Newsroom Stories

WUSTL ushered in the Lunar New Year with a fireworks show Jan. 22 in Mudd Field. The Lunar New Year — observed this year Jan. 23 — is one of the most important traditional Asian holidays. Prior to the fireworks show, students enjoyed food, origami, calligraphy, information booths and performances in Tisch Commons. The celebration continues this weekend with two high-spirited performances at 7 p.m. Jan. 27 and 28 in Edison Theatre.

The United States is slowly climbing out of one of the worst economic recessions in its history. As the economy slowly begins to turn a corner, Stephen M. Fazzari, PhD, professor of economics in Arts & Sciences, will examine how we got here and where we are headed in a series of three lectures beginning Jan. 30.

Washington University School of Medicine and Barnes-Jewish Hospital have broken ground on the new Alvin J. Siteman Cancer Center in south St. Louis County. Located on the southeast corner of the intersection of Interstate 55 and Butler Hill Road, the new facility will provide comprehensive outpatient cancer care that is more convenient for patients living in south St. Louis County and the surrounding area.

Andrew Knight, PhD, leads an i teach 2012 session on polling as a teaching tool during the i teach 2012 symposium — a biennial event at which faculty gather to talk about teaching experiences and to learn about new teaching methods and technology — at Seigle Hall Jan. 12. Approximately 150 faculty attended the event, which offered 16 classroom sessions on topics ranging from “Twitter for Teaching” to “Academic Integrity at WU: Myths and Realities.”

The seventh-ranked women’s basketball team erased a 10-point second-half deficit, and a second-chance basket at the buzzer by senior Brianne Monahan gave the Bears a 51-49 home victory over New York University Jan. 22. Updates also included on men’s basketball, track and field and swimming and diving.

Teach For America-St. Louis and the Brown School Policy Forum at Washington University in St. Louis will host a panel discussion on “St. Louis Public Education at a Crossroads: The Outstanding Schools Act, Turner v. Clayton, and the Future,” at 7:30 p.m.  Thursday, Jan. 26 in Brown Hall, Room 100. The event will bring together Missouri legislators and education officials to discuss how Turner v. Clayton is impacting state legislation.

A diverse array of employers will be on campus Wednesday, Feb. 1, for the Spring Internship & Career Fair. All WUSTL students and alumni are invited to participate in the event. For those who are interested, mock interviews begin this Friday, Jan. 27, followed by “prepping” workshops Monday and Tuesday, Jan. 30 and 31.

Last spring, Washington University in St. Louis adopted “Green Dot,” a national program that capitalizes on the power of peer influence to prevent sexual violence, intimate partner violence and stalking violence on college campuses. Advocates nationally believe that bystanders hold the key to reducing assaults on campus.

The McDonnell International Scholars Academy at Washington University in St. Louis welcomed 12 new talented graduate and professional students for the 2011-12 academic year. The new scholars are graduates of one of 27 premier universities from around the world partnered with WUSTL in the McDonnell International Scholars Academy.

NASA has announced that Raymond E. Arvidson, PhD, a planetary scientist at Washington University in St. Louis, has been selected to be a participating scientist on the Mars Science Laboratory, a mission to land and operate a rover named Curiosity on Mars. Arvidson proposed that he use the rover itself as a terramechanics instrument to learn about Martian soils. He will be using a simulation of the rover and of the Martian terrain to contribute to path planning for the rover and to look for crusted soils created by the modern Martian water cycle.