Senior Kaitlin Burlingame, a mechanical engineering student who has done extensive research while at Washington University, received a $10,000 award from the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation Thursday afternoon. Retired NASA astronaut Walt Cunningham presented it to her in a ceremony on campus.

The Student Sustainability Fund is open for business for those who have a project in mind to make the University more sustainable. It will host IdeaBounce from noon to 1:15 p.m. on Saturday in Umrath Hall.

A male student was robbed Wednesday evening on Kingsbury Boulevard near Kingsland Avenue. The victim was walking on Kingsbury alone at approximately 7:20 p.m. when three people walking in the opposite direction to the victim disrupted the victim’s walk. One suspect hit him and another suspect took his backpack.

The Daily Beast news blog has ranked Washington University as the nation’s thirteenth most dangerous college, a ranking that administration officials question for its methodology.

Major changes are coming to the environmental studies program at Washington University. The program will be divided into three new majors: environmental biology and environmental earth sciences, which are pending final approval, and environmental social science, which is still in development.

Though few students have caught on, they no longer need to lug around heavy backpacks filled with textbooks. Electronic textbooks (e-books) are now available for a number of classes. Despite a 30-50 percent savings in textbook cost, less than 1 percent of students are using this alternative textbook.

Last year, many business students preferred to eat at Olin Café in the Olin Business School instead of walking across campus to Holmes Lounge for a wrap or a sandwich. But this fall, Olin Café is gone, and in its stead, there will be a temporary installment in the hallway as an Einstein Bros. Bagels shop is constructed inside Simon Hall.

Long tables, high ceilings, colored banners and spirited traditions in a formal dining hall may sound more Harry Potter than Washington University, but this fall, students may find plenty of Hogwarts comparisons to make at College Hall.

Jennifer Smith, associate professor in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Washington University, recently found a sample of alum in the Dakhleh Oasis in the Eastern Sahara. After working with the material, she was able to link it to blue paint that was found in Egyptian pottery during the New Kingdom.

Several Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in creative writing students at Washington University have begun to speak out against a policy under which theses are uploaded to the Internet, fearing that the new policy will hurt their chances of being published later in life.