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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.

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

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.

Social Justice, Public Service and the Search for a Life That Matters - Wes Moore
8:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Wes Moore is a combat veteran, Rhodes Scholar, White House fellow and the author of two books, including The Other Wes Moore, a story of the mentorship and support networks that refused to let him fall into crime and drugs. His latest book, The Work: My Search for a Life That Matters, explores the meaning of success in a volatile, difficult and seemingly anchorless world. He speaks about how we find the most value in work based in service, selflessness and risk taking. Moore also produced the three-part PBS series, Coming Back with Wes Moore, which tells the story of soldiers attempting to reintegrate back into society after returning from war. Martin Luther King Jr. Legacy Series Keynote

The Arctic Cycle: The Art of Climate Change - Chantal Bilodeau
8:00 PM – Maintenance Shop - Memorial Union - Chantal Bilodeau, a New York-based playwright and translator originally from Montreal, is giving an artistic voice to the challenge of a changing Arctic environment. She is the Artistic Director of The Arctic Cycle, an organization created to support the writing, development and production of eight plays that examine the impact of climate change on the eight countries of the Arctic. She is also the founder of the international network Artists And Climate Change and a co-organizer of the international Climate Change Theatre Action. Pearl Hogrefe Visiting Writers Series.

Veritas Forum: Mercy and Injustice in American Prisons - 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 is the coauthor of The Decline of Mercy in Public Life, which examines why mercy is rarely used as a justification for decisions in law or public policy today. The United States has one of the highest incarceration rates of any large country in the world. Tuckness will argue our current justice system's lack of mercy owes more to modernity than to Christian influence, which is sometimes blamed for encouraging retributive vengeance and promoting harsh punishment. Veritas Forum

My Holocaust Story: A Message of Determination, Perseverance, Faith and Hope - Marion Blumenthal Lazan
7:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Event to be held as scheduled Marion Blumenthal Lazan provides a moving firsthand account of the Blumenthal family's life in Germany from the events preceding Kristallnacht to imprisonment in concentration camps, including Bergen-Belsen, to liberation in April 1945. She was eleven years old when the family finally gained its freedom. She is the coauthor of Four Perfect Pebbles: A Holocaust Story and subject of the PBS documentary Marion's Triumph. Her story is a life-affirming, inspirational narrative of survival, reconciliation and the limits of endurance, and renews one's faith in humanity.

Homestretch: Homeless Teens & the Struggle to Stay in School - Documentary & Discussion
7:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - The Homestretch, a 2015 PBS Independent Lens documentary, follows three homeless teens as they fight to stay in school, graduate, and make the crucial transition to independence when the structure of school vanishes. The film follows these kids as they navigate a landscape of couch hopping, emergency shelters, transitional homes, street families, and Chicago public schools on the front lines of the homelessness crisis. While told through a personal perspective, their stories connect with larger issues of poverty, race, juvenile justice, immigration, foster care, and LGBTQ rights. A discussion led by Iowa Homeless Youth Center staff will immediately follow the 90-minute film.

Finding Your Path in the Shifting Scientific Workforce - Kendall Powell
6:00 PM – Campanile Room, Memorial Union - Kendall Powell, a freelance science writer and editor, jumped from the lab bench to laptop via the University of California, Santa Cruz, Science Communication Program in 2002. She discusses the tough realities and statistics facing students and postdocs as they enter the scientific workforce and, specifically, the evolution of postdoctoral scholars in the United States. She also offers practical advice on how to make the most of the postdoctoral experience, mentoring tips and best practices for faculty to ensure success in their trainees. As a writer, Kendall Powell covers the realm of biology, from molecules to maternity. She has written news stories, features and scientist profiles for a variety of publications and founded the organization SciLance as a way to network with other freelance writers who are as much word nerds as science geeks.