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Past Events

Tuesday, 22 Feb 2011

Business Innovation & the Environment - Kim Jordan
8:00 PM – Sun Room/South Ballroom, Memorial Union - Kim Jordan is CEO and cofounder of New Belgium Brewing, the third-largest craft brewer in the United States well known for its production of Fat Tire. New Belgium is also recognized for its environmental commitment and progressive business practices. These include producing electricity from solar and wind power as well as methane harvested from its process wastewater treatment plant, and diverting over 99% of brewery waste from the landfill. Under Jordan's leadership, New Belgium has developed a set of interwoven programs that include employee ownership, open-book management and high-involvement culture. She is on the board of 1% for the Planet whose member companies donate at least 1% of their annual net revenues to environmental organizations worldwide. She also serves on the Colorado Renewable Energy Authority. Part of the National Affairs Series on Innovation and the Live Green! Sustainability Series.

Poetry Slam with Paul Flores
7:00 PM – Maintenance Shop, Memorial Union - Paul Flores is a spoken word artist, poet, playwright, and award-winning author whose performance projects have taken him from international Hip-Hop festivals to HBO's Def Poetry Jam to his solo show, You're Gonna Cry. Raised on the Tijuana-San Diego border, issues of immigration and Latino identity are central to his work. He cofounded the Latino poetry performance group Los Delicados, is the author of the PEN Award-winning novel Along the Border Lies, and is the founding artistic director of Chicano Messengers of Spoken Word. His playwriting credits include REPRESENTA!, which has toured to seventeen cities. Flores holds an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State and teaches at the University of San Francisco.

The New Color of Green: A Collective Voice Towards Change - Jerome Ringo
8:00 AM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Jerome Ringo worked for more than twenty years in the petrochemical industry before turning to a career in conservation and environmental justice. After observing the negative impacts of pollution on primarily poor and minority communities along the Gulf Coast, he became a vocal advocate for clean energy as well as increased minority participation in the environmental movement. Ringo has served as board chair for the National Wildlife Federation, was a representative at the 1999 United Nations Sustainable Development Conference, took part in the 1998 Kyoto Treaty negotiations, and appeared in the Academy Award-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth. He currently serves on the board of directors at Apollo Alliance and is the Senior Executive for Global Strategies with Green Port. University Symposium on Sustainability Keynote Address. The keynote address is free and open to the public. Advance registration for the other symposium activities is encouraged and free for Iowa State University students, faculty and staff. www.livegreen.iastate.edu/symposium/2011/

Monday, 21 Feb 2011

Diversity in the Environmental Movement: Our Collaborative Opportunities - Jerome Ringo
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Jerome Ringo worked for more than twenty years in the petrochemical industry before turning to a career in conservation and environmental justice. After observing the negative impacts of pollution on primarily poor and minority communities along the Gulf Coast, he became a vocal advocate for clean energy as well as increased minority participation in the environmental movement. Ringo has served as board chair for the National Wildlife Federation, was a representative at the 1999 United Nations Sustainable Development Conference, took part in the 1998 Kyoto Treaty negotiations, and appeared in the Academy Award-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth. He currently serves on the board of directors at Apollo Alliance and is the Senior Executive for Global Strategies with Green Port. Part of the 2011 Iowa State University Symposium on Sustainability. A reception and research poster display will precede the talk from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. in the South Ballroom.

Tuesday, 15 Feb 2011

Reflections on the Greensboro Four - Joseph McNeil
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - On February 1, 1960, four African American freshman from North Carolina A&T State University had had enough of continued segregation in the South and sat down at Greensboro's "whites only" Woolworth lunch counter. They promised to return to the lunch counter everyday until they were served. The number of sit-in student demonstrators increased each day and soon the movement spread to other lunch counters in fifty-four cities in nine states. The Greensboro sit-ins continued for five months until the F. W. Woolworth Company finally agreed to integrate their lunch counters. Joseph McNeil of the Greensboro Four who started it all, will tell his story.

Friday, 11 Feb 2011

Difficult Dialogues: Workshops on Conflict Management - Paul Ladehoff
12:10 PM – Campanile Room, Memorial Union - Paul Ladehoff is the director of training programs for the Center for the Study of Dispute Resolution at the University of Missouri School of Law and the director of the Campus Mediation Service. He is also a project leader for the Difficult Dialogues initiative at Missouri. The initiative is designed to stimulate rigorous intellectual inquiry and to empower students to express opposing views respectfully and in the spirit of open-mindedness. Ladehoff is an honors graduate of the University of Nebraska College of Law and served as a trial attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice. The CSDR is the premier law school dispute resolution center in the nation. While this is a Spring Faculty Forum, students and staff are welcome to attend. These sessions will prepare faculty to prevent unproductive or destructive conflict and from overwhelming the educational benefit of dialogue. There are two additional one-hour workshops scheduled on this subject at 9 a.m. and at 3:10 p.m. in the Campanile Room.

Thursday, 10 Feb 2011

The Next Phase of Martian Exploration: The Search for Life - Peter Smith
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Peter Smith is a professor at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and was responsible for the $420 million Phoenix Mars Mission, part of NASA's search for elements of life in our solar system. During the five months of operations, the probe conducted science experiments and relayed more than 25,000 pictures of the Red Planet. Smith has participated in many of NASA's space missions, beginning with the Pioneer Venus mission and later the Pioneer Saturn project. His association with Mars began in 1993 when NASA accepted his camera proposal for the Pathfinder mission. In 1997 the camera returned images from the Martian surface and monitored the forays of the Sojourner Rover. Smith is a recent recipient of the American Geographical Society's prestigious Cullum Geographical Medal and is the first Thomas R. Brown Distinguished Chair in Integrative Science at the University of Arizona. Phi Beta Kappa Lecture and part of the National Affairs Series on Innovation.

Monday, 7 Feb 2011

Black Faces of War - Robert V. Morris
7:00 PM – South Ballroom, Memorial Union - Robert V. Morris is the author of the new illustrated history Black Faces of War: A Legacy of Honor from the American Revolution to Today. The grandson and son of two decorated army officers, Morris founded the Fort Des Moines Memorial Park and the WWII Iowa Tuskegee Airmen Memorial at the Des Moines International Airport. His documentary Tradition And Valor was broadcast on Iowa Public Television and preceded the release of his book by the same name. Morris is a graduate of the University of Iowa, taught journalism at Iowa State University and is a past-president of the NAACP Iowa-Nebraska Conference.

Sunday, 6 Feb 2011

Will Climate Change Impact the Sustainability of Iowa Farms? Gene Takle
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Gene Takle is director of Iowa State's Climate Science Initiative team that was established in response to the public concern over global climate change and its impact on every segment of society. After receiving an undergraduate degree in math and physics from Luther College, he earned a doctorate in physics at Iowa State and then stayed on for a joint faculty appointment in the departments of Agronomy and Geological and Atmospheric Sciences. The Shivvers Memorial Lecture and part of the Live Green! Sustainability Series.

Thursday, 3 Feb 2011

Giving AVATAR Its Voice: Creating the Na'vi Language - Paul Frommer
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Linguist Paul Frommer found himself on an unexpected Hollywood adventure when he was hired to create the language spoken by aliens on the distant moon of Pandora. Frommer developed the Na'vi language for James Cameron's Avatar, including its grammar, syntax, and vocabulary. He worked personally with the actors to perfect Na'vi pronunciation and handled all translations, from script, to song lyrics, to dialogue for Wii and X-Box video games related to the film. Frommer has an eclectic background that includes teaching in Malaysia with the Peace Corps, working as a strategic planner and business writer in the corporate world and, more recently, as a professor in the University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business. Frommer earned a doctorate in linguistics from USC, with a dissertation on aspects of Persian syntax. He also created the Martian language for the Disney film John Carter of Mars. The Quentin Johnson Lecture in Linguistics and part of the National Affairs Series on Innovation.