Campus & Community

National Book Award finalist “Citizen: An American Lyric,” by Claudia Rankine, has been chosen as the 2015 First Year Reading Program selection for incoming students of Washington University in St. Louis.

Washington University in St. Louis kicked off a yearlong initiative, “Gun Violence: A Public Health Crisis,” with a panel discussion April 21 at the Eric P. Newman Education Center.

​​For 50 years, the Women’s Society of Washington University has made a difference in the Washington University in St. Louis community through its dedication to supporting students and strengthening the university’s regional ties.​

Washington University in St. Louis graduate student Andrea Karl found herself thrust into the national spotlight this month at the St. Louis GO! Marathon when an imposter at the finish line denied Karl her first-place accolades. She got to recreate the finish at Busch Stadium. Karl is working towards a PhD in molecular genetics and genomics in the Division of Biology & Biomedical Sciences (DBBS) at the School of Medicine. DBBS is in the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.

Junior Kevin Hays has set a new record for standard Rubik’s Cubes solved while underwater: eight. Hays beat the previous record of five while sitting in a dunk tank April 19 on the Washington University in St. Louis campus at the annual Thurtene Carnival. The attempt took two minutes and five seconds.

Erin McGlothlin, PhD (right), associate professor of German and of Jewish studies in Arts & Sciences, was among eight faculty to receive an Outstanding Faculty Mentor Award. She is pictured with one of her graduate students who nominated her for the award, Ervin Malakaj, a PhD candidate in German.

Washington University in St. Louis will award five honorary degrees during the university’s 154th Commencement May 15. During the ceremony, which will begin at 8:30 a.m. in Brookings Quadrangle on the Danforth Campus, the university will bestow academic degrees on approximately 2,800 members of the Class of 2015.

The Department of Mathematics has announced that a Washington University team, consisting of junior Anthony Grebe, senior Alan Talmage and sophomore Jongwhan Park, placed 16th out of 431 teams in the William Lowell Putnam Mathematics Competition, the most difficult mathematics competition for undergraduates in the country. Washington University teams also took first and second place in the Missouri Collegiate Mathematics Competition.​

Five teams focused on serving children and youth recently won the 10th annual YouthBridge Social Enterprise and Innovation Competition (SEIC). Hosted by the Skandalaris Center for Interdisciplinary Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Washington University in St. Louis in partnership with the YouthBridge Community Foundation, the competition also receives support from the Lutheran Foundation of St. Louis and the Daughters of Charity Foundation of St. Louis.

John W. Olney, MD, the John P. Feighner Professor of Psychiatry and professor of pathology and immunology, died Tuesday, April 14, 2015 at his home in St. Louis after a battle with lung cancer and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). He was 83.