In the News

Washington University in St. Louis is releasing a report on retaining college graduates in the city. Salary is the main determinant of whether graduates stay or leave, according to a study by WashU’s Center for Analytics and Business Insights. Social connections and career advancement opportunities are the next two most important factors.

External research funding at Washington University has nearly doubled in 10 years, from $532 million in fiscal 2014 to more than $1 billion now, the first time annual funding from federal agencies, foundations, donors and other external sources has reached into 10 digits.

Asquith S. “Sean” Armstong, dean of the School of Continuing & Professional Studies (CAPS) at Washington University St. Louis, will be honored with an Excellence in Education Award during the 2024 Salute to Excellence in Education Scholarship and Awards Gala.

In just over a year as dean of Washington University’s Olin Business School officially, Mike Mazzeo has presided over the creation of a new flexible master’s in business administration program that has seen 25% growth over the part-time programs it replaced and 20% growth in the school’s executive MBA program. The results, he said, fit into Olin’s strategic strengths: education contoured to the local business community’s needs, including the two part-time, non-traditional MBA programs.

With Top Tutors For Us, founder and WashU alum Angelica Harris is helping Black high school students build academic skills and improve college admissions test scores in St. Louis and across the U.S.

St. Louis Children’s Hospital will provide 1,000 free lockboxes over the next year to patients at risk of suicide or poisonings, both of which are increasingly taking the lives of Missouri children. “A locked box can be crucial to protecting older children, who may impulsively take medications as a form of self-harm or by accident,” said Dr. Lindsay Clukies, a Washington University emergency medicine physician at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.

St. Louis-based Unlocked Labs is one of nine companies nationwide, and the only one from the Midwest, to win a $100,000 grant from the New York-based Robin Hood anti-poverty nonprofit’s AI Poverty Challenge to incorporate artificial intelligence into its educational platform for incarcerated people. Unlocked Labs is currently offering artificial intelligence-powered smart tutoring to around 6,000 incarcerated users in 13 prisons, partnering with Washington University, the State University of New York, Cornell University, Arizona State University and the non-profit Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison.

St. Louis is vying for a $160 million grant that leaders and academics hope will turbocharge the neuroscience sector and rectify entrenched health disparities throughout the region. The effort is part of an application to be one of the next National Science Foundation’s Regional Innovation Engines. NEURO360, the St. Louis proposal, is led by Washington University and BioSTL. It aims to build upon the region’s existing prowess in neuroscience research and develop those discoveries into new products, treatments and approaches to medicine, said Eric Leuthardt, chief of Washington University’s division of neurotechnology and one of NEURO360’s principal investigators.

The name Charles Fleming might not be universally known in St. Louis, but it should be. The first African American graduate of Washington University’s University College with a B.A. in architecture in 1961, Fleming would go on to become one of the most successful Modernist architects in St. Louis, with offices across the country in Atlanta, Washington D.C., and San Francisco. And, at a time when federal assistance in home mortgages discriminated against African Americans, he helped members of his community work toward home ownership. Fleming died in St. Louis on July 8, 2024.

Area health systems including BJC HealthCare and WashU are addressing community concerns by collaborating on the Community Health Needs Assessment, investing in local businesses, donating, volunteering, and more.