Humanities & Society

Tutoring children in and after school isn’t new, but how much does it really help in critical areas like reading? Rigorous new research from Washington University in St. Louis shows significant gains from a national service program that trains experienced Americans to help low-income children one-on-one in urban public schools. The central finding: Over a single school year, students with Experience Corps tutors made over 60 percent more progress in learning two critical reading skills — sounding out new words and reading comprehension — than similar students not served by the program.

“‘Meetings on the Move’ is an inexpensive, easy way to improve health and productivity,” says Tim McBride, Ph.D., associate dean for public health at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis. Meetings on the Move (MOTM) get employees on their feet and out of the office environment. “Forty percent of the population are absolute couch potatoes,” says Debra Haire-Joshu, Ph.D, and professor of social work at Washington University. “That’s almost a learned behavior. You learn to sit at school; you learn to sit at work. What ‘Meetings on the Move’ really does is get us active like we used to be when we were kids. We can learn then to bring activity back into our daily life, just like we learned to take it out.” Haire-Joshu also is the director of the Obesity Prevention and Policy Research Center at the Brown School. Video available.

Richard Martin, Ph.D., the 2009 John and Penelope Biggs Resident in the Classics, will deliver the Assembly Series’ annual Biggs Lecture at 4 p.m. April 9 in Steinberg Auditorium. His talk will center on his approach to Homeric poetry and how it is so much more than an abstract study of language. Folklore, social anthropology, […]

Stanford classics professor Richard Martin discusses Homeric poetry as performance art in Ancient Greece, in the annual Assembly Series Biggs Lecture 4 p.m. April 9 in Steinberg Hall.

Stanford classics professor Richard Martin discusses Homeric poetry as a performance art in Ancient Greece, comparing it to modern rap, in the annual Assembly Series Biggs lecture at 4 p.m. on Thursday, April 9 in Steinberg Hall.

All animals, including humans, have an internal 24-hour clock or circadian rhythm that creates a daily oscillation of body temperature, brain activity, hormone production and metabolism. Studying mice, researchers at the School of Medicine and Northwestern University found how the biological circadian clock mechanism communicates with processes that govern aging and metabolism.

The School of Law will host a delegation of 10 senior diplomats from the United Nations for a public town hall meeting on “Food Security and Humanitarian Intervention” on Tuesday, March 24, from 9-11 a.m. in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom of Anheuser-Busch Hall.

The annual Washington University African Film Festival will be held March 26-29. The event will feature films that emphasize movement and migration and their impact on African’s shifting identities. “The African Film Festival is a unique event on this campus that I look forward to every year,” said junior Chiamaka Onwuzurike, president of the African […]

Some of the nation’s most prominent African-American writers and thinkers will meet at WUSTL March 25-28 during the 2009 Callaloo Conference.

Haba na Haba (Swahili for “step by step”) is an internationally renowned Kenyan performance group that first formed in the slums of Nairobi, using acrobatics, music, dance and drama to raise awareness and educate their communities on topics such as HIV/AIDS, drug abuse, reproductive health, women’s issues and violence. They are visiting St. Louis through March 23.