Campus & Community

The Association of College Unions International has awarded the Danforth University Center the Bernard Pitts Role of the College Union Award in recognition of its DUC Presents series and other outstanding programming.

Internationally distinguished architect and teacher Nasrine Seraji will visit the campus of Washington University in St. Louis Friday, Nov. 7, to open the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts symposium “Women in Architecture: 1974-2014.” The Assembly Series lecture will take place at 6:30 p.m. in Steinberg Hall Auditorium. A reception at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will begin at 5:30 p.m.

For the past year and a half, dedicated students, faculty and staff have come together through the university’s Mosaic Project to help move us toward a more inclusive campus community. Now, as this initiative is concluding, the efforts of the eight Mosaic Project working groups are taking root at the university.

​Known to generations of Washington University students and faculty members as “Sam and Betty,” Sam Lachterman and Betty Wynn, a homeless brother-and-sister who spent decades attending programs on campus, bequeathed $54,000 to Washington University. Half of their gift will fund the Nov. 1-2 performances of an Assembly Series event chosen just for them, “Three Acts, Two Dancers, One Radio Host” at Edison Theatre. The other half will live on in bequests to the School of Law, the Kemper Museum and Arts & Sciences.

Some 300 youngsters from across the St. Louis region were welcomed to the South 40 on the Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis Oct. 25 for Safe Trick of Treat, an annual tradition.

Adam Schefkind, a biology major in Arts & Sciences with minors in public and jazz studies, says his two passions – medicine and music – both demand precision and creativity. Schefkind and his band will perform at Jazz at Holmes at 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 30. He is the first student to headline the venerable jazz series, according to his mentor William Lenihan, professor of the practice in music and director of jazz performance.

Three years before American troops liberated the Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps, experiencing the true horror of Nazi brutality, a handful of Soviet-Jewish photographers bore witness to Nazi atrocities in their homeland. Seven decades later, historian and scholar David Shneer shares their story for the Washington University Assembly Series and annual Holocaust Memorial Lecture, “Through Soviet Jewish Eyes: Photography, War, and the Holocaust.” The free and open event will be held at 5 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 4 in Wilson Hall Room 214.

The Mr. and Mrs. Spencer T. Olin Fellowship Program for Women in Graduate Studies is celebrating its 40 years on Washington University’s campus during the 40th annual Olin Fellowship Conference, “How Climates Change,” Oct. 30-31. Jane Lubchenco, PhD, the first woman to head the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Association, will give the keynote address at 11 a.m. Friday, Oct. 31, in Graham Chapel.

LGBT Student Involvement and Leadership will host the James M. Holobaugh Honors Ceremony at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 5, in the Knight Center at Washington University in St. Louis. Holobaugh Honors is an annual lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual or ally (referred to as LGBTQIA) community recognition and awards ceremony that honors undergraduate students, graduate students, staff, faculty and community members who have contributed to LGBTQIA visibility, equality and community.

H. Holden Thorp, PhD (left), provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs, was installated by Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton as the inaugural holder of the Rita Levi-Montalcini Distinguished University Professorship during a ceremony held Oct. 14 in Knight Hall’s Emerson Auditorium. Thorp’s installation address was titled “Back to the Future: Accomplishment and Aspiration at Washington University.”