Campus & Community

Sherrilyn Ifill, JD (left), president and director-general of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, shares a laugh with Kim Norwood, JD (center), professor of law at the School of Law, and Karen Tokarz, JD, the Charles Nagel Professor of Public Interest Law and Public Service and director of the Dispute Resolution Program, before Ifill’s Assembly Series talk Sept. 17 in Anheuser-Busch Hall’s Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom.

A film crew from NHK, the Japan Broadcasting Corp., visited the Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis last week to film for a series called “Cosmic Front HOTLINK” about the wonders of the universe. Here, they interview Ernst Zinner, PhD, research professor of physics in Arts & Sciences. He pioneered techniques to study tiny bits of matter from stars that died before the solar system was born.

In the 1950s and ’60s, Gaslight Square hosted a who’s who of American entertainers — everyone from Lenny Bruce to Miles Davis to Barbra Streisand. On Thursday, Sept. 25, Washington University will pay homage to Gaslight Square with a special Jazz at Holmes concert.

​​Steven C. George, MD, PhD, chair of the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, has been named the Elvera & William Stuckenberg Professor of Technology & Human Affairs. He was installed Sept. 22.

UPDATE: Washington University in St. Louis will test its emergency communication system, WUSTLAlerts, at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 1, rather than Thursday, Sept. 25, as previously scheduled. The test will take place unless there is a potential for severe weather or an emergency is occurring. WUSTLAlerts will send emails to @wustl.edu addresses and text messages to cellphones.

​Washington University in St. Louis students play glow golf in Danforth University Center during a DUC Presents event sponsored by the Inter-Fraternity Council and Women’s Panhellenic Association. The next DUC Presents event will take place Oct. 4. The International and Area Studies honorary society, SIR, will host a cultural expo.

Computer Comfort classes, offered through Olin Business School, connect local seniors with Washington University students who help them learn how to use and get comfortable with their computers — and the Internet, email and Skype, too.

The Assembly Series will feature next week speakers who explore issues of race, culture and identity — in two distinct ways. At 5 p.m. Monday, Sept. 29, race and gender scholar Roderick Ferguson, PhD, will deliver the annual James E. McLeod Lecture on Higher Education. At noon Tuesday, Sept. 30, legal and literary scholar Patricia J. Williams, JD, will speak for the Interdisciplinary Project in the Humanities’ annual lecture series. Both are free and open to the public.

The nip in the air is a reminder not only of the coming autumn but of flu season. And for any Washington University employee who works with or near patients, it means it’s time to get a flu shot.

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) released a report last week from an advisory group on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. Barbara A. Schaal, PhD, dean of the faculty of Arts & Sciences, chaired the advisory group that was tasked with creating a strategic vision and guide NAS’ Gulf Research Program.