In St. Louis, For St. Louis

Sean Joe, the Benjamin E. Youngdahl Professor of Social Development at the Brown School, has been named a 2024-2025 Institute for Economic Equity research fellow by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. As one of nine scholars selected for the cohort, Joe will conduct in-residence research focused on promoting economic inclusion and addressing systemic barriers to equity. Joe leads HomeGrown StL, a consortium of 120 municipal and community organizations he established in response to the 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson. He plans to use the fellowship to drive initiatives that improve the economic mobility of Black boys and young men. 

Changing the world starts right here in the place we call home. Siteman Cancer Center, with the support of WashU Medicine physicians and BJC HealthCare, is working to reduce the barriers to cancer screening, and improve prevention and access to care by listening to, visiting and serving underserved communities across the St. Louis region.

The St. Louis Reparations Commission released its final report last month, outlining St. Louis’ deep history of slavery and systemic discrimination and the continued impact on Black residents. The report also offered recommendations for city officials to repair the harm caused by racial injustice. The commission’s work spanned 18 months and included collaboration with local and national experts, city leaders and community members. WashU faculty members contributed significantly to the work.

The School of Law at Washington University in St. Louis will recognize this Veterans Day with the grand opening of its new Veterans Law Clinic. Through the clinic, law students can assist low- and moderate-income veterans in such matters as requesting upgrades of their discharge characterization and correction of military records. Sarah Narkiewicz, associate dean for clinical education at the law school, said the clinic aims to fill a need in the St. Louis region.

WashU has joined a regional effort to collect a new hard-to-recycle material: election yard signs. A special collection is taking place Nov. 6-14 on the Danforth, North and West campuses to get the volume required for the recycling facility to accept and process the plastic signs and metal frames.

On October 18-19, the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis marked a major milestone with the launch of its first-ever two-day professional development summit, Policy and Equity: Collaborative Frameworks for Inclusive Change. The event allowed attendees to choose between two specialized tracks: one focusing on advocacy strategies and the other on data and evidence. In her opening address, Dorian Traube, the Neidorff Family and Centene Corporation Dean of the Brown School highlighted the strong turnout, calling it a testament to the community’s commitment to structural reform.

Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 5, and the Washington University in St. Louis Athletic Complex is ready to welcome students, faculty, staff and neighbors who are registered to vote in St. Louis County. For the first time, the Medical Campus also will host a polling place at the McDonnell Medical Sciences Building, 4565 McKinley Ave., for voters registered in the city. Polls open at 6 a.m Tuesday and will remain open until all voters in line by 7 p.m. have voted. 

Mary Jo Bang, a professor of English in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, will receive the 2024 Tradition of Literary Excellence Award from the University City Municipal Commission on Arts & Letters. Created in 2014, the award honors “the work of a living local author whose literary achievement has won national and international acclaim and, in so doing, has contributed to the distinction of the St. Louis area, upholding its tradition as a center of literary excellence.”

An initiative co-led by Diana Parra Perez, an instructor in WashU Art & Sciences’ new Program in Public Health & Society and assistant professor at the Brown School, aims to improve the health and lives of residents in the St. Louis Promise Zone that includes parts of North St. Louis City and North St. Louis County. 

St. Louis has a long history of welcoming refugees from across the globe. For people escaping war or political turmoil, the region can be a place of safety and opportunity. While migrants often encounter obstacles as they try to remake their lives, they also manage to hold on to personal goals, ambitions, and measures of success in their new homes, said Margot Moinester, assistant professor of sociology. Moinester helped conduct a unique study gathering interviews from 36 refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Iraq who settled in St. Louis and Denver.