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Past Events

Wednesday, 1 Mar 2023

Bicycling, Birding, and #BLM Across America in a Summer of Chaos
7:00 PM – Curtiss Hall Room 0127 - Speaker: Dr. Scott V. Edwards Dr. Scott V. Edwards is the Alexander Agassiz Professor of Organismal and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and the Curator of Ornithology at Harvard's associated museum, the Museum of Comparative Zoology. More lecture details to come.

Tuesday, 28 Feb 2023

The Unplugging: (Re)Writing the Apocalypse
5:00 PM – Webex (see link below) - In this online event, Yvette Nolan will discuss her creative work as a playwright and theatrical director. Ms. Nolan’s play, The Unplugging, tells the story of two women who are exiled from their village in a post-apocalyptic world, after passing child-bearing age. They rely on their traditional wisdom to survive. But when a stranger from their village seeks their help, the women must decide if they will use their knowledge of the past to help the society that rejected them. Ms. Nolan's talk will be followed by a Q&A moderated by ISU playwright and creative writing professor, Charissa Menefee. Webex Link: https://iastate.webex.com/iastate/j.php?MTID=m47efe5857ba7fb28f7acdbce186948b7

Monday, 27 Feb 2023

High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America
6:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Jessica B. Harris is considered by many to be one of the ranking authorities on the food of the African Diaspora. A New York Times bestselling author, she is the author, editor, or translator of eighteen books, including twelve cookbooks documenting the foodways of the African Diaspora. Her award-winning book, High on the Hog, was the basis for the acclaimed Netflix series of the same name. She has lectured widely and written extensively for scholarly and popular publications. Harris consults internationally, is leading the Culinary Institute of America’s team to establish an African Diaspora concentration, and worked with the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture conceptualizing its cafeteria. Dr. Harris holds degrees from Bryn Mawr College, Queens College/CUNY, The Université de Nancy, France, and New York University. She was granted an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Johnson & Wales University and holds numerous awards and accolades. In 2019, Harris’s books were inducted into the James Beard Cookbook Hall of Fame and she was the 2020 James Beard Lifetime Achievement awardee. She was named to the 2021 TIME Most Influential People list. Dr. Harris was a professor at Queens College/CUNY in New York for five decades and is currently professor emerita at that institution.

Saturday, 25 Feb 2023

Passion with Purpose: A Professional Healthcare Journey
3:00 PM – South Ballroom, Memorial Union - Karen Stenger will give the keynote of the 2023 Pre-Health Club Conference. This lectures is free and open to the public. Ms. Stenger, MA, RN, CCRN-K, began her college career at Iowa State before transferring to the University of Iowa and gaining her bachelor's and master's degrees from the College of Nursing. She is a Nurse Practice Leader in the Intensive and Specialty Care Nursing division at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. She has been awarded one of the 100 Great Nurses in Iowa in 2006, the Corridor Business Journal Healthcare Hero in 2012, and a Woman of Influence in 2016.

Thursday, 23 Feb 2023

CANCELED: Leveraging Crisis Into Opportunity
7:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - POSTONED DUE TO WEATHER. A NEW DATE WILL BE ANNOUNCED SOON. Christine’s career draws on public, private and nonprofit leadership roles to foster prosperous green markets and a healthy climate. As first President and CEO of the U.S. Green Buildings Council, she led its evolution from a start-up into the highly influential coalition of industry leaders transforming the way buildings are designed, built and operated. Home to LEED and Greenbuild, Christine received USGBC’s leadership award in 2004 and 2014. As Assistant Secretary of Energy for President Clinton, Christine directed $1 billion in annual investments for clean and renewable energy technologies. Her portfolio included the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and innovations across building, industrial, transportation and utility/renewable energy sectors. Previously, she directed the Oregon Department of Energy and conducted research on energy policy and pollution prevention at the Conservation Foundation/World Wildlife Fund. Christine has served on numerous fiduciary and advisory boards including nonprofits, venture capital firms and start-up companies and is an Ambassador for the federal-university C3E initiative promoting women in leadership positions in clean energy, science and education. Her consulting practice is based in Portland Oregon. This event will be recorded and available for two weeks on the Lectures website at https://www.lectures.iastate.edu/recordings/available-recordings

Wednesday, 22 Feb 2023

Blackballed: The Black and White Politics of Race on Campus
7:30 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Please note: This lecture will be 90 minutes. Lawrence Ross is a writer, author, and lecturer most known for his research on Black Greek culture. His first book, Los Angeles Times best seller, The Divine Nine: The History of African American Fraternities and Sororities, has been a staple of understanding the intricacies of cultural Greek life. Blackballed: The Black and White Politics of Race on Campus is an explosive and controversial book that rips the veil off America's hidden secret: America's colleges have fostered a racist environment that makes them a hostile space for African American students. Blackballed exposes the white fraternity and sorority system, with traditions of racist parties, songs, and assaults on black students; and the universities themselves, who name campus buildings after racist men and women. This event will be recorded and available for two weeks on the Lectures website at https://www.lectures.iastate.edu/recordings/available-recordings

Monday, 20 Feb 2023

Cool Technologies to Cool the Planet
7:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Speaker: Dr. Bernardo del Campo The 2023 Symposium on Sustainability celebrates the diversity of sustainability efforts and initiatives taking place within our campus community focusing on supporting and nurturing enablement and empowerment toward a sustainable future that extends into the Ames community, as well as communities across the state and throughout the world. Features of this year's event include an opening speaker, a keynote speaker, sustainability tabling and art exhibits and the accompanying multi-fasceted, interactive event, Sustainapalooza. This year's Symposium opening speaker is Iowa State graduate, Dr. Bernardo del Campo. He is the President of ARTi - Advanced Renewable Technology International, where he leads projects to design, manufacture, and implement pyrolysis systems around the world to turn waste biomass into biochar, a carbon-rich material to improve soils and sequester carbon dioxide. Besides reactor manufacturing, the ARTi team research and develops carbon products transforming wastes into biochar and modifying it to produce activated carbon, carbon black replacement, soil media, carbon sequestration products, and many others. Dr. del Campo attended Iowa State University where he got his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering with a Co-major in Biorenewable Resources and Technology in 2015. He worked in the Thermochemical lab developing carbon products from Biochar. He founded ISU Biobus for the production of biodiesel on campus to assist fueling a Cyride bus. He has been involved in various "Live green" initiatives at the ISU campus and he was one of the awardees in the Green Talent International Forum for High Potentials in Sustainable Development Competition hosted by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research in 2012. For the symposium, Dr. del Campo will present many of the "cool solutions" that the ARTi team is developing to "cool the planet".

Thursday, 16 Feb 2023

Karagöz Performance of "Forest of the Witch"
6:00 PM РGreat Hall, Memorial Union - The Forest of the Witch is a modern interpretation of a traditional Anatolian shadow play adapted and performed by Ayhan Hulagu. When Karag̦z, the hero of traditional Anatolian shadow plays, cuts the branches from a magical tree, he is transformed into a series of animals, which leads to a comic sequence of adventures. Along the way, Karag̦z and his sidekick Hacivat learn the importance of nature and protecting the environment. Hulagu has performed The Forest of the Witch on Broadway and in theatres across the country. Karag̦z is a form of Turkish shadow theatre dating back nearly 700 years and was declared an UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2009.The show features traditional music and puppets hand-crafted in the Ottoman Empire style, with all the characters performed by Hulagu. This show is appropriate for all ages. Ayhan Hulagu is a professional actor, writer, and master puppeteer. Originally from Istanbul, Turkey, he is one of only a handful of living artists in the world trained in the traditional Karag̦z form. In 2017, he moved to the United States where he founded the Karagoz Theatre. Less than three years later, he made history as the first artist to bring Karag̦z to Broadway. In addition to performing throughout the United States, Hulagu has been a guest artist at multiple U.S. colleges and universities including Harvard, Cornell, MIT, and UC Berkeley.

Wednesday, 15 Feb 2023

A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things
6:00 PM – 3560 Memorial Union - Nature, money, work, care, food, energy, and lives: these are the seven things that have made our world and will shape its future. In making these things cheap, modern commerce has transformed, governed, and devastated Earth. Based on the latest research in political ecology, together with histories of colonialism, indigenous struggles, slave revolts, and other rebellions and uprisings, Raj Patel will demonstrate the cost it takes to make the world cheap and safe for capitalism. At a time of crisis in all seven cheap things, innovative and systemic thinking is urgently required. A range of social movements have already proposed radical new ways to value the planet and its webs of life and care for a turbulent twenty-first century.

Tuesday, 7 Feb 2023

37 Words: Title IX and 50 Years of Fighting Sex Discrimination
7:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Mary Louise Smith Lecture Sherry Boschert is an award-winning journalist and author of 37 Words: Title IX and Fifty Years of Fighting Sex Discrimination, a history of Title IX, the law that prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded education. Among her many honors, she received a Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists for her efforts to promote equity within the news industry. After forty years in the San Francisco Bay Area, she now lives in New Hampshire. Half a century of legal battles and social backlash revolve around a law that girls and women wield to demand fairness in education — a law called Title IX. 37 Words is the first book to tell the complete history of Title IX through the gutsy people behind it, from women denied jobs at the law’s beginnings to students struggling against sexual assault today. Their intersecting narratives offer a timeless playbook for anyone who is horrified by current attacks on women’s rights and is wondering what to do about them.