part of a cluster, whereas the old curriculum only allowed certain courses to count for distribution areas.
Freshmen, however, are complaining that clusters force them to take upper level classes, or classes that they have no interest in simply because they are a required part of the cluster.
“Because clusters are so specific about which classes you can take, it forces you to take a class or several classes you don’t want to take,” said Willie Choi, a freshman.
Other students, like freshman Sarah Atkinson, are starting over with new clusters altogether this semester because they are not interested in the upper-level classes for the clusters they began in the fall semester.
Students aren’t the only ones confused about the new cluster system. Some faculty advisors said they have trouble understanding all of the requirements and cannot present their students with enough information to choose courses.
“I am very worried about not getting all my requirements fulfilled,” explained Culver. “And because I still don’t understand the system, I have no idea if I am on a track that will help or hinder my ability to get it all completed.”
Yet Choi reported having no worries about finishing all of his requirements, and said he has a better understanding of the requirements now that he has had more time to examine them.
Other concerns include how the system treats AP credit. Under the old system, those who received a certain score on an AP exam received back credit for a corresponding course, thus allowing them to being their curriculum at a higher level. Under the new system, only 15 units will be credited from AP exams.
“AP credits are always reflected on the transcript, and students may start in higher level courses because of this credit. They just won’t receive WU credit for more than 15 units,” said Kennedy.
Others are frustrated and confused by more minor details.
“Different advisors seem to have different ideas on if we will be able to declare our own clusters and, if we are, how that could be done,” said freshman Elliott Weiss.
Weiss took the Microeconomics and Macroeconomics AP exams in high school and wants to take an economics cluster, but AP credit does not apply to clusters. He said that all of the advisors with which he spoke gave him different explanations of what he should do and how the policies would apply in that instance.
While the new curriculum is confusing to some, the Bowen Committee and deans in Arts and Sciences said they have faith that it will better prepare the class of 2005 for the workplace.
Kennedy, who felt that students would understand better if they read about the system, said, “I suspect that not everyone read the Discovery Book at the beginning of the year, and therefore were unaware of the new requirements. Students are expected to read the book, and advisors will sit down with them and answer any remaining questions.”

Contact Christine at
[email protected]

Thursday, December 6

“Lightin’ It Up at Oz.” 9:30 p.m. The Oz nightclub. Celebrate Hanukah at the dance club. Everyone on campus is invited. Buses leave from Olin School of Business at 9:30 p.m.

Moonlight Breakfast. 10:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. Center Court.
Friday, December 7

Shabbat on the Forty. Mudd Multipurpose Room. Services at 5:45 p.m. Dinner at 7:00 p.m.

Saturday, December 8

Vehicle inspection for travelers. 12:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Police parking lot. WUPD is scheduling vehicle inspections for those driving to and from their homes for winter break. Vehicles will be inspected for tire air pressure, fluid levels, wiper blades and headlights/brake lights. Contact WUPD for more information.
Sunday, December 9

“A Charlie Brown Christmas.” 8:00 p.m. Edison Theater. Presented by Cyrus Chestnut and Friends as part of the OVATIONS! Series.

Friday, November 30

5:42 p.m., LOST ITEM (POSSIBLE THEFT), LEE DORM-The victim left her purse and its contents on a table in the lounge of Lee Dorm, and someone stole them. The theft occurred on November 28, between 6:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. Loss estimated at $213.
Saturday, December 1

2:47 a.m., PROPERTY DAMAGE, MILLBROOK #3-While responding to a noise complaint call, officer observed two broken windows.

1:25 p.m., SUSPICIOUS PERSON, CAMPUS BOOKSTORE- Reporting party contacted this department upon observing a male subject, possibly wanted for attempting to sell books back to the bookstore. The suspect, a non-student, was questioned and released.

3:57 p.m., LARCENY-THEFT, KOENIG DORM-The victim chained his bicycle to the bike rack in front of Koenig Dorm and someone took the front wheel and damaged the rear wheel. Incident occurred over Thanksgiving break. Loss estimated at $100.

6:26 p.m., LARCENY-THEFT, ATHLETIC COMPLEX-Victim stated that the rear license plate was taken from her vehicle while it was parked at the athletic complex at 4:30 p.m. on December 1.
Sunday, December 2

12:40 a.m., DISTURBANCE, SOUTH FORTY WALKWAYS & BUSINESSES-Officers responded to a group of people arguing on the South 40 pathway. One student and a non-student (guest), were taken into custody for assault. The incident will be referred to the Judicial Administrator.

9:00 p.m., PROPERTY DAMAGE, DUNCKER HALL-A broken window was reported on the north side basement level of Dunker Hall. Upon arrival, officer observed that the outer pane to this window was broken but the inner pane was intact. It should be noted that no broken glass could be located in the area. Maintenance was informed of the incident.