Humanities & Society

On Tuesday, April 2, City of St. Louis and St. Louis County voters will have the opportunity to vote on Proposition P, the Safe and Accessible Arch and Public Parks Initiative. Proposition P proposes a 3/16th of 1 cent sales tax increase that would be used to pay for improvements to the Gateway Arch grounds, the regional Great Rivers Greenway trails, and city and county parks.

As part of its Clinton Global Initiative University efforts, Washington University in St. Louis has announced a major institutional commitment to action around the important issue of sustainability.

More than 60 of the 118 innovative, far-reaching projects that Washington University in St. Louis students have committed to accomplish as part of this year’s Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) April 5-7 will be on display at Faces of Hope. Also, WUSTL leaders will announce the university’s institutional Commitment to Action, a significant investment in a more sustainable future, during the event from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 27, in the Danforth University Center, 6475 Forsyth Blvd.

Washington University Professor Gerald L. Early, PhD, a noted essayist and American culture critic, will receive a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame in The Loop. An induction ceremony will be at 11:30 a.m. Thursday, April 11, outside the Moonrise Hotel, 6177 Delmar Blvd. His star will be embedded at a later time near the corner of Delmar and Eastgate Avenue after construction is completed on the first phase of WUSTL’s Loop Student Living Initiative.

Mindfulness — paying attention to one’s current experience in a nonjudgmental way — might help us to learn more about our own personalities, new research from Washington University in St. Louis suggests.

Buried for 100,000 years at Xujiayao in the Nihewan Basin of northern China, the recovered skull pieces of an early human exhibit a now-rare congenital deformation that indicates inbreeding might well have been common among our ancestors, new research from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Washington University in St. Louis suggests.​

WUSTL students are gearing up for the annual Thurtene Carnival, and organizers plan some events this weekend to help bring neighbors together. The Thurtene Junior Honorary will host a neighborhood block party along with basketball clinics (shown, at right, in 2012) and a 3-on-3 tournament.

Michael Sherraden, PhD, the Benjamin E. Youngdahl Professor of Social Development at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, will be among a distinguished list of speakers for the sixth annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) to be held at Washington University in St. Louis April 5-7. The announcement was made by President Bill Clinton and by Chelsea Clinton.

Noted behavioral economist Dan Ariely, visiting campus in March, took some time to sit down for a chat with friend and fellow researcher Michal Grinstein-Weiss of the Brown School’s Center for Social Development. What do great economic minds talk about when they get together? First, their groundbreaking Refund to Savings program — a joint project that encourages savings through Intuit Inc.’s TurboTax program.

Participants in the 23rd annual Pow Wow at Washington University in St. Louis line up for the grand entrance in the WU Field House March 16. The annual event, hosted by the Kathryn M. Buder Center for American Indian Studies at the Brown School, offered visitors and participants a full day of dancing, singing, drumming, arts, crafts and food. This year’s theme was “Honoring Our Cultures While Strengthening Our Communities.”