Newsroom Stories

Study groups help students more easily grasp the material from their classes.Studying in groups helps students learn more effectively. More than 20 years of academic research has consistently demonstrated that fact. But what exactly is it about studying with other people that makes it so effective? Through painstaking research, an expert in creativity and everyday conversation at Washington University in St. Louis has identified two patterns of group dynamics that show why group study is optimal. The research is published in the June 2005 Linguistics and Education journal.

VirginHerbert W. “Skip” Virgin has been named head of the Department of Pathology and Immunology at the School of Medicine. Virgin came to the department in 1990 as an instructor and became a professor in 2002. As the new department head, he becomes Edward Mallinckrodt Professor of Pathology and Immunology.

Maki & Associates, TokyoSaligman Family Atrium, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual ArtsIn 1960 a young Japanese architecture professor named Fumihiko Maki completed his first-ever commission while teaching at Washington University in St. Louis. Four decades later, Maki is among the world’s premier architects, a Pritzker Prize-winner renowned for creating monumental spaces that fuse Eastern and Western sensibilities. Current projects include both the $330 million United Nations expansion in Manhattan and Tower 4 at the former World Trade Center site. Now Maki has returned to Washington University as architect of the new Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, a dramatic, light-filled structure that will showcase the university’s internationally renowned art collection.

Eric Hoffman and Tony Patterson*Softscape*Two recent architecture alumni from the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts have been selected as finalists in a national competition sponsored by the Boston Center for the Arts (BCA). The competition, titled inside::out: Weaving the Arts Into the Urban Fabric, aims to unify the 3.6-acre BCA campus — which includes a wide variety of galleries, performance venues and artists studios — by transforming its central brick plaza into an architecturally distinctive public space.

Background information on the new Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis.

Computer screens are replacing X-rays and paper files.Surgeons and staff no longer wonder where’s the chart in the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Washington University School of Medicine. That’s because the division switched from using paper files to a fully electronic medical record system. Electronic records are thought to improve the quality of care, reduce errors and improve efficiency. The federal government has set a goal for widespread adoption of e-records in medical practices within the next 10 years.

Photo by Robert BostonJean Audrain in the Department of Internal Medicine receives the Dean’s Distinguished Service Award from Larry J. Shapiro, M.D., executive vice chancellor and dean of the School of Medicine.

Heavy metal Robert L. Barrack, M.D., (right) performs a hip implant with the Birmingham Hip on a patient at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. Barrack was the first U.S. surgeon to implant the system, which resurfaces the head of the femur with a metal hip joint and leaves the patient’s thighbone intact.

The opening is part of a long-term plan to make Euclid Avenue a more pedestrian-friendly zone.

Honored were: Marshall E. Bloom, Willard B. Walker, Clay F. Semenkovich, Gregory A. Storch, William H. McAlister, Alan L. Schwartz, and Samuel L. Stanley.