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Federal Information Technology - Steven VanRoekel
12:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Steven VanRoekel is the second Chief Information Officer of the United States and an Iowa State alumnus. Prior to his position in the White House, he held two positions in the Obama Administration: executive director of Citizen and Organizational Engagement at USAID and managing director of the Federal Communications Commission, FCC, where he oversaw all operational, technical, financial, and human resource aspects of the agency. He also led the FCC's efforts to introduce new technology and social media into the agency. Mr. VanRoekel worked at Microsoft Corporation from 1994 to 2009, most recently as a senior director in the Windows Server and Tools Division. He received a bachelor's degree in management of information systems from Iowa State. Part of the National Affairs Series. A reception will precede the lecture at 11:30 a.m. in the Great Hall.

The Future of African & African American Studies in Iowa - James Randall
7:00 PM – South Ballroom, Memorial Union - James H. Randall taught for more than thirty years in English and African American Studies at Coe College. His courses have included African American, African, and Caribbean literature and African American history. He has also taught African American literature courses at the University of Iowa and worked with the African American Museum of Iowa in Cedar Rapids. Randall grew up in rural North Carolina, where he worked in the tobacco fields and did other farm work and attended segregated schools from the first grade through college. He earned his bachelor's degree at North Carolina A&T State University and a master's in English at Carnegie-Mellon University. He is the Stead Family Professor of English Emeritus at Coe College.

Lecture: Gender, Culture and Politics at the Chicago World's Fair - Wayne Wiegand
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Among the most popular attractions at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair was the Woman's Building, an exhibit hall filled with the products of women's labor, including a library of more than 8,000 volumes of writing by women. Wayne Wiegand will discuss his new co-authored publication, Right Here I See My Own Books, which situates the Woman's Building Library in its historical context. He examines the significance of this effort to assemble a comprehensive library of women's texts, touching on such topics as the women's movement, literary culture, racial politics, and the professionalization of librarianship. Wayne Wiegand is the F. William Summers Professor of Library and Information Studies Emeritus at Florida State University.

Symphony of the Soil: Film and Discussion with Deborah Koons Garcia
6:00 PM – 2245 Coover Hall - Symphony of the Soil is a multi-film project that explores the world of soil, including how it is formed, its life cycle, human uses and misuses in agriculture, and soil's role in addressing global environmental problems. The project consists of the feature film as well as several short films on topics like dry farming, composting, soil-water relationships, and carbon sequestration. Deborah Koons Garcia's previous film, The Future of Food, was a documentary about genetically modified foods. It is credited with helping pass Mendocino County, California's Measure H, which bans the planting of genetically engineered crops. Though Garcia is an accomplished filmmaker and runs her own production company, Lily Films, she is better known as the widow of Jerry Garcia, the legendary Grateful Dead lead singer and guitarist who died in 1995.

American Foreign Policy after Iraq and Afghanistan - Lee Hamilton
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Former Indiana Congressman Lee Hamilton directs the Center on Congress, a nonpartisan educational institution he established in 1999 to improve the public's understanding of Congress: its strengths and weaknesses, its role in our system of government, and its impact on the lives of ordinary people. Hamilton served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1965 to 1999. For more than forty years he has been an important voice on international relations and American national security. He served as vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission, co-chaired the Iraq Study Group with former Secretary of State James Baker and was President of the Woodrow Wilson Center. Hamilton's books include How Congress Works and Why You Should Care, A Creative Tension: The Foreign Policy Roles of the President and Congress and Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission. The Manatt-Phelps Lecture in Political Science.

Laser Swords and Sandals: Star Wars and Rome - Ralph Covino
6:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - The Star Wars saga has been a cultural phenomenon for over thirty years, and assistant professor of ancient history Ralph Covino is a true aficionado. His talk discusses the influence of so-called sword-and-sandals films like Ben Hur and Spartacus on the Star Wars series as well as the myriad other Roman influences present within the films. Ralph Covino earned his PhD in Ancient History from the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, and taught both there and at Queen's University of Belfast before joining the faculty at the University of Tennessee-Chattanooga.

Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement - Anne Clifford
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Anne Clifford is the Msgr. James Supple Chair of Catholic Studies in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Iowa State. She will discuss the work of environmentalist, women's rights activist and 2004 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Wangari Maathai. Wangari Maathai's Green Belt Movement began as a grassroots tree planting program to address environmental challenges in her home country of Kenya. It grew into a vehicle for empowering women in natural resource management, economic development, and political governance. Anne Clifford is a former consultant for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Environmental Justice Program and has written on the topic of Catholicism and environmental stewardship. She is also the author of Introducing Feminist Theology and coeditor of Christology: Memory, Inquiry, Practice. Msgr. James A. Supple Lecture Series.

Challenging the Status Quo for Native American Women: Stories from a Career in Film, Finance and Philanthropy - Valerie Red-Horse
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Valerie Red-Horse, of Cherokee ancestry, is a filmmaker, entrepreneur and investment banker. She has raised or assisted in more than $2 billion in financings for American Indian Tribal Projects and founded two female Native American-owned investment banks on Wall Street - one believed to be the first ever. She is also the founder and owner of Red-Horse Native Productions, which collaborates with tribal nations to bring Native stories accurately and respectfully to the screen. She is perhaps best known for her production of the PBS documentary True Whispers: The Story of Navajo Code Talkers. A graduate of UCLA and a resident of southern California, she has established the nonprofit Hollywood Access Program for Natives as well as the Bel Air Presbyterian Dance Ministry, serving women in rehabilitation in downtown Los Angeles. Part of the Women's Leadership Series.

The Impact of Retrotransposons on Human Genome Evolution - Mark Batzer
8:00 PM – Gallery, Memorial Union - Mark Batzer was part of the international consortium of scientists who recently decoded the orangutan genome. His research focuses on understanding the genetic diversity of humans, in particular the study of mobile DNA elements. The inclusion or omission of these "jumping genes" can lead to genetic diseases in humans as well as the creation of new genes and gene families in the genome. Batzer is the System Boyd Professor and Dr. Mary Lou Applewhite Distinguished Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Louisiana State University. He earned a PhD in genetics and zoology at LSU and completed his postdoctoral education at the Human Genome Center at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he subsequently worked as a biomedical scientist. Sigma Xi Lecture.

CANCELED: The Impact of Women's and Gender Studies in Academia and Beyond - Jill Bystydzienski
7:00 PM – Campanile Room, Memorial Union - This lecture has been canceled due to a family emergency. Jill Bystydzienski will discuss the variety of women's and gender studies programs in higher education today as well as international collaborations in this area. Her broad range of work has addressed such topics as women, gender and politics in a global perspective and building cross-cultural coalitions. Her new book is Intercultural Couples: Crossing Boundaries, Negotiating Difference. She has also researched barriers to the advancement of girls and women in science, technology and engineering fields. Jill Bystydzienski is a professor in and the chair of the Department of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Ohio State University. Prior to that she was a faculty member in Sociology and directed the Women's Studies Program at Iowa State. Part of the Women's & Gender Studies Program 35th-Anniversary Celebration.