Author: Leslie Gibson McCarthy

Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor and human rights activist, has been selected to give the 2011 Commencement address at Washington University in St. Louis, according to Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton. The university’s 150th Commencement will begin at 8:30 a.m. May 20 in Brookings Quadrangle on the Danforth Campus. Wiesel will address approximately 2,800 members of the Class of 2011 and their friends and family members.

Students, faculty, staff and members of the St. Louis community are invited to the fourth annual Faces of Hope, a celebration of civic engagement and community service, at 4 p.m. Thursday, April 7, in Whitaker Hall Atrium and Auditorium. The event is sponsored by the Gephardt Institute for Public Service.

WUSTL sports updates for the week of April 4, 2011.

Broadcast journalist Soledad O’Brien will present “State of Race: On TV, Behind the Scenes and in Our Lives” for the Assembly Series and the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Lecture at 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 5, in Graham Chapel.

“Opening Doors to the Future: The Scholarship Initiative for Washington University” has received a big boost by alumnus John D. Beuerlein and his wife, Crystal, with a pledge of $1 million to establish an endowed scholarship for Washington University graduate students.

McDonnell International Scholars Academy members leave the U.S. Capitol and head to a tour of the Library of Congress March 15. The scholars were visiting the nation’s capital to learn more about the U.S. government.

To help clarify the increasingly confusing nuclear crisis in Japan in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami, two WUSTL scientists and experts in nuclear science and radiation, Henry Royal, MD, and Lee Sobotka, PhD, will offer their expertise in an Assembly Series lecture at 4 p.m. Friday, April 1, in Lab Science Room 300 on the Danforth Campus.

Nate Ferguson, a senior in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, is lifted on the shoulders of the other contestants after he was crowned Mr. Wash U March 24 at Edison Theatre. Ferguson was one of 15 students vying for the title. The competition raised more than $35,188 for City Faces, a local nonprofit organization started Bob Hansman, associate professor of architecture.

Sports updates for week of March 28, 2011.

Last November, Missouri voters approved Proposition B, which amended state law to more strictly regulate large-scale dog breeders. Now, just four months later, Prop B is set to be repealed if the Missouri House of Representatives and Gov. Jay Nixon follow the state senate’s lead. Can this happen in every state? Only if the voters allow it, says Gregory Magarian, JD, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis and an expert on constitutional law.