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Rural Life, Rural Iowa and the Making of the American Character - Claude Fischer
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Claude Fischer is a professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of several books on the changing nature of American society including his most recent work, Century of Difference: How America Changed in the Last One Hundred Years. He will draw on research covering centuries of American social life to describe the evolution of this national culture and the role of rural America. Fischer received his MA and PhD in sociology from Harvard University. His research has focused on the differences of rural and urban life and, in recent years, on American social history. George M. Beal Distinguished Lecture in Rural Sociology

LIVE via WEBCAST: Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous - Gabriella Coleman
6:00 PM – Alliant Energy - Lee Liu Auditorium, Howe Hall - Gabriella (Biella) Coleman holds the Wolfe Chair in Scientific and Technological Literacy at McGill University. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, she researches, writes, and teaches on computer hackers and digital activism. She is the author of Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking. Her forthcoming book, Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Many Faces of Anonymous will be published in November. Part of the Technology, Globalization and Culture Series

Communicating Science through Stories in Film: A Dialogue about Agricultural Sustainability and Soil - Deborah Koons Garcia & Kate Scow
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Deborah Koons Garcia is a filmmaker whose projects include Symphony of the Soil and The Future of Food. She has a Master of Fine Arts degree from the San Francisco Art Institute and runs her own production company, Lily Films. Kate Scow is a professor of soil science and a soil microbial ecologist at the University of California at Davis, where she also directs the Russell Ranch Sustainable Agriculture Facility. Scow worked with Garcia on Symphony of the Soil, an artistic exploration of soil science and its role in tackling some of the most challenging environmental issues of our time. The 2014 Pesek-Pierre Colloquium on Agricultural Sustainability and Soil Science

Telling Our Story: The Future of Iowa's Farm Families - Bill Northey
7:00 PM – Dolezal Auditorium, 127 Curtiss Hall - Bill Northey is serving his second term as Iowa Secretary of Agriculture. He is a fourth generation farmer from Spirit Lake. Northey returned to the family farm after graduating from Iowa State in 1981 with an Agricultural Business degree. He has served Iowa agriculture in numerous capacities, including as a former president of the National Corn Growers Association, as an active member of the Iowa Farm Bureau, as a Dickinson County Soil and Water Conservation District Commissioner, and as cofounder and president of Innovative Growers. The 2014 William K. Deal Endowed Leadership Lecture and part of CALS Week

Symphony of the Soil - Film Screening
8:00 PM – 1131 National Swine Research and Information Center - Symphony of the Soil is an artistic exploration of the miraculous substance soil. Drawing from ancient knowledge and cutting edge science, filmmaker Deborah Koons Garcia explores the complex and dynamic nature of this resource, including its relationships with water, the atmosphere, and plants and animals. The film also examines our human relationship with soil, the use and misuse of soil in agriculture, deforestation and development, and the latest scientific research on soil's key role in ameliorating the most challenging environmental issues of our time. 103 min. Writer and director Deborah Koons Garcia will be joined by soil scientist Kate Scow on Tuesday, September 30 for the annual Pesek-Pierre Colloquium.

Closets are for Clothes: Being LGBT in Black America - Juan Battle
7:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Juan Battle is a professor of Sociology, Public Health, & Urban Education at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). He currently heads the Social Justice Sexuality Initiative, a project exploring the lived experiences of Black, Latina/o, and Asian lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in the United States and Puerto Rico. He is a Fulbright Senior Specialist, was the recent Fulbright Distinguished Chair of Gender Studies at the University of Klagenfurt, Austria, and is an Affiliate Faculty of the Institute for Gender and Development Studies at the University of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago. Battle has coedited three books: The Punitive Turn: New Approaches to Race and Incarceration, Black Sexualities and Free At Last?: Black America in the Twenty-First Century.

The Symbolism of the Sand Mandala - Monks of the Drepung Loseling Monastery
8:00 PM – Sun Room, Memorial Union - Monks from the the Drepung Loseling Monastery will create a mandala sand painting in the lobby of the Memorial Union Monday, September 22 through Thursday, September 25. The process consists of opening ceremony with chants, music and mantra recitation and ends with the dismantling of the mandala and dispersal of the sand. Millions of grains of sand are poured from traditional metal funnels called chakpur to create a finished mandala approximately five feet by five feet in size. Formed of a traditional prescribed iconography that includes geometric shapes and ancient spiritual symbols, the sand-painted mandala is used as a tool for re-consecrating the earth and its inhabitants.

How Science Will Revolutionize Business, Medicine, Jobs and Life - Michio Kaku
7:00 PM – Stephens Auditorium - No tickets required | Doors open at 6:15 | General admission seating Michio Kaku is a theoretical physicist, popularizer of science, and television personality. Two of his books, Physics of the Impossible and Physics of the Future, were both New York Times best sellers. His numerous television appearances have included 60 Minutes, The Colbert Report, and multiple programs on the Discovery Channel. He is also featured in the Science Channel series Futurescape. He holds the Henry Semat Chair and Professorship in theoretical physics at the City University of New York. Engineers' Week 2014 Book signing to follow in the Stephens Auditorium Celebrity Cafe (lower level).

Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics Is Fueling Our Modern Plagues - Martin Blaser
8:00 PM – Great Hall, Memorial Union - Martin Blaser is the director of the Human Microbiome Program at New York University and the author of Missing Microbes: How the Overuse of Antibiotics Is Fueling Our Modern Plagues. He has studied the role of bacteria in human disease for more than thirty years. He is the George and Muriel Singer Professor of Medicine and Professor of Microbiology at the New York University School of Medicine, was the president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and has held major advisory roles at the National Institutes of Health. His revolutionary book reports on trail-blazing research while revealing the damage that overuse of antibiotics is doing to our health. National Affairs Series.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Religious Liberty, Birth Control and Corporate Personhood - Panel Discussion
8:00 PM – Gallery, Memorial Union - Panelists will discuss recent Supreme Court rulings as well as potential cases that may go before the court. Panelists include Drake Constitutional Law Center Director Mark Kende, former ACLU of Iowa Executive Director Ben Stone and Dirk Deam, senior lecturer in Political Science. Iowa State Bioethics Program Director Clark Wolf will moderate. Constitution Day Event.