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Past Events

Monday, 10 Oct 2016

Leading the Fight against Malnutrition and Hidden Hunger - A Conversation with the 2016 World Food Prize Laureates
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Join a conversation with the 2016 World Food Prize Laureates about their work building bridges between agriculture and nutrition to improve the health and livelihoods of millions of under-nourished people around the globe. Maria Andrade, Robert Mwanga and Jan Low of the International Potato Center, along with HarvestPlus founder Howarth Bouis, have been honored as pioneers in biofortification with the development and adoption of staple crops conventionally bred to include critical vitamins and micronutrients. Their multi-sector approach has integrated plant science research, extension-style agronomy, nutrition education, and effective marketing and dissemination strategies to successfully deliver breakthroughs like the Vitamin A-enriched orange-fleshed sweet potato and iron- and zinc-fortified beans, rice, and wheat to both farmers' fields and consumers' tables. Iowa State Professor Clark Wolf, director of the Bioethics Program, will moderate the discussion. The 2016 Norman Borlaug Lecture and part of the World Affairs Series A reception and student poster display will precede the lecture from 7 to 8 p.m. in the South Ballroom, Memorial Union. Posters will address world food issues and are submitted by undergraduate and graduate students.

Thursday, 6 Oct 2016

How We Got Here: Challenges & Achievements - A Conversation with Black Alumni
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - African American alumni will have an honest discussion about the challenges they faced at Iowa State as well as describe the support they received and the sense of community they were able to develop that led to their achievements on campus and in their careers. Modupe Labode is Public Scholar of African American History and Museums and an associate professor of history and museum studies at Indiana University-Purdue University. Keecha Harris is president of KHA Inc., a consulting firm specializing in evaluation and organizational development for nutrition and public health support services. Mohamed Omer switched from a crime-fighting forensic chemist to innovative product development in the private sector, recently stepping down as Associate Vice President for Strategic Foresight & Innovation at L'Oréal. Celia Naylor, professor of History and Africana Studies at Barnard College, was the Margaret Sloss Women's Center director from 1993-1997, and will be participating in the q & a.

Wednesday, 5 Oct 2016

Growth Comes When You Least Expect It - Jim Collins
7:00 PM – Richard and Joan Stark Lecture Hall, 1148 Gerdin Business Building - Jim Collins is executive vice president at DuPont. He currently leads the company's agricultural segment and is managing DuPont's integration with Dow AgroSciences. During his more than thirty years with the company, Collins has held leadership roles with the Crop Protection division as well as DuPont's Industrial Biosciences business, where he led the $7 billion acquisition and integration of Danisco. He began his career as a young chemical engineer in DuPont Manufacturing and has since worked in operations, sales, and marketing and had corporate responsibility for government affairs, communications, and international business management in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. William K. Deal Leadership Lecture and part of CALS Week

Monday, 3 Oct 2016

Corn and Khrushchev: A Brief History of Iowa Agriculture - Liz Garst
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Liz Garst, granddaughter of the famous Iowa farmers and citizen diplomats Roswell and Elizabeth Garst, shares how it came to pass that Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev and his family visited the Garst family farm in 1959. Her talk includes a history of agricultural development in Iowa, including the mid-century explosion of farm productivity, based on the hybrid seeds, machinery, fertilizers and livestock technologies promoted by her grandfather. Liz Garst manages banking and farming interests for the Garst family and is a board member and volunteer for Whiterock Conservancy, a non-profit land trust near Coon Rapids dedicated to finding balance between agriculture, the environment and people.

Thursday, 29 Sep 2016

Rethinking the Refugee Crisis - Paul Collier
8:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Economist Paul Collier is an expert on developing markets and the author of The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It. His most recent book is Exodus: How Migration Is Changing Our World. Collier is director of the Centre for the Study of African Economies at Oxford University, advisor to the Strategy and Policy Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and advisor to the Africa Region of the World Bank. He served previously as director of the World Bank's Development Research Group. Part of the Economics Forum and World Affairs Series: Redefining Global Security

Physical Activity: Wonder Drug for Chronic Disease Prevention - I-Min Lee
7:00 PM – Benton Auditorium, Scheman Building, Iowa State Center - I-Min Lee is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a leading researcher on the role of physical activity in preventing chronic diseases and enhancing longevity. She has served as an expert panelist for such groups as the American College of Sports Medicine, American Heart Association, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, for which she co-wrote the scientific report on the 2008 physical activity guidelines. Her most recent research has focused on women's health in collaboration with Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the National Cancer Institute. The 2016 Helen LeBaron Hilton Endowed Chair

Wednesday, 28 Sep 2016

Equal Pay for Equal Work - Lilly Ledbetter
12:00 PM – Oak Room, Memorial Union - Lilly Ledbetter gained national recognition when in 2007 the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a jury's ruling in the pay equity law suit she had won almost a decade before. Ledbetter had worked for nearly twenty years at Goodyear Tire and Rubber in Gadsden, Alabama, and despite receiving top performance awards discovered that she had been paid significantly less than male co-workers in the same position. In a 5-4 decision, Supreme Court justices ruled that employees could only file a wage discrimination complaint within 180 days of the original pay decision. In January 2009, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act became the first bill that President Obama signed into law. The law restores the long-standing interpretation of civil rights laws and EEOC policies that allows employees to challenge any discriminatory paycheck they receive. Part of the Campaign 2016 Series, providing the university and community with opportunities to question candidates or their surrogates before the November election.

Tuesday, 27 Sep 2016

Investigating the Corrupt while Protecting the Powerless - Miles Moffeit
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Miles Moffeit is an investigative reporter with the Dallas Morning News, where he has worked for the past six years examining patient harm and fraud in hospitals across Texas and the nation. He previously spent nine years with the Denver Post uncovering corruption in military and civilian criminal justice systems. He was a finalist for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize in Investigative Reporting for "Trashing the Truth," a series he co-wrote exposing failures of law enforcement agencies across the nation to preserve DNA evidence, undermining justice for crime victims and the wrongly convicted. The stories triggered government reforms and shed light on the innocence of Tim Masters, who was later exonerated of murder. Chamberlin Lecture in Journalism

Catholicism and Islam: Seeking Deeper Understanding - Anne Clifford
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - No podcast will be available for this event. Pope Francis has engaged in "bridge-building" with Islam by initiating meetings with major Muslim leaders and warmly welcoming Muslim refugees. These noteworthy events will set the context for a presentation on the perspectives of Catholicism and Islam on selected topics such as our common humanity, understandings of God, and desire for peace. Anne Clifford is a religious studies professor at Iowa State and holds the Monsignor James A. Supple chair in Catholic Studies. She also held the Walter and Mary Tuohy Chair in Interreligious Studies at John Carroll University and has served as the president of the College Theology Society. Msgr. James A. Supple Lecture Series

Monday, 26 Sep 2016

Presidential Debate Watch Party - Livestream
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Doors open at 7:30 | Light refreshments provided Join your Iowa State friends and colleagues to watch Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump for 90 exciting minutes of political debate! The televised debate will be broadcast from Hofstra University, with NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt moderating. The watch party follows Iowa State's Constitution Day Panel, with Dirk Deam (political science) and Clark Wolf (philosophy) discussing recent Supreme Court rulings and legal issues that are influencing the upcoming elections.