Campus & Community

​Class Acts takes a look at John Schmidt, a senior in Arts & Sciences and the white playwright behind this weekend’s Black Anthology. Schmidt also is an editor for Student Life, writer and director for Lunar New Year, a residential advisor and opera singer. Schmidt says his “listening ear” helps him in his various roles. Black Anthology takes place at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Feb. 6 and 7.

Barbara A. Schaal, PhD, dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, has been elected president-elect of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the world’s largest general scientific society. She begins her three-year term as an officer and member of the AAAS Board of Directors’ Executive Committee on Feb. 17.

After a year of planning, the Bear-y Sweet Shoppe opened Jan. 12 on Gregg Walkway on the South 40 at Washington University in St. Louis. The business is supported by the innovative Student Entrepreneurial Program (StEP), which has provided resources and guidance since 1999. The shop is the first StEP business to sell food, use crowdfunding and to be founded exclusively by women.

Female members of the Washington University in St. Louis community are invited to register for the RAD program, a 12-hour comprehensive self-defense program which includes awareness skills as well as physical techniques. Classes will be held Feb. 7, 14 and 21 in the Village House.

​Watch as Washington University in St. Louis students rehearse a Phillipine dance form called tinikling, one of more than a dozen performances scheduled for this year’s Lunar New Year Festival Jan. 30-31. More than 160 students will perform in the annual celebration of Asian art forms and traditions. ​

Wellness Connection, the new employee wellness program through the Office of Human Resources at Washington University in St. Louis, is focused on helping employees lead a healthy lifestyle.

Reuben Riggs, a senior in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, says the fight for social justice is the foundation of a liberal arts education and he has embraced that fight in light of events in Ferguson in 2014. “To know that and not go out and engage when it’s happening on my doorstep would go against everything I believe in,” said Riggs, who also is an Ervin and a Civic Scholar.

Questions surrounding the divisive and pressing civil rights concern of marriage equality will be covered by a panel of Republican advocates, including Meghan McCain, for the next Assembly Series program. “Marriage Equality and the GOP,” will take place at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 3, in Graham Chapel on the Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis.

With the scholarship and expertise of university scholars as a backdrop, the Washington University community will come together to explore the important issues of race and ethnicity at a universitywide event to be held Thursday and Friday, Feb. 5 and 6.

The Green Monday movement, a growing global effort to urge consumers to consider how their food choices affect public health and the environment, is coming to Washington University. Sponsored by the Office of Sustainability, Dining Services and food service partners Bon Appétit and Aramark, the program will ask students, faculty and staff to pledge to Green Monday by eating vegetarian one day a week.