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Past Events
Monday, 5 Nov 2007
Presidential Candidate Forum on the Bioeconomy
7:30 PM – Hilton Coliseum, Iowa State Center - Presidential candidates from both major political parties will participate in a forum on the bioeconomy as part of the Iowa State University Biobased Industry Outlook Conference. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Joe Biden (D-Del.), Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), and Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) have confirmed their participation. Candidates will speak for fifteen minutes and answer questions pertaining to agriculture, education and the bioeconomy. Robert C. Brown, the Iowa Farm Bureau Director of Biorenewables Programs at Iowa State and the Bergles Professor in Thermal Science, will moderate. Admission is free, but tickets are required for attendees not registered with the conference.
King Corn - A Documentary Film
7:00 PM – Gallery, Memorial Union - One acre of corn tells the story of the crop reigning over the American countryside - and the American diet. In King Corn, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the East Coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of skeptical neighbors, genetically modified seeds, nitrogen fertilizers, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America's most productive, most subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat - and how we farm. The 80-minute film will also be shown on Wednesday, November 7 at 6:30 PM in the LeBaron Hall Auditorium, before a panel discussion featuring Curt Ellis and filmmaker Aaron Woolf.
Wednesday, 31 Oct 2007
How Religion Poisons Everything - Christopher Hitchens
8:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Christopher Hitchens is among the best-known controversial writers and critics in the media. He was a columnist for Vanity Fair, The Nation, and Slate. As a foreign correspondent and travel writer, he has written from more than sixty countries on all five continents. He is the only writer to have written from Iran, Iraq and North Korea since 2000. Hitchens is the author of the recently published God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, as well as Class and Nostalgia: Anglo-American Ironies, The Palestine Question, The Trial of Henry Kissinger, and A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq. Part of the World Affairs Series.
Tuesday, 30 Oct 2007
Growing Up Global: Can Education Reduce Gender Inequality and Poverty? Cynthia B. Lloyd
8:00 PM – Sun Room/South Ballroom - Cynthia B. Lloyd is a senior associate with the Poverty, Gender, and Youth program and chair of the Bixby Fellowship program at the Population Council. She also serves on the National Research Council's Committee on Population. Prior to her work at the Population Council, she was chief of the fertility and family planning studies section at the United Nations Population Division and an assistant professor of economics at Barnard College, Columbia University. Lloyd's fields of expertise include transitions to adulthood, children's schooling, gender and population issues, and household and family demography in developing countries. She has worked on these issues extensively in Ghana, Egypt, Kenya, Pakistan, and other developing countries as well as comparatively. Part of the World Affairs Series.
Technology in the Global Economy Today: A New Stage in World History? Tony Smith
6:30 PM – Alliant Energy-Lee Liu Auditorium, Howe Hall - Tony Smith is Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Iowa State University and author or editor of six books, including Technology and Capital in the Age of Lean Production: A Marxian Critique of the "New Economy". His teaching and research interests include the philosophy of technology, ethical theory, and the philosophy of economics. Technology, Globalization, and Culture Series.
Monday, 29 Oct 2007
Just Breathe Normally: A Reading - Peggy Shumaker
7:00 PM – Gallery, Memorial Union - Peggy Shumaker is professor emerita from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, where she was chair of the English Department and director of the M.F.A. program in creative writing. She will read from her new book, Just Breathe Normally, a work of nonfiction. She is also the author of several books of poetry, including Blaze, a collaboration with the painter Kesler Woodward, and Underground Rivers. Shumaker currently teaches in the low-residency Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University.
Sunday, 28 Oct 2007
The Supreme Court and Reproductive Rights - Eve Gartner
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Eve Gartner is a senior staff attorney in the Public Policy Litigation & Law Department of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA), where she challenges attempts to restrict access to reproductive healthcare, advises Planned Parenthood affiliates around the country about the legal issues raised by such attempts, and assists those affiliates in designing proactive legislative and public advocacy strategies to improve access to women's health services. Prior to joining PPFA in 1997, Gartner served for four years as a senior staff attorney at the Center for Reproductive Law and Policy. She has been involved in several key reproductive rights cases. She was lead counsel in Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood Federation of America, a challenge to the federal abortion ban that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in April of 2007. Other notable cases include Erickson v. Bartell Drug Co., the first case to establish that a private employer's failure to provide insurance coverage for prescription contraception constitutes sex discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Constitution Day Lecture
Immigration Reform - Tom Tancredo
4:00 PM – South Ballroom, Memorial Union - Presidential candidate Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) is a lifelong conservative with nearly a decade of experience in the U.S. Congress. There he advanced his reputation as a prolife, progun, small government Republican and emerged as the leader for immigration reform. He recently introduced the Accountability in Enforcing Immigration Laws Act of 2007. Part of the Presidential Caucus Series, providing the university community with opportunities to question presidential candidates before the precinct caucuses.
Friday, 26 Oct 2007
Limited Government and the Constitution - Ron Paul
6:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Congressman Ron Paul is a physician, congressman, and presidential candidate from the state of Texas. A Republican, he has represented Texas's 14th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1997 and previously served as the representative from Texas's 22nd district in 1976 and from 1979 to 1985. Paul presently serves on the House Financial Services Committee, the International Relations Committee, and the Joint Economic Committee. He works for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies. He advocates immediate withdrawal from Iraq and a foreign policy of nonintervention. Part of the Presidential Caucus Series, providing the university community with opportunities to question presidential candidates or their representative before the precinct caucuses.
The Coming Revolution in Science - Newt Gingrich
12:00 PM – Alliant Energy-Lee Liu Auditorium, Howe Hall - Newt Gingrich was elected to Congress in 1978 and served the Sixth District of Georgia for twenty years. In 1995 he was elected Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served until 1999. As Speaker of the House, he was the architect of the "Contract with America," leading the Republican Party to victory in 1994 by capturing the majority in the U.S. House for the first time in forty years. As an author, Gingrich has published fourteen books, including Contract with America, Winning the Future: A 21st-Century Contract with America, Rediscovering God in America, and his most recent publication, Contract with the Earth. His is also the author of several works of historical fiction, including Pearl Harbor, A Novel of December the 8. Gingrich received his bachelor's degree from Emory University and a master's and doctorate in Modern European History from Tulane University. Technology, Globalization, and Culture Series.