Author: Diane Toroian Keaggy

“Between the World and Me” by acclaimed writer and journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates, is the 2016 First Year Reading Program selection. Written as a letter to Coates’ teenage son, the book is both a tender memoir and a biting polemic that explores America’s long and persistent history of racial injustice. All first-year students will participate in a discussion about the book this fall.

Lori White, vice chancellor for student affairs and the newly installed board chair of NASPA, speaks frankly about the challenges facing today’s universities, her goals to improve access and the graduate-student experience at Washington University, and what it will be like to work with her husband, incoming associate provost Anthony Tillman.

A podcast featuring Mosaic Whispers music directors Katie Greenberg and Hannah Lacava, and vocal percussionist Rohan Khazanchi. The Washington University a capella group competes in a national competition Saturday, April 30, at the Beacon Theatre in New York.

Sophomore Sarah Longyear died by suicide April 22 in her hometown of Palo Alto, Calif. She was 19. Advisers remember her as a kind and curious student who excelled academically but struggled with depression.

Sales of bottled beverages at Washington University in St. Louis have plummeted 39 percent since 2009, when the university became the first in the nation to ban the sale of plastic single-use water bottles. The school initiated the ban as part of its comprehensive efforts to reduce its environmental impact.

Students explore the parallels between Challenger disaster and Ferguson crisis during a unique class.

Thurtene, the oldest student-run carnival in the nation, returns to Washington University in St. Louis with a new attraction: a replica Busch Stadium, complete with turf, outfielders and pennants. This stadium, however, will not host baseball’s major leaguers but tomorrow’s Whiffle ball champions.

Students can take a simple step this week to save lives: sign up to be organ donors. Student Organ Donation Advocates urge university students and community members to go online and participate in College Organ Donation Registration Day.

Our Washington is the faculty and staff component of Leading Together: The Campaign for Washington University. The campaign will raise money for new scholarships, as well as strengthen academic and scientific initiatives, advance learning and enhance facilities.

Provost Holden Thorp has appointed Stephanie Kurtzman, director of the Gephardt Institute for Civic and Community Engagement, as interim executive director. The university will launch this fall a nationwide search for a permanent faculty director.