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Lectures Program Event Being Planned
7:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Speaker to be announced.

LIVE via WEBCAST: Language and the Internet - David Crystal
3:00 PM – Doziel Auditorium, 127 Curtiss Hall - Linguist David Crystal is perhaps best known as the author of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language and The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. He has authored more than one hundred books on the English language, with topics ranging from phonetics and grammar to Shakespeare to clinical linguistics. He has also been a presenter or consultant for several television programs, including the BBC's The Story of English. His latest book, with his wife and business partner, Hilary Crystal, is Wordsmiths and Warriors: The English-language Tourist's Guide to Britain. Crystal is an Honorary Professor of Linguistics at the University of Wales, Bangor. Quentin Johnson Lecture in Linguistics

Redefining Hip Hop Culture with Respect and Dignity - MC Lyte
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - MC Lyte has long been considered one of hip-hop's pioneer feminists. She first gained fame in 1988 as the first solo female rapper to release a full album, Lyte as a Rock. This past September, MC Lyte was honored with the "I Am Hip-Hop Award" at the 2013 BET Hip Hop Awards. She is the CEO of Sunni Gyrl, an entertainment management and production firm, and author of Unstoppable, Igniting the Power Within to Achieve Your Greatest Potential. She is also active in social projects, including anti-violence campaigns and Rock the Vote. MC Lyte is an honorary member of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority and chair and founder of the nonprofit Hip Hop Sisters. Annual Big XII Conference on Black Student Government Keynote Speaker

The Global Pandemic of Physical Inactivity: An Urgent Priority for Public Health - Bill Kohl
7:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - For nearly thirty years, Harold (Bill) Kohl has worked to promote exercise and fitness as a public health priority. He helped create the first U.S. Physical Activity Guidelines, which were published in 2008, and is an advocate for increasing physical activity among adults and children, including in K-12 school environments. Kohl worked previously for the Centers for Disease Control, where he served as the lead epidemiologist and team leader for the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. He is currently a professor of epidemiology and kinesiology at the University of Texas School of Public Health. The 2013-14 Pease Family Scholar

Climate Preparedness and Resilient Cities: What It Means in Iowa - Mayor Frank Cownie
6:30 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Des Moines Mayor Frank Cownie was one of eight U.S. mayors recently appointed to the State, Local and Tribal Leaders Task Force on Climate Preparedness and Resilience. The group has been charged with making recommendations to the White House for developing and financing tools to improve preparedness at the local level for increasingly frequent extreme weather conditions. Mayor Cownie has been an advocate for environmental sustainability within the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI), and he was invited to participate as a local government delegate at the International Climate Meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark. Part of the 2014 Symposium on Sustainability

Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth? - Alan Weisman
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Author and journalist Alan Weisman's best selling book The World Without Us asked readers to envision how our planet would respond to a loss of the human race. His new book, Countdown: Our Last Best Hope for a Future on Earth? tackles population growth and the challenges it poses for a sustainable human future. The book took him to more than twenty countries, seeking insight into how we could achieve a stable, optimum population and design an economy that allows for prosperity without endless growth. Alan Weisman's reports have been featured in publications ranging from the Atlantic Monthly to Vanity Fair and have earned him appearances on The Daily Show, Nova and The Today Show. He is a former contributing editor to the Los Angeles Times Magazine, a senior radio producer for Homelands Productions and taught international journalism at the University of Arizona. Part of the Wildness, Wilderness & the Environmental Imagination Series and the University Symposium on Sustainability.

The Catholic Church in the 21st Century: New Directions, Ancient Convictions - George Weigel
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - George Weigel, Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, is a Catholic theologian and frequent commentator on issues of religion and public life. Weigel is the author or editor of more than twenty books, including The End and the Beginning: Pope John Paul II-The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy; Practicing Catholic: Essays Historical, Literary, Sporting, and Elegiac; and, most recently, Evangelical Catholicism: Deep Reform in the 21st-Century Church. A frequent guest on television and radio, he is also Vatican analyst for NBC News. His weekly column, "The Catholic Difference," is syndicated to sixty newspapers. Msgr. James A. Supple Lecture Series

Endangered Languages: A Poet's Journey into Global Cultures - Bob Holman
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Bob Holman is a poet, spoken word artist, professor, activist, filmmaker and soon-to-be host of a PBS documentary on endangered languages. His focus on oral traditions has included a study of the origins of Hiphop in West Africa and inspired his current work on the cultural crisis brought about when a language is lost. It is the subject of his latest PBS project, "Listen Up! Language Matters with Bob Holman." Holman's new book, Sing This One Back to Me, includes translations of poems as sung in the griot tradition of West African storytelling. Dubbed a member of the "Poetry Pantheon" by the New York Times Magazine, he produced the PBS Series "United States of Poetry," was the original Slammaster and a director of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, and has performed in places ranging from Madison Square Gardens to Addis Ababa. The Goldtrap Lecture in English

Brain Fix: Using Neuroscience and Nutrition as a Metaphor for Recovery - Dr. Ralph Carson
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Dr. Ralph Carson is a clinical nutritionist and exercise physiologist who has been involved in the clinical treatment of addictions, obesity, and eating disorders for more than thirty years. He currently manages Oprah Winfrey's web page on eating disorders and is the consultant for Pine Grove's eating disorder program. Dr. Carson is also a nutritional advisor to numerous university athletic departments, including the University of Tennessee National Basketball Champion Lady Volunteers. With a Bachelor of Health Science degree from Duke University Medical School and a PhD in nutrition from Auburn University, he offers a unique understanding of health, wellness, exercise, and nutrition and how they all affect brain health. Eating Disorder Awareness Week

An American Memoir: Japanese American Internment - Neil Nakadate
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Neil Nakadate is the author of Looking After Minidoka: An American Memoir. During World War II, 110,000 Japanese Americans were removed from their homes and incarcerated by the U.S. government. In Looking After Minidoka, the "internment camp" years become a prism for understanding three generations of Japanese American life, from immigration to the end of the twentieth century. Nakadate is also the author of Understanding Jane Smiley and coauthor of A Rhetoric of Doing: Essays on Written Discourse in Honor of James L Kinneavy and Writing in the Liberal Arts Tradition: A Rhetoric With Readings. He has a doctorate in English and American Literature from Indiana University and is Iowa State University Professor Emeritus of English. No podcast available due to technical difficulties.