Episodes of undue daytime somnolence, staring spells, diminished awareness of surroundings and incoherent or illogical thoughts may be signs of Alzheimer’s disease, according to a study published on Jan. 19 in the journal Neurology.

With the recent financial recession, job security everywhere has become a scarcity—even in academia. As recently reported in The New York Times, 75 percent of college instructors were full-time tenured or tenure-track professors in 1960, but only 27 percent are today.

Student Life conducted an interview with Chancellor Mark Wrighton after the most recent quarterly meeting of the board of directors on Friday. The discussion involved a review of major events that occurred during the semester.

The average household income of a Washington University undergraduate student is around $180,000, according to a recent survey of 520 undergraduates conducted by Washington University Students for Undergraduate Socioeconomic Diversity.

The median compensation of private university presidents increased 5.5 percent in the 2007-2008 fiscal year, up to $627,750, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education’s annual executive compensation survey. The survey’s data came from federal tax documents released before the economic downturn. In light of the economy, many private university presidents have frozen their salaries or, in the case of Washington University Chancellor Mark Wrighton, taken voluntary pay cuts.

Stephen J. Rapp, recently appointed U.S. ambassador at large for war crimes issues, came to Washington University on Monday to lecture about accountability in international war crimes. His talk, titled “Can International Justice Meet the Demand for Accountability?”, attracted many law school students and faculty members.

To improve access to technological resources, Student Union plans to create a centralized online student portal that will integrate WebSTAC, Telesis, The Link, Blackboard, Ares and other online student applications.

Washington University Libraries received one of the largest grants in the institution’s history, a $376,426 National Leadership Grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The money will fund the St. Louis Freedom Suits Legal Encoding Project, which aims to digitize pre-Civil War lawsuits that slaves brought against slaveholders in the St. Louis Circuit Court.

While many recognize Washington University for its world-class, cutting-edge medical research, few people know that the institution also pioneered sexuality studies in the 1950s. Even fewer know about the pioneer herself, the mother of the scientific study of sex and sex therapy: Virginia Johnson.

While many students have come to accept the towering cranes, mounds of clay and inconvenient fences as a norm of life on the South 40, the construction setup still begs the question: Why is there a hole in the South 40?
So far, most students only have vague ideas of what the ongoing construction project might bring.