Arts & Sciences

Arts & Sciences recognized the achievements of six alumni during the 15th Annual Arts & Sciences Distinguished Alumni Awards ceremony, held March 22 at the Crowne Plaza Clayton. Five alumni received the Distinguished Alumni Award and Robert L. Virgil, (MBA ’60, DBA ’67, honorary doctor of laws ’09), dean emeritus of Olin Business School and a WUSTL emeritus trustee, received the Dean’s Medal.

In 1990, the Illinois Humanities Council presented a daylong event on the theme “Expressions of Freedom.” So was born the Chicago Humanities Festival, one of the nation’s premiere celebrations of the liberal arts. Now it’s St. Louis’ turn. On April 13 and 14, WUSTL’s Center for the Humanities — with the Missouri Humanities Council, Webster University and the University of Missouri-St. Louis — will present the first annual St. Louis Humanities Festival. One of the speakers is novelist and Yosemite National Park Ranger Shelton Johnson.

At recent Board of Trustees meetings, the following faculty members were appointed with tenure, promoted with tenure or granted tenure effective July 1, 2012, unless otherwise noted.

The Academy of Science of St. Louis will honor 10 faculty members from Washington University in St. Louis for their contributions and leadership in science and medicine. The Outstanding St. Louis Scientists Awards will be presented Thursday, April 19, at the Chase Park Plaza Hotel. The awards are designed to focus attention on St. Louis individuals and institutions known around the world for scientific contributions to research, industry and quality of life.

Clifford Will, PhD, the James S. McDonnell Professor of Space Sciences, will deliver the McDonnell Distinguished Lecture at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 12, in Room 100, Whitaker Hall, at Washington University in St. Louis. Will plans to discuss “Black Holes, Waves of Gravity and Other Warped Ideas of Dr. Einstein.”

Tej Azad, a junior in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, was among 162 students from across the country named a Newman Civic Fellow for 2012 by Campus Compact. The Newman Civic Fellows Awards recognize inspiring college student leaders who have demonstrated an investment in finding solutions for challenges facing communities throughout the country and the world.

After it rules on the highly contested health-care debate and makes other momentous decisions this term, will the U.S. Supreme have sufficient stores of legitimacy to weather the inevitable backlash? Yes, but barely, says a professor of political science at Washington University in St. Louis.

A symposium focusing on culture, law and development in Brazil will be held April 4-6 at WUSTL. Events — which include a keynote lecture, film, and dance and percussion workshop — are free and open to the public, with the exception of the April 6 book discussion, which is open only to WUSTL faculty and graduate students.

The Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences will present its fifth biennial Young Choreographers Showcase Friday through Sunday, April 6-8 in the Annelise Mertz Dance Studio. The concert will feature more than a dozen dancers in ten original works created by student choreographers in the Dance Program in the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences.

Arthur Kleinman, MD, one of the world’s leading medical anthropologists, will speak on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis for the Assembly Series. His lecture, “The Quest for Moral Wisdom in Academic Life: Why William James Still Matters for the Art of Living,” will begin at 4 p.m. Thursday, April 5, in Graham Chapel.