Newsroom Stories

Student organizers of “Give Thanks Give Back” — Washington University’s annual holiday gift drive in support of the 100 Neediest Cases — set a goal of adopting 125 families this year. Now, halfway to their goal and in the final week of the campaign, they are asking more members of the WUSTL community to adopt a family in need.

The upcoming holiday season brings with it the annual gaze upon religious displays — and the legal issues that come with them. “The Supreme Court’s approach to public religious displays under the Establishment Clause has been less than clear,” says John Inazu, JD, expert on religion and the constitution and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.“Some commentators have described it as the ‘three plastic animals rule’ –a Christian nativity scene on public property passes muster if it is accompanied by a sufficient combination of Rudolph, Frosty, and their friends.” Inazu says that future litigation will likely press against this line-drawing, but even apparent victories for religious liberty may come at a significant cost.

Safe Trick or Treat was held Oct. 27 on the South 40 for more than 260 local children. Offered by the Campus Y and co-sponsored by Student Union and Congress of the South 40, the event offers a safe alternative to Halloween trick-or-treating.

The U.S. Government Printing Office honored Olin Library for excellence as a Federal Depository Library. The library received praise for training other librarians.

Groundbreakers Bill T. Jones and Arnie Zane had a 17-year partnership, interrupted only by Zane’s death in 1988, that was arguably the most productive in contemporary dance. On Nov. 16-17, the company they formed will return to St. Louis with Body Against Body, a retrospective of groundbreaking duets.

By decoding the genomes of more than 1,000 people whose homelands stretch from Africa and Asia to Europe and the Americas, scientists have compiled a detailed catalog of human genetic variation to find the genetic roots of rare and common diseases in populations worldwide. ​

It’s not every day you get to play with the greats. On Oct. 20, famed trumpeter Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra — arguably the nation’s finest jazz big band — joined the St. Louis Symphony for a performance of Marsalis’ Swing Symphony. The day before, Marsalis and Co. visited WUSTL’s 560 Music Center to conduct a clinic with students from the East St. Louis High School Jazz Band.

Researchers at the School of Medicine have received a five-year, $5.3 million grant to explore the way gender and age influence susceptibility to urinary tract infections, one of the most common bacterial infections.

At the Oct. 5 Board of Trustees meeting, faculty members were appointed with tenure, promoted with tenure or granted tenure. The appointments were effective Oct. 5, 2012.

The Women’s Society of Washington University, sponsors of the Elizabeth Gray Danforth Scholarship that enables select St. Louis Community College graduates to attend Washington University, held a special breakfast for St. Louis Community College faculty and staff and their former students at Washington University on Monday, Oct. 22.