Arts & Sciences

The American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) honored Barbara Schaal, PhD, the Mary-Dell Chilton Distinguished Professor in the Department of Biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, with the 2011-12 AIBS Distinguished Scientist Award June 1.

Each spring, the dean of the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences recognizes outstanding teaching assistants who have been nominated by a department or a program. This year, 18 graduate students received the 2011-12 Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence. A ceremony was held April 19 in the Women’s Building Formal Lounge.

Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis have found a gene that seems to unleash the courtship ritual in male fruit flies. Males missing this gene are capable of courtship; they just have trouble getting started. Usually male fruit flies are “highly sexed,” to the point that they will court and mount “perfumed dummies,” decapitated females coated in waxy pheromones.

Gloria Steinem — a pioneering feminist, award-winning journalist and best-selling author — talks with students of the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program in Arts & Sciences May 17. Steinem, who was at WUSTL to receive an honorary doctor of humane letters at Commencement, took questions from students, offered advice and discussed her own life experiences.

The university’s  ‘Alma Mater’ is now played at noon weekdays from Graham Chapel, thanks to the efforts of rising sophomore Michael Byrne. This is just the first step in a plan to create a stronger sense of tradition on campus. Come graduation time, Byrne wants the song to resonate with the Class of 2015.

Sophia Hayes, associate professor of chemistry in Arts & Sciences, was an undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley, leaning toward an economics major when she stumbled into a quantum mechanics class and then a chemistry class with a collaborative research focus. Research projects were the hook, and “I crammed the chemistry major into my last two years,” Hayes says.

Cong (Lucy) Li is an advocate for innovation and entrepreneurship, especially among graduate students. That’s just one of the reasons Li, who will receive a doctorate in neurosciences from the Division of Biology and Biomedical Sciences in Arts & Sciences May 18, was chosen the Record’s Outstanding Graduate in the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.

In a modern society struggling to loose the grip of a lengthy economic recession, is the American dream really attainable? The dream may still be possible, though much more difficult to achieve, say a renowned macroeconomist and one of America’s foremost experts on poverty, co-teachers of a course on the American Dream this semester at Washington University in St. Louis.

The Graduate Student Senate of Arts & Sciences honored seven faculty members with Outstanding Faculty Mentor Awards during its 13th annual awards ceremony and reception April 11 in the Women’s Building Formal Lounge. The awards recognize faculty members whose dedication to mentoring PhD students and commitment to excellence in graduate training have made a significant contribution to the quality of life and professional development of students in the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Special recognition for excellence in mentoring went to nine other faculty members at the ceremony.

A lifetime of entrepreneurship and tenacity drives Vivian Gibson, senior director of volunteer recruitment at Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Missouri. Gibson, the Record‘s Outstanding Graduate from University College in Arts & Sciences. will receiver her master’s degree in nonprofit management May 18.