Humanities & Society

As the holidays draw near, expect the usual onslaught of well-intentioned suggestions for lifestyle changes guaranteed to make you healthier, wealthier and wiser in the new year. Talk is cheap, but these 13 New Year’s resolutions for 2013 are backed up by decades of research. If your resolve needs strengthening, click through the embedded web links to learn more about the research behind the resolutions, including tips on using your smart phone to quit smoking and the best way to pay down your holiday debt.

WUSTL and its academic and corporate partners worldwide are putting research into action and leading a major initiative in Mumbai, India, Dec. 6-12 to address global energy and environmental solutions. The WUSTL-led McDonnell Academy Global Energy and Environmental Partnership (MAGEEP) — a consortium of 28 international universities — is convening in Mumbai for the Fourth International Symposium on Energy and Environment: ACCESS. The symposium is co-hosted by Washington University, the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, and Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Bombay.

Washington University in St. Louis Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton has written the Missouri congressional delegation to express continued concerns about the serious negative impact that sequestration, expiring tax provisions, and other elements of the “fiscal cliff” could have on the mission of higher education and the nation as a whole.

If Congress and President Obama don’t reach a compromise before the end of the year to avoid the “fiscal cliff,” it will have major consequences on Washington University in St. Louis as well as other universities and colleges across the country, say WUSTL administrators​​.

Coming up with creative, fresh ideas does not necessarily imply that theywill ultimately be put into practice. However, the odds of one’s ideas making it into practice are better when people are driven to push their ideas through the organization and are savvy networkers, finds new research from Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis.

Host families and students are invited to sign up for the Home Plate Program, which matches students with families to share a meal together especially when the students are far from home.

The Modern Graphic History Library (MGHL) has launched a digital companion to Thrill Seekers: The Rise of Men’s Magazines, an exhibition currently on display through Jan. 31 in Olin Library’s Ginkgo Reading Room and Grand Staircase Lobby this semester.

Famed public intellectual Kwame Anthony Appiah, author of The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen, will present the keynote address Thursday, Nov. 29 for “Celebrating Our Books, Recognizing Our Authors,” Washington University’s 11th annual faculty book colloquium.

Less than a month after national elections, veteran political journalist George Will delivers the fall keynote lecture for the John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics. His talk, “Religion and Politics in the First Modern Nation,” begins at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 4, in Graham Chapel.

Two Arts & Sciences seniors from Washington University in St. Louis were among 232 U.S. finalists for the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. They are Madeleine Daepp, an enomics and mathematics student with an interest in agrigultural policy, and Jeremy Pivor, an environmental biology major with a passion for ocean conservation.