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Past Events

Tuesday, 26 Apr 2022

The Unabomber Investigation Revisited
7:00 PM – Campanile Room, Memorial Union - Retired FBI Supervisory Special Agent James R. Fitzgerald will discuss his role in the identification and arrest of Theodore J. Kaczynski, aka, the Unabomber, in April of 1996. "Fitz" will describe how forensic linguistics, the science of language within the legal system, proved to be a pivotal factor in the eventual resolution of the 17 year-long serial bomber case. This talk will be open to the public and there will be an opportunity to purchase books and receive a signed copy. James R. "Fitz" Fitzgerald remains an active criminal profiler and forensic linguist with his company, James R. Fitzgerald Associates, LLC, even after retiring in 2007 with 20 years in the FBI as a Supervisory Special Agent, along with 11 years before that as a police officer/detective/sergeant on the Bensalem Township police department in Pennsylvania. During his extensive and varied law enforcement career he successfully investigated numerous homicides, sexual assaults, kidnappings, bank robberies, and other violent crimes, as well as matters of international notoriety to include the Unabom, Jon Benet Ramsey, Anthrax, and DC Sniper cases as a profiler and/or a forensic linguist.

Thursday, 21 Apr 2022

Listening to the "Noise" in Data
7:30 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Listening to the "Noise" in the Data: The Critical Importance of Individual Differences in Second-Language Speech 2022 Quentin Johnson Lecture in Linguistics Like much other research in the social sciences, studies in applied linguistics often compare the “average” behaviour of groups of language learners on such dimensions as proficiency, fluency and intelligibility. A great deal of attention is devoted to theoretical model-building, in which investigators identify predictive variables that capture L2 learners’ performance as closely as possible. Despite the benefits of that pursuit, researchers often pay insufficient attention to variability in the data that doesn’t readily fit theoretical models, and to treat it as uninteresting noise. In this presentation, I discuss the negative consequences of attending too little to learner differences. Through a review of old and new data, I show that close inspection of individual trajectories in L2 speech acquisition is essential not only to a full understanding of the acquisition process, but also to the development of effective pedagogical practices. This requires more than simply classifying learners into increasingly narrow subgroups. Dr. Munro completed his Ph.D. under the supervision of Terrance Nearey. He was also a SSHRC Post-doctoral Fellow in James Flege’s speech lab at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. His chief area of interest is Applied Phonetics, with a focus on the perception and production of speech by second language learners. Together with his colleague Tracey Derwing (University of Alberta), he carries out research on speech intelligibility, fluency, foreign accent, and oral language development in Canadian immigrants. Their work has been extensively supported by SSHRC and has appeared in such journals as Applied Linguistics, Journal of Phonetics, Language and Speech, Language Learning, Speech Communication, and Studies in Second Language Acquisition.

Wednesday, 20 Apr 2022

The Money Game
6:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - There is a game that we all play with money, and at any given point in time in our lives, we’re either winning or losing. The problem is, most students are never taught the rules of how to play the game. Play by the rules, and it’s entirely possible to be completely financially free by your early 30s. Make the rules up as you go and you’re bound to be relying on someone else for your financial well-being into old age. You CAN have everything you want in life--The Money Game will show you how! You'll walk away with practical, actionable ways to win the game you're currently playing with money. Adam Carroll is an internationally recognized financial literacy expert and author of Winning The Money Game, 30 Days To $1K, and Mastery of Money for Students. He is a two-time TED talk speaker, with one of his talks surpassing 5 million views. He is the creator of the Broke, Busted & Disgusted documentary which has been played in hundreds of high schools and colleges, and is featured on CNBC and available on itunes. He is the founder and curator of www.MasteryOfMoney.com, and a contributor to the Huffington Post. Adam has presented at over 750 college and university campuses, hundreds of leadership symposiums, and countless local and regional events. His passion is helping people build a bigger life, not a bigger lifestyle.

Wednesday, 13 Apr 2022

Dare to Speak, Dare to Listen: Protecting Free Speech on the Frontlines
6:00 PM – WebEx (see below) - WebEx Link: https://bit.ly/3pgM0nQ The guarantee of free speech is essential to any well-functioning democracy, and yet here in the United States free speech is losing its moorings on both the right and the left, with mounting encroachments on open discourse in schools, universities, the news, media and online. Meanwhile pitched battles are taking place over words, ideas, books, historical interpretations, posts and tweets. In an increasingly polarized America, free speech defenders seem to be increasingly selective, crying out when their rights are encroached upon, but often going mum when the silencing targets the other side. This talk will lay out a blueprint for how we can live together in a diverse, digitized and divided society without resorting to curbs on free speech. Suzanne Nossel currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer of PEN America, the leading human rights and free expression organization, and she is author of Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All. Since joining in 2013, she has doubled the organization’s staff, budget, and membership, spearheaded the unification with PEN Center USA in Los Angeles and the establishment of a Washington, D.C. office, and overseen groundbreaking work on free expression in Hong Kong and China, Myanmar, Eurasia, and the United States. She is a leading voice on free expression issues in the United States and globally, writing and being interviewed frequently for national and international media outlets. Her prior career spanned government service and leadership roles in the corporate and nonprofit sectors. She has served as the Chief Operating Officer of Human Rights Watch and as Executive Director of Amnesty International USA. During the first term of the Obama Administration, Nossel served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Organizations, where she led U.S. engagement in the United Nations and multilateral institutions, on human rights and humanitarian issues.

Move Over Free Speech: Exercising Your Right to Protest
12:00 PM – Campanile room, Memorial Union - Freedom of speech gets all the attention when it comes to the First Amendment, but we also have the right to object. In this session, we’ll explore the right of the people peaceably to assemble: what it means and how it works, especially when responding to provocative speakers on campus. Panelists Amanda Knief, J.D., director of ISU Lectures Program Carrie Jacobs, assistant chief, ISU Police Moderator: Julie Roosa, J.D., Greenlee First Amendment specialist

Tuesday, 12 Apr 2022

The Future of Agriculture
7:00 PM – Curtiss Hall - Craig Hill, Iowa farmer and former president of the Iowa Farm Bureau, has been serving agriculture for several decades. He was elected president of the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation in December 2011, a position he held for a decade before retiring last December. Throughout Hill’s years in agricultural leadership, he served as the first chairman of the Iowa Ag State Group, which consisted of representatives from all sectors of Iowa’s agriculture. He was instrumental in the development of the leading revenue-based crop insurance product sold in America.

From Jazz Ambassadors to the Simpsons: How Cultural Diplomacy Breaks Political Barriers and Stereotypes
6:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Cultural diplomacy is an intercultural sharing that appeals directly to the citizens of different nations through the work of musicians, dancers, artists, writers and filmmakers. It has been, and continues to be, an important part of public understanding between the people of the United States and Russia. The objective of this lecture is to illustrate how, over the years, cultural diplomacy has played an invaluable role in bringing the people of both nations together by helping break down stereotypes, produce better understanding and to build a common humanity. Maria Lvova is the Program Officer for Education, Exchanges, & Community Building with the US Russia Foundation; she provides guidance to applicants and monitors and evaluates USRF programs in the areas of Russian and American Studies, and Civil Society. Lvova was previously an editor and producer for Voice of America’s Russian Service, where she translated, edited, and produced materials for the VoA’s Russian Service website and social media platforms.

Monday, 11 Apr 2022

Dare to Speak, Dare to Listen in the Courtroom: Seeking Justice for All
6:00 PM – Campanile Room, Memorial Union - In 2018, Hon. Rosemarie Aquilina, a Michigan Circuit Court judge, gained worldwide attention when she allowed every one of the victims in the sexual assault case against USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar to speak in court before his sentencing. In all, more than 150 women and girls shared their testimony. Hear Judge Aquilina’s powerful story about the importance of speaking and listening as a form of healing. Questions from audience are encouraged. A dessert reception will follow. First Amendment Days 2022

Wednesday, 6 Apr 2022

Old Fertilizer in New Bottles: Selling the Past as Innovation in Africa's Green Revolution
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - A growing number of farmers, scientists, and development experts now advocate a shift from high-input, chemical-intensive agriculture to low-input ecological farming. They are supported by an impressive array of new research documenting both the risks of continuing to follow our current practices and the potential benefits of a transition to more sustainable farming informed by collaborations between farmers and scientists. The new initiatives have been met with a chorus of derision from an unsurprising group of commentators, many associated with agribusiness interests. They argue that only Green Revolution seeds and fertilizers can provide the innovation needed to help regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa grow more food. This narrative, however, flips reality on its head. Ecological innovations are on the cutting edge of new farming practices, while the Green Revolution is selling an outdated 50-year-old model as innovation despite its proven failures. Timothy A. Wise is author of the recent book, Eating Tomorrow: Agribusiness, Family Farmers, and the Battle for the Future of Food. He is a senior advisor at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, where his work focuses on agribusiness, family farmers and the future of food, and a senior research fellow at Tufts University’s Global Development and Environment Institute, where he founded and directed its Globalization and Sustainable Development Program.

Impostor Syndrome: Coping Strategies for High Achievers
6:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Imposter Syndrome is defined as doubting your abilities and feeling like a fraud. It disproportionately affected high-achievers and can cause anxiety and depression. Dr. Dawn Bratsch-Prince will explain how to recognize imposter syndrome, her own experiences with it, and how to overcome it. Bratsch-Prince is Associate Provost for Faculty and professor of Spanish at Iowa State University. In this role, she provides leadership in recruiting, advancing, and retaining an excellent and diverse faculty. Among her responsibilities are promotion and tenure, faculty development, orientation and mentoring, honors and awards, department chair training, and leadership development.