Humanities & Society

This summer, 75 teachers from five St. Louis area school districts and two charter schools spent two intensive weeks on the Washington University in St. Louis campus kicking off a yearlong professional development program called STEM Teacher Quality Initiative.

Explore Leader student volunteers are preparing international students for life on campus — greeting them at the South 40, helping them open checking accounts and even taking them shopping at Target.  Before classes start, the Office of International Students & Scholars will assist 250 undergraduates and 600 graduate students — many of whom have never traveled to the United States. ​

4,000 glow sticks, 50 academic progams, 100 First 40 events make the start of the school year special for new students.

Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton welcomed more than 60 scholars from around the world — including Washington University in St. Louis and representatives from the McDonnell International Scholars Academy partner institutions — to Seoul, South Korea, in June for the Global Aging Initiative. The meeting, sponsored by the Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging at WUSTL’s Institute for Public Health, was the first opportunity for scholars to connect and identify opportunities for collaboration on cross-national aging-related research.

This native plant meadow, just northeast of the Athletic Complex, was in full bloom on a recent sunny day. The meadow is one of eight native planting sites and bioswales at the university managed by the Office of Facilities Planning and Management. Grounds manager Kent Theiling said native plant areas are hearty, more sustainable and reduce the time and money spent mowing grass.

Kevin Hays is considered one of the globe’s best Rubik’s Cube solvers, but he’s not the only Rubik’s Cube master on the Washington University in St. Louis campus. Provost Holden Thorp also won Rubik’s Cube competitions as a teenager.

Widespread social problems are nothing new, yet solutions today require a different, more innovative approach. A new book, Transdisciplinary Public Health: Research, Education, and Practice (edited by Debra Haire-Joshu, PhD, the Joyce Wood Professor at the Brown School and associate dean for research, and Timothy McBride, PhD, professor) aims to fill that void by laying out a multidisciplinary approach to problem-solving.​

Through a special partnership between the city of St. Louis and Washington University, four winning demonstration projects are testing innovative, sustainable solutions — including sunflower plantings, a compact restaurant, a chess park and a modern agricultural model — to solve the problem of vacant land in the city. Click to watch a video of the Sunflower+ Project, led by Don Koster, senior lecturer in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.

The Brown School of Washington University in St. Louis is taking a leadership role in a new association that brings together schools and programs of public health. The Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health (ASPPH), launched Aug. 1, represents schools and programs accredited by the Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH). The organization is the successor to the Association of Schools of Public Health.

Administrative law expert Ronald M. Levin, JD, recently was invited to testify before Congress on concerns about the proposed Regulatory Accountability Act. Levin, the William R. Orthwein Distinguished Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis, has taught and written about administrative law for more than 30 years. The U.S. House Judiciary Committee endorsed the legislation on July 24, sending it to the full House.