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Is There Evidence of God from Contemporary Science? - Fr. Robert Spitzer
7:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Fr. Robert Spitzer served as president of Gonzaga University from 1998 to 2009. A Catholic priest and Jesuit, he is the author of eight books, including New Proofs for the Existence of God: Contributions of Contemporary Physics and Philosophy . He appears weekly on EWTN in “Father Spitzer’s Universe,” where he responds to viewer questions on a range of subjects, including reason, faith, suffering, and the existence of God. He has made many other TV appearances, including The History Channel’s “God and The Universe,” the PBS series “Closer to the Truth,” and debating Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow on Larry King Live. Msgr. James A. Supple Lecture Series

Help! You Need Somebody! - Sara Benincasa
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Sara Benincasa is a comedian, mental health advocate and author of Agorafabulous! Dispatches from My Bedroom. With courage and humor, she shares her experience overcoming mental illness as a young adult, coping with panic attacks, and navigating the highs and lows of college life. Benincasa's eclectic background includes work as an Americorps teacher, janitor, legal assistant, bathtub talk show host, and citizen journalist for MTV News covering the 2008 presidential election. Her memoir, Agorafabulous, is currently being adapted as a television series with Oscar winner Diablo Cody. Mental Health Expo A resource fair with local mental health and substance abuse professionals will be held in the adjoining South Ballroom beginning at 6:00pm. No podcast or recording will be available for this event.

Medical Apartheid: The History of Experimentation on Black Americans - Harriet Washington
7:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Harriet Washington is a medical ethicist and author of the best-selling book Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. She has been a fellow in ethics at the Harvard Medical School, a fellow at the Harvard School of Public Health, and a senior research scholar at the National Center for Bioethics at Tuskegee University. Her latest book, Infectious Madness, looks at the connection between germs and mental illness. An award-winning medical writer and editor, Washington has worked for USA Today, been a Knight Fellow at Stanford University, and written for such academic forums as The New England Journal of Medicine. National Affairs Series No podcast or recording will be available for this event.

Understanding and Defeating Racism and Discrimination in America - Tim Wise
7:00 PM – Stephens Auditorium - Doors open at 6:00pm - Tim Wise is a prominent antiracist writer and educator and author of the memoir White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son. He has spent the last 25 years speaking to audiences across the country and training corporate, government, media, and military professionals on methods for dismantling racism in their institutions. Wise is the author of six other books, including Affirmative Action: Racial Preference in Black and White and Colorblind: The Rise of Post-Racial Politics and the Retreat from Racial Equity. He has been featured in several documentaries and is one of five persons interviewed for a video exhibition on race relations in America at the newly opened National Museum of African American History and Culture.

Water Exploration in the Solar System: The Restless Hunt for Life - Essam Heggy
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Essam Heggy is a planetary scientist at the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering and a Rosetta co-investigator at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He will discuss methods being used to explore possible subsurface aquifers and ice deposits on Mars as well as NASA’s and the European Space Agency's future plans to probe subsurface water on the red planet and Jupiter’s icy moons. Heggy is currently a member of several science teams conducting experiments on board the ESA’s Mars Express Orbiter and Rosetta Mission; the Chandrayaan-1, India’s first lunar mission; and NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Severe 5%: Understanding the Criminal Justice System - Matt DeLisi
8:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Iowa State professor of sociology Matt DeLisi will draw on his research, clinical, and practitioner experiences working with pathological offenders to provide another framework for assessing the U.S. criminal justice system. Decades of research from around the world have shown that roughly 5% of the criminal population is responsible for more than half of the incidence of crime, and this pathological group accounts for between 50 to 90% of the most violent crimes including murder, rape, kidnapping, and armed robbery. DeLisi will explain why the system is mostly successful, providing treatment and supervision of individuals that are relatively amenable to rehabilitation. He will also explain why the putative “failures” of the justice system are not primarily the responsibility of law enforcement, judicial, and correctional staff, but instead are the result of a host of pathological conditions that render the severe 5% impervious to punishment. College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Dean's Lecture Series

New Developments in China and Sino-US Relations - Consul General Hong Lei
5:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Hong Lei is the Consul General of the People's Republic of China in Chicago. The Consulate General covers nine states in the Midwest, including Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Indiana and Iowa. He previously served in the Department of Information of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Embassy in the Netherlands, and as First Secretary at the Consulate General in San Francisco. Part of the World Affairs Series

When Christians First Met Muslims - Michael Penn
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Michael Penn is a professor of religious studies at Stanford University and specializes in the history of early Christianity with a focus on Middle Eastern Christians. Middle Eastern Christians composed the earliest and largest collection of Christian writings on Islam, but their experiences are largely omitted from the modern historical narrative because of the unfamiliar Aramaic dialect of Syriac in which they wrote. Michael Penn will discuss how the history of Christian-Muslim relations changes if, instead of relying on the writings of Greek and Latin Christians who often were in military conflict with Muslims, one focuses on Middle Eastern Christians and their everyday encounters with Muslims. No podcast will be available for this event.

Women Leaders: Building Bridges to Get the Job Done - Sen. Amy Klobuchar
7:30 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Amy Klobuchar became the first woman elected to represent Minnesota in the U.S. Senate in 2006 and is currently serving her second term in office. Senator Klobuchar has built a reputation for working across party lines, including on landmark pieces of legislation to end human trafficking, to combat the opioid epidemic, and to improve the lives of veterans. She championed a long-term Farm Bill in 2014 and was one of fourteen senators who fought to create a bipartisan debt commission. Senator Klobuchar currently serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee; Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee; and Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee. She chairs the Democratic Steering and Outreach Committee and is the ranking member on the Senate Rules and Administration Committee and joint Economic Committee. Mary Louise Smith Chair in Women and Politics

ISU Lectures 60th Anniversary Celebration
3:30 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Join us for an open house reception, 3:30-5:30pm, to celebrate the Iowa State Lectures Program! The Committee on Lectures was established in 1958 with a series of four speakers. For 25 years it was directed by professor James Lowrie and initially operated out of his office in the English Department. Today, the Lectures Program Office works with the Committee on Lectures, the National Affairs Series (est. 1968) and World Affairs Series (est. 1966) planning committees, as well as a wide range of student organizations, academic units, and administrative offices, to schedule more than 100 speakers each year. This special event includes a short program at 4:30pm to recognize director Pat Miller's ongoing leadership and service.