Author: Leslie Gibson McCarthy

Former first lady Rosalynn Carter (above and below, seated left on panel) spoke about her vision for ending the mental health crisis before a packed crowd in Graham Chapel on Feb. 14. A panel discussion featuring local and state representatives of the mental health community followed Carter’s remarks.

Historian Sean Wilentz, PhD, will be on campus for three days next week delivering this year’s “President’s Week” lectures for the Assembly Series. The lectures will provide an overview of the role these presidents — Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant — played in advancing democratic nationalism, which in turn led to the abolition of slavery.

“Faces of Hope,” a campus-wide celebration of civic engagement and community service sponsored by The Gephardt Institute for Public Service at Washington University in St. Louis, will take place again this year at 4 p.m. April 7 in Whitaker Hall. All students, faculty, and staff are encouraged to participate. Applications must be completed by Monday, Feb. 22.

Seven finalists were selected Feb. 10 from a field of 45 to compete for $100,000 in grants in April at the 2011 YouthBridge Social Enterprise and Innovation Competition (SEIC) offered by the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at Washington University in St. Louis.

Sports updates for week of Feb. 14, 2011.

Students perform a dance Feb. 5 in Edison Theatre at the Lunar New Year Festival, the annual event sponsored by Asian student groups on campus. 2011 is the Year of the Rabbit, and people born under this Chinese symbol are said to be articulate, talented and ambitious.

Strobe Talbott (right), president of the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., and former deputy secretary of state from 1994-2001, was on campus Feb. 7 and 8 speaking and meeting with students.

Hillary A. Sale, JD, the Walter D. Coles Professor of Law and Professor of Management at Washington University in St. Louis, organized this year’s DirectWomen Board Institute, an annual national program designed to develop and position an elite group of exceptional senior women lawyers for service as directors of major U.S. corporations. The institute is being held this week, Feb. 9-11, in New York City.

WUSTL sports updates for the week of Feb. 7, 2011.

Cultural critic and Iranian scholar Hamid Dabashi, PhD, will give an Assembly Series presentation at 5 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 10, in Steinberg Hall Auditorium. His address, “The End of an Islamic Republic,” is free and open to the public. A prolific author, Dabashi has published 20 books on Islamic and Iranian history, philosophy, art and culture; Persian and comparative literature; current affairs; world cinema; and the aesthetics of art.