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A Conversation on the National Debt - Erskine Bowles
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Erskine Bowles is President Emeritus of the University of North Carolina, where he served as president for five years. Previously, he served in the Clinton Administration as director of the Small Business Administration and then as the President's Chief of Staff. In that role, he helped negotiate the first balanced federal budget in a generation. Bowles later became United Nations Deputy Special Envoy to coordinate the global response to the catastrophic tsunami that struck Southeast Asia in 2004. During his last year as UNC president, he was appointed by President Obama to co-chair, along with Alan Simpson of Wyoming, a bipartisan national commission on how to improve the country's fiscal health. The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform's recommendation of tax increases and spending cuts have been praised by many but have made little progress in a divided Congress.

Engineering Countries and the problem of Globalization - Gary Downey
7:00 PM – Alliant Energy-Lee Liu Auditorium, Howe Hall - Gary Downey was trained as a mechanical engineer and a cultural anthropologist and considers himself an ethnographic listener interested in engineering studies. He is the author of The Machine in Me: An Anthropologist Sits among Computer Engineers, the multimedia textbook Engineering Cultures, and co-editor of Cyborgs and Citadels: Anthropological Interventions in Emerging Sciences and Technologies. Downey is the Alumni Distinguished Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Virginia Tech and winner of the 2011 Virginia Outstanding Faculty Award. Part of the Technology, Globalization and Culture Series.

Art and Politics: Cultural Activism in a Time of Crisis - Susan Platt
7:00 PM – Kocimski Auditorium, 101 College of Design - Susan Platt is a freelance art historian, art critic and a political activist. Her latest book, Art and Politics Now: Cultural Activism in a Time of Crisis, looks at art in opposition to war, terrorism, pollution and racism. She earned a master's degree from Brown University and a PhD from the University of Texas, Austin, and has taught twentieth-century art criticism at several state universities, private colleges and community colleges. She also taught American art in Istanbul, Turkey, as a Fulbright Fellow. Susan Platt will speak in conjunction with the Christian Petersen Art Museum fall exhibition, Post-Pop Redux: Material Based Art by Andy Magee. The exhibition and accompanying educational programs highlight the social and political commentary in art during the height of the presidential election.

Teaching in the Digital Age: What's Collaboration Got to Do with It? Andrea Lunsford
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Andrea Lunsford is the author of the St. Martin's Handbook and studies best practices in teaching writing. Her book The Everyday Writer is a primary text for composition courses at Iowa State. Lunsford's scholarly interests include women and the history of rhetoric, collaborative writing, and the cultures and technologies of writing. She has authored or coauthored twenty books, most recently Writing Together: Essays on Collaboration in Theory and Practice. She is the Louise Hewlett Nixon Professor of English and director of the Program in Writing and Rhetoric at Stanford University. The 2012 Goldtrap Lecture.

Chronology and Chemistry from 50,000 Years Ago: Transition in Israel's Kebara Cave - Elisabetta Boaretto
4:10 PM – 3 Physics Hall - Elisabetta Boaretto pioneered the integrative approach to radiocarbon dating in archaeology, and her work has resulted in a new approach to the selection of samples from archaeological excavations. She will discuss a recent excavation at Kebara Cave, Israel, and the structure and preservation of the charred materials. The excavation followed a recent study documenting the earliest appearance of Modern Homo sapiens in the Levant 46,000 years ago. Elisabetta Boaretto has an appointment with the Radiocarbon Dating and Cosmogenic Isotopes Lab at the Bar Ilan University and with the Kimmel Center for Archaeological Science at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel.

What's So Bad about Fifty Shades of Grey? A Panel Discussion
7:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - A panel of scholars will discuss the bestselling Fifty Shades of Grey series that libraries in Minnesota and Florida have refused to put on their shelves. Panelists include Human Development & Family Studies associate professor Brenda Lohman, who researches and teaches in the area of human sexuality; assistant professor of English Dometa Brothers, who teaches composition and literary studies; and Ames Public Library Interim Director Lynne Carey. Veronica Lorson Fowler, Communications Director for ACLU of Iowa, will moderate the discussion. Banned Book Week

The Yellow Rose of Suffrage - A One-Woman Play performed by Jane Cox
2:00 PM – Ames City Auditorium, 520 6th Street - The Yellow Rose of Suffrage is a one-woman play about Carrie Chapman Catt, an 1880 graduate of Iowa State who devoted thirty-three years of her life to the women's suffrage movement. Catt was president of the National American Women Suffrage Association, cofounder of the League of Women Voters, and a crusader for world peace. The production was written and is performed by Jane Cox, a longtime faculty member in the Iowa State Theater Program. Cox has performed The Yellow Rose of Suffrage nationally, including at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. The play was originally funded through a grant from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. Part of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics 20th Anniversary Celebration.

College Humor Live with Jake & Amir
11:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Join the College Humor Live Tour for a night with comedic duo Jake and Amir. These CH writers take their odd couple act offline and onstage, entertaining audiences with their original sketch comedy. Amir Blumenfeld is a writer, actor, and the cohost of MTV's Pranked. Series co-creator Jake Hurwitz also stars in episodes of College Humor's "Hardly Working." "Jake and Amir" won a Webby People's Choice Award for Best Comedy Series. It features Jake as just a regular guy who's frequently annoyed by doting friend Amir's idiotic antics.

Shaping American Landscapes: Jens Jensen and the Prairie Spirit - William Tishler
7:00 PM – Garden Room, Reiman Gardens - William Tishler has been involved in the design and planning of the Jens Jensen Prairie Landscape Park at The Danish Immigrant Museum in Elk Horn, Iowa, and is emeritus professor of landscape architecture at the University of Wisconsin. He is the editor of Midwestern Landscape Architecture. This program is presented in partnership with The Danish Immigrant Museum, which this year will be exploring the life, career, and ongoing legacy of landscape architect Jens Jensen (1860-1951).

Black Box Arguments and Accountability of Experts to the Public - Sally Jackson
4:10 PM – 101 Carver Hall - Sally Jackson is a professor of communication and former CIO at the University of Illinois. Winner of numerous awards in the communication and argumentation fields, she focuses on the design and engineering of processes to promote effective communication in complex situations. In this talk she will examine the public knowledge infrastructures that our increasingly complex, technological society relies upon, and why citizens can reasonably trust them.