Author: Leslie Gibson McCarthy

Morocco’s renowned Abdellah el Miry Trio visited campus Dec. 6 to perform and engage in an Arabic-language question-and-answer session with students in a course taught by Younasse Tarbouni, a lecturer in Arabic Language Studies in Arts & Sciences. The performance was arranged by the recently opened St. Louis office of American Voices, a nonprofit group that conducts cultural diplomacy to countries emerging from conflict or isolation.

Remarks made during the recently settled NBA lockout brought the subject of race and sports back into the forefront. Gerald Early’s A Level Playing Field: African American Athletes and the Republic of Sports, is a series of essays that give historical perspective to the issue of race and sports through distinct personalities such as baseball’s Jackie Robinson and Curt Flood and NFL quarterback Donovan McNabb. Early, PhD, is the Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

The men’s basketball team upset No. 1 and previously unbeaten Augustana College, 71-68, to win the 28th Annual Lopata Classic Dec. 3 at the WU Field House. Updates also included on women’s basketball, swimming and diving, track and field, and the 2011 class of inductees into the Washington University Sports Hall of Fame.

Nancy Morrow-Howell, PhD, the Ralph and Muriel Pumphrey Professor of Social Work at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, is the new director of the Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging effective Jan. 1, announced Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton. Morrow-Howell succeeds John C. Morris, MD, the Harvey A. and Dorismae Hacker Friedman Distinguished Professor of Neurology and director of the Alzheimer Disease Research Center, the Memory and Aging Project and the Memory Diagnostic Center at WUSTL. 

University College — the professional and continuing education division in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis — will host a Preview Night at 7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 8, in Holmes Lounge in Ridgley Hall on the Danforth Campus. Preview Night features speakers who will discuss class and program offerings, admissions requirements and financial aid. Spring semester classes at University College start Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2012.

The Supreme Court will hear several states’ legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act, ensuring that the court — in late June 2012 — will deliver a momentous statement about the ever-contentious constitutional balance between federal and state power. “The key element of the states’ lawsuits targets the act’s requirement that everyone in the country must purchase commercial health insurance,” says constitutional law expert Gregory P. Magarian, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.

Women’s basketball head coach Nancy Fahey became the fastest women’s basketball coach in NCAA history to reach 600 career wins with a 62-52 victory over Hendrix College Nov. 26 at the WU Field House. Fahey reached the 600-win milestone in just her 706th career game at WUSTL. Updates also included on Thanksgiving holiday basketball tournements, football postseason honors and swimming and diving preseason rankings.

The Record daily email takes a break for the Thanksgiving holidays after Nov. 22 and resumes publication Tuesday, Nov. 29. Check out record.wustl.edu or news.wustl.edu for all the latest university news and information.

The women’s cross country team raced to the program’s first-ever national title at the 2011 NCAA Division III Cross Country Championship held Nov. 19 at Lake Breeze Golf Club in Winneconne, Wis. Updates also included on women’s soccer, men’s and women’s basketball and swimming and diving.

Hanging out with friends after school and on the weekends is a vital part of a teen’s social life. But for adolescents with autism spectrum disorders, social activity outside of school is a rarity, finds a new study by Paul Shattuck, PhD, autism expert and assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.