Newsroom Stories

A new book, “The Missouri Botanical Garden Climatron: A Celebration of 50 Years,” by Eric Mumford, Ph.D., professor of architecture at Washington University in St. Louis, chronicles the history and significance of the St. Louis landmark. In 1976, the Climatron was named one of the most important buildings in American architectural history by the American Institute of Architects.

The Center for Social Development at the Brown School is advising and helping to test innovations in asset building — strategies that increase financial and tangible assets for families and businesses — in several countries in East and Southeast Asia.

Medieval religious historian and scholar Caroline Walker Bynum, Ph.D., will give the Interdisciplinary Project in the Humanities lecture as part of the Assembly Series at 5 p.m. Monday, Feb. 22, in the Women’s Building Lounge. Bynum’s talk, “Weeping Statues and Bleeding Bread: Miracles and Their Theorists,” will focus on the era between 1150 and 1550 when many Christians in western Europe made pilgrimages to venerate material objects that allegedly erupted into animation.

St. Louis floodplains are in danger of contamination from radioactive wastes dumped years ago at a landfill in North St. Louis County, according to Robert Criss, Ph.D. professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

Top experts in Chinese law will gather at School of Law Thursday, Feb. 25, for a panel discussion and open public forum. The event, co-sponsored by the Freeman Chair in China Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., begins at 5:30 p.m. in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom of Anheuser-Busch Hall. A live webcast also will be available through the program.

The annual George Washington Week, sponsored by the sophomore honorary Lock & Chain, continues. The week started Monday with horse and buggy rides around the Danforth Campus and birthday cake in the Danforth University Center. Other activities will include colonial lunches and dinners, serving tea and cherry tarts, and the “wigging” of this year’s George and Martha.

Susan Rotroff, Ph.D., the Jarvis Thurston and Mona Van Duyn Professor in the Humanities, has been awarded archeology’s 2011 gold medal for achievement from the Archaeological Institute of America.

Washington University will host free productions of the original musical “The Assorted Short Adventures of Tom, Huck and Becky” at 11:30 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 18, and Thursday, Feb. 25, at the 560 Music Center. The performances are being held in conjunction with the Big Read, a national program to encourage reading by bringing communities together to read and discuss a common book.

The Annika Rodriguez Scholars Program and the Association of Latin American Students will host Pulitzer Prize-winning author Junot Diaz as part of the sixth annual Symposium on Latino Contributions at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 18, in the Danforth University Center.

Before athletes grabbed the limelight at the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, Olin MBA student Shaun Hudson found glory in hot wings at the “OLINpics” Feb. 11 in the Knight Center. The OLINpics continue at 5 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 18, at Brandt’s Cafe in the University City Loop with an Olympic trivia contest.