Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis is one of five U.S. medical schools to receive a $250,000 Alfred P. Sloan Award for Faculty Career Flexibility.

The grant, sponsored by the American Council on Education and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, aims to further improve career flexibility for academic physicians and scientists.

The award recognizes and rewards medical schools that have adopted policies and practices to help faculty balance career and personal life and have crafted winning proposals for accelerating that balance.

“Young faculty today want more flexibility to juggle the demands of their careers with those of their personal lives,” says Larry J. Shapiro, MD, executive vice chancellor for medical affairs and dean of the School of Medicine. “We are grateful for the support of the American Council on Education and the Sloan Foundation, which will enable Washington University to address the unique work-life challenges faced by medical school faculty.”

As part of the grant, the medical school will develop a program in which peer mentors provide extra guidance and support to faculty starting families while in the early stages of their careers. The funding also will establish a team to train the peer mentors and faculty leaders to encourage career flexibility.

Gray

The medical school also plans to develop new policies, such as offering shared faculty positions on non-tenure faculty tracks, and will study the feasibility of allowing part-time status on the tenure track.

“Medical schools face unique challenges in retaining highly specialized faculty,” says Gray, associate dean for faculty affairs and professor of obstetrics and gynecology and radiology. “I hope this award speaks to our current faculty and future trainees and encourages them to build their careers here. We want to ensure that they are able to successfully integrate their careers with their personal lives.”

Two additional medical schools received $25,000 Sloan Innovation Awards.

Sarah Vowell is an extraordinary storyteller. To fans of “This American Life,” she needs no introduction. From 1996 to 2008, Vowell entertained and enlightened listeners with her unusual, quirky tales. She brings that same beguiling style to her books, essays and columns, telling stories that reveal episodes in American history that will never be found in standard texts.

Vowell

Heidi Kolk, PhD, assistant director of American Culture Studies program (AMCS), will share the stage with Vowell.

“We are especially excited to bring Sarah Vowell to campus because she explores fundamental questions of American identity, history and memory,” Kolk says. “Many of her works consider how defining events and stories of our past intersect with personal experience, contemporary political discourse and, of course, popular culture — all of which, like Mark Twain, she engages with in both playful and serious ways.”

Kolk notes that many student groups are preparing for her program by reading selections from her work, including a group of freshman in the Liggett/Koenig Residential College, AMCS graduate fellows, and a group of freshman taking the FOCUS course on American Memory and Memorialization.

“Students in the freshman FOCUS course will explore sites Vowell discusses in her book Assassination Vacation during a trip to Washington, D.C., next spring,” Kolk says.

In addition to her six books, Vowell contributes to McSweeney’s and also writes for Salon.com, Time and the San Francisco Weekly. She is the president of the board of 826NYC, a nonprofit organization in Brooklyn providing tutoring and writing services for schoolchildren.

Vowell earned a bachelor’s degree from Montana State University in modern languages and literatures, as well as a master’s degree in art history from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

For more information on this event and other Assembly Series programs, visit assemblyseries.wustl.edu or call 314-935-4620; for more information on the American Culture Studies program, visit http://amcs.wustl.edu/ or call 314-935-5216.

Olivia Navarro-Farr, PhD, assistant professor of anthropology at the College of Wooster in Ohio, originally began excavating the locale while still a doctoral student of Freidel’s. Continuing to investigate this area this season was of major interest to both she and Freidel because it had been the location of a temple that received much reverence and ritual attention for generations after the fall of the dynasty at El Perú.

Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Edward S. Macias, PhD, has announced that Barbara A. Schaal, PhD, the Mary-Dell Chilton Distinguished Professor in the Department of Biology in Arts & Sciences and director of the Tyson Research Center at Washington University in St. Louis, will become the university’s next dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences, effective Jan. 1, 2013. Schaal is a world-renowned evolutionary plant biologist who is widely recognized for her pioneering research.

Schaal succeeds Gary S. Wihl, the Hortense & Tobias Lewin Distinguished Professor in the Humanities in Arts & Sciences, who will be on leave beginning Jan. 1, 2013.

During his tenure, Wihl has played an important role in recruiting key faculty and academic leaders, including the dean of the College of Arts & Sciences and the director of the John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics. He also oversaw the redevelopment of Umrath and Cupples II halls.

“Dean Wihl has added outstanding new faculty and has revitalized key facilities for Arts & Sciences, and I am grateful for his contributions as dean,” says Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton.

During his leave, Wihl will work to identify the ways that art museums and academic institutions can collaborate to their mutual advantage and will report to Chancellor Wrighton on his studies in this area.

According to Wrighton, Schaal brings the experience, expertise and passion to the deanship that is essential at this critical moment in the university’s history. Her transition follows three years of faculty-led strategic planning that identified key priorities for the future of Arts & Sciences. As dean, Schaal will work to realize the full promise and potential of that effort.

“This is the right time for Barbara’s leadership,” Wrighton says.

Schaal was on the faculty of the University of Houston and Ohio State University before joining Washington University in 1980 as associate professor in biology. She became a full professor in 1986.

She was among the first plant scientists to use molecular biology-based approaches to understand evolutionary processes in plants, and she has worked to advance understanding of plant molecular systematics and population genetics. Her recent work includes collaborating with students and peers to research the evolutionary genetics of plants in hopes of enriching crops such a cassava — the sixth-most important food crop in the world — and rice.

“Barbara Schaal has been one of Washington University’s most renowned faculty members for years, and I couldn’t be more pleased that she will be assuming a significant leadership role in Arts & Sciences,” says Macias, also the Barbara and David Thomas Distinguished Professor in Arts & Sciences. “Her scholarship and teaching are legendary on campus, her leadership through the National Academy of Sciences and the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology make her well-known nationwide, and her research makes a difference around the world.

“I have worked with Barbara on several committees and I have continuously relied on her sound judgment and ability to think about the overall picture of the university. She has a way of bringing things into perspective and focusing in on what is important.”

A member of the National Academy of Sciences since 1999, she was elected as the academy’s first woman vice president in 2005. She won re-election to the four-year post in 2009.

President Barack Obama appointed Schaal to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology in April 2009. She has been president of the Botanical Society of America and of the Society for the Study of Evolution. In addition to her research and national service, Schaal also has been an active member of the WUSTL community, serving as chair of the biology department from 1993-97.

Since summer 2011, she has directed Tyson Research Center, overseeing operations of the 2,000-acre environmental research station some 20 miles southwest of the Danforth Campus. She has served on numerous WUSTL committees, including the Academic Planning Committee in Arts & Sciences, the Curriculum Implementation Committee and the University Affirmative Action Committee.

“Barbara Schaal is a smart, tough-minded and clear-sighted administrator and educator, able to balance her pathbreaking research in evolutionary plant genetics with leadership roles at the university and the profession at large with amazing grace,” says Lynne Tatlock, PhD, the Hortense & Tobias Lewin Distinguished Professor in the Humanities and current chair of the Faculty Council. “I am heartened by her devotion to Washington University’s signature balance of high-quality undergraduate education, strong graduate programs and world-class research.

“I consider it a privilege that in my final semester on the Faculty Council in the spring, I will have the chance to work with her and, thus, have a small part in a great moment in the history of the university when it appoints its first woman dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.”

Born in Berlin, Germany, Schaal grew up in Chicago and earned a bachelor’s degree with honors in biology in 1969 from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She earned a master’s degree in 1971 and a doctorate in 1974, both in population biology from Yale University.

She was named the Spencer T. Olin Professor in Arts & Sciences in 2001 and the inaugural recipient of the Mary-Dell Chilton Distinguished Professorship in 2009.

Schaal has received numerous prestigious awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Key Award from the American Genetics Association and most recently, the American Institute of Biological Sciences Distinguished Scientist Award for 2011-12.

At WUSTL, where she regularly involves undergraduates in her labs and mentors graduate and postdoctoral students, she has received the Founders Day Distinguished Faculty Award, the Arthur Holly Compton Faculty Achievement Award and the Graduate Student Senate Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award.

“I am delighted that Barbara Schaal is the incoming dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences,” says Henry L. “Roddy” Roediger III, PhD, the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor. “We served together for years on the Academic Planning Committee in Arts & Sciences, and she always displayed clear vision and good judgment. I am sure I speak for the faculty when I say we feel extremely fortunate in having Barbara take on this critical position. She has broad knowledge across the relevant academic disciplines and will provide strong leadership.”

Can instrumental music communicate specific information?

Of course not, we reflexively answer.

“But what if a composer finds him- or herself in a situation where direct communication becomes imperative?” asks Michael Beckerman, PhD, professor of music at New York University. “And what if instrumental music is the last resort?”

The questions are not only academic. “Such was the situation in the Terezin concentration camp,” Beckerman says, “where a group of composers tried to figure out how to sabotage Nazi propaganda portraying the camp as a ‘Paradise Ghetto’ for the Jews.”

At 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 8, Beckerman will discuss “Terezin, Land of Invisible Texts” for the Department of English in Arts & Sciences. The talk will explore the ways composers at Terezin “forced instrumental music outside its comfort zone by invoking absent texts, and how these were used in order to make powerful statements that were at once artistic and quite practical.”

Richard Stang

A specialist in Romantic and Victorian literature, Stang taught at WUSTL for 36 years. He was the author of The Theory of the Novel in England 1850-1870 (1959) and Discussions of George Eliot (1960) as well as co-editor of Critical Essays of Ford Madox Ford (2002).

Beckerman has written books on Antonin Dvorak, Leos Janacek and Bohuslav Martinu. His interests include the question of idyllic music, music in concentration camps, Eastern European music, music in film and opera. He is currently studying the music of Gideon Klein, a composer who wrote music in Terezin and died in the camps.

The lecture takes place in Hurst Lounge, Duncker Hall. A reception will immediately follow. For more information, call (314) 935-8389.

The 2012 participants of the Global Diversity Overseas Seminar Program will share their experiences during two brown-bag lunch presentations next week.

Six staff members traveled to WUSTL study abroad programs in Paris, France, and Shanghai, China, this past summer, courtesy of the program, which seeks to encourage fuller appreciation of diversity on campus. This is the first year for the program.

The winners are: (Paris) Tom Evola, Julie Kennedy and Monica Nickolai; and (Shanghai) Robert Brown, Patty Katzfey and Vicki Mueller.

The presentations will be held Tuesday, Oct. 9, for Paris and Thursday, Oct. 11, for Shanghai. Both hourlong presentations take place at noon in Danforth University Center, Room 276.

During these sessions, participants will discuss the program structure, pre-departure requirements, the in-country experience and what they learned throughout the process. The participants also will share how the global diversity program has impacted their WUSTL careers.

The participants won the staff development opportunity via an essay contest. Funded by the Provost’s Advisory Committee for Diversity and Inclusion, the program introduced the participants to dramatically different cultural contexts and incorporated lectures, guided tours and other activities.

The program is open to all employees. For more information, visit global.wustl.edu.

How did World War II impact the way we grow food? Do our memories make us distinctly human? What can weedy rice teach us about evolution?

Hold That Thought, a new podcast series from Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, presents current research into sustainability, memory and other compelling topics.

Arts & Sciences launched the Hold That Thought website Oct. 1 to explain in-depth faculty research in everyday language using a radio “newsmagazine” format similar to Radiolab productions.

“I hope this project will help members of the community form closer ties to the university, develop an exciting feel for the depth and breadth of scholars living in our community, and realize what a valuable addition these experts are to the cultural life of St. Louis and beyond,” says Gary S. Wihl, PhD, dean of the faculty of Arts & Sciences and the Hortense and Tobias Lewin Distinguished Professor in the Humanities.

“I see great work being done on this campus every single day, and the question of how to bring this work to the general public is something I’ve been interested in for a long time. This initiative is one step in that direction. I also think it will ultimately benefit the faculty as much as the public.”

Each season will focus on a few select topics. For the fall semester, the series will explore issues around memory and agriculture, as well as provide stand-alone pieces on individual people, places and ideas.

How skillful are you at remembering faces and names?

Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis are inviting the world to take part in an online experiment that will allow participants to see how their individual scores on a face-name memory test compare with those of other test takers.

The test, which can be taken from a computer, smartphone, iPad and other mobile devices, is part of a growing “crowd-sourcing” trend in science, which harnesses the Internet to gather massive amounts of research data while allowing individual study participants to learn a little something about themselves.

To take part, just visit the test website at experiments.wustl.edu.

“It’s a simple test that only takes about 10 minutes to complete,” says research team member David Balota, PhD, professor of psychology in Arts & Sciences. “We’re finding that people really seem to enjoy being tested this way.”

By participating, individuals both contribute to the science of memory and also receive feedback about their own face-name memory performance in comparison with others who have participated. By placing the test online, researchers are hoping to obtain a wealth of data on how a very diverse sampling of the human population performs on a simple memory performance task.

After completion of the test, users will be provided with a rough estimate of their “Face-Name Memory IQ” score, which simply reflects how their score stacks up against others who have taken the test.

Designed to be both fun and informative, the test also is easy to share among friends — users are given the option of clicking an embedded “like” button that will auto-post a reference to the test in the news feed of their Facebook pages.

Development of the online experiment has been a team effort involving faculty, staff and students from the university’s Department of Psychology in Arts & Sciences and the Department of Computer Science & Engineering in the School of Engineering & Applied Science.

Pyc

Other members of the Washington University research team include Henry L. “Roddy” Roediger III, PhD, the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor, and Kathleen B. McDermott, PhD, professor of psychology, both in Arts & Sciences.

The research team is exploring the use of social media and other options to spread word about the experiment in hopes of getting as many people as possible to take the online test.

Balota recently took part in a similar international online experiment that utilized an iPhone app to test how quickly participants could identify whether a string of presented letters represented a real word or some made-up non-word, such as “flirp.”

“The word-recognition study was conducted in seven languages, and, in four months, we collected as much data as a more laboratory-based version took three years to collect in a single language,” Balota says. “At one point, it was the fifth-most downloaded word game app in the Netherlands.”

Providing birth control to women at no cost substantially reduced unplanned pregnancies and cut abortion rates by a range of 62-78 percent compared to the national rate, a new study shows.

“This study shows that by removing barriers to highly-effective contraceptive methods such as IUDs and implants, we can reduce unintended pregnancies and the need for abortions,” says lead author Jeff Peipert, MD, PhD, the Robert J. Terry Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cd46pXtMHOoProviding birth control to women at no cost substantially reduced unplanned pregnancies and cut abortion rates by a range of 62-78 percent compared to the national rate, according to a study by Washington University School of Medicine researchers.

Each year, about 50 percent of all U.S. pregnancies are not planned, far higher than in other developed countries. About half of these pregnancies result from women not using contraception and half from incorrect or irregular use.

The Contraceptive Choice Project enrolled 9,256 women and adolescents in the St. Louis area between 2007 and 2011. Participants were 14-45 years of age, at risk for unintended pregnancy, and willing to start a new contraceptive method.

Participants had their choice of birth control methods, ranging from long-acting forms like IUDs and implants to shorter-acting forms like birth control pills, patches and rings.​

Mary Ann Dzuback, PhD, director of the Program in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, identifies some key issues of importance to women and non-heterosexual American voters in this year’s elections.

Dzuback

Dzuback, a professor of women, gender, and sexuality studies, of education and of history, all in Arts & Sciences, offers some comments here:

• On reproductive issues: “The majority of women in the United States, no matter their race, ethnicity, social class, and educational levels, believe that reproductive decisions, particularly those concerning their own bodies, should be left to them and, in many cases, their families to make. Even women who oppose choice with respect to pregnancy and abortion believe that control of contraception is their right and their decision to make. Most believe it is a private decision and that that privacy should not be abridged by the state.”

• Health care: “The majority of American women believe that there should be universal access to high quality health care for all Americans and that all Americans should be able to choose the health care practitioners they wish for themselves and their families. The disastrous experience of the Komen Foundation and the reaction of American women to that group's decision to de-fund Planned Parenthood is an example of American women's commitment to access to health care for all women.”

• Adequate representation of women in the work place and in politics: “American women and men believe in equal pay for equal work. Even those who profess not to hold feminist commitments believe that people should be paid fairly for their labor and that race, ethnicity, and gender should not be used to determine access to work or compensation for that work.”

• Equal rights for non-heterosexual Americans: “Most Americans between the ages of 18 and 40 believe that all persons — regardless of sexual identity — should be protected from violence, discriminatory laws, and other forms of discrimination, and should have access to legal recourse as all Americans should. This is a generational change, one that has gained salience in the past 10 years, as more people of prominence have gone public with their sexual and gender identity. Even older Americans, particularly those who know people of non-heterosexual orientation, are beginning to shift their positions on these issues. Those who do not think the state should sanction gay marriage still believe that gay and lesbian Americans should be able to form partnerships and that their civil rights should be protected by law.”

Dzuback says that she bases her conclusions on the range of research and polls that have been conducted on these issues over the past 10 years.

“These are still thorny issues in our culture, and there may never be consensus, but the majority of Americans believe in fairness, taking care of the ill, vulnerable, elderly, and poor, and ending discrimination based on race, ethnicity, gender, age, and sexual orientation,” Dzuback says.

Editor’s note: Dzuback is available for taped and live-remote interviews via the university’s broadcast studio, which is equipped with  high-definition, broadcast-quality audio (ISDN) and video (vyvx) transmission lines.

At its fall meeting Oct. 5, the Board of Trustees elected trustee Craig D. Schnuck, chair of the executive committee of St. Louis-based Schnuck Markets, to a newly created additional vice chair role and heard a report on the Washington University endowment by Kimberly G. Walker, chief investment officer.

Schnuck

This year’s class, selected from more than 27,000 applicants, came from across the U.S. and from 26 countries. He added that, once again, nearly 40 percent are multicultural or international students, and that the class is evenly made up of male and female students. Recruitment for next year’s class is already under way and both campus visits and applications are up over last year at this time.

Wrighton gave updates on construction projects on both campuses. On the Danforth Campus, he reported on planning for development of facilities for the Brown School of Social Work and the Institute of Public Health, the Delmar Loop student living initiative, the mid-August reopening of the Forsyth Boulevard underpass, and the Olin Business School expansion, which includes two new buildings — Bauer and Knight halls. He also noted that McMillan Hall is being renovated on the west side and new teaching facilities for the Department of Anthropology are being added on the north side.

He gave special mention to the newly renovated Umrath Hall, which recently opened for the fall semester. Originally built in 1902 as a men’s dormitory, Umrath’s intensive yearlong renovation began in June 2011 and retained the building’s historic exterior but included a complete reconstruction of the building’s interior and a new roof, giving the century-old building a new life. It is now home to the Danforth Center for Religion and Politics, the Center for the Humanities, the Department of Classics and other programs.

Among the construction projects occurring for the School of Medicine, the South County Cancer Center is targeted for completion in mid-November, Wrighton said, with move-in and occupancy planned for early 2013. This expansion of the Siteman Cancer Center is a collaborative undertaking with BJC HealthCare and Barnes Jewish Hospital. Construction of facilities for the Center for the Study of Itch on the sixth floor of the Clinical Sciences Research Building is now complete, and renovation is under way on an “open lab” concept for the departments of Anatomy and Neurobiology and of Medicine.

Four important leadership transitions recently have been announced, Wrighton said, including the decision of Edward S. Macias to step down from his position as provost and executive vice chancellor next June following 25 years as the university’s chief academic officer.

Additionally, Barbara Schaal, PhD, the Mary-Dell Chilton Professor of Biology, will become the next dean of Arts & Sciences on Jan. 1, succeeding Gary S. Wihl, PhD, the Hortense & Tobias Lewin Distinguished Professor in the Humanities in Arts & Sciences, who will be on leave beginning Jan. 1, 2013. Finally, Wrighton reported that, effective Oct. 1, James V. Wertsch, PhD, was named vice chancellor for international relations and John A. Berg was promoted to vice chancellor for admissions.

Wrighton reported that the McDonnell International Scholars Academy welcomed 16 new graduate and professional students from 11 partner institutions worldwide for the 2012-13 academic year, including, for the first time, two scholars from the United States.

Last week, Chelsea Clinton announced at the annual Clinton Global Initiative meeting in New York that WUSTL will serve as the host of the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U), April 5-7, 2013, on the Danforth Campus. President Bill Clinton, who will be present at the event, launched CGI U in 2007 to engage the next generation of leaders on college campuses around the world. Each year, CGI U hosts a meeting where students, youth organizations, topic experts and celebrities discuss solutions to pressing global issues. About 1,000 students will be invited to attend, including about 200 WUSTL students.

Wrighton made special note of the 25th anniversary of the university’s Ervin Scholars Program, held Sept. 15 at the St. Louis Union Station Marriott. The late Vice Chancellor for Students James E. McLeod founded the program in 1987 to pay tribute to WUSTL’s first African-American dean, John B. Ervin, PhD. More than 1,000 alumni, family and friends of the program participated. On the same weekend, McLeod’s Way was dedicated, celebrating McLeod’s remarkably effective leadership. The dedication included opening a new landscaped gathering place on the South 40.

The university finished the fiscal year June 30 with good financial results, Wrighton told the trustees. Top-line revenue was about $2.3 billion, an increase of $62 million from the year before. The total operating surplus was $105 million, compared to $123 million in the prior year. Endowment return was approximately 1.7 percent and, after spending 4.3 percent of current market value, the value of the endowment was $5.3 billion on June 30, 2011, representing a decline of $46 million from fiscal 2011.

Wrighton recognized the extraordinary accomplishments and national rankings of several of the university’s athletic teams early in the fall season, including the No. 1-ranked volleyball team and the No. 5-ranked women’s golf team. He noted especially senior tennis player Adam Putterman, who recently won the USTA/ITA central regional singles championship for the second straight year; and 2012 graduate and track athlete Liz Phillips, who is among the top nine student athletes selected as finalists for the 2012 NCAA Woman of the Year award. She is the third finalist in WUSTL history.

In addition, the board heard reports from the following standing committees: development, educational policy, university finance, global engagement, medical finance, audit and the alumni board of governors.

Craig D. Schnuck

Craig D. Schnuck is the former chairman and chief executive officer of Schnuck Markets Inc., one of the largest privately held supermarket chains in the United States. Based in suburban St. Louis, the family-owned company was started in 1939 and now operates 100 stores in five states throughout the Midwest. Schnuck was elected president of Schnuck Markets in 1984, served as its chief executive officer from 1989 to 2006 and chairman from 1991 to 2006. He currently serves as chair of the company’s executive committee. Schnuck served for nine years on the board of governors of the Uniform Code Council, the agency that oversees the retail food industry’s most fundamental technologies, serving as its chairman for two terms.

Schnuck serves as a trustee of Washington University. He is vice chair of the board of directors of Barnes-Jewish Hospital and serves on the board of BJC Healthcare, where he is chair of the finance and planning committee. Schnuck also has served as chairman of Civic Progress and a member of its executive committee. He has been a director of U.S. Bancorp since 2002 and director for several of U.S. Bank’s predecessor banks and bank holding companies from 1979 to 2001. He served from 1990 to 2002 as a director of General American Life Insurance Co., an independent insurance company that became a subsidiary of MetLife. Schnuck is a longtime member of the executive board of the Greater St. Louis Council of the Boy Scouts of America. He has served as chairman and currently serves as vice-president.

Hastings+Chivetta

Rendering of the proposed state-of-the-art Gary and Rachel Sumers Fitness Center.

The project includes a complete 36,000-square-foot interior rejuvenation of historic Francis Gymnasium, site of the 1904 Olympics, as well as a 66,500-square-foot addition to the south side of Francis Gymnasium and an additional 20,000 square feet of improvements to the existing Athletic Complex.

The gift was announced at the Saturday night celebration of the launch of Leading Together: The Campaign for Washington University. Construction of the new addition and renovations are expected to be completed in 2015.

“Rachel and I are pleased to support the much-needed enhancements to the university’s Athletic Complex, which will create a facility equal to or exceeding the quality of those of our peer institutions in NCAA Division III,” says Sumers. “The rejuvenated complex will support the university’s already extraordinary student experience, help develop a stronger sense of community and promote healthy lifestyles and fitness. We believe this is a great investment in our future leaders.”

The addition to the Athletic Complex, last renovated and expanded in 1985, will offer sweeping views of Francis Field and house a three-court gymnasium with suspended running track, among many other recreational and athletic amenities.

The project will provide new spaces for intramurals, general university-wide fitness programs and team sport practices and workouts, as well as administrative offices, seminar and classroom areas and conference rooms.

“I was not an athlete growing up and do not come from a family of particular athletic skill or interest,” says Rachel Sumers. “However, as an undergraduate student I started working out in my university's gym and, although it was tough at first, over the years I grew to appreciate and value being physically fit. I believed then and I still believe that physical fitness is an important component of college life and life beyond academics."

The transformed Francis Gym, complete with a two-story lobby as a community gathering place, will celebrate its significant historic legacy and will be an investment for the next century as an accessible, welcoming center for a wide range of fitness, wellness and athletics amenities, according to Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton.

WUSTL

Gary and Rachel Sumers

Francis Gymnasium and Francis Field, both on the National Register of Historic Places, were the sites of the third Olympiad of the modern era in 1904, the first in the Western Hemisphere. Olympic events took place concurrently with the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, better known as the 1904 World’s Fair.

The historic Francis Gym, built of red Missouri granite and limestone trim and one of the first 10 buildings designed by university architects Cope and Stewardson, will be renovated and transformed into the state-of-the-art Gary and Rachel Sumers Fitness Center. The center will include cardiovascular equipment, training and meeting rooms and offices.

Together, these improvements will help create a revitalized southwest corner of the Danforth Campus. After renovation, visitors will enter the complex via a transformed set of doors at the western end of William Greenleaf Eliot Way, a walkway that begins near the middle of campus at Graham Chapel.

Other fitness and recreation enhancements included in the project are two multipurpose rooms for group exercise, a spinning studio, men’s and women’s recreation locker rooms, wellness service offices, recreation offices and a rock-climbing wall.

For the university’s renowned NCAA Division III varsity athletic programs, upgrades will include doubling the existing size of the sports medicine suite, improvements to varsity and visitors’ locker rooms, a renovated recreation gymnasium and additional meeting rooms.

“The Athletic Complex is a hub for the Washington University community,” says John Schael, who has served as the university’s athletic director since 1978. “As the largest indoor venue on the Danforth Campus, this facility hosts some of the most meaningful moments for Washington University students, from freshman convocation through graduation activities. It has served as the site for national championships, alumni reunions, a myriad of campus programs and four internationally televised presidential and vice presidential debates sponsored by the Commission on Presidential Debates.

“These improvements will extend its accessibility and greatly enhance the opportunities for our students to stay healthy and fit.”

About Gary and Rachel Sumers

Gary M. Sumers is senior managing director and chief operating officer in the Real Estate Group of New York-based Blackstone Group, a leading global alternative asset manager and financial advisory firm. A native of Teaneck, N.J., he was encouraged to attend Washington University by the son of his high school boss, a pharmacist.

He graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1975 with a double major in history and political science, both in Arts & Sciences, spending his junior year at the London School of Economics. He later earned a law degree at Northwestern University.

Since joining the Blackstone Group in 1995, Sumers has led the company’s strategic asset management group, as well as overseeing financial reporting activities and property disposition activities.

Before joining Blackstone, Sumers was chief operating officer of General Growth Properties, and prior to that worked for JMB Institutional Realty Corp., where he was managing director in charge of asset management. Previously, he had practiced law in Chicago.

He has been an active Washington University alumnus, serving on the Arts & Sciences National Council and the New York City Regional Cabinet, among other volunteer roles. He was awarded a Distinguished Alumni Award at Founders Day in 2009 and won the 2012 New York Regional Award for outstanding professional achievement and service to Washington University.

For the just-launched Leading Together: The Campaign for Washington University, Sumers serves as a member of the New York City executive committee and as a member of the Arts & Sciences committee.

Sumers, who grew up in a “solidly middle class family,” has sponsored scholarships at Washington University for many years, including both an annual and an endowed scholarship in memory of his late mother, Joan. He has been active in the university’s scholarship initiative, Opening Doors to the Future, serving as co-chair of the New York City committee and as a member of the national committee for Arts & Sciences.

Rachel Sumers was raised in Santa Fe, N.M., and earned an undergraduate degree Phi Beta Kappa from the University of New Mexico in 1993. She earned a master’s in nutrition from Florida State University in 1998 and a law degree from New York University in 2002, as well as an LLM in taxation in 2005.

She began her law career as a tax associate at Simpson Thacher and Bartlett in New York from 2002-06 and worked as internal tax counsel at Goldman Sachs in New York from 2006-09.

She is involved in a number of charities and volunteer organizations, including serving as a member of the board and assistant treasurer for the Animal Rescue Fund of the Hamptons, providing pro bono legal services for asylum cases for Immigration Equality, and being a mentor for a student for a TEAK fellowship, which helps talented New York City students from low-income families gain admission to and succeed at top high schools and colleges. An avid athlete, she enjoys running, spinning, Pilates and weight training.

Gary and Rachel Sumers are sustaining charter members of the Danforth Circle Chancellor’s Level and life patrons of the William Greenleaf Eliot Society.

About Washington University in St. Louis

Washington University is counted among the world’s leaders in teaching and research, and it draws students and faculty to St. Louis from all 50 states and more than 110 nations. The total student body is nearly 14,000 undergraduate, graduate and professional students.

The approximately 3,400 faculty teach in seven schools: Arts & Sciences, Brown School, Olin Business School, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, School of Engineering & Applied Science, School of Law and School of Medicine. Twenty-three Nobel laureates have been associated with Washington University, with nine doing the major portion of their pioneering research there.

The university offers more than 90 programs and almost 1,500 courses leading to bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees in a broad spectrum of traditional and interdisciplinary fields, with additional opportunities for minor concentrations and individualized programs.

Washington University in St. Louis has announced a major, multi-year fundraising initiative, called Leading Together: The Campaign for Washington University, to build on its strong history and further evolve the university’s global leadership. Leading Together will focus on enhancing the university’s impact in four key areas: preparing the leaders of tomorrow, advancing human health, inspiring innovation and entrepreneurship, and enhancing the quality of life.

Leading Together was formally launched at a special event this evening for more than 1,000 guests at the Renaissance St. Louis Grand Hotel in downtown St. Louis.