Newsroom Stories

Mary Lou’s Mass is like a prayer on stage: a spirited homily rooted in the southern church, an uplifting sermon on life’s trials and ecstasies. On Nov. 30-Dec. 2, students from the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will perform excerpts from this groundbreaking collaboration between choreographer Alvin Ailey and jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams as part of Rootedness, Mobility and Migration, the 2012 Washington University Dance Theatre concert.

Two Arts & Sciences seniors from Washington University in St. Louis were among 232 U.S. finalists for the prestigious Rhodes Scholarship. They are Madeleine Daepp, an enomics and mathematics student with an interest in agrigultural policy, and Jeremy Pivor, an environmental biology major with a passion for ocean conservation.

The season came to an end last week for three teams — men’s and women’s cross country and women’s soccer — after appearances in the NCAA Tournament.

Insights from a genetic condition that causes brain cancer are helping scientists better understand the most common type of brain tumor in children.

Today, a group of the nation’s leading universities announced plans to launch a new, innovative program that transforms the model of online education. The new online education program, Semester Online, will be the first of its kind to offer undergraduate students the opportunity to take rigorous, online courses for credit from a consortium of universities. The program is delivered through a virtual classroom environment and interactive platform developed by 2U, formerly known as 2tor.

Washington University in St. Louis has taken a leadership role in helping to shape the future of online education by being a catalyst to bring together a consortium of the nation’s leading colleges and universities that plans to launch Semester Online. This program is a transformative new model for online education, offering undergraduate students the opportunity to take rigorous, online courses for credit from consortium schools.

More students with an autism spectrum disorder gravitate toward science, technology, engineering and math majors in college than other students. But they have low college admission rates because of gender, finances and other barriers, finds a new study, co-authored by Paul Shattuck, PhD, assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis.

In the early 20th century, Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso invented Cubism and shook the foundations of Western art. But in the 1930s, as the rise of fascism brought new urgency to questions of aesthetics and politics, Braque’s fractured still lifes and bourgeois interiors remained emphatically inward-looking. Yet Braque’s painting was not as separate from outside events as Braque might have it, argues Georges Braque and the Cubist Still Life, 1928-1945, the first major U.S. museum exhibition dedicated to the artist in 16 years. ​

Washington University contributors helped the United Way of Greater St. Louis surpass its all-time record and raise $72 million to help the poor and disadvantaged throughout the St. Louis metropolitan region. The university community gave more than $691,000, exceeding WUSTL’s goal by $16,000 so far. Employees may sign up for payroll deduction through Dec. 31.

Ann Kittlaus has been named assistant dean for communications at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. She was a senior vice president at Fleishman-Hillard  in St. Louis and held several positions at government agencies in Washington, D.C.