Arts & Sciences

SawyerEven as the United States faces the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, businesses are spending more money on innovation, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report. Keith Sawyer, Ph.D., assistant professor of education and psychology in Arts & Sciences and one of the country’s leading experts on the science of creativity, says that investing in innovation is one of the best ways to beat the recession.

“Financing University Education” is the focus of a free public conference to be held at 6 p.m. Tuesday, April 14, in the Bryan Cave Moot Court Room of Anheuser Busch Hall.

As America considers major healthcare reforms, it may have lessons to learn from Seguro Popular, Mexico’s ambitious plan to improve healthcare for its estimated 50 million uninsured citizens, suggests Ryan Moore, co-author of a new evaluation of the program. Conducted through a partnership of Mexican health officials and researchers from leading American universities, the study offers a model U.S. policymakers might use to scientifically explore solutions to America’s own looming healthcare crisis.

P. James E. Peebles, Ph.D., one of the world’s foremost theoretical cosmologists who played a central role in understanding the evolution and structure of the universe, will deliver two talks April 15 and 16 as part of the McDonnell Distinguished Lecture Series, sponsored by the University’s McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences.

Acting on a strong commitment to social justice forged while students here in the late 1960s, three WUSTL graduates are giving back to their campus community through the “Birds of Passage” fellowship providing field experience for socially conscious graduate students.

Beginning April 17, the Performing Arts Department presents “Mother Courage and Her Children,” an epic tale of a protective yet all-too pragmatic matriarch as its spring Mainstage production.

Three prominent writers will examine “African American Literature Today” at 4 p.m. Wednesday, April 15, in Hurst Lounge.

St. Louis’ Arianna String Quartet, widely hailed as among the nation’s finest chamber ensembles, will be joined by renowned pianist Seth Carlin, professor of music in Arts & Sciences, for a concert of music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Erno Dohnanyi and Robert Schumann.

Author and St. Louis native Nick Reding will read from his work at 8 p.m. Thursday, April 16, for The Writing Program in Arts & Sciences. The talk — part of The Writing Program Reading Series — is free and open to the public and takes place in Duncker Hall, Room 201, Hurst Lounge. A […]

Washington University’s Eliot Trio will perform music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), Gabriel Faure (1845-1924) and Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) at 7:30 p.m. Sunday, April 19, in the 560 Music Center’s E. Desmond Lee Concert Hall. Named for Washington University founder William Greenleaf Eliot, the trio consists of Seth Carlin, professor of music and director of the piano program in the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences; violinist David Halen, concertmaster for the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra; and cellist Bjorn Ranheim, also with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra.