Search For Lectures

Once Upon a Peace Pilgrimage: The Quest to Know What it Means to be Human - Dr. Roy Tamashiro
7:00 PM – South Ballroom, Memorial Union - Dr. Roy Tamashiro shares stories and life lessons from his global peace pilgrimage (2015-present). He received insights on today’s world problems while tracing the footsteps of The Buddha, Mahatma Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela. Extraordinary messages came from Nature, from the Earth herself and from sources beyond the ordinary. He found insights into healing and peace from Holocaust survivors, massacre witness-survivors in Vietnam and Korea, and “A-bomb legacy successors” who shared their memories and traumas.

Full Body Burden: Growing Up in the Nuclear Shadow of the Rocky Flats - Kristen Iversen
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Dr. Kristen Iversen is a Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Cincinnati, where she is a fellow at the Taft Humanities Center and serves as literary nonfiction editor of The Cincinnati Review. Dr. Iversen is the author of three books, including the award-winning Full Body Burden. Her lecture will discuss writing strategies about her childhood in the Rockies. Dr. Iversen will also host a craft talk at 2:10pm in Ross 212. As part of the Pearl Hogrefe Visiting Writers Series, she will talk about research, art, ethics, and aesthetics in creative non-fiction.

The Technological Imperative for Ethical Evolution - Dr. Martin Hellman
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - With a deep interest in the ethics of technology, Dr. Hellman has been applying risk analysis to a potential failure of nuclear deterrence. In this upcoming lecture, he will be arguing that national security is separable from global security in this era of nuclear weapons, cyberattacks, terrorisms, and environmental crises. He will be calling on U.S. citizens and policymakers to take a wider view of global issues. Dr. Hellman received his B.E. from New York University in 1966, and M.S. and Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1967 and 1969, respectively. He is best known for his invention, with Whitfield Diffie and Ralph Merkle, of public key cryptography which, among other applications, enables secure Internet transactions and is used to transfer literally trillions of dollars every day.

Seeking Security in an Unstable World - Frank Figliuzzi
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Frank Figliuzzi, the former FBI Assistant Director for Counterintelligence and current NBC News National Security Analyst joins us for an intimate and candid armchair conversation about security and stability on global, national, local, and personal levels. In an increasingly polarized society, Americans find themselves questioning our institutions, our values, and even our form of government. Are we living in less secure, less stable times? Is this the new normal? We’ll explore geopolitical threats and realities across a broad spectrum and offer thoughts on what we might do to preserve and protect the principles that brought our country this far. The 2019 Manatt-Phelps Lecture in Political Science

Impeachment Then and Now: How Inquiries Evolved from Nixon to Clinton to Trump
8:15 PM – Great Hall - The US House of Representatives is currently holding hearing and depositions in a formal impeachment inquiry of President Trump. How is this different from the impeachment processes of Nixon and Clinton? Join three political experts to discuss impeachment—what it means, how it works, and how it has evolved as a process from Nixon to Clinton to Trump. Former Iowa Congressman Ed Mezvinsky sat on the House Judiciary Committee that voted to impeach President Nixon. Iowa State University Senior Lecturer and attorney Dirk Deam is an expert on American politics and the US constitution. Karen Kedrowski is the director of the Carrie Chapman Catt Center for Women and Politics and professor of Political Science at Iowa State. She too is an expert on American politics. National Affairs Series

Vietnam Veterans: Still Coming Home - Dr. Steve Feimer
7:00 PM – South Ballroom, Memorial Union - Dr. Steve Feimer, co-author of Vietnam Vets: Still Coming Home, is an Associate Professor Justice Studies at the University of South Dakota where he completed his Bachelor of Science in Criminal Justice. He received his doctorate in Public Administration from the University of Oklahoma in 1986. His publications have appeared in the Journal of Crime and Justice, New England Journal on Criminal and Civil Confinement, Public Personnel Management, and Journal of Gang Research. He wrote this book for away of giving back or returning services to those who serve us all. 100% of the proceeds go towards Veteran Service Organizations. The purpose of this lecture is to heighten awareness of continuing struggles of Vietnam War Veterans as they deal with such issues as the physical effects on Agent Orange, PTSD, survivor's guilt, readjustment to civilian life, and combat loss. This lecture is focused on the sacrifice of borne by veterans, their families, and their friends both in war and in peace time. Veterans Week Keynote

Healing America's Streams - Margaret Palmer
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Margaret A. Palmer is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a leader in restoration ecology, with an emphasis on restoration of rivers, streams, and wetlands. She is known for her work at the interface of science and policy and directs a unique national synthesis center (SESYNC) that has championed new approaches to fostering research collaborations between social and natural scientists. Fobes Ronald Lecture in Environmental Conservation

Serve the World With Hyper Innovation - Steve Johanns
4:00 PM – MacKay Hall Auditorium (0117) - With over 25 years of experience in technology, energy, infrastructure, and innovation, Steve Johanns founded Veriown Global Inc., bringing internet-connected solar energy to the 1.2 billion people around the world without access to a power grid. Steve has a passion for disrupting the conventional thinking that caused our global problems of climate change and poverty, with his goal to hyper innovate the world’s last mile.

Civil Discourse in an Uncivil Age: Media and the 2020 Election - Alexander Heffner
7:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Alexander Heffner is the host of The Open Mind on PBS. He has covered American politics, civic life, and millennials since the 2008 presidential campaign. His work has been profiled in the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Des Moines Register and numerous other outlets. This lecture will provide students with the opportunity to engage with Mr. Heffner about their importance in the Iowa Caucuses and the 2020 elections. Students will be able to register to vote at the event.

Science, Technology, and Faith - Aaron Dominguez
7:00 PM – South Ballroom, Memorial Union - Aaron Dominguez is the Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences at the Catholic University of America, a particle physicist, and a devout Catholic. He will speak about how faith is part of what inspires him to study the origins of the universe in his own research in experimental high-energy physics. Dominguez served previously as the Associate Dean for Research and Global Engagement and a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL). He has a strong history of research and grant activity, including a National Science Foundation CAREER grant and a cooperative agreement with the NSF for $11.5 million. Sigma Xi Lecture Series