Arts & Sciences

Summer programs should match a child’s interests, activity level and appropriate age group — and be fun.Summer is just around the corner and that means time for barbecues, baseball and beaches. And kids home from school, sending parents on the age-old quest for finding ways to occupy their child’s time. Some educational experts at Washington University in St. Louis say that opportunities abound for kids aged 2 to 18, and it’s important to tailor them to the needs and abilities of the child.

Photo courtesy University of IowaCould there be a link between the obesity epidemic and eugenic thinking? A historian of science at Washington University in St. Louis poses the question.As obesity rates continue to grow in the United States, threatening the health of millions of Americans, a historian of science warns that social problems such as this cannot be solved through science, especially genetics, alone. In this new “gene age” in which large amounts of research funds are used for studies on the genetics of such complex social traits as alcoholism, criminality or obesity, for example, Garland E. Allen, Ph.D., professor of biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, says the climate is ripe for a “re-packaged” eugenics in American society. Allen points out that 100 years ago, eugenics, a movement that claimed many social, personality and mental traits were hereditary, was emerging as a major social movement in Europe and the United States. His concern: it might well still be with us today.

In the March 5 issue of Science, Ann Nguyen of Washington University in St. Louis and her advisor, Ernst K. Zinner, Ph.D., research professor of physics and of earth and planetary sciences, both in Arts & Sciences, describe nine specks of silicate stardust — presolar silicate grains — from one of the most primitive meteorites known. This is the first reported finding of silicate stardust from a meteorite.

HoltenA chemist at Washington University in St. Louis and his colleagues has taken an elegant chemical approach to turn a nonfluorescent organometallic complex into a strong emitter by hampering its internal rotations at the molecular level. Dewey Holten, Ph.D., Washington University professor of chemistry, Jonathan Lindsey, Ph.D., of North Carolina State University and David Bocian, Ph.D., University of California, Riverside, have made a molecule photoluminescent by hindering its intramolecular rotation.

The Washington University Symphony Orchestra and Washington University Chamber Choir will present the 2004 Chancellor’s Concert at 3 p.m. Sunday, April 25. The evente will feature the premiere of three new compositions — written for the university’s sesquicentennial — by Harold Blumenfeld, John MacIvor Perkins and Robert Wykes, all professor emeriti from the Department of Music in Arts & Sciences.

Sarah Russell, associate dean of Arts & Sciences at Washington University, died Tuesday, April 13, 2004, of a brain tumor at her home in Clayton. She was 63. A memorial service will be held at 10:30 a.m. Sunday, April 18, in Graham Chapel.

Administrators from leading American universities come together to discuss environmental initiatives at their respective campuses.

For the first time, researchers have identified organic material in interplanetary dust particles (IDPs), gathered from the Earth’s stratosphere, that was made before the birth of our Solar System.

Photo courtesy Library of Congress.From left, attorneys George E.C. Hayes, Thurgood Marshall and James M. Nabrit Jr. congratulate each other following the U.S. Supreme Court decision declaring segregation in public schools unconstitutional.When the U.S. Supreme Court handed down the Brown v. Board of Education ruling 50 years ago, it based its opinion on the premise that the lives of African-Americans were irreparably harmed by the stigma of segregation, leaving their lives bereft of hope and opportunity. Not all African-Americans accepted this idea, however, leading to skepticism about the Brown decision, says Tomiko Brown-Nagin, J.D., Ph.D., an associate professor in Washington University’s School of Law and in the Department of History in Arts & Sciences. “Although black ambivalence about Brown may appear to be a phenomenon of recent vintage — one connected to the ‘black pride’ movement of the late ’60s and ’70s or the multicultural movement of the early ’90s — in fact it has deep historical roots,” she says. “The historical record should be revised to correct received wisdom: the notion that African-Americans across time and place uniformly supported the campaign to integrate the schools is an historical misconception.”

*Overcoming Apartheid*South Africans celebrate a decade of democracy this month as they observe the 10th anniverary of the April 1994 elections that brought Nelson Mandela to power and ended years of apartheid and white rule. While many expected South Africa’s transition to democracy to be filled with pain and heartbreak, a new book attributes the nation’s remarkable success to it’s steadfast faith in the power of truth to promote national healing and reconciliation. “Without the truth and reconciliation process, the prospects for a reconciled, democratic South Africa would have been greatly diminished,” concludes James L. Gibson, author of “Overcoming Apartheid: Can Truth Reconcile a Divided Nation?”