Humanities & Society

Winning teams in the I-CARES Student Competition displayed their sustainability projects on the Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis last week. The annual competition asks students to propose a physical installation in the area of climate change, renewable energy or sustainable design.

Washington University in St. Louis will award six honorary degrees during the university’s 153rd Commencement May 16. During the ceremony, which will begin at 8:30 a.m. in Brookings Quadrangle on the Danforth Campus, WUSTL will bestow academic degrees on approximately 2,800 members of the Class of 2014.

The Brown School’s third annual Research Without Walls student symposium was held April 22 in the hallways of Brown and Goldfarb halls on the Danforth Campus, with students such as Jaclyne Smith presenting projects and research worked on throughout the academic year.

WUSTL media specialist and LouFest founder Brian Cohen recommends tonight’s Lost in the Trees concert. The band’s newest album bursts with energy and catchy songwriting.

The Community Service Office will hold a brown-bag session at noon Monday, April 28, in Danforth University Center, Room 233, to discuss ways to expand the K-12 Connections program.

The Green Machine designed by undergraduates at Washington University in St. Louis won the People’s Choice, second place and Best Single Step awards at the 2014 Rube Goldberg Machine Contest. The national competition was held at the Center of Science and Industry in Columbus, Ohio, earlier in April. Several of the students were also on the team that won first place last year.

“Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning” offers students of all ages a clear and compelling primer on the best and worst ways to store and retrieve new knowledge. The book is co-authored by psychologists Henry L. “Roddy” Roediger III and Mark A. McDaniel, leading experts on human learning and memory at Washington University in St. Louis, along with nonfiction writer and novelist Peter C. Brown. 

Robyn I. Stone, PhD, noted researcher and leading international authority on aging and long-term care policy, will deliver the annual Friedman Lecture Thursday, May 8, in Brown Hall on the Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis. A panel discussion will follow. The event will take place from 8:30 a.m. to noon and is free and open to the public. For details and to register, visit here.

In the new health-care climate of the Affordable Care Act and efforts to expand Medicaid to accommodate more individuals and children, the need to closely examine ways to best use government funding is becoming increasingly evident. A new study from the Brown School examines racial and ethnic differences in Medicaid expenditures for children in the welfare system who use psychotropic drugs.

As a prequel to the World Cup this summer, University College and the Summer School, both in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, are sponsoring a panel discussion May 5 titled “Is The USA Becoming a Soccer Country?”