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Past Events

Thursday, 25 Feb 2016

How to Succeed Ethically When Others Bend the Rules: The VW & GM Scandals - Frank Bucaro
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Frank Bucaro is Senior Ethics Advisor and Content Provider for the Automotive Institute of Ethics, and ethics content provider for Compliance Velocity, a mobile app for Pharmaceutical companies. A leading expert on the importance of ethics and the power of values-based leadership, he works with leaders at some of the world's most successful companies. His presentation highlights companies like Volkswagen and General Motors as examples of the problems and consequences that can arise when ethical behavior is not defined, understood or demonstrated. He is the author of the book TRUST ME! Insights into Ethical Leadership and is internationally recognized for his training programs on building business practices that are both responsible and profitable. Murray Bacon Center for Business Ethics

Wednesday, 24 Feb 2016

Andrea's Voice: Silenced by Bulimia - Tom and Doris Smeltzer
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Andrea Smeltzer died in her sleep at the age of 19 after a one-year struggle with bulimia. Andrea's parents, Tom and Doris Smeltzer, now devote their time to eating disorder prevention through Andrea's Voice Foundation. Following Andrea's death, Doris authored Andrea's Voice: Silenced by Bulimia, using her daughter's poetry, letters and journal entries to tell their story. For many years Doris also wrote the popular "Advice for Parents" blog for the book's publishers. Tom Smeltzer has a Master's Degree in Educational Administration and Doris Smeltzer a Master's in Counseling Psychology. Together they wrote an article in the book Treatment of Eating Disorders: Bridging the Research-Practice Gap, and they appeared in the 2007 award-winning documentary America the Beautiful: Is America Obsessed with Beauty? Eating Disorder and Body Image Awareness Week Speaker No podcast available for this event.

The Future of Healthy Families - Gregory Duncan
4:00 PM – 2019 Morrill Hall - Greg Duncan is a Distinguished Professor in the School of Education at University of California, Irvine. His research focuses on the comparative importance of the skills and behaviors developed during childhood, especially the relative importance of early academic skills, cognitive and emotional self-regulations, and health in promoting children's success in school and the workforce. He was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2001 and to the National Academy of Sciences in 2010. Helen LeBaron Hilton Endowed Chair Lecture Series

Tuesday, 23 Feb 2016

Harnessing Big Data to Build Resilient Communities - Sallie Keller
7:30 PM – Alliant Energy-Lee Liu Auditorium, Howe Hall - Sallie Keller is a professor of statistics and director of the Social and Decision Analytics Lab at Virginia Tech University. She will discuss how communities can repurpose municipal and external data sources to support data-informed policy development. Keller has held faculty and administrative appointments at University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada; Rice University; and Kansas State University. She has also served as director of the IDA Science and Technology Policy Institute in Washington DC, head of the statistical sciences group at Los Alamos National Laboratory, and program director at the National Science Foundation. Keller holds a PhD in statistics from Iowa State and is a recipient of the university's John V. Atanasoff Research and Discovery Award. Data-Driven Science Distinguished Lecture

Monday, 22 Feb 2016

Who Speaks for Islam? - Documentary & Discussion
7:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Join us for a screening of the film Inside Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think (55 min) followed by a panel discussion. The film explores how Muslims around the world really feel about issues of gender equality, terrorism, and democracy. It is based on the world's first major opinion poll, conducted by Gallup, which interviewed Muslims from Indonesia to South Asia, to the Middle East, as well as minority communities in the US and Europe. Panelists include Miriam Amer, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations - Iowa; Sal Syed, Islamic Center of Ames; Arnesa Buljusmic-Kustura, executive director of the Bosniak American Association of Iowa; State Representative Ako Abdul-Samad; and James Broucek, assistant professor of religious studies at Iowa State. No podcast available for this event.

Thursday, 18 Feb 2016

Re-Enchanting the Academy: The All-But-Forgotten Christian Virtue of Delight - Kevin Corcoran
6:00 PM – 2019 Morrill Hall - Kevin Corcoran, a professor of philosophy at Calvin College, will explore how cultivating virtues of delight and gratitude enables each of us to re-enchant the world in the act of ordinary living. He will focus on the difference this vision can make for individuals and those around them, especially within the academy. Corcoran earned his PhD at Purdue University and is the author of several books, including Christ and Postmodern Culture and Rethinking Human Nature: A Christian Materialist Alternative to the Soul.

Wednesday, 17 Feb 2016

Imagine a World without America - Dinesh D'Souza
8:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Dinesh D'Souza has had a twenty-five-year career as a writer, scholar, and public intellectual. A former policy analyst in the Reagan White House, D'Souza also served as John M. Olin Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the Robert and Karen Rishwain Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. His first book, Illiberal Education, which publicized the phenomenon of political correctness in America's colleges and universities, became a New York Times bestseller and was listed as one of the most influential books of the 1990s. His other books include The End of Racism; Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader; The Virtue of Prosperity; What's So Great about America; Letters to a Young Conservative; and The Enemy at Home. His most recent book is Stealing America.

Monday, 15 Feb 2016

Game Design and Why It Matters - James Portnow
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - James Portnow is perhaps best known for writing Extra Credits, a web series that explores topics in games and the gaming industry. A game designer and consultant known for his theories on socially positive design, Portnow will discuss the responsibility the gaming industry has as one of the biggest entertainment media. Portnow received his Masters from Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center, went on to work for Activision as a designer on the Call of Duty series before raising funds to start his own company, Divide by Zero Games. He currently serves as the CEO of Rainmaker Games, a design and consulting firm that has worked with partners from Zynga to Riot Games.

Veritas Forum: Toleration and Justice in a Broken World - Alex Tuckness
6:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Alex Tuckness is a professor and Director of Graduate Education in the Department of Political Science at Iowa State, with a courtesy appointment in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies. He will discuss the Christian view of tolerance and justice, which acknowledges human fallibility and bias. Alex Tuckness is the author of Locke and the Legislative Point of View and coauthor of The Decline of Mercy in Public Life. He earned graduate degrees from Cambridge University and Princeton University and was a Faculty Fellow in Ethics at Harvard University's Center for Ethics and the Professions. Veritas Forum

Friday, 12 Feb 2016

Spherical Paintings and the Art of Optical Illusion - Dick Termes
7:00 PM – Kocimski Auditorium, 0101 College of Design - Artist Dick Termes will discuss his unique spherical paintings known as Termespheres. These suspended, rotating globes capture an inside-out view of an entire three-dimensional landscape. Termes, who acknowledges the influence of M.C. Escher and Buckminster Fuller in his work, speaks about the interconnection between math, science and art. He developed what he calls 6-point perspective in order to capture the up, down and all-around visual world from one revolving point in space. Termes's work has been recognized and exhibited internationally. His piece "The Big Bang" was featured on the cover of the French edition of A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. Donald Benson Memorial Lecture in Literature, Science, and the Arts An exhibit of Termespheres is on display at the Octagon Center for the Arts January 8-February 13, 2016.