Arts & Sciences

With its blunt depictions of adolescent sexuality and startling mixture of contemporary expression and fin de siècle restraint, Spring Awakening—by WUSTL alumnus Steven Sater—is among the most influential, unexpected and beloved Broadway shows of recent years. On Oct. 25, the Performing Arts Department will debut a new production in Edison Theatre.

Members of the Washington University in St. Louis community will gather at 4 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 15, in the Ginkgo Room of Olin Library to remember Rita Levi-Montalcini, one of two women from the university who won the Nobel Prize. The event, which is hosted by the Woman’s Club of Washington University, is free and open to the public.

KIPP students are working hard to get into college. And yet, many have never visited a campus before. Organized by sorority and fraternity members, Greek Serve 2013: The KIPP College Experience gave KIPP seventh-graders a look at life on campus.

A master’s degree program at Washington University in St. Louis specifically designed for high school science teachers nationwide is helping them learn techniques for inspiring not only the brightest and most motivated science students, but also those with other interests. The two-year program through University College in Arts & Sciences offers teachers online courses during the school year and an on-campus summer institute for three weeks each summer.

At a Board of Trustees meeting in May, some faculty members were appointed with tenure or promoted. Read more to see details.

In Green and Gray, his fearlessly experimental second collection, Geoffrey G. O’Brien fashions poetry from neighborhood flyers and political speeches, mixing phrases from Dante, the Patriot Act and Jean Genet. That audacious mingling of personal and political continues to inform People on Sunday, O’Brien’s latest, and most autobiographical, collection. On Oct. 10, O’Brien will read from his work for The Writing Program’s fall Reading Series.

The slow rebound of the bedrock as ice melts can be used to weigh the Antarctic ice sheet. Calibrating rebound will make it possible to measure how much mass the has lost since the ice sheets reached their maximum extent more than 20,000 years ago and how much it is currently losing. Two National Science Foundation grants will fund the installation of seismographs to calibrate crucial parts of the Antarctic ice-weighing machine.

On Saturday, Oct. 19, Jon Kleinberg, the Tisch University Professor at Cornell University, will deliver the American Mathematical Society’s 2013 Einstein Public Lecture in Graham Chapel at Washington University in St. Louis. Kleinberg will discuss “Bursts, Cascades and Hot Spots: A Glimpse of Some Online Social Phenomena at Global Scales.” The talk, which begins at 5 p.m., is free and open to the public.

George Pepe, PhD, professor of classics in Arts & Sciences, received the David Hadas Teaching Award for his commitment to and excellence in teaching first-year undergraduates. On the WUSTL faculty for nearly 50 years, Pepe received the award Sept. 9 during the annual Arts & Sciences reception, held to celebrate the start of a new academic year, introduce new faculty and recognize the Hadas award winner.

A newly launched digital archive offers a fresh look at the poetry and writing process of Pulitzer Prize winner James Merrill.