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ColeF. Sessions Cole, M.D., has been appointed assistant vice chancellor for children’s health at the School of Medicine and chief medical officer at St. Louis Children’s Hospital.

Flex-spending open enrollment closes Nov. 30. New this year is the triple option payment method, which includes the use of a debit card, paying a provider through a regular monthly payment, or reimbursing employees by check or direct deposit.

The recently published crime survey that made national news about St. Louis is flawed in many ways — says a report by the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association — the most important of which is that it fails to count the metropolitan area as a combination of St. Louis County and St. Louis City. Had such a more accurate and consistent comparison been made, St. Louis would not have been listed in this study.

Facilities Planning and Management gives an overview of major construction, including two parking garages, University Center and the School of Law/Social Sciences building.

Ken Yamaguchi, M.D., professor of orthopaedic surgery, was elected to the board of directors of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. He will serve the academy as member-at-large. … Robert Pless, Ph.D., assistant professor of computer science and engineering, has received a $70,845 grant from the National Science Foundation for research titled “CAREER: Passive Vision — What Can Be Learned by a Stationary Observer.” Contingent upon availability of funds, the grant continues the next year up to 2010 at different funding levels. … Randy Korotev, Ph.D., research associate of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, has received a three-year, $222,000 grant from NASA for research titled “Origin of Impact Glass in the Lunar Regolith.” … Ramesh Agarwal, Ph.D., William Palm Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, has received a three-year, $26,965 grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research for “Computation of Hypersonic Shock Wave flows of Multi-component Reactive Gas Mixtures Using the Generalized Boltzmann Equation.”

The 30th anniversary-season, which begins in January, features Ain’t Misbehavin’, Crossin’ Over, Gem of the Ocean, The Dance of Widow’s Row and Guys and Dolls.

Paul VertucioShapiro & Smith DanceAs young dancers in the mid-1980s, Danial Shapiro and Joanie Smith frequently spent their evenings with Smith’s sister, the violinist Soozie Tyrell, and her best friend, a young singer-songwriter named Patty Scialfa. In the years since, Shapiro and Smith emerged as internationally renowned choreographers, praised by The New York Times for their “strong, sharp edged dancing and daring theatricality.” Meanwhile, Tyrell and Scialfa would both go on to perform as members of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band. More recently, the quartet reunited to create Anytown: Stories of America, a dance theater piece based on Springsteen’s songs. In November, the show will make its St. Louis premiere at Washington University’s Edison Theatre.

Four aspiring playwrights will present staged readings of their work Nov. 16 and 17 as part of Washington University’s 2006 A.E. Hotchner Playwriting Festival. Sponsored by the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences, the festival’s selection process actually began in January, when students from across the university submitted original plays to an adjudication committee made up of faculty and theater professionals. The committee then selected four plays — two full-length works and two shorts — to undergo an intense two-week workshop this fall, culminating in the staged readings.

In conjunction with Clifford Will’s 60th birthday, WUSTL’s Gravity Group in the Department of Physics in Arts & Sciences is hosting the 16th Midwest Relativity Meeting (MWRM-16) Nov. 17-18 as well as the CliffFest Dinner Nov. 18 and the Cliff Will Birthday Symposium on Gravitational Theory and Experiment Nov. 19. The three events are expected to bring more than 200 physicists from around the country and the world to campus.