Students help shape national proposals

When officers of the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students (NAGPS) arrived in Washington, D.C., this past weekend, Feb. 11-12, to lobby for legislative initiatives among members of Congress, they took with them a platform crafted in part by students from Washington University.

Holly Williams from the School of Architecture, president of the Graduate-Professional Council (GPC) representing all eight schools at the University, was part of a NAGPS conference that wrote the group's 2000 legislative platform. Also at the conference, held in Columbus, Ohio, in November, were Shelly Schrappen of Arts & Sciences' Graduate Student Senate and Malaina Brown, a graduate student in Arts & Sciences now on leave from the University. Brown is a member of the NAGPS national board.

The platform sets forth an ambitious legislative agenda, including proposals for:

• Increased federal funding for graduate fellowships, which have diminished in number dramatically since the 1970s;

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'Coin of the realm'

George I. Zahalak, Eng.ScD., professor of mechanical engineering and biomedical engineering, has received a singular honor: A fundamental equation in the molecular theory of muscle contraction has been named the "Huxley-Zahalak Equation," for him and Sir Andrew Fielding Huxley.

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Fugitive in 1970 anti-war protest surfaces

Howard Mechanic, a former student who jumped bail nearly three decades ago to avoid a prison sentence related to the May 1970 burning of the Air Force ROTC building on the Washington University campus, has surfaced in Scottsdale, Ariz. He surrendered to federal authorities Friday, Feb. 11.

Arizona newspapers began reporting last week that a long-time Scottsdale community activist and city council candidate was in fact Mechanic, a 1970 Washington University graduate who had been living under an assumed name for decades.

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Whiz kids

Kristina Vischer chalked a big X on the blackboard while Girish Putcha set out a dozen soft rubber balls. The students in this freshman biology class at Central High School of the Visual and Performing Arts in North St. Louis looked on bemused. They'd been told that these Washington University students were going to give them demonstrations about how the brain works, but they didn't know what to expect. The medical and graduate students are part of the Young Scientist Program (YSP), started in 1991 to focus, educate and inspire St. Louis City public high school students interested in science.

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