Arts & Sciences

As a Washington University undergraduate, Aimee Lagos tutored kids from East St. Louis and later interned with a neighborhood stabilization project. Now a film director based in Los Angeles, Lagos will return to campus Monday, April 23, for a free screening of 96 Minutes, her feature-length debut. Inspired by true events, the film portrays four teenagers from two different worlds — until those worlds collide in the course of a carjacking.

Ah, spring. The rains rain, the flowers bloom, and the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences presents its annual Chancellor’s Concert. The performance — which takes place Sunday, April 22, in the 560 Music Center — is among the largest-scaled of the year, featuring well over 100 musicians from the Washington University Symphony Orchestra and the Washington University Choirs.

Paul Dowkontt (left) of the Department of Physics in Arts & Sciences is congratulated by Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton April 11 as he receives a wrapped silver platter in recognition of his 25 years of service to Washington University at the 2012 25th Anniversary Reception.

What is the American Dream’s role in today’s society? Experts from Washington University in St. Louis will explore this question in a panel discussion at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 18, in Brown Hall Lounge on the Danforth Campus. Panelists are Steven Fazzari, PhD, professor of economics in Arts & Sciences; Carter W. Lewis, playwright-in-residence in the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences; and Mark R. Rank, PhD, the Herbert S. Hadley Professor of Social Welfare at the Brown School.

In an article published in the advance online edition of Genes, Brain and Behavior on April 6, 2012, a biologist at Washington University in St. Louis and his colleagues demonstrate that the division of labor among honeybees is correlated with the presence in their brains of tiny snippets of noncoding RNA, called micro-RNAs, or miRNAs, that suppress the expression of genes.

John R. Bowen, PhD, a sociocultural anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis, has been selected for a prestigious fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Bowen, the Dunbar-Van Cleve Professor in Arts & Sciences, was among the 181 Guggenheim Fellows chosen in 2012 from nearly 3,000 scholars, artists and scientists in the United States and Canada.

President Barack Obama lately has been arguing for increased taxes on the rich through his proposed “Buffett Rule,” which would ensure that millionaires and billionaires pay a minimum effective tax rate of 30 percent on their income. Most Americans, including supporters of presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, support such a move, finds The American Panel Survey (TAPS), a new Washington University in St. Louis survey.

It is a moment of rising inequality. The widening gap between aristocratic haves and discontented have-nots threatens to replace the social contract with a powder keg. As You Like It is among Shakespeare’s most popular works, but it is more than just a pastoral romance. So says Annamaria Pileggi, senior lecturer in the Performing Arts Department in Arts & Sciences, who will direct the show April 20-29 in Edison Theatre.

Mara MacMahon has been selected as the recipient of the 2012 Harrison D. Stalker Award from the Department of Biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. The award is given annually to a graduating biology major whose undergraduate career has been marked by outstanding scientific scholarship as well as contributions to the university in the areas of artistic expression or community service.

Nearly 850 area high school students and their teachers will be on campus Thursday, April 12, for the 36th annual German Day. Students will compete in a variety of activities, including a Declamation Contest (poetry recitation), spelling bees, skits, student videos, poster contests and a Schnitzeljagd (scavenger hunt) before enjoying lunch on campus.