Food for Thought

Tastings 12:30 pm
Tours 1:00 pm
Workshops 1:30 – 2:30 pm.
3750 Washington Blvd.
St. Louis, MO 63108
314-535-4660

It’s not rare for cultural centers to promote art in peculiar ways—the City Museum is proof of that. But it’s back to the basics for the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis (CAM), which has shown that the path to a visitor’s artistic side can, like so many other paths, be carved through the stomach.

The first Saturday of each month, the CAM hosts “Food for Thought.” This free event showcases new and ongoing exhibits, and gives visitors a chance to taste foods made by local chefs and inspired by exhibition pieces. Founded in collaboration with the Great Rivers Biennial program, a joint effort by the CAM and the Gateway Foundation to promote the St. Louis art scene, Food for Thought sets up a relaxed, half-hour slot for food tasting, a subsequent exhibit tour and, afterward, an hour-long workshop led by local artists.

According to the CAM’s public events coordinator, Alex Elmestad, food can facilitate social interaction and make people feel more receptive to an artistic experience. “Once people eat they feel more relaxed, more willing to engage in some type of a tour, a type of dialogue,” Elmestad said.

It is easy to imagine whetting your artistic appetite while satisfying a culinary one—for example, a colorful salad with raisins and oranges, a past dish featured at Food for Thought, was inspired by a polka dot piece.

Food tasting, all by its lonesome, isn’t the goal of the event, however. Elmestad compared the three stages of the event to three corresponding ways of learning. For food lovers, the composition-based similarities between food and art might stand out; for the listener, the conceptual depth of the tours might be more appealing. The hands-on element of the workshops—catered to adults especially, but open for anyone 10 and up—can educate visitors in the complexities involved in creating contemporary art.

Elmestad said that the finished works visitors are used to seeing in museums are hardly reflective of the efforts artists undertake before opening night. “There’s so much work involved in getting to that point,” he said.

Currently, the museum is showcasing Elad Lassry’s “Sum of Limited Views,” comprised of different types of framed photographs, and “Hair” by Richard Artschwager, which explores the themes of perception and deception. Laura Fried, who specializes in Lassry’s work and knows about his exploration of the photographic medium, will lead the tour. Quiche and crepes are on the menu for this Saturday’s session—influenced, according to Elmestad, by some egg-inspired artwork found within the exhibits.

The event is intimate, with a flexible 35-person cap that fills on a first-come, first-serve basis. If absorbing some cultural patrimony through the palate—and more conventional means—sounds fitting to you, then make your way downtown this Saturday and explore what the CAM has to offer. And it couldn’t come at a more perfect time, as everyone seems to be looking for that last hoorah before finals set in.

“It takes a lot of coordination and effort to make the campus beautiful,” said Theiling, the horticulturist in charge of most of the landscape work done at Wash. U.

According to Theiling, the South 40 Residence Halls, along with the Danforth, North, South and West campuses, are all maintained by a group of around 30 workers from Top Care Lawn Service, the University’s grounds maintenance contractor since 1992. The workers are on a tight schedule from April to November.

“Currently, Top Care is mulching shrub beds, trees, preparing the flower beds and containers for the annual flowers, as well as working on the landscape of Brauer Hall and starting up the irrigation systems,” Theiling said. “Weekly mowing of the grass has begun and trash is picked up on a daily basis.”

Landscape architects are hired by Wash. U. primarily to design landscapes and installations around new buildings, such as the aforementioned recent addition to the School of Engineering, Brauer Hall.

The selection of the rest of the grounds’ greenery is up to Theiling, who manages the landscape renovations, the replacement of those trees that did not survive the first couple of years of planting and the selection of annual flowers. He often opts for burgundies and whites that match the school colors.

At the moment, Top Care workers are busy preparing for the flurry of events that occur in spring, which attract many students and off-campus visitors. These include Thurtene, W.I.L.D. and, most notably, Commencement, before which the company plants new flowers to make the campus look as lovely as possible. This requires a large number of man-hours, especially for such a short period of time.

For years, students have debated the need for campus landscaping, or at least the need for such an abundance of it. The trademark spring tulips, whose planting has raised complaints from students as visible signs of some tuition money’s final resting place, are gone this year due to budget cuts.

Patricia Cheung, a graduate student at the Brown School of Social Work, thinks both the landscaping and tulips are necessary.

“A lot of high school students come during spring,” Cheung said. “It’s important, as superficial as that may sound.”

However, Cheung, who also did her undergraduate work at Wash. U., said she would instead like to see a bigger investment in a somewhat different aspect of landscaping: Wash. U.’s built environment. A greater number of benches, picnic tables and other interactive architecture across campus would encourage the use of Wash. U.’s green spaces. Cheung also desires more sustainable landscaping that would not have to be renovated as frequently.

“As far as the shrubs and trees that we choose, we try and go more for native trees and native shrubs, ones that sustain our weather conditions, that are well established in this region of the country, that can keep up with our hot, dry summers,” Theiling explained. “Pro-native is a very popular topic for many people, not just on campus.”

Given the spring deadlines, it seems that campus landscaping is often most appreciated by prospective students.

Will Childs-Klein, a high school junior interested in Wash. U., commented that landscaping might affect his college choice.

“The green is a big factor. I don’t want a campus that’s brown,” Childs-Klein said. He visited Rice University in October—acknowledging that it was autumn—and felt he liked the feel of Wash. U.’s campus “a lot better.”

“Keep it up,” Childs-Klein suggested in the end, regarding the maintenance work done around the school. Perhaps Wash. U. will remain a hung jury about the value of tulips. But it seems landscaping, in whatever form, is a valuable asset to the campus at large.

Burger and Estenssoro are participating in an 80-day trip across the United States with Bike and Build, a charity that raises money for organizations that improve affordable housing options across the U.S.

Starting on May 24 and ending on August 12, the juniors will bike from South Carolina to California, resting in churches, synagogues, schools and YMCA complexes along the way.

During specific “Build Days,” the riders will take time to help construct affordable housing. Bike and Build plans eight different trips each summer, with around 30 bikers per group, snaking along various routes throughout the U.S.

All riders must raise $4,000 in order to participate, as well as acquire the appropriate gear. Mostly by rallying relatives and family and writing letters, Estenssoro has raised $3,800 and Burger $3,000. Estenssoro gathered $400 by spending a day outside Schnuck’s with a can, asking for donations. Unfortunately, the store hasn’t allowed the juniors to gather money since then.

Organizations vie for some of the money gathered by the students, and Habitat for Humanity chapters are consistently listed as recipients, though Bike and Build is not officially affiliated with them. The allocation of some of the money, however, is left in the riders’ hands.

“I get to choose where a certain amount of my money goes,” said Burger. “I’m from Austin, Texas, so I’ll probably donate to the Austin, Texas chapter of Habitat for Humanity.”

Since its inception seven years ago, Bike and Build has raised more than $1.6 million for affordable housing and has heightened awareness about the need for affordable options across the U.S. According to 2008 data released by the National Low Income Housing Coalition, there is an extreme shortage of affordable housing to Extremely Low Income (ELI) renter households in the U.S., with only 6.1 million units available to a total of 9.4 million ELI renters.

“Finding affordable housing, it’s pretty bad, especially now with the economy,” said Burger, who recently contributed to a building project in St. Louis.

In addition to helping fight this problem, Bike and Build will give the engineers a chance to lay off the academics and, according to Estenssoro, have a “life-changing experience,” as opposed to a traditional summer internship.

“I hear it’s the greatest summer in your life,” said Estenssoro. “We’re really looking forward to it.”

If you would like to learn more about Bike and Build or donate to its cause, visit http://www.bikeandbuild.org/cms/index.php.

Tadisina knows the extensive demands of competitive dancing. He is one of the three choreographers of the St. Lungitics Bhangra team, along with senior Ami Jani and junior Manjaap Sidhu. Comprised of Washington University students, St. Lungitics trains in one of the most popular and competitive Indian dance styles in the nation. Its members endure the stress of judging panels, a divergent but distinct style and long hours of work for the sake of doing what they love and doing it well.

Most of St. Lungitics’ members are recruited during the open auditions for the Diwali Bhangra (the team officially falls under the wing and occasional funding of Ashoka, not Student Union proper). Its members have performed in a variety of activities on campus, such as Celebration Weekend, ThurtenE, Relay For Life and the law school’s Diversity Week. Off campus, the team applies to several competitions—around 30 to 40 Bhangra competitions are held nationwide every year—and prepares intensely for those it qualifies for. For two years, the team has participated in the Dallas-based Raas Rave and Bhangra Blitz competitions, along with teams from Michigan and California and even neighbor teams from Saint Louis University. St. Lungitics has placed third twice, most recently this past February.

“It was a lot of fun,” Tadisina said of the experience. “The whole team bonded. We had a chance to show people across the nation what we do here at Wash. U. People don’t necessarily think that we have a large South Asian community here, or certainly not one that can compete with teams that have hundreds or thousands of people that they can pick from.”

In the national Bhangra scene, St. Lungitics is known to have a modern, youthful edge and is famous for being creative with its formations and moves. In the world of traditional Indian dancing, modernity is not necessarily well received by judges. The top Bhangra teams, according to Tadisina and Jani, tend to be native from Punjab, the region in India where Bhangra originated. These group members often grew up surrounded by the traditional Bhangra motions. For many of St. Lungitics’ members, however, Bhangra is a new experience. Their more creative dancing style—a mixture of what they have learned from each other and other teams—reflects that.

“As far as our modernness, it does affect us,” Jani said. “That’s just our style. We’re not a traditional team. We do get penalized, sometimes by the audience members or the judges. It just depends on what they’re looking for.”

Both Tadisina and Jani refer to the team as a support group or family, the sort in which hard work and fun, even if peppered by the occasional conflict, can lead to a greatly rewarding outcome.

“We all love dancing. You have to kind of have that passion for dancing to have such a dedication to it,” Jani explained. “We want to do our best, and we want to look our best. So we’ll go to 2 to 3 in the morning to make sure we go out there and give our 110 percent, regardless of whether we place.”

According to Tadisina, the team aims to expand to open lessons in the future in the hopes of connecting more with the student body. “We’re always eager to get our name out there, teach everybody else something that we have learned to love,” he said.

Jessica Yeung performs in the umbrella dance at Lunar New Year Festival 2009. Culture Shock, a new student group on campus, is attempting to increase attendence at cultural events by people who are not a part of the culture. (Matt Mitgang | Student Life)

Pick a cultural event on campus, be it Carnaval, Black Anthology or the bubble tea promotion on the 40. Then, take a look around. More often than not, the number of attendants that are of the culture being celebrated is larger than the number of attendants who do not identify with that culture. This can, to an extent, be expected. When one’s identity, or a friend’s, is being showcased people are more likely to set aside the time to experience events pertaining to it.

Despite lacking previous cultural or social ties to a group, people should feel that they can participate comfortably in campus events that celebrate cultures they wouldn’t otherwise know and learn about; after all, that is a large reason that cultural groups host these activities. Helping these students broaden their horizons is what Culture Shock, a new student group on campus, is all about. According to the Facebook group, Culture Shock is intended to help create an “open, welcoming, more diverse campus environment.” The group has aimed to expose its members to one cultural event on campus per week.

Sophomore Melissa Goldberg, Culture Shock’s external relations vice president, said the idea for the new group arose from insightful discussions in RCE, or “Redefining Community Experience”—a retreat sponsored by the Office of Student Activities that took place the week before the start of spring semester. Culture Shock attempts to translate some of the problems discussed in that retreat into on-campus action.

“Some people felt that they were interested in learning about other people’s cultural groups and what the groups do on campus, but they didn’t feel comfortable going to the meetings because they were not members of those culture groups,” Goldberg said about the origins of the group. “They felt there could be discomfort.” Responding to this feeling, Culture Shock was built upon the notion that the larger the group of interested people, the less uneasy they might feel about including themselves in the activities of cultural groups.

Sophomore member Erica Muñoz-Fitch said the new group’s goal is interesting; but might be difficult to maintain.

“All of the cultural groups say they’re happy for anyone to come at all times, that you don’t need a special group to come to their meeting,” Muñoz-Fitch said. “I think [Culture Shock] is valid in that a lot of our people, although they hear that, just don’t feel comfortable, so this will serve as a comfort zone for people who are sort of in the same boat. I think it’s way of adjusting a problem that people have been dealing with for a long time.”

Culture Shock is a new student group on campus designed to increase student involvement with cultures different from their own. (Matt Mitgang | Student Life)

As part of Black History Month, Culture Shock’s most recently endorsed events and activities relate to African-American culture. The group provided a small number of free tickets to Black Anthology, and later this month, Culture Shock members will be attending the ABS Trivia Night, as well as events relating to Africa Week near the end of February.

A potential future subsidiary of Connect 4—though nothing has been set in stone—Culture Shock has also networked with the Russian Students Association, the Chinese Students Association, Mixed and other cultural programming groups. Goldberg expressed the group’s interest in engaging with these groups in the future by participating in activities like Russian Mardi Gras and the Persian New Year.

“On an individual basis, people feel comfortable talking to whoever,” Goldberg said, “but sometimes when there’s a group of people who share one culture, other people who are not of that culture can sometimes feel uncomfortable joining that group. So that’s what this is working to break down a little bit.”

For more information about Culture Shock, join the Facebook group or send an e-mail to wucultureshock@gmail.com.

Anheuser-Busch Hall, home to the law school and seen here in the far back, is an example of a building on campus that, according to professor Esley Hamilton is ‘just plopped down on the ground, and whatever space is left over is not considered at all." (Matt Mitgang | Student Life)

Suppose a Godzilla-like figure were to stomp through St. Louis. What parts of the city’s architecture would you immediately appeal to preserve? Most would save the Arch, Union Station, the Wainwright Building and Central West End. To many, the list of landmarks that immediately pops into mind may end there.
But to Esley Hamilton, adjunct lecturer in the architecture school, St. Louis architectural gems also include Soulard, Lafayette Square and Washington Terrace—familiar names of communities boasting beautiful Period Revival houses, hardly found in such a preserved state anywhere else in the country. “Nowadays, people use the umbrella term ‘period house,’ which could mean English, Tudor, Spanish, French or Rennaissance,” Hamilton said.
Despite the fact that St. Louis may not be known for its architecture, our city plays host to a variety of well-known constructions. In fact, if you look around when walking on campus, you’ll be surprised at what you find.
According to Hamilton, not much was written on St. Louis architecture in the past, but, as preservation historian for the St. Louis County’s Department of Parks and Recreation, Hamilton has been taking steps to right this wrong. He has invested years researching and documenting architectural sites in the city, preserving neighborhoods and buildings that are important to the county.
“The historic neighborhoods are what give the city its character,” Hamilton said about his work, assessing locales in danger of deterioration or of demolition. “People from other parts of the country are just amazed by Soulard and Lafayette Square, Compton Heights, Washington Terrace. There are very few places in the country that have that left.”
Throughout the years, neighborhoods like Parkview, which borders Wash. U. to the north, have been known to be highly attractive to artists, writers, mayors and the like, including Stanley Elkin, the famous writer and Wash. U. professor. Most of the neighborhoods surrounding the University are now listed in the National Register thanks to the efforts of the historians developing important new literature about St. Louis historic landmarks. These communities, a stroll away from campus, boast a variety of visual styles—surprising given the short span of time in which they were built, from the late 19th century into the 1930s.
But it’s not just the lovely residential surroundings that Wash. U. students should keep an eye out for. While we come to this school to study, we are also unwittingly treated to four years of a one-of-a-kind architectural experience every day—namely that of walking and learning within a National Historic Landmark. Hamilton himself wrote the nomination to the National Register of Historic Landmarks for the Hilltop Campus, now dubbed Danforth Campus.
“There’s only about 2,500 National Historic Landmarks of any category in the whole United States,” Hamilton said. “[The Hilltop Campus] was listed for its architecture ahead of Princeton, Yale and Harvard because it’s one of the best examples of the Collegiate Gothic style that started in the 1890s. It was really a style that was formulated by Cope and Stewardson, who were the original architects of this campus.”
The competition to decide which architectural design would be selected for the University attracted Carrere & Hastings—designers for the New York Public Library—and several other leading architecture firms of the time. The current campus layout was picked among other options for its emphasis on spaces rather than overwhelmingly large buildings. The design was chosen so that the campus could grow organically as buildings were added to it, instead of requiring that pairs of buildings be constructed at the same time in order to look aesthetically pleasing.
Wash. U. presents the kind of situation in which historical preservation and present style collide; however, Hamilton argued that this concept of organic growth is no longer at the heart of the renovations happening on campus.
“The buildings are just plopped down on the ground, and whatever space is left over is not considered at all,” Hamilton said. “It’s really a shame to see the campus so crowded and with so many unused places.” Some areas in campus have been redeveloped “like canyons,” like the Anheuser-Busch building that towers over the stairs at either side of it.
This perceived inefficiency is not, conceded Hamilton, entirely removed from the current state of the architecture profession today. Leading architects are not inclined to work with the kind of style that Wash. U. demands. One sees in Wash. U. precisely the difficulties historical architecture faces when subjective dismissal is large.
“Many architects that grew up with the international modern style refuse to consider period revival buildings to have any merit whatsoever. Just the very fact that the campus has chosen to try to emulate the Collegiate Gothic style puts them totally out of bounds with these architectures and critics. But that’s really not fair,” Hamilton said. “The style of the building shouldn’t determine whether it’s a good building or a bad building. It’s determined by the quality of the constructions and the spaces within.”
Assume some past generation had deemed Wash. U. an architectural disaster and had torn down the current façade. Would it have been a social wrong? Perhaps the benefit of historical preservation lies in allowing, in the most fundamental sense, for a person to decide what to think about a visible, prevailing, slice of history.

(Courtesy of Nicolas Tarmarkin)

Before becoming a Washington University freshman, Nicholas Tamarkin had performed in two Tony-nominated plays, one during his freshman year and another during his junior year of high school. He had acted in Paris and Berlin, met Al Pacino and Paul Newman, and gone to Kevin Bacon’s wedding.

“Wonderful, fantastic, lovely, lucky,” Tamarkin said about those experiences between the ages of 14 and 22 that led him to Broadway, to regional theater, to the BBC and even to legendary Arthur Miller.

During that time, he also realized that the A-list lifestyle might not be particularly sustainable. In some ways, the glossy glow of the famous names and the famous places was akin to the one derived from “dating a cheerleader,” as he joked. A young Tamarkin came to the understanding that, behind the bright lights of the mainstream theater scene, there was the space to question whether there was any art burgeoning at all.

In looking for satisfaction from life and art, Tamarkin has tried regional theater, writing, directing and even teaching at Michigan State University for two years. His career has been, according to him, a topsy-turvy ride, and one that, after more than a decade, once again has found a good pit stop in St. Louis. He is now back at Wash. U. in the doctoral program for comparative literature. He also works as director of development in the St. Louis-based Upstream Theater, an experimental company that has become his artistic home.

“The motto of [Upstream Theater] is ‘To move you, and to move you to think,’” Tamarkin said about the small theater company founded in 2004. Within the St. Louis theater scene, Upstream is known for its raw and uncomfortable shows. Tamarkin just finished working in “Helver’s Night,” a two-character play about a mentally disabled man who becomes fascinated with the regalia of a political movement uncannily similar to the Nazi regime of World War II.

The process of creating theater in Upstream is “organic,” according to Tamarkin. Most of the work that is presented is in translation from Polish or German. The scripts are ambitious and sometimes “imperfect,” and the company members come together in a hazy process to find what each member of the company can contribute to the understanding of the script.

There is a rich variety of experiences that color the theatrical process: Upstream works, for example, with an Iranian-American musician and a Mexican mask maker. Two years ago, Upstream also worked with the Serbian community in St. Louis for the production of a Serbian play, looking constantly for community engagement. Apart from Tamarkin, other members of the Wash. U. community are involved with Upstream Theater (or the other way around). Philip Boehm, artistic director of Upstream, is the husband of Elzbieta Sklodowska, professor in the romance languages department.

Tamarkin believes that Upstream Theater should be accessible to Wash. U. students. As director of development at Upstream Theater, he hopes to make a move toward a closer contact between students—in a constant process of fascination and discovery—and a theater that is deeply rooted in its creative process.

“We can get into art museums with our Wash. U. IDs. We should be able to see strong, evocative, consciousness-raising theater for five, six bucks,” Tamarkin said.

Tamarkin hopes to return once again to teaching in the future, considering that helping young men and women in a process of discovery is highly satisfactory. In the meantime, his time in St. Louis offers him an interesting combination of experiences.

“Coming back to St. Louis, seeing people are still into Mama’s Pot Roast, trying to figure out to how to work within a Ph.D. program and, most importantly, working with Upstream Theater and just helping people make their art,” Tamarkin said with a smile.

It seems that for him, coming back to St. Louis is not quite full circle, but just another interesting twist in an exciting life spiral.

Above: Barnes-Jewish Hospital, located in the Central West End, boasts many different specialized wards, including the Center for Advanced Medicine. Below: U.S. News & World Report ranks Barnes-Jewish Hospital the sixth best hospital in the nation. (Lucy Moore | Student Life)

It’s likely that after surviving general chemistry, organic chemistry, physics and biology, Washington University pre-meds will be in pretty good shape for the MCAT and the years of medical school that await them after graduation. But doctors aren’t deemed good doctors because of their crazy skills with paper, pen and Scantron sheets.

How can the studying and test taking of college help prepare a pre-med for the very real task of saving people’s lives? In a sense, MedPrep is part of Wash. U.’s answer to this question. For years, this two-credit, pass/fail course has allowed students to shadow physicians as a way to acquire an up-close look at the unpredictable environment of an emergency room and the responsibilities that come with that coveted medical degree.

The around 100 participants in the MedPrep program attend lectures from Dr. Gregory Polites, assistant prof of emergency medicine, each Wednesday and have three-hour shadowing sessions at the Charles F. Knight Emergency and Trauma Center of Barnes-Jewish Hospital once every two weeks. The course touches base with the medical school application process and the subsequent years of study, and it also addresses some of the more long-term questions about residency lifestyle. Indeed, this course is deeply grounded in giving students pragmatic lessons and viewpoints about the medical profession. Many physicians give guest lectures, and they are people who, according to sophomore Betel Ezaz, “know the system inside out.”

“It’s really eye-opening,” Ezaz added. “[MedPrep] helps you realize whether or not you want to go through the entire [medical school application] process, and it makes you question whether you value medicine as a way of life.”

One of the lectures in the official course Web site is dubbed “The ‘Ooh, Ahh’ Lecture—Cases from the Image Bank.” With very graphic pictures and videos, it is presented early in the term and shows some of the situations participants might expect during the shadowing experience. Students are allowed to attend most procedures, except if patients specifically request their removal, Ezaz said. Births, deaths and resuscitations—all have been witnessed by students in the program as they follow their designated physicians of the week.

With rotating assignments that switch mentoring physicians, the ER experience is about proximity to action and not necessarily about one-on-one time with a mentor. Being deposited in the middle of a respected medical institution is nevertheless an opportunity within an opportunity. Junior Mariana Deseda has made friends with students from the medical school she shadowed, and she has found this to be a helpful complement to how Polites’ class has showed “not only how competitive [medical school] is, but how rewarding it is personally and professionally.”

However connections may happen, MedPrep students do benefit from gathering their share of personal impressions about saving lives—a task in which humanity and pragmatism sometimes arise in an interesting tug-and-pull.

“The first two nights that I shadowed, there was a man who came in after having a heart attack,” Ezaz said. “They had the wife into the room as they were trying to resuscitate him because he ended up crashing. At first, it was kind of like a typical problem of how to figure out how to make him live, but when they brought the wife in, it brought the human element out.”

Deseda witnessed the physical struggles of a heroin addict suffering from an infection, and sophomore Kevin Zhou saw his share of grotesque wounds. Zhou, who valued the demystifying factor of the course, highly recommended it to potential medical students.

“When you think of being a doctor, it’s so easy to think you just go there and see patients. You go to med school, study for a while, and you’re home free,” said Zhou. “But there’s so much involved you don’t realize unless you really talk to somebody. Some people go out and do that, but for a lot of people, MedPrep was the way to find out the subtleties of the profession.”

But about 30 Japanese American students instead found refuge at Washington University. When accepted to the University, these students were relieved of being sent to internment camps. Indeed, freshman Andy Matsumoto’s grandfather was among them. In an interview with the Associated Press this August, Yoshio Matsumoto recalled memories of Wash. U. during in his first visit to the University in 60 years.

“On the radio was the World Series, so it must have been early October,” Yoshio Matsumoto estimated about his 1942 arrival to St. Louis. Mr. Matsumoto—interrupted from his third year at University of California, Berkeley—had spent several months in the Tanforan Racetrack, one of the temporary assembly centers where Japanese Americans were being held.

At the time, it seemed his bid for acceptance into a university in the Midwest would not be enough to keep from being among the 7,800 scheduled to move to the permanent relocation center in Topaz, Utah.

“I was waiting to be removed, and along comes a message that I’d been accepted to Washington University,” Mr. Matsumoto said. He recalled boarding a train to St. Louis in “relative comfort,” while seeing an intersecting, crowded train to Topaz carry several Japanese Americans, its blinds sealed shut.

Upon arrival, Mr. Matsumoto was greeted by other Japanese Americans already on campus. The first order of business was to visit “the Y,” at the east end of Graham Chapel, and meet the director, Arnold Hawk, along with his staff.

“A lot of other students there [in the YMCA] were there to help us and became very friendly with us, they would invite us to their homes,” said Mr. Matsumoto.

Of his time in Wash. U., the 88-year-old alum told Student Life he also remembered playing on the greens near the chapel after classes. Mr. Matsumoto briefly stayed in Liggett and Lee halls, which, according to him, were “on the other side of Forsyth” at the time.

“It’s so much bigger now, it’s hard to recognize,” added the alum about the University, expanded from a mostly commuter to a residential college since the ’40s.

During the war, Washington University cooperated with the National Japanese American Student Relocation Council, made up of educators that worked out agreements with the military so that Japanese American students who were given the proper lease by authorities could continue their studies at institutions that agreed to house them. The council was also responsible for helping the students cover the costs of their education through scholarships and private funds.

“To this day I don’t know how some of my expenses were paid,” Mr. Matsumoto said in his AP interview. He had to pay a portion of his education himself.

Mr. Matsumoto graduated from Wash. U. with a degree in mechanical engineering in 1944, went on to rejoin his sister’s family in Detroit and later on to serve in the U.S. military. He moved on and kept his experience in relative silence for years.

“It was all pretty new to me. He never talked about it,” Andy Matsumoto said in an interview with Student Life. Andy first heard a thorough account of his grandfather’s story while interviewing him for a 10th-grade presentation on World War II.

Given the circumstances in which Mr. Matsumoto found himself, it is perhaps unsurprising that he did not discuss for so long what he described as a “strange time.”

“There was some fear and anger and some feeling of shame because the country of my parents had attacked the United States,” Mr. Matsumoto told AP, recalling the general sentiment during the time. “When we first got the news of the [Pearl Harbor] attack, I would walk to class and feel like people were looking at me like I was the enemy.”

But of Wash. U. itself, Mr. Matsumoto confirmed to Student Life that he recalled “lots of good memories, lots of good people here.”

Furthermore, with Andy Matsumoto making his first rounds on campus, Wash. U.’s role in the family still has a way to go.

“They were so good to him [Mr. Matsumoto], and then it’s such a good school,” Andy Matsumoto said about Wash. U. and its staff. “It has brought a lot of blessings to our family.”

For information about Wash. U.’s role in the history of the Japanese internment, you can visit its page at the Freshman Reading Program website, http://frp.wustl.edu/internmenthistory.

Yes, on this particular Tuesday, Sept. 15, the St. Louis Symphony was promoting its Symphony on the Swamp at Washington University. While the music isn’t always live, Director of the Danforth University Center Leslie Heusted said that Tuesday Tea @ the DUC, held every Tuesday at 3 p.m., normally has music through the speakers, too. Students come to Tuesday Tea for the complimentary tea and cookies, as well as for the chance to win different prizes.

“We wanted people to see [the DUC] as a gathering place,” explained Heusted about the purpose of the event. “Tea is peace, really.”

The event has become so popular that, beginning this fall, Tuesday Tea is being hosted by different campus and external organizations—the LGTB Office, Stressbusters and Campus Collaborative are among the upcoming ones. This gives group representatives a chance to mingle casually with students as they unwind.

The event has become a low-key, easy-access gathering that happens on a regular basis, adding to Wash. U.’s social scene. Indeed, there are many of these types of gatherings, scattered throughout campus and cross sectioning several subjects and interests.

Hurst Lounge, which is decorated with delicate angel sculptures and a bay window that serves as an elegant podium backdrop, is home to the English Department’s Fall Reading Series. These readings are intimate affairs, meant for a small crowd and an environment for feedback.

“We usually get all of our graduate students and our MFA students, and these teachers often invite their undergraduate students. It’s usually a pretty comfortable crowd, with 50 to 100 people to any given reading,” said Assistant Director of the Writing Program David Schuman. “We also have a book sale and a small reception afterwards.”

There are approximately four to five readings per semester, and in that same period of time, a pair of visiting Hurst professors stay on campus for two weeks worth of workshops. This fall’s visiting professors are Ricky Ducornet – a multifaceted painter, novelist and poet – and Claudia Rankine, winner of several poetry prizes. While graduate English students are the normal beneficiaries of these readings, undergraduates have their own reading—scheduled for Nov. 19—and an open invitation to appreciate literature.

“The bigger crowd we get, the more exciting for everyone involved. We have 20 graduate students here, and we can count them in these events, but the more, the merrier,” Schuman said.

Other gatherings have been a quiet staple of Wash. U. culture for years. Jazz at Holmes, held Thursdays at 8 p.m. in Holmes Lounge, began in 1996 as “a small intimate support setting for an alternative style of music on campus,” according to Steven Ehrlich, associate dean of academics at University College.

Brownies, local and regional jazz performers and a “beautiful venue,” as Ehrlich declared, have made Jazz at Holmes a hit week after week for more than a decade and for more than just student audiences.

“We bring together the St. Louis community and campus. We get a couple of hundred people, about half students, half community,” Ehrlich said.

There will always be Edison Theater, the Assembly Series and W.I.L.D. offering great experiences on campus. But there are also alternatives that you can take advantage of periodically by just being in the right place at the right time. Mark your calendars, and enjoy what Wash. U. offers in little doses.

Upcoming:

Fall Reading Series: Rikki Ducornet, Thursday, Oct. 1

Jazz at Holmes: Scott Alberici, Thursday, Oct. 1

Tuesday Tea, Tuesday, Oct. 6