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Damned Lies and Statistics - Joel Best
8:00 PM – South Ballroom, Memorial Union - Joel Best has written three books related to understanding statistics—Damned Lies and Statistics: Untangling Lies from Media, Politicians, and Activists, More Damned Lies and Statistics: How Numbers Confuse Public Issues, and Stat-Spotting: A Field-Guide to Identifying Dubious Data. A professor of sociology at the University of Delaware, he is a leading scholar of social problems and an advocate for statistical literacy. Dr. Best’s work on statistics focuses on the origin and life-course of statistical claims about social issues, how these claims are used by the media, politicians and activists, and how the public can better understand and evaluate these claims.

President Obama's First 100 Days - A Forum with Arnie Arnesen and Steffen Schmidt
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Iowa State Political Science Professor Steffen Schmidt is perhaps best known as "Dr. Politics," the longtime commentator and cohost of WOI Radio's weekly political call-in show. He is also a CNN en Espanol election analyst. Schmidt will be joined by political commentator and former New Hampshire gubernatorial candidate Arnie Arnesen. Arnesen hosts the New Hampshire television show "Political Chowder," was a regular commentator on WBUR's "Greater Boston" with Emily Rooney and on SBS TV Australia. She is also a frequent guest with Schmidt on "Talk@12," on Iowa Public Radio.

Tolerance: Vice or Virtue? Otto H. Selles
8:00 PM – Gallery, Memorial Union - Otto H. Selles will provide an overview of how the concept of tolerance developed in the West, particularly during the Enlightenment, and will examine the place of tolerance in contemporary society, both globally and locally. He is professor of French at Calvin College and has been a member of the Faculty Steering Committee for the Festival of Faith and Writing there. He has also served as chair of the French Department, and directed Calvin College's French study abroad program, based in Grenoble, France. He received his B.A. and M.A. from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, and completed his Ph.D.in 1994 from University of Paris-IV Sorbonne, France. Part of the Areopagus Lectures Series

The Impossible Takes A Little Longer: Reflections on Teaching Science as a Liberal Art - Dudley R. Herschbach
8:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Dudley R. Herschbach is the Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science at Harvard and recipient of the Nobel Prize in chemistry. His research on the crossed molecular beam technique is one of the most important advances within the field of reaction dynamics and has allowed scientists to better understand how chemical reactions take place. Herschbach has authored more than four hundred scientific papers, is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences, and has been honored with numerous awards. He received his Ph.D. in chemical physics at Harvard. He is currently engaged in several efforts to improve K-12 science education and the public's understanding of science. The 2009 President's Lecture in Chemistry.

Does Darwinian Evolution Challenge Catholic Theology of the Human Person? Anne Clifford
7:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Anne Clifford is the Msgr. James Supple Chair of Catholic Studies in the Philosophy and Religious Studies Department at Iowa State University. She is the author of Introducing Feminist Theology, co-editor of Christology: Memory, Inquiry, Practice and a contributing editor of the revised New Catholic Encyclopedia. She has participated in conferences on theology and science sponsored by the Vatican. Her doctorate in theology is from the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. Controversy has swirled around Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection since On the Origin of Species was first published nearly one hundred and fifty years ago. Does Darwinian evolution put the teaching shared by Jews and Christians that humans were created in the image of God at risk of being a meaningless symbol of a by-gone age? This lecture will respond to this question with attention to Catholic perspectives on Darwinian evolution and the species known as homo sapiens sapiens. Msgr. James A. Supple Lecture.

A Campus Conversation on the Arts as Synergy: Faculty from English and Art
11:00 AM – Christian Petersen Art Museum, Morrill Hall - Faculty from both Art and Design and the English Department will come together to present their work and discuss their creative process. The presenters are Mary Swander, Jim Coppoc, Paula Curan, and Ingrid Lilligren. Vida Cross will moderate this event.

Renewable Energy Alternatives and Their Economics - Robert C. Brown and Vikram L. Dalal
7:00 PM – Alliant Energy-Lee Liu Auditorium, Howe Hall - Robert Brown is the Iowa Farm Bureau director of the Bioeconomy Institute at Iowa State and Anson Marston Distinguished Professor in Engineering. He has published the textbook Biorenewable Resources: Engineering New Products from Agriculture and helped establish the first graduate program in the United States to offer degrees in biorenewable resources at Iowa State. Vikram Dalal is the director of the Microelectronics Research Center at Iowa State and the Thomas M. Whitney Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering. His research interests include photovoltaic energy conversion and new devices for energy conversion. The discussion will be moderated by Steffen Schmidt, University Professor of Political Science at Iowa State. Part of the Engineering Thematic Year on Energy and Sustainability.

Metaphysics of the Blues - Calvin Forbes
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Calvin Forbes is Chair of the Writing Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and his books of poetry include The Shine Poems, From the Book of Shine,and Blue Monday. His poems have appeared in many journals and can be found in anthologies such as A Century in Two Decades: A Burning Deck Anthology, 1961-81 and New Black Voices.

Latinos in Higher Education: ISU Research Perspectives - A Panel Discussion
12:00 PM – Multicultural Center, Memorial Union - Laura Rendón, chair of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, will moderate a discussion about research at Iowa State on Latinos in Iowa. Panel members include David Ernesto Romero, Student Coordinator of the Science Bound Program, and Philip Vasquez, a graduate student in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies.

White Buffalo Woman's Granddaughter: Carrier of Traditional Knowledge - Henrietta Mann
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Henrietta Mann, a member of the Cheyenne-Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, is a distinguished scholar whose work focuses on themes of education, traditional indigenous knowledge and western perspectives on the environment. Mann has served as the Deputy to the Assistant Secretary of Indian Affairs and as National Coordinator of the American Indian Religious Freedom Coalition. She taught for twenty-eight years at the University of Montana, Missoula, and was the first to hold the Endowed Chair of Native American Studies at Montana State University. Mann was inaugurated this spring as the first president of the newly established Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribal College, located on the campus of the Southwestern Oklahoma State University. She has been a consultant and interviewee for several television and movie productions, including Last of the Dogmen, the Discovery Channel's How the West Was Lost and PBS’s The West. The 2009 Richard Thompson Memorial Lecture.