Paying tribute

A Nobel Prize winner in chemistry and a world-renowned sculptor are among the six people selected to receive honorary degrees during Washington University's 139th Commencement May 19. The University also will bestow academic degrees on some 2,500 students during the ceremony, which begins at 8:30 a.m. in Brookings Quadrangle.

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Construction on two parking lots east of Brookings Hall under way

Work begins this week to construct two parking lots, one to the northeast and the other to the southeast of Brookings Hall. The lots will help the University maintain its agreement with St. Louis County, which requires the Hilltop Campus to have at least 5,144 parking spaces.

A permanent parking lot will be built on the south side of campus between Chaplin and Hoyt drives, just north of Forsyth Boulevard. The lot will be accessible from Chaplin.

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Students to launch project with NASA

Engineering students who work hard on projects all semester often gather with fellow students at semester's end for a critique of their work, certainly by their professors and often by their peers. Electrical engineering students in EE 480, however, will have a different twist to their spring semester project: If all goes well, the fruits of their labors will be launched into space on a NASA rocket in June.

Electrical Engineering 480 is an advanced undergraduate course taught by Donald L. Snyder, Ph.D., the Samuel C. Sachs Professor of Electrical Engineering, and William H. Smith, Ph.D., professor of earth and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences. This semester, the two professors from different schools have shared their highly acclaimed imaging expertise with the course's 13 students to help them prepare a compact package roughly five inches in diameter and seven inches tall.

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'Small but growing' American Indian group makes its presence felt

A Cherokee from Oklahoma. A Shinnecock from Long Island. An Inupiaq Eskimo/Athabascan Indian from Alaska.

One by one, a gathering of Washington University students who share American Indian heritage -- a common denominator that doesn't begin to hint at the group's inner diversity -- approach a large map affixed to the wall. With a long pin in hand, each of the two dozen or so in attendance steps forward and flags his or her hometown.

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