David Kilper/WUSTL Photo ServicesSathya Sridharan as HamletFor many actors Hamlet is the Mt. Everest of roles: a four-hour, 3,000-line trek to be approached only at the height of one’s professional powers. As a result many productions feature leads — from Sir Laurence Olivier and Sir John Gielgud to Mel Gibson and Kenneth Branagh — who are well into middle age. Which is a fundamental misreading of the text, argues Henry I. Schvey, Ph.D., professor of drama in the Performing Arts Department (PAD), who will direct a new production Feb. 13 to 22.
It’s a little like finding out that Superman is actually Clark Kent. A team of biologists at Washington University in St. Louis has discovered that two vital cellular components, nuclear RNA Polymerases IV and V (Pol IV and V), found only in plants, are actually specialized forms of RNA Polymerase II, an essential enzyme of all eukaryotic organisms, including humans.
The WUSM Student Arts Commission is currently accepting submissions for the upcoming Student, Faculty, and Staff Art Show. Original works in all media will be displayed. All pieces should be delivered to the Farrell Learning and Teaching Center security desk with a completed submission form by January 9, 2009.
The inauguration of the first African-American president on January 20, held in such close proximity to the annual commemoration of the birth of Martin Luther King Jr. on January 19, as well as the “Big Read” community book discussion on “To Kill a Mockingbird,” provided the impetus for the Assembly Series to take on a project featuring the Human Race Machine (HRM).
An expert on the Second Amendment says that gun owners and sellers should not be sweating bullets over Barack Obama’s election as president. Despite Obama’s record on gun control, David T. Konig, Ph.D., a professor of history in Arts & Sciences and a professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis, says that the right of the people to keep and bear arms will not be an issue that Obama will address as president early in his term — if at all.
Olin Business School professor Jackson Nickerson says, “ChangeCasting” is the best way for presidents and CEOs to build trust, create understanding and enact change with all of their constituents and employees. Nickerson’s ChangeCasting is a new web-based approach to communication that allows executives to lead and accelerate change within their organizations. It opens up a two-way street between the corner office and employees at every level of a company.
Michael Lewis, marketing professor at the Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis says the Obama brand was launched by a liberal and progressive web-based ‘net roots’ movement in the primaries, moved towards the center on some issues in the general election and now must figure out how it will it will position itself to govern.
EDITH L. WOLFF (nee Waldman), age 93, died on Friday, December 26, 2008, at Barnes Hospital after a brief illness. She was born in St. Louis on May 23, 1915. She was preceded in death by her beloved husband Alan A. Wolff, who died in 1989. A longtime supporter of Washington University, Wolff recently committed $20 million to support biomedical research at the School of Medicine.
Karen Butler, Ph.D., has been appointed assistant curator for collections at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum. The appointment is effective January 2, 2009. Butler is currently the Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Matisse Studies at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia, PA, where she also serves as an adjunct lecturer in art history at the University of Pennsylvania. Her primary research interests are early- and mid-20th-century American and European art — areas in which the Kemper Art Museum has particularly strong holdings.
Mark J. Brostoff will join the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis as associate dean and director of the Weston Career Center effective Jan. 9, 2009. Brostoff is a retired commander in the United States Navy and a WUSTL alumnus with a master’s degree in Health Administration, earned in 1982. He graduated from Alfred University in 1980.