Impact Area

To connect with communities locally and globally, the Brown School created Open Classroom – a series of free, one-hour webinars on a wide range of social work, public health, and social policy topics. The Open Classroom library now includes more than 250 programs, with new webinars offered every month.

The Center for the Literary Arts is a transformational hub for creative writing and translation, as well as different forms of literary arts and creative practice across Washington University and the St. Louis community. As an initiative of the Arts & Sciences Strategic Plan, the Center explores all the ways in which literary art and creative practice can change the world around us. It seeks to unite communities within and beyond academia by reimagining vital literary art-making for the 21st century locally and globally.

The Washington University in St. Louis Office of Technology Management (OTM) and BioGenerator are proud to sponsor the Venture Fellows Program for Postdocs. The Venture Fellows Program is currently available to Washington University postdoctoral researchers and offers an intensive 6-month curriculum that provides experiential learning in venture capital investing and company creation, as participating Fellows work alongside entrepreneurs, investors, and faculty in the St. Louis ecosystem. In addition, the program offers exposure to biotech startups, with hands-on training to develop capabilities across the spectrum from deal flow generation to exit opportunity evaluation.  

The Asylum Support Initiative is a project that aims to provide forensic medical and psychological evaluations for those seeking asylum in the St. Louis area. These evaluations will help provide additional evidence and can subsequently help strengthen asylum applications. The initiative will provide a streamlined process of conducting forensic evaluations for asylum applications by directly connecting health care professionals trained in conducting evaluations to local asylum cases.

The Washington University Bridge to Health Program provides additional services to patients who inject drugs and are admitted to the hospital with invasive infections. Patients in the program have free access to health coaches, mental health services, clinical case management, transportation and medication assistance (if eligible) and connection to care after treatment of the infection is completed. The program has a team of people and additional resources to help individuals for several weeks.

Emily Rauh Pulitzer established an endowment in 2004 to support joint collaborative projects between the Sam Fox School and the Pulitzer Arts Foundation that enhance the creative life of St. Louis. This endowment has spurred a variety of collaborative endeavors including Design openings, an initiative open to Sam Fox School faculty that supports art and design projects and installations in the Grand Center Arts District.

The Design Futures Public Interest Design (PID) Student Leadership Forum from the Sam Fox School is an interdisciplinary convening that fosters capacity-building for future leaders hoping to use design as a tool for social equity and positive change in and with historically marginalized communities. Design Futures seeks to build the next generation of leadership in design; diversify the ecosystem of public interest design in terms of discipline, race, gender, and beyond; and curate a national network of thought leadership.

Focused on fostering meaningful connections with our local communities, the Office of Community Partnerships (OCP) at the Brown School aims to cultivate, support, and sustain partnerships that bring about transformative social change for local communities and the region. The Brown School has identified priority geographic areas in the most critical need, making a measurable impact through social and economic justice.

The ASSURE fellowship at WashU Medicine provides college students from the St. Louis metro area an opportunity to engage in basic, clinical, and/or translational research projects. Candidates without prior research experience are particularly encouraged to apply.

Through its partnerships with local schools and its work to bridge research and practice, the Institute for School Partnership (ISP) at WashU is closing the education gap for tens of thousands of students in under-resourced schools. ISP has helped boost math and science learning, raise standardized test scores, increase teachers’ confidence in teaching STEM, and improve students’ self-confidence and development of career goals.