Newsroom Stories

Hundreds braved an arctic chill the evening of Feb. 10 to experience the warmth generated by Parker Palmer, best-selling author and educator, who teamed up with singer/songwriter Carrie Newcomer inside Graham Chapel to deliver a unique message of delivering democracy with an open heart. The event was the opening of the spring 2011 Assembly Series.

Three musicians from the St. Louis Symphony will join baritone Keith Boyer, a master’s candidate in vocal performance, and pianist Amanda Kirkpatrick, teacher of applied music in Arts & Sciences, for a free performance Feb. 21. Sponsored by the Department of Music and the symphony’s Community Partnership Program, the concert will feature music of Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann and Franz Liszt.

Washington University School of Medicine awarded 14 Distinguished Faculty Awards and three Goldstein Leadership Awards Feb. 9 at the Eric P. Newman Education Center. The Distinguished Faculty Awards recognize achievements in clinical care, community service, research and teaching. Among the award winners were Perry L. Schoenecker, MD (left) and M. Alan Permutt, MD.

This Valentine’s Day, flip through cable TV listings, and you’ll see a bevy of romances whose common themes and conflicts can be traced back to medieval times. What is considered “romantic” in contemporary Western society — love from afar, willingness to suffer, idealization of the love object — is partly a legacy of themes in medieval romantic poetry, says Jessica Rosenfeld, PhD, assistant professor of English in Arts & Sciences and author of the book Ethics and Enjoyment in Late Medieval Poetry: Love After Aristotle.

Chris Alexander, former basketball player and a member of Washington University’s newest Hall of Fame class, shows his son his plaque at the Feb. 10 breakfast honoring the induction Class of 2011. Joining Alexander were seven other former student-athletes; two head coaches, Mark Edwards and Nancy Fahey; and distinguished service honoree Jim Burmeister.

Recipients of the annual James M. Holobaugh Honor were recognized in a reception Feb. 10. The award honors individuals and organizations that promote lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) equality, perform direct advocacy and service to the St. Louis metro community and incorporate education and dialogue as part of their practice.

Do you understand what the IT guy is talking about? Really? Neither do The Water Coolers. Like a Seinfeld episode set to music, or a Dilbert cartoon sprung to life, this New York-based sketch comedy troupe both celebrates and eviscerates modern corporate culture in all its fast-talking, slow-moving absurdity.

Former Korean ambassador to the United States Han Sung-Joo, PhD, will be speaking on campus Friday, Feb. 17. His lecture, “North Korea After Kim Jong II,” is set for 4:30 p.m. in May Auditorium, Simon Hall. A reception will follow. The McDonnell International Scholars Academy is hosting the talk, as part of the S.T. Lee lecture series.

A three-day international conference is devoted to the lifework and 18-year papacy of “The Enlightenment Pope.” Pope Benedict XIV believed in the alliance between faith and the “new science,” even urging church parishioners to donate bodies of the deceased for medical dissection. The April 30-May 2 conference is sponsored by Washington University, Saint Louis University and the Missouri History Museum.

Washington University in St. Louis has joined a national experiment to develop a new generation of college science and engineering faculty, one equipped to excel in the classroom as well as the lab. Founded in 2003 at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL), the mission of the CIRTL network of 25 research universities  is to prepare science graduate students to be as bold and creative in the classroom as they are in their programs of research.