Newsroom Stories

Jerry BauerOrhan PamukTurkish writer Orhan Pamuk, winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature, will receive Washington University’s inaugural Distinguished Humanist Medal as part of “Celebrating Our Books, Recognizing Our Authors,” the university’s fifth annual faculty book colloquium. The award — which includes a cash prize of $15,000 — is supported by the Center for the Humanities and the Office of International and Area Studies, both in Arts & Sciences. It will be given biannually to a distinguished scholar, writer or artist whose career merits special recognition for excellence and courage.

Steven SmithIf Democrats want to expand their House and Senate majorities, they need to protect new members who were elected from Republican-leaning districts while showing they can govern by passing a limited popular agenda: “Satisfying the base while appealing to moderates is squarely the central strategic problem for both parties in the new Congress,” suggests Steven S. Smith, a congressional expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

The Bruno David Gallery, 3721 Washington Blvd., will present Bill Kohn: Journey, an exhibition of work by the late professor emeritus of painting, Nov. 17-Dec. 16. Kohn, who taught at Washington University for almost four decades, was known for large, colorful landscapes based on his travels around the world, to sites such as the Grand Canyon, Machu Picchu in Peru, the Duomo in Florence and Jaiselmer in India.

In conjunction with Einstein expert Clifford Will’s 60th birthday, the Gravity Group in Arts & Sciences’ physics department at Washington University in St. Louis 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.

In celebration of America Recycles Day, Green Action, a WUSTL student group that seeks to raise environmental awareness on campus and in the community, will be holding its second annual electronics recycling drive Nov. 15 in cooperation with Web Innovations and Technology Services (WITS), a local not-for-profit electronics recycler.

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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.