Author: Leslie Gibson McCarthy

Former Bears basketball player Dylan Richter was selected by the Harlem Globetrotters in their sixth annual player draft, while senior Elizabeth Phillips was named 2012 Capital One Academic All-America of the Year Division III award winner for women’s track & field/cross country.

Henry L. “Roddy” Roediger III, PhD, an internationally recognized scholar of human memory and the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has received the William James Fellow Award from the Association for Psychological Science (APS). Describing Roediger as “one of the world’s best known and most respected researchers in cognitive psychology,” the APS presented him with its highest honor during the annual convention in Chicago May 24-27.

News reports indicate that Rep. Darrell Issa (D-Calif.), chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, dropped confidential information from a Justice Department wiretap application into the Congressional Record last week. “While the executive branch sometimes seeks civil or criminal penalties against those who reveal confidential information, it cannot seek such penalties against Issa because the speech or debate clause of the constitution protects members of Congress when they expose sensitive information in the Congressional Record,” says Kathleen Clark, JD, government ethics expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.

Because Wednesday, July 4, is a staff holiday, the summer edition of the Record email will not publish next week. The Record website, record.wustl.edu, will be updated regularly and the Record email will return Wednesday, July 11. The Record staff wishes everyone a safe and happy 4th of July!

Each spring, the dean of the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences recognizes outstanding teaching assistants who have been nominated by a department or a program. This year, 18 graduate students received the 2011-12 Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence. A ceremony was held April 19 in the Women’s Building Formal Lounge.

Crow Observatory was open June 5, 2012, for a viewing of the twice-per-century transit of Venus across the Sun. The 154-year-old Yeatman telescope projected an image of the Sun about two feet in diameter that several people could simultaneously and safely view.

Sports updates for the month of June include items on WUSTL’s finish in the Learfield Director’s Cup standings; all-America honors for a baseball player and a tennis player; and a pitch for the W Club.

Parkway South High School senior Will Mertz explains the design of his team’s custom-built hand glider to Chris Kroeger, associate dean for students in the School of Engineering & Applied Science, during the Boeing Engineering Challenge May 4 in the Athletic Complex Field House. Mertz was among some 80 area high school students in 24 teams competing in the Boeing Challenge to determine which team’s glider had the farthest flight, straightest path, longest hang time or highest quality of flight.

Senior Erica Jackey led five individual All-Americans for the track & field teams at the NCAA Division III Men’s and Women’s Outdoor Track & Field Championships May 24-26 in Claremont, Calif. Updates also included on men’s and women’s tennis, women’s crew and the Director’s Cup standings.

Gloria Steinem — a pioneering feminist, award-winning journalist and best-selling author — talks with students of the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program in Arts & Sciences May 17. Steinem, who was at WUSTL to receive an honorary doctor of humane letters at Commencement, took questions from students, offered advice and discussed her own life experiences.