Humanities & Society

Gerald L. Early, PhD, the Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters in Arts & Sciences and director of the Center for the Humanities, both in Arts & Sciences, chats with a group of students Nov. 17 in South 40 House about the book Blue Angel by Francine Prose. Prose will be on campus to receive the 2010 Washington University International Humanities Medal Nov. 30.

The field in the 2010 Olin Cup business plan competition was narrowed Nov. 18 as 21 semifinalists faced off in the elevator pitch stage of the race for entrepreneurs at Washington University in St. Louis. Six ventures were selected to advance to the final round of the annual contest that will award $75,000 to the most promising enterprise in February 2011.

Priya Mallika Sury, a 2010 graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, has been named a Rhodes Scholar, according to an announcement today by the Rhodes Trust. Sury is among 32 students from across the United States chosen for graduate study at the University of Oxford in England. Winners of the highly acclaimed award are selected on the basis of their undergraduate academic achievements, personal integrity, leadership potential and physical vigor.

Students dance during the annual Diwali, or Festival of Lights, program Nov. 12 at Edision Theatre. Diwali is one of the most widely celebrated and largest student-run productions on campus. It is organized by Ashoka, the South Asian Student Association, and it has been a WUSTL tradition for 21 years.

Washington University in St. Louis School of Law will host a screening of the award-winning documentary Family Affair at 7 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 18, in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom in Anheuser-Busch Hall.

Students in various disciplines throughout universities receive hands-on training through service-learning programs such as law school clinics. But that type of academic training is under attack from both big business and legislative bodies, say two professors from the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law. “Recent legislative and corporate efforts to interfere in the operations of law clinics indicate that academic freedom is at risk when hands-on student learning bumps up against ‘real-world’ disputes,” write Robert Kuehn, JD, and Peter Joy, JD, in “‘Kneecapping’ Academic Freedom,” the recent lead article for “The Conflicted University,” a special edition of Academe, the publication of the American Association of University Professors. 

The achievement gap separating black and white students has been known and studied for a number of years. However, new research focusing on black males shows the gap may be much bigger than originally thought. How to breach the divide? Better teachers, suggests a WUSTL expert in science education proficiency.

To celebrate his 90th birthday, Douglass C. North, PhD (left), the Spencer T. Olin Professor in Arts & Sciences, welcomed colleagues and friends such as Elinor Ostrom, PhD, to a two-day conference honoring his legacy in the field of institutional economics Nov. 5-6. North received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1993 for his pioneering work which integrates the role of institutions, social and cognitive sciences to study how societies and their economies evolve. Watch video tribute to North from friends and colleagues.

The John C. Danforth Center on Religion & Politics at Washington University in St. Louis will host a panel discussion on the role religion played in the 2010 midterm elections. The discussion, which features three prominent scholars of religion, will take place at 4 p.m. Monday, Nov. 8, in the Charles F. Knight Executive Education Center, Room 200.

The continuing debate over same-sex marriage has put the issue of gender at the forefront of conversations about whom the law recognizes as a child’s parents. “The shift in family law’s treatment of gender has been transformative,” says Susan Appleton, JD, family law expert and the Lemma Barkeloo and Phoebe Couzins Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis.