Upcoming Lectures

Destination Iowa State Presents the Comedy of Jeff Dye
9:00 PM @ Stephens Auditorium - ADMISSION FREE - Doors open at 8:30 pm - Jeff Dye finished third in the last season of NBC's Last Comic Standing, and has opened for Shawn Wayans, Greg Giraldo, Jim Norton, Bill Burr, among others.

The Difficulty of Dating in a Hook-up Culture – Christine Whelan
8:00 PM @ Gallery, Memorial Union - Christine Whelan is a professor, journalist and author of Why Smart Men Marry Smart Women and Marry Smart: The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to True Love. She also writes a bi-weekly relationship advice column for BustedHalo. Whelan is a visiting assistant professor in the Sociology Department at the University of Iowa. She earned a master’s and doctorate from the University of Oxford and has held teaching positions at Princeton University in the Sociology and Politics Departments. Msgr. James A. Supple Lecture.

Banned Book Jeopardy!
7:00 PM @ Sun Room, Memorial Union - Join a Banned Book Week battle between two teams of literary mavens as they attempt to answer questions about banned books and their authors. Panelists include Ames Tribune editor Alexandra Hayne, Memorial Union Director Richard Reynolds, Greenlee School of Journalism faculty member Barbara Mack, and English assistant professor Ben Percy. Ames Tribune reviewer Steve Sullivan will emcee. Questions developed by Iowa State's very own $10,000 Pyramid winner, Fern Kupfer, associate professor of English. Banned books will be on display and available for purchase.

Stories of the First Nations - Dovie Thomason
4:00 PM @ Cardinal Room, Memorial Union - Dovie Thomason is a storyteller, recording artist and author. As a child she grew up hearing stories and Indian legends from her Kiowa Apache and Lakota relatives, especially her Grandma Dovie and her dad. Her love of stories and her cultural heritage inspired her to use storytelling as a tool to educate people about the cultures of the First Nations of North America. She began sharing stories in public settings while teaching literature and writing at an urban high school in Cleveland. Thomason considers herself the product of mixed background - urban Chicago and rural Texas, the Internet and Native American elders, family teachings and university classrooms – and draws on those contrasts in her work. In cooperation with Story City’s STORY! Celebrating the Art of Storytelling Festival, September 18-20, 2009.

Global Hopscotch: The Borderless World and the Search for Home – Rekha Basu
8:00 PM @ Sun Room, Memorial Union - Rekha Basu has been a columnist for the Des Moines Register since 1991, focusing on human rights, racial and gender issues and commenting on cultural trends. Born in India to United Nations parents, Basu grew up internationally. She has worked as a reporter, editorial writer and columnist at newspapers in Iowa, New York State and Florida. Basu’s column appears three times a week on the Register’s opinion pages and is syndicated by Gannett News Service. Her byline has appeared in the New York Times, USA Today, The International Herald Tribune and The Nation among other publications. Her many awards include the 2008 Women of Influence Award, the Iowa Interfaith Alliance Award, and the Iowa Farmers Union Media Award. She has a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and a master’s degree in political economy from Goddard Cambridge Graduate School. Part of the Center for Excellence in the Arts and Humanities Series: Imagining Iowa in the Global Community.

E-Week Event Being Planned
7:00 PM @ Stephens Auditorium, Iowa State Center - E-Week speaker to be announced.

Emotional Intelligence Technology and Autism - Rosalind Picard
1:00 PM @ Alliant Energy-Lee Liu Auditorium, Howe Hall - Rosalind Picard is the author of Affective Computing, a book instrumental in starting a new field by that name. She is teaching machines to sense and respond more intelligently to people’s emotions and to behave in ways that make more expressive communication possible. Picard is founder and director of the Affective Computing Research Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Laboratory, codirector of the Things That Think Consortium, and leader of the new and growing Autism Communication Technology Initiative at MIT. She holds a PhD in electrical engineering and computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Part of the Women in Human Computer Interaction Series and the Women in STEM Series.

Helen LeBaron Hilton Chair in Human Sciences Lecture Being Planned
8:00 PM @ Sun Room, Memorial Union - Helen LeBaron Hilton Chair in Human Sciences to be announced.

College of Engineering Diversity Fair Keynote Speaker - Freeman Hrabowski
9:00 AM @ To be announced - Freeman Hrabowski has served as President of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, since 1992. His research and publications focus on science and math education, with special emphasis on minority participation and performance. Hrabowski is coauthor of Beating the Odds and Overcoming the Odds, both of which focus on parenting and high-achieving African American males and females in science. He was named one of America’s Best Leaders by U.S. News & World Report in 2008 and is a recipient of the prestigious McGraw Prize in Education and the U.S. Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring. A child-leader in the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. Hrabowski was prominently featured in Spike Lee’s 1997 documentary, Four Little Girls, on the racially motivated bombing in 1963 of Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. College of Engineering Diversity Fair Keynote Speaker.