Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts

In the political realm, climate change remains a point of debate. But for those charged with managing its effects — the storms and floods followed, whiplash style, by drought and water scarcity — the evidence is in. From March 22-25, the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts and The Royal Netherlands Embassy in Washington, D.C., will present MISI-ZIIBI: Living with the Great Rivers, an international symposium investigating climate adaptation strategies in the Mississippi and Missouri basins.

If American war films are characterized by large-scale combat and appeals to valor, French war cinema is arguably more intimate and psychologically driven. From March 19-21, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will present three iconic films as part of its France at War Film Series.

Art and community building in St. Louis is the next social issue to be explored in “St. Louis Up Close,” a series sponsored by WUSTL’s Gephardt Institute for Public Service and the Community Service Office. “Art and Community Building: Cherokee Street and Beyond,” will be held at 5 p.m. on Thursday, March 21 in the Liberman Graduate Center, DUC 300.

President Bill Clinton and Chelsea Clinton announced the program and featured participants for the sixth annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative University (CGI U) to be held at Washington University in St. Louis April 5-7. In addition to President Clinton and Chelsea Clinton, Stephen Colbert, Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus and WUSTL’s Michael Sherraden are among the featured speakers.

Does art have a moral duty to be politically engaged? On Thursday, March 7, the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will explore that question and more with “Committed Culture: A Panel Discussion on Politics and Aesthetics During World War II.”

In architecture and the visual arts, there is a long tradition of site-specific projects and temporary installations informing subsequent development. Now The Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts and the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts have launched PXSTL, a national competition exploring the critical role of the arts and culture in building vital and dynamic communities.

New faculty members have joined the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts.

In the early 20th century, utopian conviction about the promise of artistic abstraction was widespread. And yet, in the years between the World Wars, the human figure remained the site of significant artistic activity. So argues John Klein, associate professor of art history and archaeology, in Face and Figure in European Art, 1928-1945, now on view at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum.

Sustainability and economic growth: two desirable goals which should demonstrably complement one another, especially in our cities. But how? On Feb. 21, the Sam Fox School and the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., will present The Innovative Metropolis, a daylong symposium (and web simulcast) on fostering economic competitiveness through sustainable urban design.

Renowned author and art historian Udo Kultermann, who taught architecture at WUSTL for nearly 30 years, died Feb. 9, 2013, in New York City, following a long illness. He was 85.