Author: Susan Killenberg McGinn

Undergraduate student leaders and student groups who actively demonstrate exemplary leadership, service and commitment to the campus community were recognized during the Excellence in Leadership Awards ceremony, held May 1 in Holmes Lounge, Ridgley Hall. The Office of Student Involvement and Leadership organized the event.

Hannah Highfill, a master’s degree student in Islamic studies in the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has received a 2011 U.S. Department of State Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) to study Persian in Tajikistan this summer. Highfill is among approximately 575 U.S. undergraduate and graduate students from more than 5,200 applicants selected to receive a CLS scholarship.

Members of Washington University’s 19 fraternity and sorority chapters gathered April 28 in College Hall in the South 40 House to recognize outstanding individual and chapter leadership in the Greek community throughout the past year.  

Read the full text of Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton’s message to the graduates at Washington University in St. Louis’ 150th Commencement ceremony May 20, 2011.

Washington University’s 150th Commencement begins at 8:30 a.m. Friday, May 20, in Brookings Quadrangle, directly west of Brookings Hall. The university will award 2,843 degrees to 2,719 undergraduate, graduate and professional students. The university also will bestow honorary degrees on five individuals, including the Commencement speaker, Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel.   

Traffic around Washington University in St. Louis will be very heavy the morning of Friday, May 20, due to the university’s annual Commencement ceremony. Some 15,000 people will attend the ceremony, which begins at 8:30 a.m. Traffic backups should be anticipated on streets near the university, especially Forsyth, Big Bend, Forest Park Parkway and Skinker. Drivers who normally take those routes to work may want to consider an alternative on Friday morning or take Metro.

Akhila Narla, a junior in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, was among 135 students from across the country named a Newman Civic Fellow for 2011 by Campus Compact. The Newman Civic Fellows Awards recognize inspiring college student leaders who have demonstrated an investment in finding solutions for challenges facing communities throughout the country and the world.

Under Secretary of the Army Joseph W. Westphal, PhD, will preside over the 93rd annual Army ROTC Commissioning Ceremony at Washington University at 2 p.m. Friday, May 13. The ceremony in which 17 cadets will become commissioned officers in the U.S. Army, Army Reserve or Army National Guard will be held at Tisch Commons in the Danforth University Center, 6475 Forsyth Blvd., on WUSTL’s Danforth Campus. Westphal will also deliver a talk on leadership and the future of the Army and attend a reception for the new lieutenants and their families.  

Local high school students will launch hand gliders designed over the course of the spring semester in the final flight of the Boeing Engineering Challenge at Washington University in St. Louis. Some 120 students will compete from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Friday, May 6, in the university’s Athletic Complex Field House.

Gary S. Wihl, PhD, dean of the faculty of Arts & Sciences and the Hortense and Tobias Lewin Distinguished Professor in the Humanities, recognized the challenges faculty were having in accepting some of the more prestigious and highly competitive fellowships and last year instituted a Competitive Fellowship Leave program, which allows humanities and social sciences faculty members to minimize the unintended negative consequences of accepting competitive fellowships.