Newsroom Stories

Sports updates for the week of Nov. 22, 2010.

Priya Mallika Sury, a 2010 graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, has been named a Rhodes Scholar, according to an announcement today by the Rhodes Trust. Sury is among 32 students from across the United States chosen for graduate study at the University of Oxford in England. Winners of the highly acclaimed award are selected on the basis of their undergraduate academic achievements, personal integrity, leadership potential and physical vigor.

Van Jones, JD, wants to put Americans to work — millions of Americans, and not just any kind of work. The former special adviser on green jobs to President Barack Obama has a clear vision to solve the two most profound challenges facing the United States today: poverty and pollution. He will share that vision for the Assembly Series at noon Tuesday, Nov. 30, in Graham Chapel.

In Western literature on laughter, says Anca Parvulescu, PhD, a lot of attention is paid to why people laugh. Parvulescu’s book Laughter: Notes on a Passion (MIT Press, 2010) examines what people do when they laugh. What does laughter sound like? What are the different kinds of laughs that people laugh? What social, cultural and political work does laughter do?

Thousands in the St. Louis community will benefit from the generosity of Washington University’s faculty, staff and retirees. The university has raised more than $651,000 in its United Way of Greater St. Louis campaign, surpassing its stated goal of $615,000.

Carl Craver, PhD, associate professor of philosophy in Arts & Sciences, has received a two-year, $110,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for research titled “Discovering Mechanisms: Strategies from the History of Biology.” … Gerald L. Early, PhD, the Merle Kling Professor of Modern Letters in Arts & Sciences, has received a one-year, […]

NBC Television Network The Office The popular network sitcom “The Office” dropped the name of Washington University several times in last night’s show. Dunder-Mifflin employees made plans to launch a social media software named “Wuphf” and announced that Washington University was interested in buying it. Later, it was revealed that the St. Louis school wants […]

On Nov. 18, Paul C. Paris, PhD, professor emeritus of mechanics in the School of Engineering & Applied Science at Washington University in St. Louis, received an honorary doctorate from the University of Paris West, one of many awards to cap his career in fracture mechanics.

Koong-Nah Chung, PhD, has been named associate dean and director of the Office of Medical Student Research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.

The Washington University Symphony Orchestra will perform music of Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Joseph Haydn and Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov at 3 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 21, in the university’s E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall.