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Global Communications and U.S. Foreign Policy - Ambassador David Gross
6:30 PM – Alliant Energy-Lee Liu Auditorium, Howe Hall - Ambassador David A. Gross is the U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy. Ambassador Gross began his career as a partner in a law firm specializing in telecommunication issues. In 1994 he left the firm to become Washington Counsel for AirTouch Communications, later acquired by Vodafone. In 2000 he joined the Bush-Cheney presidential campaign as National Executive Director of Lawyers for Bush-Cheney. He has a BA in economics from the University of Pennsylvania and received his law degree from Columbia University. Technology, Globalization, and Culture Series.

Banned Book Jeopardy - The Game!
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Join a Banned Book Week battle between two teams of literate panelists as they attempt to answer questions about banned books and their authors. Panelists include Ames Tribune Editor Dave Kraemer, Iowa Public Radio's Talk of Iowa producer and host Katherine Perkins, Associate Professor of English Fern Kupfer, Ames Tribune Reviewer and Meredith Editor Steve Sullivan, Associate Provost and Professor of English Susan Carlson, and Professor Emeritus of English Dale Ross. Banned books will also be displayed and available for purchase.

The Yellow Rose of Suffrage - A One-Woman Play performed by Jane Cox
7:30 PM – Fisher Theatre, Iowa State Center - The Yellow Rose of Suffrage, is a one-woman play about the life of Iowa State University alumna Carrie Chapman Catt. Jane Cox did her undergraduate work at Iowa State University and has now been on the ISU faculty for over twenty years. She is a full Professor and stage director for Iowa State University Theatre. She has been involved with over two hundred-fifty productions as an actress, designer, or director. Her one woman shows have been performed in over twenty states as well as the Kennedy Center, and the Smithsonian. Cox wrote The Yellow Rose of Suffrage through funding from a grant from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences College. Part of the Iowa State Sesquicentennial Celebration.

Latin Music Celebration with Everardo Y Su Flota
8:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Everardo Y Su Flota is a Chicago-based eleven-person orchestra that plays six genres of Latin music, ranging from salsa to bachata. Part of the Latino Heritage Month Celebration.

A Conversation on the Importance of Political Activism with Barack Obama
12:00 PM – Central Campus - Illinois Senator and presidential candidate Barack Obama serves on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, the Foreign Relations Committee, and the Veterans' Affairs Committee. He graduated from Columbia University in 1983 and moved to Chicago in 1985 to work as a community organizer. In 1991 he graduated from Harvard Law School, where he was the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review. He is the author of The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream and Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. Part of Political Action Week and the Presidential Caucus Series.

Political Action Week: Domestic Policy Day
11:00 AM – Central Campus - Topics of dicussion will include civil liberties, the economy, poverty and welfare reform, immigration, campaign finance and lobbying reform, gun control, homeland security, the Patriot Act, wire tapping, habeas corpus, and the use of torture. The discussion will be led by State Rep. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell. Nourishment for mind and stomach provided - $1 daily meals.

American Chica: Two Worlds, One Childhood - Marie Arana
8:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Marie Arana, editor of Washington Post Book World, was born in Peru of a Peruvian father and an American mother. She is the author of American Chica: Two Worlds, One Childhood, which was a finalist for the PEN-Memoir Award and the National Book Award. She is also the author of a collection of columns, The Writing Life: Writers on How They Think and Work, and a new novel Cellophane. Arana will speak about her experience as a hybrid American - an "American Chica" - and how she came to terms with this split cultural identity. Part of the Latino Heritage Month Celebration.

The Catastrophic Drowning of the Black Sea and the Science behind Early Flood Legends - William B. F. Ryan
7:00 PM – Gallery, Memorial Union - William B. F. Ryan is the Doherty Senior Scholar at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and an adjunct professor of earth and environmental science at Columbia University. He is the coauthor, with Walter Pitman, of Noah's Flood: The New Scientific Discoveries about the Event that Changed History. Together these geologists gathered scientific evidence that could help explain the story of Noah and the great flood. Ryan and Pitman hypothesize that about 7,500 years ago the global warming that followed the last Ice Age caused seas to rise. When sea levels rose beyond a critical point, the Mediterranean Sea overflowed, deluging the Black Sea basin with salty water and destroying the fertile plains around the once-shallow freshwater lake.

Political Action Week: Student and Local Issues - Secretary of State Michael Mauro and Elected City Officials
11:00 AM – Central Campus - Ames mayor Ann Campbell and city council members Ryan Doll and Dan Rice will initiate the day's discussion on student and local issues. Topics include funding for higher education, campus policies, affordable rental housing, minimum age for bar admittance, Ames Police party patrol, tuition increases, housing-residents ordinance, and campus safety. Iowa Secretary of State Michael Mauro will speak at 12:10, followed by comments from Government of the Student Body respresentatives and other Iowa State students. Nourishment for mind and stomach provided - $1 daily meals.

The Rise of the Creative Class - Richard Florida
8:00 PM – Stephens Auditorium, Iowa State Center - Richard Florida, Helen LeBaron Hilton Chair in Human Sciences Fall Lecturer, is one of the world's leading public intellectuals on economic competitiveness, demographic trends, and cultural and technological innovation. He is professor of business economics and the Academic Director of the newly established Centre for Jurisdictional Advantage and Prosperity at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, a nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a Senior Scientist with the Gallup Organization. Florida is the author of the 2002 bestseller The Rise of the Creative Class and he more recent The Flight of the Creative Class, an examination of the global competition for creative talent. Florida's ideas on the "creative class," commercial innovation, and regional development have been featured in major ad campaigns from BMW and Apple, and are being used globally to change the way regions and nations do business and transform their economies. The Helen LeBaron Hilton Chair in Human Sciences Fall Lecture and part of a community-wide celebration of Iowa State's sesquicentennial.