Newsroom Stories

Surgeons use a Sextant to help precisely implant screws and rods in a minimally invasive way.Back surgery — typically an intimidating prospect fraught with tales of post-operative pain — is being performed with less pain, less blood loss and fewer days recovering in the hospital, thanks to a combination of minimally invasive surgical techniques. According to Neill M. Wright, M.D., assistant professor of neurological surgery at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, the School of Medicine is one of the few centers in the country using this combination of techniques, but promising results may inspire others to follow suit. Spine surgeons have been trying to limit post-operative pain from back surgery using the same ideas that made gallbladder and knee surgeries less invasive.

Jonathan Knight is director of the office of academic freedom, tenure and governance in the national office of the American Association of University Professors.

Since its founding in 1970, the Manhattan-based dance company has commissioned more than 70 works inspired by Hispanic music and dance.

Softball team ties school wins mark

Campus Watch

At a formal installation on April 3, Stuart A. Solin, professor of physics, became the inaugural holder of the Charles M. Hohenberg Professorship of Experimental Physics in Arts & Sciences. The ceremony, which was held in Holmes Lounge, featured remarks from Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton and Chairman of the Board of Trustees John F. McDonnell. Also present to commemorate the occasion was Charles M. Hohenberg, professor of physics in Arts & Sciences, who, with his mother, Alice, made the gift to Washington University in memory of his father.

From a former U.S. secretary of state to a former head of a university, the six notable people selected to receive honorary degrees from Washington University in St. Louis at its 142nd Commencement all stand out in their respective fields. During the ceremony, which begins at 8:30 a.m. May 16 in Brookings Quadrangle, the university will also bestow academic degrees on more than 2,300 students. Madeleine K. Albright, Ph.D., former U.S. secretary of state, will deliver the Commencement address and receive an honorary doctor of humanities degree.

SadatInternational lawyers, human rights advocates, top government officials and, most recently, the U.S. House of Representatives have urged that Saddam Hussein and other top Iraqi leaders be indicted for the massive atrocities they have committed during the past two decades. Leila Nadya Sadat, professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis and an expert on international war crimes tribunals, notes that the current military action could make effective and legitimate war crimes prosecutions much more difficult.

Culture & Living Tip Sheet

Charles Mee’s *Big Love*Classical drama collides with modern-day excess in Charles Mee’s Big Love, a fiercely extravagant adaptation of Aeschylus’ The Suppliant Maidens that The New York Times describes as “an MGM musical in Technicolor, a circus and, believe it, a Greek tragedy.”