A committee of Robert S. Brookings, Henry Ware Eliot, and William Huse found a site of 103 acres (41.7 ha) just beyond Forest Park, located west of the city limits in St. Louis County.

[27] During World War II, as part of the Manhattan Project, a cyclotron at Washington University was used to produce small quantities of the newly discovered element plutonium via neutron bombardment of uranium nitrate hexahydrate.

The plutonium produced there in 1942 was shipped to the Metallurgical Laboratory Compton had established at the University of Chicago where Glenn Seaborg's team used it for extraction, purification, and characterization studies of the exotic substance.

Under Compton's leadership, enrollment at the university grew dramatically, fueled primarily by World War II veterans' use of their GI Bill benefits.

[35] With additional on-campus housing, the university, which had been predominantly attended by commuter students, began attracting a greater number of applicants from across the nation.

[50] On the day of his inauguration, Martin announced the "WashU Pledge", a financial aid program allowing full-time Missouri and southern Illinois students who are Pell Grant-eligible or from families with annual incomes of $75,000 or less to attend the university cost-free.

[56] The program aims to recruit 20 fully funded Kessler scholars per year and provide additional opportunities to close the wealth gap.

[73][74] The Barry Flanagan bronze statue, "Thinker on a Rock," widely known, simply, as "The Bunny", is currently on permanent loan to Washington University and features prominently near Olin Library, Graham Chapel and Mallinckrodt.

In October 2006, the Kemper Art Museum moved from its previous location, Steinberg Hall, into a new facility designed by former faculty member Fumihiko Maki.

Washington University Medical Center comprises 186 acres (75.3 ha) spread over 18 city blocks, located along the eastern edge of Forest Park within the Central West End neighborhood of St.

The school's 2,100 employed and volunteer faculty physicians also serve as the medical staff of Barnes-Jewish and St. Louis Children's hospitals, which are part of BJC HealthCare.

The West Campus building was home to the Clayton branch of the Famous-Barr department store until 1990, when the university acquired the property and adjacent parking and began a series of renovations.

The upper floors house consolidated capital gifts, portions of university advancement, and information systems offices from across the Danforth and Medical School campuses.

[2] The College of Arts & Sciences offers courses in over a dozen languages, including Arabic, Hebrew, Spanish, German, French, Swahili, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Greek, Italian, Hindi, Portuguese, and Latin.

The school comprises In October 2006 the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum moved into new facilities designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect, and former faculty member, Fumihiko Maki.

It houses most of the university's art and sculpture collections, including pieces by Jackson Pollock, Robert Rauschenberg, Jenny Holzer, Pablo Picasso, Max Ernst, Willem de Kooning, Henri Matisse, Joan Miró, and Rembrandt van Rijn, among others.

With approximately $27 million in annual research awards, the school focuses intellectual efforts on medicine and health, energy and environment, entrepreneurship, and security.

[129] In October 2019, then newly inaugurated Chancellor Andrew D. Martin announced the "WashU Pledge", a financial aid program that provides a free undergraduate education to all full-time Missouri and Southern Illinois students who are Pell Grant eligible or from families with annual incomes of $75,000 or less.

[140] Washington University and its medical school play a large part in the Human Genome Project, where it contributes approximately 25% of the finished sequence.

Professor Raymond Arvidson has been deputy principal investigator of the Mars Exploration Rover mission and co-investigator of the Phoenix lander robotic arm.

[142] Washington University professor Joseph Lowenstein, with the assistance of several undergraduate students, has been involved in editing, annotating, making a digital archive of the first publication of poet Edmund Spenser's collective works in 100 years.

The project, currently led by Greg Bowman, uses the idle CPU time of personal computers owned by volunteers to conduct protein folding research.

In 2008 the group performed on MSNBC during coverage of the vice presidential debate with specially written songs about Joe Biden and Sarah Palin.

In 2020, a large number of Greek life members, primarily from sororities permanently deactivated from their chapters as a result of perceived systematic oppression, racism, and sexism.

In addition to South 40 and North Side residence halls, Washington University owns several other buildings within walking distance to Danforth Campus, which are open to upperclassmen.

A variety of other publications also serve the university community, ranging from in-house academic journals to glossy alumni magazines to WUnderground, the student-run satirical newspaper.

[200] Additionally, the list includes science show host, Deanne Bell (Design Squad);[201] New York Times best-selling author, Susannah Cahalan;[202] character actress, Mary Wickes;[203] television actor, Johnny Kastl;[204] 41st attorney general of Missouri, Chris Koster;[205] Paralympic Gold Medalist, Kendall Gretsch;[206] and radical feminist, Shulamith Firestone.

[207] Undergraduate alumni also include co-inventor of nylon Julian W. Hill;[208] co-discoverer of the neutrino Clyde Cowan;[209] Governor of Illinois James R. Thompson;[210] U.S. ambassador to Belgium Sam Fox;[211] Edward S. Holden, president of the University of California;[212] Thomas Lamb Eliot,[213] founder of Reed College; and Abram L. Sachar,[214] founding president of Brandeis University.

Doctoral alumni include the former presidents of Johns Hopkins, Clemson, Wake Forest, Morehouse, Mount Union, Yonsei, and Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

[231] Notable faculty include 56th governor of Missouri Eric Greitens;[248] economist Hyman Minsky;[249] novelists Stanley Elkin[250] and William H. Gass;[251][252] poet Carl Phillips;[253] architect Louis C. Spering;[254] artist Max Beckmann;[255] sex researchers William Masters and Virginia Johnson;[256][257] writer and culture critic Gerald Early;[258] two-time United States Poet Laureate Howard Nemerov;[259][260] founder of the American Association of University Professors Arthur Oncken Lovejoy;[261] chemist Joseph W. Kennedy, co-discoverer of the element plutonium;[262] first woman director of both the National Gallery of Canada and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Jean Sutherland Boggs;[263] and chemist Holden Thorp, editor-in-chief of Science Magazine.