Newsroom Stories

Soprano Jane Jennings and pianist Gail Hintz will perform Washington University in St. Louis’ annual Liederabend concert at 3 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 14, in the 560 Music Center. Literally translated as “evening of song,” Liederabend is a German term referring to a recital given by a singer and pianist, particularly of works by 19th-century Austrian or German composers.

Open Streets initiatives temporarily close streets to automobile traffic, so that people may use them for walking, bicycling, dancing, playing and socializing. Although the movement is gaining popularity in the United States — more than 100 different cities have hosted Open Streets events since 2008 — little is known about planning and implementing them. Brown School researchers Amy Eyler, PhD, and J. Aaron Hipp, PhD, explore the development and implementation of Open Streets initiatives and make recommendations for increasing the capacity of organizers to enhance their success.

Painter Michael Ray Charles will launch the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts’ Public Lecture Series Sept. 15. Charles is known for his aggressive appropriation — and scathing critiques — of racist imagery drawn from vintage illustration.

​The Washington University Libraries have received a $50,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The grant will allow the library system, led by University Librarian Jeffrey Trzeciak, to implement Hydra, a powerful open-source software system that facilitates collaboration among institutions that want to share their digital collections and link them to related materials held elsewhere.

“Foundations of Diversity at Washington University and Throughout Academia” will be the focus of a campus conference Sept. 12 in honor of Robert L. Williams II, PhD, professor emeritus of psychology and of African and African-American studies at Washington University in St. Louis.

In the 1970s and ’80s, the St. Louis band Tracer was one of the area’s premiere exponents of fusion-style jazz. On Thursday, Sept. 11, the re-formed Tracer will launch Jazz at Holmes Series. The annual fall series also will include tributes to John Coltrane, Charles Mingus and Gaslight Square.

Newly available figures show Washington University in St. Louis is beginning to show signs of growth in one important indicator of economic diversity among its student body — an increasing number of first-time, full-time students enrolling at the university are eligible for the Federal Pell Grant Program.

As we age, all of us begin to think about what makes us tick and what kind of legacy we want to leave. For some, this manifests itself in the purchase of a motorcycle, a boat or an exotic vacation. But for others, the issues of age and transition are a bit more contemplative. Vanessa Fabbre, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis, considers these issues in her paper “Gender Transitions in Later Life: The Significance of Time in Queer Aging,” recently published in the 2014 issue of the Journal of Gerontological Social Work.

John G. Baugh, PhD, the Margaret Bush Wilson Professor in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, is one of 10 distinguished scholars to be honored as 2015 fellows of the Linguistic Society of America.   

Michael Wong, MD, PhD, has been named the Allen P. and Josephine B. Green Professor of Pediatric Neurology at the School of Medicine. Wong sees patients with pediatric epilepsy at St. Louis Children’s Hospital and specializes in basic research into the origins of the illness.