Arts & Sciences

Calm winds allowed the ANITA III experiment to be launched into the polar vortex above Antarctica on Dec. 17. The instrument consists of 48 radio receivers that are listening for  pings that will be generated when ultra-high-energy cosmic rays generate radio-frequency bursts that reflect off the ice and up to the instrument at a float altitude of 120,000 feet, four times higher than commerical airliners cruise.

Two Washington University in St. Louis students majoring in classics in Arts & Sciences will get to spend time next year studying at the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome.

Robert E. Wiltenburg, PhD, who has served as dean of University College in Arts & Sciences for nearly 20 years, has announced that he will step down as dean at the end of the academic year, June 30, 2015, according to Barbara A. Schaal, PhD, dean of the Faculty of Arts & Sciences. After a sabbatical during the fall 2015 semester, Wiltenburg will return to teaching in spring 2016.

Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton presented the 2014 Faculty Achievement Awards to (from left) David A. Balota, PhD, Steven L. Teitelbaum, MD, and Samuel A. Wickline, MD, during a Dec. 6 ceremony in Knight Hall.

​The Department of Music in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis will present its annual sing-along to “Messiah” at 3 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 14. The performance, which will include the Christmas portion of “Messiah” as well as the “Hallelujah Chorus,” will take place in Graham Chapel.

An astrophysicist at Washington University in St. Louis is among the team hunting for an elusive particle called a WIMP, that may be the fundamental particle of dark matter. To catch this notoriously wily particle they have built a detector consisting of a large vat of xenon in a deep chamber of a played-out gold mine in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Smart writing on timely topics for the widest possible audience. This is the mission of The Common Reader, a new journal launched this fall by Gerald Early. Early and Managing Editor Ben Fulton discuss The Common Reader, online journalism and the continuing value of ink and paper.

Rare objects from the University Libraries Department of Special Collections are featured in “Into the Vault,” a new video series produced by Arts & Sciences in collaboration with University Libraries and hosted by Seth Graebner, PhD, associate professor of French in Arts & Sciences. Among them are Galileo’s “Dialogue,” Denis Diderot’s “Encyclopédie,” Charles Darwin’s “The Various Contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids Are Fertilised by Insects” and a 1678 letter from Isaac Newton to natural philosopher Robert Hooke.

Samuel A. Wickline, MD, has been chosen to receive the Chancellor’s Award for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Washington University in St. Louis. He will receive the honor Saturday, Dec. 6. Faculty achievement awards will be presented to David A. Balota, PhD, and Steven L. Teitelbaum, MD.

Christopher “Kit” Wellman, PhD, chair of the Department of Philosophy, has won the 2015 Berger Memorial Prize, awarded to an outstanding published article in philosophy of law.