Newsroom Stories

As the Brittany Woods-WUSTL partnership develops, programs that address students’ values, motivation, and attitudes are joining those that focus on academic subjects. Schools that combine academics with programs that support social development and healthy families are called community schools.

Members of the Sigma Chi fraternity accept a $500 prize for winning the Greek division of the Green Cup. The Green Cup compeititon lasted from March 28-April 22 and allowed residential colleges and fraternities to earn points for each percentage-point drop in per-person energy use over the competition.

The standard experimental setup for measuring the cellular uptake of nanoparticles is to place cells in a well on a culture plate and cover them with culture medium containing nanoparticles. The assumption underlying these experiments is that the particles remain well-dispersed. But when a Washington University scientist turned cell cultures upside down, he discovered that this assumption doesn’t always hold. Some experiments preparing for the clinical use of nanoparticles may therefore need to be redone.

Tennis legend and women’s rights activist Billie Jean King (center) chats with WUSTL women’s tennis team members April 21 in the Knight Center. King was on campus, along with Ilana Kloss, former professional tennis player and CEO of World Team Tennis, to address students in the Olin Business School course on sports management.

In the weeks following the earthquake, two geologists at Washington University in St. Louis — Doug Wiens, PhD, professor and chair of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences, and Michael Wysession, PhD, associate professor of earth and planetary sciences — were frequently interviewed by journalists seeking to understand a catastrophe that seemed at times beyond understanding. What did the two scientists think about the quake? What was expected and what surprised them?

Despite all the “irrational exuberance” April 26 surrounding the first-ever news conference conducted by a Federal Reserve bank chair, the issues that Chairman Ben Bernanke chose to dance around were equally unsurprising as those he managed to address, says Michele Boldrin, PhD, the chair of the Department of Economics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis.

No room in the truck for the futon, extra boxes of macaroni or nearly new T-shirts during move-out? Instead of throwing those items away, donate them to Share Our Stuff (SOS). WUSTL’s SOS program seeks to reduce waste and share goods typically thrown away during on-campus and off-campus move-out with those in need in the St. Louis region. SOS hosts drop-off points at Danforth Campus residential areas and off-campus.

Both the Danforth and Medical campuses at WUSTL held many events to celebrate the week of Earth Day April 18-23. At the Medical Campus, Courtney Pike and Liz Wright talk to Changguo Tang, PhD, about gardening and water conservation in front of the BJC Institute of Health at Washington University School of Medicine April 20.

Gary S. Wihl, PhD, dean of the faculty of Arts & Sciences and the Hortense and Tobias Lewin Distinguished Professor in the Humanities, recognized the challenges faculty were having in accepting some of the more prestigious and highly competitive fellowships and last year instituted a Competitive Fellowship Leave program, which allows humanities and social sciences faculty members to minimize the unintended negative consequences of accepting competitive fellowships.

Rodolphe L. (Rudy) Motard, DSc, professor of chemical engineering and chairman of the chemical engineering department from 1978-1991, died April 23, 2011, in South St. Louis County surrounded by his family. He was 85.